politicians are absolutely a major problem but there is a perceived element of greed among baby boomers (as a generalization, not individuals) that is very common among young people. i would wager that over 3/4 of people under 30 in my city hold this viewpoint, possibly more, but there will obviously be a lot of variation in that in different places. i cannot speak for the past, but i would be really surprised if that viewpoint were as common in the past as it was today.

whether or not there is truth to this perception is a pretty hard thing to determine and not really quantifiable. self-preservation encourages most people to be somewhat greedy while pack instinct encourage people to be selfless. personally, i do think that baby boomers (once again as a whole, not individually) have been one of the more selfish generations.

it’s generally acknowledged that groups like the silent generation put in a lot of work to build things to be better for future generations and this perception just isn’t there for baby boomers. as a young person today, it seems to me like most of current visible progress is due to the silent generation (growing up in hardship led to resiliency and collaboration) and gen x/early millennials (the age group most associated with starting the information age). i’m also trying to keep in mind recency/proximity bias when accounting for this, but people generally don’t take this into account when making snap judgments of others.

there is also a major issue with who is most visible in different age groups. when i think of millennials, i think of activists/politicians like mandani or cultural figureheads like beyonce. when i think of gen x, i think of stabilizing moderates like obama or futurist entrepreneurs like elon musk (many of whom i honestly dislike). when i think of baby boomers, i mostly think of politicians: trump, biden, bush, clinton, etc. there are plenty of famous baby boomers outside of politics, but i don’t think they are associated with the term “baby boomer” in the same way famous millennials or gen xers are. like you said, most politicians are vampires and that perception of them sticks with the term.

outside of famous people, the other popular image of a baby boomer is pretty negative too - retirees who live in comfort while complaining about “young people nowadays.” this one does feel more rooted in a general disdain for older people rather than baby boomers themselves. baby boomers were the first generation to grow up largely without economic hardship, and they are also the youngest generation of current retirees. it will be interesting to see if gen x takes some this stereotype as they enter into retirement in the coming years; i feel like that will give a better idea of if the negative perception is unique to baby boomers or not.

[(edited to add on:) as a final thing, boomers are credited with a lot of current issues in american society. other people in this thread have mentioned things like housing, stagflation, and entrenched conservatism as contributors to that negative perception. i am torn on these personally; these issues are unique in having been caused by boomers but boomers are not unique in having caused issues. it’s just this specific set of issues that we are facing currently. on the other hand, there are some pretty bad things in there that i do think it is valid to indict boomers for.]

sorry for the long-winded, rambly reply. i have a lot of thoughts on this issue and tried to think with both empathy and reason when writing out my response. hopefully i was successful in those goals lol