Again, I'm not advocating for anything in particular, but we do certain things terribly in this country. The middle class is shrinking. We have hundreds of thousands of homeless, a hospital visit can ruin a family financially, massive personal debt, overworked, overstressed, higher education is expensive, we're car dependent, we have a housing issue... and there is more. We have the best of the best, and if you're creative and work hard, there is no limit. But the suggestion that a strong middle class is essential or that is is to our advantage to not leave a vast number of citizens behind should not be perceived as weak or "socialist" or whatever lazy term is popular. Quality of life means more than good drinking water and indoor plumbing.
And since we're going there, I think there are conservative solutions to these problems, which I prefer, but "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" is like a running joke at this point. Boomers really think they're just cut from a different cloth, which may be true, but they walked out of college with jobs. It was just completely different, and they proudly act like everything is a character issue as we apprach the cliff.