OK, so think about this, what does the world look like to someone born in the year 2000? This generation was born and only know a world that includes the internet and smart phones. The first president they may remember from their lifetime is George W. Bush. So, maybe they recall our War on Terror, that we attacked Iraq and invaded Afghanistan. They probably do not have a recollection of the two towers falling, they would have been 1 or barely 1 years old. Probably the first president they recall that made a difference to them was Barack Obama. The Covid pandemic was a major issue in their lives, maybe the defining event of their lifetime. They know it is wise to keep gatherings small.
If they paid attention to him, they got 4 years of the Trump presidency, and then 3 more years of him meddling in the Biden presidency. Some of these kids maybe still think Trump is president because he has been mentioned more than Biden since Biden was president. Of course, depending upon where they live in the country, they probably have different views of that.
As they approached adulthood, they lived through the hatred spawned by Donald Trump. Dividing people, friends, families, with his vicious and cruel rhetoric. They only know a country with deep divisions. Because of Trump, there is no unity, no more idea of backing a president as he tries to cope with wars or disasters like pandemics, because Trump made this a country of finger pointers. Of people constantly saying "They did it!" and pointing at someone else. This is one of Trump's great gifts to our people. That philosophy of driving people apart and spreading hatred is how he rules. This and selling fear and confusion and the idea we can never know what the truth is and so all it really should be is what we believe.
This is as common in the lives of this generation as Amazon and social media and not having or maybe even wanting to leave the house to get anything. Everything can be ordered and delivered to your door by the following day. You don't have to wait and you don't have to go out and talk to anybody to get whatever it is you want. They know entire conversations that can be nearly nothing but emojis and abbreviations.
How do they see this world? I can tell you, it is not as we see it. Not at all really. Trump and his minions are all about robbing these younger generations of hope, and instead, selling them doom. Selling them all the wrong ideas about the world and people.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about how these kids see the world, the world they have learned about as they lived in it, and wondered how these adults now, all about to turn 24, comprehend what is happening around them.
We have the built-in tools to understand what is going on because for us, I was born in the 1960s as were probably many of you, we know how different and abnormal it is to have people like Trump around. How strange it is to watch "new shows" that contain no news, just opinion and whatever falsehood is hot. To be bombarded by propaganda on the internet 24-7 and 365. To have to sift through outrageous piles of nonsense to find a grain of truth and have a guy that was our president at the heart of that. What are the lessons being learned, what worldview is being created?
