Why Are ‘Boomers’ So Gullible?

I am a ‘Baby Boomer’ born in 1947 and I grew up in a time that history, if it is allowed to be taught in the future, will tell the tale of a country coming to terms with itself.

Across the board people seem to be losing their confidence in Donny with the exception of one group…..Boomers.

A new poll shows a slight uptick in President Donald Trump‘s approval rating among Baby Boomers following a significant dip earlier this summer.

What Happened: The InsiderAdvantage polling data revealed that Trump’s approval rating among voters aged 65 and above was at 45% in May and fell to 38% in June. However, the August survey indicates a slight recovery, with his approval rating climbing back to 40%.

The poll analysis notes that Boomers were instrumental in Trump’s 2024 election win, with 51% of voters in this age group casting their votes for him.

The recent uptick in approval seems to align with Trump’s attempts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

Despite these efforts, Trump’s approval ratings on foreign policy have seen a dip in several recent polls. However, his net approval rating on foreign policy among baby boomers has remained relatively stable.

https://www.benzinga.com/news/politics/25/08/47297826/trumps-approval-rating-rises-among-baby-boomers-after-dip-in-june

The very people that being hurt the most by Donny’s tragic decisions still support what he is doing…..why is that?

A couple of years ago with all the chaos in our politics I wrote an apology for my generation….

Apologies From A Boomer

As I stated many of the people I know that are my age voted for Donny and I still have a hard time grasping what made Boomers turn against the very things that made us a great generation.

They all seem to believe all the misinformation that is spread by MSM and all those social media sites….but why has this come about?

We will have to do one of my favorite things….take a look at history….

Boomers seem to not be capable of fact checking the outrageous BS spread by politicians….why is that?

They never had to learn to fact check, thanks to the Mayflower and Fairness Doctrine. Not only did they not need to fact check news sources, they didn’t have to critically think about the information that was presented to them when it came from places of authority. This isn’t because they were blindly trusting. It’s because the information provided by news stations or radio broadcasts no matter how controversial were not allowed to contain any bias or misinformation. They could literally trust everything a newscaster said.

That type of fair and unbiased news reporting was the result of an FCC ruling called the Mayflower Decision (also known as the Mayflower Doctrine) that preceded the Fairness Doctrine. In 1938 a former Yankee’s employee Lawrence J. Flynn accused two radio stations of airing one-sided political views, editorials and attacks against politicians the owner of the network didn’t like.

According to the 1948 Columbia Law Review, due to this kerfuffle, the FCC announced a rule in 1941 that “the radio broadcaster and his station should be allowed neither to editorialize nor take a stand on any controversial matter. This policy appeared as a concomitant to the previously announced position of the Commission that whenever controversial issues were presented they were to be treated impartially and objectively.”

In 1949, three years after the first boomers were born, The Fairness Doctrine was passed building from the FCC’s guidance on the Mayflower Doctrine. This legislation was meant to break up the monopoly of audience control by ABC, NBC, and CBS with concerns that the news stations could promote extreme bias. It required news outlets, which included radio stations, to provide equal airtime to opposing views. The information needed to be factual in nature without editorializing.

Doesn’t that sound lovely? In a world where every other headline is written to scare the bejesus out of you and news pieces feel more editorialized than factual, having policy in place to tamper it would probably be beneficial. So what happened? Boomers spent all of their childhood, teen years and early adult years never having to question the factuality rating of their news. Then after more than 40 years of television and radio stations having guardrails in place, Ronald Reagan’s administration started rolling it back.

https://www.upworthy.com/why-boomers-are-easy-misinformation-targets

So we can blame Reagan for the beginning of the laziness in politics.

Then it became more lazy with Bubba Clinton….and his Telecommunications Act of 1996….which allowed corporations to own the news….and the stage is set for the dolt in the White House today.

The negative impact of the law cannot be overstated. The law, which was the first major reform of telecommunications policy since 1934, according to media scholar Robert McChesney, “is widely considered to be one of the three or four most important federal laws of this generation.” The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world.

Democracy in Peril: Twenty Years of Media Consolidation Under the Telecommunications Act

I can say without flinching that I have held true to my ideals from the 1960s….I have not wavered and I am sorry that my generation is leading the pack on the destruction of a system that worked well for years.

I am ashamed and embarrassed of my generation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

15 thoughts on “Why Are ‘Boomers’ So Gullible?

  1. I am also classed as a ‘Baby Boomer’. In the UK, many people of my age (and working-class background) are currently supporting Far Right groups and race hatred. They seem to have forgotten that their fathers, uncles, and in some cases grandfathers, fought a war to defeat Fascism.
    I have not forgotten.
    Best wishes, Pete.

  2. At my age, I’m not among the “Boomers,” but I do have a theory. IMO, it’s this age group that tends to watch old reruns on TV rather than pay attention to what’s being reported via (reputable) news sources. Yes, they may read the daily newspaper, but certainly don’t “follow the news.” This doesn’t include the entire group, but enough of them that they are able to alter statistics.

    1. We started off with great intentions and then some of us got greedy and lazy….and that lead to petty biases…..another culprit is party politics…..there is an evil and it is the parties (post coming to a blog near you)……chuq

  3. like Nan, Im not quite a boomer (by one year), and I am terminally annoyed by the calls we are now getting about “assisted living facilities” and ‘do you need personal deliveries …etc etc”. Usually just hang up. Next time Ill ask them if they’d be available next year to help me stack wood…
    If we had a TV Im sure Id be watching some of the shows I’ve missed, and mourning the loss of the really good news anchors of the past…I don’t read a newspaper because we don’t GET a newspaper on a regular basis. Most of our local papers have folded (aha I made a funny) ages ago, and I refuse to pay for a subscription to the Globe or Herald or whatever else is out there.
    Framkly this is my news outlet. At least it’s current.

    1. My local paper folded 5 years ago so without a TV the local news is down to the internet which can be unreliable….I hope I can contribute to you understanding of the news…..chuq

      1. Oh Ive gotten pretty good at finding out what I need to know, and I’ll keep you on my go-to list. and thank you for the offer

  4. The younger generation doesn’t seem to have an interest in truth – lies and conspiracies are rampant – that said, a pool released in the past few days shows a dramatic loss of support for Trump from independents and moderates, who believed his fantasies until they understand the reality…we can only pray we stop him from what he will try to do and that is cancel the elections

    1. People that care about this country should be out in force….but then I worry that we could have a repeat of Kent State…..chuq

      1. And I truly believe Trump would like a situation like that in order to declare martial law…look for the threat of that close to election time…

  5. I keep saying this.. because it damn well scares me… we’ve got three more years of this clown.. and we’ve not hit bottom yet to wanna get out of this. The early signs.. and mark my words on this one… will be when we begin to HATE the person with the opposing views as being a personal threat. So far people are keeping quiet with each other (except maybe with family.. ). But things are percolating just under the surface. Embarrassed at our generation? Yep…

    1. I believe you are right….there comes a time to stand up and now would be that time…..three years is a lot of time to completely destroy the experiment. chuq

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