Fox News Has Manufactured a Boomer War Against Millennials
The Fox News message: Millennials are a threat to the American way of life
Generational warfare is nothing new. When today’s boomers were college-aged hippies, they were warning each other not to trust anyone over 30. Soon enough, millennials will be shaking our fists at the youngsters, demanding they get off our environmentally friendly, succulent-speckled rock lawns.
What’s different now, though, is that there is a moneyed system interested in sowing generational discord and stoking fear. Call it the Boomer Anxiety Industrial Complex. It’s a largely right-wing machine targeted at older Americans, encouraging a nearly manic obsession with the alleged wrongdoings of younger, more liberal people. Shocking stories about college students encroaching on free speech are a staple. So are more pedestrian narratives about college students being too sensitive, too emotional, or too “politically correct.” This didn’t start with millennials; the seeds of the anti-PC/“college students versus free speech” propaganda were planted in the ’90s, part of a backlash against Bill Clinton, the first boomer president.
Today, Fox News is the primary anti-millennial television outlet, but there’s also generationally tailored content on websites like Breitbart and…
