Why the Wealthy Encourage Generational Conflict To Keep Us From Realizing Our Generational Potential.
I’ve spent a lot of time questioning the noise. Specifically, the incessant, breathless media coverage detailing the supposed “Generational War” between Millennial’s, Gen Z, and everyone else. The constant headlines about avocado toast, TikTok dances, and who is “killing” which industry are not just annoying. They are a sophisticated distraction that I believe is intentionally engineered.
What if the conflict between Gen Alpha, Z, and Millennial’s is fundamentally a fabricated crisis? A mountain made out of a molehill amplified by the media and the political establishment. Preventing us from recognizing our shared interests and forming a powerful voting bloc. What if the core purpose of this noise is to protect a slowly shrinking sphere of entrenched power?
The answers I found when diving into this question proved that this isn’t a cynical conspiracy theory. It’s a structural reality of our current system. And the implications are terrifying, yet profoundly motivating.
The Illusion of Strife: Manufactured Distraction
The idea that the media and the establishment gain from our division is not difficult to prove. Generational strife is lucrative clickbait and effective political misdirection.
Younger generations point out the existential need for systemic changes. Including Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the face of total economic automation, or rapid climate action. We are often dismissed as “lazy” or “entitled.” Media narratives easily reinforce this bias. They portray our valid demands for a sustainable future as mere cultural grievances.
This is the first piece of the puzzle: Focusing on cultural friction distracts from economic fusion. We share deep, converging frustrations over:
- Student Debt: A massive, generational burden.
- Housing Affordability: The systematic impossibility of financial security.
- Climate Change: The inherited burden of an existential threat.
A unified bloc focused on these systemic issues would fundamentally disrupt the status quo. That’s the powerful voting bloc the establishment seems determined to prevent.
The Great Betrayal: Institutions that Failed Us
My skepticism, and that of many Millennial’s and Gen Z, is well-founded. It’s a rational response to a lifetime defined by serial crises. We are not apathetic; we are hostilely dissatisfied.
The institutions we are most skeptical of are Congress, the Presidency, major political parties, and traditional news media. These are precisely the ones that have demonstrated a profound inability to solve the problems they were designed to handle.
This skepticism stems from two core realities:
- Economic Disillusionment: We entered the workforce during or after major recessions (2008, 2020). We watched wealth inequality explode as the government response consistently favored corporate stability over citizen well-being.
- Political Gridlock: We’ve seen decades of legislative inaction on existential threats like healthcare or climate change. Leaving the system to be viewed as unresponsive, often corrupt, and almost entirely beholden to special interests.
This leads to the central paradox: If the government is broken, why don’t we run for office? Why don’t we try to fix it ourselves?
The Iron Wall: Why We Aren’t Running for Congress
Our deep dissatisfaction hasn’t caused a mass surge of young Congressional candidates. The issue is not due to laziness or apathy. It’s a deliberately high financial and systemic barrier to entry.
Our political systems are designed to select for wealth and established power, not for new ideas and representation:
- The Financial Toll: Running a competitive federal campaign requires hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our generations are crushed by student debt and high costs of living. This makes quitting a job for two years to campaign for change an impossible financial risk. We lack the generational wealth and established donor networks that older candidates take for granted.
- The Logistical Nightmare: For the few Millennial’s and Gen Z who are having children, the climate of anxiety and financial insecurity is challenging. The time and logistical demands of campaigning are prohibitive.
- Systemic Rejection: Many feel that conforming to the corrupting influence of fundraising and party loyalty would mean abandoning their principles. These are the very principles they are fighting for.
This results in a Systemic Iron Triangle:
Economic Insecurity + High Cost of Campaigns + Incumbency/Age Bias =
Near-Impossibility for Young Candidates
Our modern political environment has successfully locked out the very people who have the motivation and clarity to change it.
The Orchestrator, Not the Messiah: A New Vision of Leadership
The commentary about us needing a new “Obama” or a singular, charismatic figure misses the point entirely. The decades of disillusionment have made us fundamentally post-charismatic. We are deeply suspicious of the “I alone can fix this” model.
We are subconsciously waiting for a specific type of leader. A leader not one to worship or blindly follow. Someone who is a Transformational Orchestrator or a Mobilizer-in-Chief.
This figure is:
- Authentic and Humble: Someone who admits the problems are too big for one person.
- Values-Driven: Someone who inspires loyalty to the Issue and the Vision, not to their personality.
- The Coach: A person who uses their platform not to center themselves. They actively recruit and engage thousands of others to run for every level of government. The goal is to put the whole team on the field.
The true activation call won’t come from a political rally. It will come from a figure who dismantles the financial wall. Embodying the diverse roles of the activist, the local organizer, the policy analyst, and the candidate.
The Meta-Crisis: Everything Is Connected
This conversation is not just about generational politics. It’s about a Meta-Crisis—a singular, interconnected web of failure. Every problem we face loops back to the same source. Whether it be birthrates and mental health to climate collapse and the threat of authoritarianism.
- The economic model of Colonial extraction fueled by Post-Oil thinking leads to climate stress.
- The resulting economic insecurity and existential anxiety drive down birthrates and skyrocket PTSD and Generational Trauma.
- The failure of democratic ideals to overcome these issues fuels the rise of Authoritarianism.
- The promised technological solutions like AI and Post-Scarcity Society threaten to be co-opted by the old power structure. Becoming just another subscription service to depend on unless a new ethical and political framework is forced into existence.
Every topic—healthcare, immigration, education, decentralized societies—is merely a symptom of a global machine built on obsolete, exploitative premises.
The Final, Profound Question
The logic is undeniable. The system is failing. It is designed to exclude the people who want to fix it. The problems are too interconnected for anything less than a paradigm shift.
This realization brings us to the ultimate, necessary personal choice, the one that hit me with a profound, emotional chill:
Is a stable but unfulfilled life worth more
than contributing to the one thing that can save the future?
This is the question that defines our generation.
The answer, for those of us who have followed this entire loop of crisis and consequence, is becoming clear. The activation call isn’t an external voice; it’s the internal voice that recognizes its true purpose. The voice that we’ve been ignoring or attempting to appease for twenty years by secondary career goals. The time for short-term financial gain is over. The time to shed our apathy and start coaching, organizing, and building the mass movement is now.
The Mobilizer’s Manifesto: Funding the Future We Deserve
The logic is closed, and the loop is clear. We will not wait for the charismatic Messiah; we can’t abide by the high financial walls of the old system. The time for waiting for an external “activation call” is over. We have diagnosed the disease, and now we must fund the cure.
The solution to the political Iron Triangle: Economic Precarity, High Cost of Campaigns, and Systemic Exclusion? Break the first two barriers ourselves.
All our lives, we were made to recite those sacred words: “For Liberty and Justice, For All.” As adults, we see those words ring hollow, used only to sanctify the very power structures that oppress us. It is time we made them ring true.
I Propose the ForAllPAC.
This is not just another political action committee. This is the self-funding mechanism of a generation.
We will pool our vast collective resources. This approach spreads the financial burden across our massive generations. Rather than relying on the single-digit wealthy donors who poison the political process. By utilizing the power of our sheer numbers, we can overwhelm the electorate. Bringing new ideas and solutions to the forefront. Providing the systematic change we have advocated decades for.
The New Rules of Engagement: The ForAllPAC Pledge
Our purpose is to put the Coach’s team on the field. To make sure every candidate we back is loyal only to the people, we must enact a non-negotiable ethical mandate:
- Zero Corporate Donor Support: All ForAllPAC candidates must refuse all corporate PAC money both before and during their campaigns.
- Zero Lobbyist Interactions: Candidates must pledge no meetings or interactions with paid federal lobbyists (corporate or special interest) before and after elections.
- Mandate of Representation: Candidates are bound to represent the interests of the actual people they serve—specifically, the three largest living generations of Americans—who actually understand this world and the one we are leaving for the next generation.
By shifting the immense financial burden of political campaigning onto the shoulders of the people, we guarantee diversity in representation. This guarantees the presence of the highest number of honest players on the field. We change the narrative from “who paid for me” to “who I represent.”
The Orchestrator’s job is not to win the race; it is to ensure the right people are in the race.
There are more of us than there are of them. It’s time we stop waiting for permission. Take the car keys from our parents, and create the world we have been waiting for.
