Here's why the pitchforks are out

I'm Mr. Beat, and it's 2026. The midterm elections are quickly approaching here in the United States of America, and here's why the pitchforks are out. I'm making this video because I am frankly frustrated with my friends, family, and colleagues who just don't seem to quite understand why so many people out there, especially under the age of 40 years old, demand radical change. They seem to be angry. People that are over 40 years old tend to be confused, and they're just like, well, why are these young people so angry? What is going on? Why are they for things such as socialism? So if you're confused about why younger people are becoming radicalized right now, this video is for you. Before we go over anything, though, you need to understand that this group of people, those 40 years old and under, generally speaking, do not have the same opportunities that their parents and grandparents had. I'm going to explain why this is, but another number I really want you to focus on right now is this one right here, 17%. What does that number mean? 17%. That's the approval rating of my channel. Just kidding. It's the approval rating of the federal government of the United States, which is pretty pathetic. We get that number from the Pew Research Center, who's been tracking this since the 1950s. The 1950s, guess how high it was? 77%. So we go from 77% approval rating of the federal government to 17%. Again, that's why the pitchforks are out. People are angry with the status quo. It's not just Republicans. I know most of you already know the president is not that popular, has a pretty low approval rating, and same with his political party, the Republican Party. But maybe you're a little bit surprised to find out that the Democratic Party is almost as unpopular as the Republican Party. Most Americans hate both of the major two political parties in this country. They hate both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the quickest growing group over the past 40 years in terms of voter registration has been the non-affiliated, unaffiliated, or independent voters, which now makes up by far the largest voting bloc in the United States. For decades, for about 40 years, most Americans have been fed up with both the Democratic Party and Republican Party. I keep saying 40 years. What was that year? 1986. Yes, if you're having a hard time thinking about what was going on in 1986, well this guy was president during that time. Also think Stranger Things. The time of Stranger Things. That's the time we're talking about. And compared to today, I mean, it seemed pretty awesome, frankly. But before we get to the 1980s and 1990s, let's go back even further. Let's go back to 1945. This period, 1945 to 1969, that's known as the golden age of capitalism. It's known as a time where the economy dramatically expanded, where the standard of living dramatically went up, where we saw the rise of what's known as the middle class, a phrase that wasn't even really used until this time, a time when people could buy homes for the first time, have multiple cars, fancy appliances, go to the lake on the weekend, buy a boat even, and only one person in the household had to work. Usually it was the dad. Didn't have to be, but that's usually the way it was. But yeah, 1945. What happened that year? That was the end of World War II. Yes, and so we had this post-war boom all the way to 1969. Why did I end it in 1969? What happened in 1969? Well, that was the peak of the Vietnam War, which is another time in American history where the pitchforks were out. People were angry about this war. Not everybody, but a lot of young people in particular. A lot of people under 40 in 1969 were against the Vietnam War, and one big reason why they were against it is not brought up enough, in my opinion, and that's the fact that for the first time since World War II, inflation was dramatically going up. Now it was going up higher than normal. Things were getting too expensive, and a big reason why was because the Vietnam War was so expensive, and so that led to this frustration. But you know what? Things were still great overall. The standard of living for most Americans was continuing to go up. Wages were going up each year. People could still afford a lot of nice things, and this carried over into the 1970s. Over here's the 1970s little bubble, okay? When we think about the 1970s, usually we're thinking about dramatic inflation. Inflation got even worse in the 1970s. Stagflation, which is a combination of a shrinking economy, stagnant economy, combined with really high inflation. Stagnant economy plus high inflation, stagflation. It's the absolute worst possible economic scenario. The government doesn't know what to do when we have stagflation. The Federal Reserve, well they're supposed to be the ones to rescue the economy during these times, but they can't lower interest rates because that's going to make inflation get worse, and they can't raise interest rates because that's going to not grow the economy. So they usually just put their hands up in the air like, I don't know what to do. By the end of the 1970s, people are starting to get frustrated. Sure, the momentum of the golden age of capitalism has made them, you know, not too radicalized yet, but they're ready for change. They're ready to go against the status quo. So enter the early 1980s, and we do see a dramatic change. We see the election of Ronald Reagan. I think back on the early 1980s, and you know I don't remember it because that's when I was born, but my parents tell me inflation was still pretty bad in the early 1980s. They had a higher than 13% mortgage rate when they bought their first house during that time. So yeah, Reagan was mostly elected to fight inflation, and that he did. I know Ronald Reagan gets a bad name these days, especially with the under 40 crowd, but Ronald Reagan, his administration was successful. He got to give him credit for reducing inflation. Inflation did dramatically go down during his term. By the time he left office, it had went down to where it was during the golden age of capitalism. This is a big freaking deal. Now, Reagan, of course, the reason why he's a controversial president today is because there was other stuff that happened during his administration that is not so popular. Wealth inequality began to increase dramatically during his presidency. A big reason why? Wealthy people now didn't pay nearly as much taxes as they used to. Yeah, sure, lower taxes for everyone, but most of the benefactors of that were the extremely wealthy. You also had fewer regulations on industries, the decline of unions, and you saw just generally the government being more hands off of the economy. In some ways that was good, other ways not so good, and that just led to this growing wealth inequality that really continued all the way to the present day, and today it's worse now than it's ever been. You could say that that was bad, but I'll tell you what. Inflation was still low and the economy continued to grow. Wages started to go back up. Prices are still good, you know, into the 1990s, into the 2000s. Sure, you might have a bump in the road like the dot-com bubble bursting, but you know, that was short-lived. We recovered, and what's kind of keeping most Americans going during this time from the 1980s through the 2000s is the fact that now you have not just one parent working in the household, you have two, because yeah, wages aren't going up that much, and you need to keep up with everything. And so the other thing that was happening during this time was more and more Americans were taking on debt. They were borrowing money and getting credit cards, and that was kind of making this seem better than perhaps it really was. But regardless, we may be in debt, but we still have higher standards of living. And then the Great Recession, the housing bubble burst. Too many people borrowed too much money. Banks loaned out too much. Things got out of hand, and the economy crashed. In fact, it was so bad that we had deflation. Prices were going down. I remember the Great Recession vividly because I was looking for my first teaching job during that time, and I couldn't find a teaching job. It was horrible. I couldn't even find a substitute teaching job. But eventually I did find one. The Great Recession did end by 2010. Things were looking up, but people were angry still. The pitchforks started to come back out. Why? Because during the Great Recession, the federal government bailed out a lot of of the same people that got us into the whole mess. They bailed out corporations. Plus you have the government just straight up taking over. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, you know. They bailed out entire industries. The banking industry, the insurance industry, the auto industry even. You had TARP, which poured in all this federal money, gave it to states. Okay, okay. Regular, average, everyday consumers got some of that money too. Everybody got bailed out, but most of the bailouts went to corporations. These corporations didn't have to pay taxes. It was something that really troubled people that tended to not like government intervention in the economy. Those on the right, typically, which led to the Tea Party movement. Around that same time, a little bit later, you had the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is more associated with the left end of the spectrum. They actually also were against corporate welfare, but they also thought that regulations were not strong enough and they thought that the people who got us into the Great Recession were not punished. Nobody was arrested for getting us into that. And so, you know, you have these little revolutions that happened, but they fizzled out really quickly because you know what? The economy started to grow again and people just took out more debt and they got more credit cards and it was fine until the COVID-19 pandemic. We always talk about the social and cultural implications of devastation. Obviously, millions of people dying, but people also lost their jobs, so the government bailed out everyone again. This time, people got more direct relief. They got just money in their bank accounts. I remember that. Just with two children, I wake up one day, I have extra money in my bank accounts. That was kind of nice, you know. But the problem now is that, unlike the Great Recession, COVID-19 pandemic led to inflation, more inflation. And that has been the biggest story of not just the 2020s, but the entire 21st century is the return of dramatic inflation. We're talking general inflation here. We're talking on all goods and services. Prices going way up, but we still haven't brought up HCHC because the prices of these things went up well beyond general inflation, folks. We're talking double or even triple the rate of inflation over a period of 40 years. So if you were born in 1986, your entire life has been wow. And these are four things that everybody needs to survive in today's economy in the United States. We're talking, well, housing is the first H. Housing. Everybody needs shelter. Gimme shelter. Everybody needs a home. What are you gonna do without a home? And the price of housing has been more than double that of general inflation over the past 40 years. What about C, child care? I mentioned earlier that now you need both parents in the house working full time in order to keep up with the costs of everything. And so, well, if you have kids, where are they going to go if they're not in school? Child care. And the cost of child care has also more than doubled the rate of general inflation over the past 40 years. The next H is health care. You need health care in order to survive. You literally will die without it. The cost of health care has more than doubled compared to general inflation over the past 40 years. In fact, it's probably close to triple. But what we do know for sure is the cost of college has tripled over the past 40 years. And yes, you do need college. It's pretty much a necessity these days if you want a good-paying job. There are exceptions. If you want to get involved with one of the trades, you can try to be a star basketball player or something. But generally, it's a safe bet to get a college education if you want a good-paying job. And HCHC, the prices of all four of these things, has been way higher than general inflation. So, with inflation now out of control, on top of these things being far above that, you can imagine why people are upset. And I know your knee-jerk reaction is to think, oh, well, things are still fine today. Things are fine. Life expectancy is higher than ever before. We've got technology better than ever before. And you know, the economy of the United States is still technically the biggest economy in the world. But I think it's mostly an illusion. Just because they have more creature comforts due to technology doesn't mean that they're happier. General inflation combined with HCHC inflation, that is why the pitchforks are out. Mrs. Beat wants me to tell you that I have a website, imrbeat.com. You can find out upcoming events where I'll be and stuff there. Don't forget to stay curious.