RUSH: “Millennials…” This is from the Moneyish.com website. “Millennials Are Going Bald From Too Much Stress.” Have you heard this? How many of you have Millennial children? Say they’re right now between 20, 35? How many of them are going bald? There’s a lot of stress out there. You know, when my father was in college, when my father was the age — and all of his buddies, by the way. When he was the age that Millennials are today, they were about ready to be hauled out of college.

They were about ready to be put in uniforms, and they were about ready to be sent to Japan and Burma, the Pacific Theater, and Europe to fight a horrible world war — after having grown up in the Great Depression. Now that, to me, is stress. That’s pretty intense stress. You’re in college, you’re hanging around with your frat buddies and all of a sudden you get hauled out of there, put in a uniform, and sent either to Europe or the Pacific Theater to fight World War II, where the United States’ future hung in the balance.

You’d just come out of the Great Depression — and after you finished fighting World War II, you gonna have to deal with Nikita Khrushchev at the United Nations banging his shoe and claiming that he was gonna bury your grandchildren! I don’t remember… I doubt that they had any stories in the media back then about the pressure was causing them to go bald. I know every generation’s different, and I know you can’t compare events in one generation to the next ’cause it’s all different, history being what it is.

But it’s why I have long maintained that I… Even Baby Boomers. I mean, it’s not just about Millennials. I think a lot of people have had to invent their traumas in order to tell themselves how tough life is. Because, in comparison, the closest thing we had to what our parents and grandparents went through is Vietnam and maybe a couple of economic recessions.

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RUSH: Colleen, I’m glad you waited. Thank you. How are you doing?

CALLER: I’m doing great, Rush. It is such an honor to talk to you. My dad turned me on to you when you were back in Sacramento and I was in college, kind of the same age as Millennials are now. And I wanted to talk to you about your comments on the Millennial story about them being so stressed out they’re losing their hair.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And your comparison of them to our parents’ generation, the Greatest Generation.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And I have a son, a Millennial son in college, and I also do advising to a lot of startups. So I’m around Millennials, and I kind of see where they’re coming from and what they’re going through. And I can tell you firsthand that they are stressed out, and I think for valid reasons. You know, while we don’t have a World War II and we don’t have Khrushchev, we’ve got Kim Jong-un — you were talking about it earlier — threatening nuclear war. We’ve got Islamic terrorists bombing and mowing people down with trucks and stabbing people on a weekly basis.

So while they don’t have the perspective we do, it is scary, right? But I think what’s worse is actually our parents when they went to World War II, they were part of a proud and patriotic country. Everyone was pulling together. And our Millennials are constantly being told from the press and political leaders and professors and celebrities that we all hate each other. We’re all prejudiced, the world is a disaster, the United States is evil and oppressive, the Constitution is outdated and irrelevant, and this is all coming from people they respect.

And their parents think they’re doing a great job teaching them values and to stand up for what they believe in, when they’re really teaching ’em it’s okay to just disrespect the country and the president and that everyone you disagree with is a fascist. And so it’s okay to scream and boycott and get violent instead of being an adult and engaging in dialogue. And it just breaks my heart. We are ruining this generation.

RUSH: That is so well stated. The only thing I would add in your list of things that they’re scared of, and I think the big one, honest to God, and there’s nothing more disappointing to me, more frustrating, that makes me just want to scream myself, is they have literally been made, actively afraid that the planet will not support them by the time they reach their patients’ age, 65.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: They really believe this crap. They totally believe it, and it does have them scared to death.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: But all the other things you mentioned are correct too. They’re taught all of this. The problem that I have — your recitation is right on the money. I wish you could go through it again ’cause I want to — I wish I could at the moment you said something —

CALLER: Well, I have all my notes, so let me know.

RUSH: No, not necessary. While you were going through the list of things that they’re told, they’re taught to hate, they’re taught this, why do they buy it? Why do they fall for it? That’s what’s frustrating to me. Why do they accept all of this stuff? When I was their age —

CALLER: Because they don’t have you as a parent. My son thankfully has me as a parent. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but the people they trust the most —

RUSH: Are the doomsayers! The people they trust the most are the doomsayers, the negativists, the pessimists.

CALLER: That’s why they fall for it, because they have no voice they trust —

RUSH: I hate to go. I have to. I’ve got a time break I can’t move. Thanks so much.

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RUSH: What she was referring to, there’s a story here that Millennials are going bald from too much stress. And I said it’s nothing like our parents and grandparents in college being dragged out, put in uniforms, and sent to Europe and Japan for World War II, after having lived through the Depression. And then communists come calling and said we’re gonna bury your grandkids. That’s what she was reacting to.

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RUSH: You know, the last caller, Colleen, really had a brilliant point: The idea that Millennials today are just surrounded by… They’re barraged in their entertainment. I mean, the movies they watch, the books they read, they’re all dystopian. For those of you in Rio Linda, “dystopia” is the opposite of “utopia.” Dystopia, think of it as Armageddon. Dystopia, think of it as Mad Max and Thunderdome — and you don’t have the gas. Mad Max, Thunderdome, dystopia, end of the world. Think of everything they claim climate change is gonna be times 10, all right?

She was right. They are surrounded by it. In fact, do you remember…? I watched one of these Marvel shows that Netflix adapted from a comic, Jessica Jones. They adapted it to a 10-part series, and I watched this thing, and it was just… It was weird. It was compelling enough to watch, but it was dark. Everybody in it was miserable. They all had problems. I read a review on some Millennial site. I don’t know, Gizmodo somewhere? I forget where the review was, Millennials, and they thought it was the greatest damn show ever.

And you know why? Because of how successfully it dealt with suffering. A light went on, and I awakened. I said, “Okay, that’s what’s… Everything is collapsing, everything’s falling apart, everything is being destroyed — and as far as Millennials are concerned they’re being taught that people are doing it on purpose.” Republicans are destroying the planet. Corporations are killing their customers. Course, this is nothing new, folks. I’ve to put up with it and so have you. If you’ve been paying attention to Democrats the last 30 years, they’ve been telling you the same stuff.

It really isn’t anything new, when you get down to it. What’s different about it is that our teachers weren’t this way. It was just the Democrat Party that believed in all this stuff, that the Republican Party and conservatives wanted to kill you. Slowly or quickly, but you were gonna die. They were gonna kill the planet. They were gonna poison the water and the air, all of these things. Their corporations didn’t care about preserving anything like, and then books came out like The Population Bomb. There’s not gonna be enough food for people! We’re gonna resort to cannibalism.

I grew up with all that garbage. But it didn’t make — it didn’t convert me at any point. I thought Ehrlich then and today was full of it. When I was working in radio, 1972, at a job in Pittsburgh, the program director made all of us read the damn book because there was supposedly something to learn in it, and after I read the book… It was supposed to help us explain Donnie Osmond records better, I guess. I don’t know. And after I read the book, I went to the guy and said, “What’s the value here?” “Do you not understand what we’re facing? We’re facing the end of our civilization! This planet will not be able to support any more people!”

I said, “This is bogus.” I’m 22. I was fired some months later, but I said, “This is…” So my point is, I’ve never been co-opted by this stuff. Parents were good, family was good. Plus, I’ve never been a follower. I’ve never been, fortunately… One of the best things I think that’s ever happened to me — I don’t know if I did it or if it happened, but — I have never succumbed to peer pressure as a motivator, or as a desire. And I’m still not. But, boy, I think peer pressure is some… You talk about pressure, particularly for young people to want to fit in, to want to be popular or to be hip, cool, whatever it is?

It’s immense in terms of self-esteem. And don’t you find it interesting that all of these young kids that have been taught self-esteem don’t have any? They’ve all been raised to think they’re special and they’re fine and that whatever they do is wonderful, and they don’t… Well, eventually they confront reality, and they find out that nobody thinks they’re special. The other people didn’t get the memo. It’s a really cold wake-up call. But the review of that TV show — the suffering and how well it was portrayed — was an eye-opener for me.

And then a friend of mine recommended the book. A TV producer friend of mine, recommended a book. I don’t even remember the name of the book now. But it was all about how, after global warming and nuclear destruction, people lived in stacked trailers or RVs next to dilapidated oil refineries. The hero or the unifying force was somebody on the internet — some nameless, faceless force or power on the internet — and it was dystopian. It was filled with doom and doom. If you watch television and movies, dystopianism is everywhere.

Then you add the environmentalist wackos and the stuff they have fostered. The only element of American history that is glorious is the fight for civil rights. The rest of it? “Yuk! This country sucks. This country’s bigoted! This country’s unjust. This country is immoral.” So many of these things are not true. They’ve been manufactured. Climate, global warming, people destroying the planet. Every one of these allegations has a redemption. You can redeem your parents and you can redeem yourself for your sins, and it always involves supporting leftist politicians and causes. That’s how you make yourself feel better.

But it doesn’t make you feel better.

It makes you angrier. It fills you with even more hate. Colleen’s point was right. You know, back in World War II and following the Great Depression when they came to classrooms and took people out and said, “You’re gonna go to the factory to build airplanes,” or, “You’re gonna put on uniforms to go to Europe or Japan,” there was a unity of purpose in the country. Everybody was patriotic and believed in America the Beautiful, America the greatest. Today? Mmm-mmm. Way too many people think this country’s not worth preserving, not worth maintaining as founded. So she had a point.

She has a point when she talks about the fact that people today are surrounded with pessimism and ugliness. Back then, World War II, the difference there, though, is that really was a fight for America’s survival. There was no two ways about it. That really was a fight for U.S. survival, both in Europe and Japanese, the Pacific. But all this stuff today is made up, exaggerated, but it’s shocking how much of it is literally believed. So this dystopian characteristic of Millennial entertainment, it’s all rooted in a story that they’re going bald from too much stress.

“Stylists and doctors say they’re seeing more people — some as young as 18 — with thinning hair.” The story is all about personal stories. “For Mabel it was a clogged shower drain that alerted her [baldness]. … Experts say they’re seeing more people like John and Mabel: men and women as young as 18 who are freaking out about going bald. One big reason for [it]? High stress, say both Hui and David. Indeed, Millennials are more stressed out that any other generation, according to research from the American Psychological Association.”

You know, the damn sad thing about it is that things that they’re stressed out about are made up. I guess if you watched The Hunger Games and believe it could be happening, you see Trump when you watch The Hunger Games or whatever. I’ve never watched The Hunger Games, so I don’t even know what I’m… It’s dystopian, right? I don’t know. I can watch this stuff and not succumb to it and not fall prey to it.

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RUSH: Now, look at this. I just got an email here. “You know, you were just talking about peer pressure and how you don’t react to it. I think you’re lying! I saw the Met gala last night, and I didn’t see you on the red carpet. You say you’re too famous all the time to do this, and you’re such a big star, but I never see you in anything…” This is exactly my point. If I found myself at the Met gala on a red carpet, I would… Folks, I would think somebody had had me in prison and released me and the condition I got out was I had to go do that. That’s exactly my point.

There is no way. I do not… I have no hunger, thirst, desire for any of that kind of thing. Zilch, zero, nada. But I’m telling you people in that world measure… It’s exactly what I’m talking about when I talk about if the media makes you, they can break you. You have to show up at a red carpet event or you have to show up at some thing where there are gonna be cameras make it look like you’re having a good time out at night or a nightclub or whatever?

Pfft! Screw that! That is exactly what I mean. Those events? You know what those events are? This is how those people tell themselves they’re special, and they crave that. They pay for it! You’ve gotta pay a quarter million dollars to go to that thing, and yet they make it look like everybody’s invited by Anna Wintour. But it’s a charitable thing. And there are people standing in line to pay that money. Many pay more than that to get in. Plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n’ rollers in many instances.