As a baby boomer that I am, most of my social relationships occur in groups made up of people from this generation, which in Spain is considered to begin in 1958 and end around 1975 (in other countries the boom was a few years earlier). We are the largest generation and, therefore, very decisive. In the next Catalan elections we represent almost a third of the electorate and it is assumed that we share a series of common characteristics and experiences.
We are the last babies before the democratization of contraceptives. We grew up in the apotheosis of television and were teenagers in the apotheosis of discos. We lived through the years of economic splendor as children and as new workers. We have internalized the culture of effort, personal fulfillment and the central role of work in our lives. We normalize divorce and the implementation of individual freedoms.
We broke with the austerity of the previous generation and have led to the generalization of tourism and the era of “full gas”. We are the last generation raised before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of global ideologies. We don't know what will happen to our retirements or if we will be able to keep working until we reach them.
It might seem that so many things in common should include a common way of seeing the world, and yet, during the last few weeks, in these generational meetings, I have shared a tablecloth with voters from Vox, Aliança Catalana and even Milei. It was something totally unexpected. Not sharing a table with them, since they are all known people. The unexpected thing has been knowing who they vote for and that they expressed it motu proprio when the opportunity to talk about the subject has arisen.
I, faithful to my motto of “we must respond to the extreme right”, try to stay with the goal of refuting some of their arguments, without coming to blows or letting the discussion end up monopolizing the meeting. Arguments that are sometimes racist, sometimes anti-feminist and always said with great conviction. After independence and vaccines, new reasons for discussion have come to the table.
