|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by Gaylord Livingston
Let’s stop pretending the kids aren’t watching.
They’ve seen members of Congress openly trade stocks on insider information with no consequences. They’ve watched Supreme Court justices accept lavish gifts from billionaires while ruling on cases that directly affect those same benefactors. They’ve heard a former president brag about dodging taxes and face dozens of felony charges—while still being a leading candidate.
And through it all, the message that gets reinforced isn’t subtle: If you’re powerful enough, the rules don’t apply.
For millennials—stuck between Gen Z’s sharp-eyed cynicism and Gen Alpha’s impressionable curiosity—this feels like déjà vu. We grew up watching banks destroy the economy and get bailed out while families lost homes. We marched against wars started on lies. We saw “hope and change” turn into gridlock and drone strikes. And now we’re the parents, the teachers, the older siblings. We’re the ones trying to explain to a younger generation how democracy is supposed to work—even as it visibly fails to work.
The Real Civics Lesson
Forget textbooks. The actual civics lesson kids are absorbing is that accountability is for the weak. That truth is optional. That the loudest person wins. This isn’t some abstract worry—it’s cultural conditioning.
A 15-year-old watching the news today isn’t forming opinions on policy. They’re studying power. They’re seeing how people in charge bend the system, dodge blame, and spin scandal into spectacle. And they’re internalizing a brutal formula: be ruthless, be shameless, and you’ll rise.
It’s not that young people are naive—they’re not. It’s that they’re observant. They can tell when a system is rigged. And when the people who are supposed to enforce the rules are the ones breaking them, trust collapses. Not in a dramatic, revolutionary way. In a quiet, corrosive way. First comes apathy, then detachment. Eventually, you get fatalism.
“Why Bother?” Is a Reasonable Reaction.
You can’t blame kids for checking out. If voting feels pointless, if laws are selectively enforced, if no one in power seems to care unless it’s a PR crisis—then why engage at all? Why believe in anything?
And here’s where it gets dark: the more people disengage, the easier it is for corruption to thrive. This isn’t accidental. It’s a feature, not a bug. A disengaged population is a manageable one.
The Millennial Role: Bitter Experience, Hard Wisdom
Millennials know what disillusionment feels like. We’ve been the interns, the activists, the volunteers, the hopeful voters. We’ve watched ideals get compromised and movements get co-opted. But that experience—that deep familiarity with disappointment—comes with a kind of clarity.
We know what it means to care and get burned. But we also know what happens when nobody cares. That’s the edge we walk now, as the generation straddling hope and cynicism. We can help younger generations name the rot without normalizing it. We can teach skepticism without surrendering to nihilism.
Corruption Isn’t New—But Indifference Is Deadly
Yes, corruption has always been around. But what’s different now is how visible and shameless it is. And how little seems to happen in response. The old game was to hide the rot. The new one is to flaunt it, dare anyone to try and stop it.
If the next generation learns that power always protects itself, that’s on us. Not because we caused it—but because we’re the ones close enough to explain, to contextualize, and maybe still push back.
Because if we don’t tell a different story, someone else will. And that story might sound a lot like: “Might makes right. Get yours. Burn it all.”
So What Now?
This isn’t a call to optimism. It’s a call to realism. To naming what’s happening out loud, clearly, often. To stop letting corruption slide just because it’s exhausting to care. To remember that the next generation is watching—not just the news, but us.
Accountability isn’t just about justice—it’s about signaling to future generations that there is such a thing as right and wrong. When officials lie, steal, or abuse power and walk away untouched, it teaches the next wave of citizens that consequences are reserved for the powerless. But when corrupt actors face real repercussions—when they lose office, face trial, or serve time—it sends a different, vital message: that integrity matters. That this country still has a spine. That public service isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme or a shield against the law. The next generation is watching how we respond, not just to the scandals, but to the silence. If we show that immorality, dishonesty, and betrayal of the public trust will cost something—status, wealth, freedom—then we rebuild the idea that character counts. Not in speeches or slogans, but in reality. Because if we fail to do that, we’re not just letting corruption slide. We’re teaching kids to emulate it.
We don’t have to pretend the system works. But we do have to show that giving up isn’t the only option.
The author is a Windsor County resident.
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Commentary
Headline fixed:
Democrat corruption is educating future generations
Excellent piece, Mr. Livingston. You nailed our corruption crisis to the door on many levels. What you are calling for, I think, is a renewed focus on what it means to be a United States Citizen — both originally and for an uncertain future. Citizenship and accountability go together; they are part of what used to be called “enfranchisement” — not only the right to vote and be heard, but the duty to do so. By standing still, we are teaching our children that their voice doesn’t matter. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
To take it a step further—our freedoms are underwritten by parents and guardians who raise their children with a sense of service, to commit to a cause greater than self. Yes, I am a relative newcomer to Vermont, but I see the DNA of service here everywhere I look. It is not yet impossible for like-minded people to lead this country out of the crisis of confidence you aptly describe, and I think that begins locally: first in our families, then in our community.
When our highest military leaders repeatedly prove incapable of the great trust and confidence bestowed upon them (see the latest example here: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5308392-navy-admiral-burke-guilty-bribery/amp/), we know our children are watching. When we can’t agree to properly welcome retiring career Veterans who are so capable and willing to serve and teach the same kind of accountability you rightly call for, we know our children are watching. When we hesitate to hold accountable those who serially tempt our children with lethal drugs, and place “restorative justice” on their small shoulders instead of our own, we know full well they are not only watching, but suffering.
There is a lot to work towards together, and I applaud the heartfelt, apolitical, and duty-focused way in which you have described such work ahead. Thank you for writing this.
Re: “A 15-year-old watching the news today isn’t forming opinions on policy. They’re studying power. They’re seeing how people in charge bend the system, dodge blame, and spin scandal into spectacle. And they’re internalizing a brutal formula: be ruthless, be shameless, and you’ll rise.”
Indeed. Look no further than National Public Radio. It’s not the current administration bending the system. It’s the corrupt news media bending it against them or, in the case of the previous administration, bending it in their favor.
The author of this missive, Gaylord Livingston, was, apparently, very careful not to mention names. Which is why I am mentioning NPR, the oxymoronic ‘education’ network. The specific circumstances of NPR’s propaganda are too numerous to list. Its bias is pervasive, every day, even in its ‘soft news’ reporting.
Mr. Livingston says: “If we show that immorality, dishonesty, and betrayal of the public trust will cost something— then we rebuild the idea that character counts.”
Livingston is right. But the only way to truly expose the betrayal of public trust is to call it out when we see (or hear) it. NPR is one, if not the only, massively ubiquitous news outlet in the United States. Understand too, that cutting its government funding won’t stop NPR. Too numerous-to-count NGO non-profit foundations are there to take up the financial slack.
Do other media outlets distort the news? Yes. Of course. They all do to some extent. But none of the others have the extensive array of licensed broadcast stations and frequencies as does NPR. And none are as well placed in the American psyche of our children as is NPR and its parent, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Big Bird, Mr. Rogers, the Cookie Monster, et al., would never be a party to this kind of corruption. Right?
Or would they?
Just this morning, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, on NPR’s Morning Edition, I listened to two blatantly biased reports. The first on the continuing tragedy in Gaza. The second on the Trump administration claim, “without any evidence”, that President Bidens cancer diagnosis was covered up.
In the first instance, there was a brief (very brief) mention of civilians still living in Gaza marching in protest against… drum roll… Hamas. No other civilian protests were cited. And still, the NPR report went on, at length, to elaborate how the Gaza suffering was being caused by Israeli indifference, nothing more. Vermont’s own illustrious Senator, Peter Welch, weighed in without so much as a consideration that Hamas could be the ‘bad guy’. No. His finger always pointed at PM Netanyahu.
On the second instance, I leave it to VDC readers to decide whether or not there is any evidence of cover-up over President Biden’s physical or mental condition. IMHO, the prospect of a cover-up is beyond reproach. But, hey, that’s just my sensibility. Biden was, after all, mentally ‘at the top of his game’ – until he wasn’t.
The point being that these are prima facie examples of the “immorality, dishonesty, and betrayal of the public trust” by one of today’s most storied media outlets. They are not the first examples. And they won’t be the last either.