Bootstrap theology and Realpolitik

Once a month, my Twitter feed gets hijacked by a video featuring a young woman with tears in her eyes expressing dissatisfaction with the crucible of the 40-hour workweek. The complaints are consistently repetitive, revolving around the stress of working 40 hours, commuting, and managing a household. In the most Pavlovian manner, conservatives, predominantly Boomers and old Gen-Xers respond with accusations of laziness, entitlement, and the evergreen mention of “Bootstraps.” This is an uncharitable and selfish response, without an ounce of self-awareness and one that does little more than help to alienate young people from the conservative movement, and no one embodies this ton-deaf reaction better than Matt Walsh.

As usual, Matt Walsh fails to comprehend why Zoomers are dissatisfied with the labor market. He merely perceives a lazy and entitled individual who seemingly refuses to work. There is no effort on his part to understand the underlying reasons for her discontent or why she might feel the way she does. He expects her to be content with five hours of free time each day, not to mention weekends.

Now, let's assume that Matt Walsh genuinely feels this way and is not being a disingenuous liar. Let's examine what all this purported free time looks like.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the young woman is married and has one child, with a one-hour round-trip daily commute. If she works from 8 am to 5 pm, she leaves the house around 7 am and returns around 6 pm, depending on the time it takes to pick up her children. This leaves her with about five hours in her day. During these five hours, she and her husband must prepare dinner, assist with homework, handle dishes, start laundry, get the kids ready for bed, pack lunches, and take showers. In reality, she has perhaps one hour, depending on how much sleep she desires.

"But don't worry," Matt says, "You have the weekend." In reality, her weekend is consumed by catching up on all the housework that she couldn't manage during the week, making it a little better than the workweek itself.

Now surely Matt would say that she could just not work, that her husband should sustain their family on his income alone. The truth is that a dual-income household is almost a necessity for the vast majority of Americans. I am not going to address the offshoring of jobs, inflation, immigration, or any number of other factors that make it nearly impossible for American families to live on a single income. The point of all of this is to draw attention to the fact that conservatives are tone-deaf spiritual boomers who fail to address the complaints of young people and then act shocked when they all vote blue.

The response to all of this from Matt Walsh and his ilk will likely be to blame the Democrats but the truth is that they are no more guilty than Republicans.

I do not think that there is any political solution to our current problems, but that does not change the fact that you need grassroots support, you need the favor of the people, the mandate of heaven if you will. Bismark understood this, he understood realpolitik.

During the socialist revolutions that spread across Europe in the late 19th century, Bismarck saw the writing on the wall. He didn’t ignore the complaints of the working class. Instead, he introduced Staatssozialismus— a series of reforms that addressed the complaints of the working class. This was a calculated move on the part of Bismark that satisfied the workers and cut the legs out from under the Social Democratic Party of Germany. As it turns out most workers weren’t socialists, rather they were dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and the socialists were the only ones willing to listen. Bismark addressed their most basic grievances and in doing so halted the socialist movement in Germany.

Setting aside debates on the enduring impact of Bismarck's reforms, the sway of realpolitik remains undeniable. Young people possess legitimate reasons for discontent with the current status quo, and conservatives who dismiss them do so at their peril. Adopting the stance of spiritual Boomers risks further alienating a generation in search of understanding and concrete solutions.

A wise statesman will not try to impose his ideas upon the people, but will look attentively at what the people want and make them believe that they want it too.

Otto Von Bismarck

The response from Matt Walsh and his associates underscores their blindness to the reality on the ground and their unwillingness to take others' complaints seriously. The system is unsustainable, and Zoomers act as canaries in the coal mine; their signals are ignored by conservatives while the left merely pays them lip service. This is an opportune moment to address the grievances of young workers and provide pragmatic solutions, practicing some realpolitik.

-TJS