Is Biden's horrific debate performance marking the end of the decades of Boomer dominance in America?
As a writer who has delved into the topic of generations, I've come to appreciate their profound influence on our future. Each generation, with its unique set of characteristics, plays a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of our society.
I am a quintessential Boomer. I grew up with Howdy Doody, the Hula-Hoop, black and white TV, transistor radios, the Walkman, the” golden age of TV,” the “counter-culture,” the “under the counter culture,” and the generational holy trinity of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yup, card-carrying member.
The problem with my generation is that “it” has always been about us. Globally and nationally, we were the largest generation at the time [ the geometrics of population growth has made the Millennials and Digital Natives each bigger numerically as of 2024] and were the first generation to spend the first third to half our lives living in the Cold War.
The general shaping of the generations has been based on birth years:
The Great Generation 1901- 1927
Silent Generation 1928 - 1945
Baby Boomers 1946 - 1964
Generation X 1965 - 1980
Millennials 1981 - 1996 *
Digital Natives 1997 - 2016 **
Generation Alpha 2017 -
[NOTE * has also been called Gen Y and **Digital Natives has been called Gen Z. This is because, once GenX got its’ name, what followed was alphabetical; Gen Y and then Gen Z. I thought that was simple laziness. I have always used Millennial and then Digital Natives because I felt the names were more descriptive. For now, I use Gen Alpha, which continues the alphabetical naming, but there will be another name once the generation starts to define itself.]
The Boomer generation has developed a unique duality. We created the Generation Gap, the counterculture, environmentalism, peace demonstrations, equal rights, gay rights, all of which are mainstream today. So all the “natural” “organic” and “vegetarianism” food trends came from us. We created much of the soundtracks we hear as we move through the time and space of the 21st century.
And yet, and yet, we screwed it all up on our watch. We created the first Earth Day and have been polluting and raping the planet ever since. We spoke of equal rights and then allowed the greatest wealth inequality in history to come to pass. We ended the Cold War, only to have a new one against the “axis of evil”.
So the Boomers were the source of much of what exists today that is very, very good, and at the same time, we screwed up a lot of it.
Through the course of my career as a futurist, I have often called GenX the generation “with the chip on their shoulder”, from the stage. I know that works as I always got a “you bet!” or a “that’s right!’ from the audience. I then have gone on to explain the name as coming from the GenXers “waiting for the Boomers to get the hell off the stage” That line always gets applause from GenXers.
In America, we see generational change in our Presidents. Based upon the generally accepted birth years above:
Eisenhower was from the Great Generation
Kennedy Great Generation
LBJ Great Generation
Nixon Great Generation
Ford Great Generation
Carter Great Generation
Reagan Great Generation
Bush Great Generation
Clinton Boomer
Bush Boomer
Obama Boomer
Trump Boomer
Biden Silent Generation
Demographically, it is clear that the next President should be from the GenX generation and then the Millennial one. The oldest members of the Millennial generation are now eligible to be President, as are all members of GenX.
In the past, I have allowed myself to have a generational filter that, perhaps, has blinded me to the reality of the situation. I have known that the GenX Generation has rightfully become impatient with the Boomers refusing to leave, but until recently, I didn’t understand how much the Millennials feel this way as well.
My son, like most of his friends, is a millennial. Since the 2020 election, he has been saying that the choice then and now seems to be between two guys who are “too old.” Trump was born in 1946, in the first year of the Boomer Generation, and Biden was born in 1942, so he is one of the younger members of the Silent Generation still alive.
Earlier this year, I posted a column about the perception among many that “Biden is too old” . It was also a repost of two other columnists and their views on the Biden age issue. The thrust of all three columns is that Biden had been singled out for negative coverage for his age but not Trump. That the ‘ageism’ used against Biden was not being equally applied.
Perhaps my Boomer bias kept me from seeing the validity of my son’s comments. Biden has been a transformative President and will go down in history as such. That was getting less coverage than his age. That annoyed me. The same institutions – the New York Times foremost among many – that ran big stories about “Hillary’s emails” were running stories about Biden being “too old”. Not too old to be a transformational President!
But if you look at the generations of our Presidents, you will see that Biden was a generational step backward, the first time that has happened in my lifetime. When the age question came up again because of the disastrous debate appearance of Biden, it was clear that it was a valid question.
Mainstream media has suggested that Democratic alternatives to Biden are much younger and less likely to go senile on the debate stage. Here are the names of possible candidates suggested by the media and their generation:
Vice President Kamala Harris Boomer, barely! Last quarter of 1964
Governor Gavin Newson GenXer
Governor Gretchen Witmer GenXer
Secretary Pete Buttigieg Millennial
Based on the president's generational progression, it would appear that all of the possible candidates listed are more historically “correct” than Silent Generation Biden.
It does feel that this election and its outcome will be the last hurrah for the Silent Generation and the Boomer Generation. Never again – with the possible exception of Kamala Harris, a barely Boomer- will there be Boomers as president, and certainly not anyone from the Silent Generation.
The Boomers took the stage 60 years ago and, in 2024, experienced their last hurrah with the Biden-Trump election.
The chips can come off the shoulders of GenXers, and the Millennials will have people closer to their age to support.
The historical drumbeat of passing generations will define the 2024 and 2028 elections in America.
Thanks Meredith! You have all the good traits of a GenXer!
Eric- Thanks for the comment! You are exactly correct about generations not being exact. You and friends of mine born 1963-65 are the blend of Boomer and GenXer. They usually are by birth year, so say Sesame Street may have begun in the GenX era but many Boomers were still kids. My point of course is that clearly the Biden debate fiasco will end up being the death knell of the age of the Boomer. OK Boomer, time to leave the stage!