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.