Generations

Generational politics is one of the cruder forms of politics as it generally reduces to members of one age cohort hurling slurs at other cohorts. Ironically, the origin of this form of politics is the baby boomer generation, who were the first group of Americans to form an identity around their birth cohort. Baby boomers have since been synonymous with the post-war cultural trends and the radical politics that came to dominate the second half of the twentieth century.

These days, of course, "boomer" has become an epithet due to their children using it to describe degenerate or materialistic culture. Boomers are selfish old people who only care about their stock portfolios and their lawns. They are the "greedy geezers" of this age, which is ironic in that the term first gained traction decades ago as the baby boomers started to take over politics. This is another example of how the universe has a sense of a humor and cruel streak.

Of course, thirty years ago when terms like "greedy geezer" were getting tossed around, the culture was undergoing a generational shift. The WW2 Generation was giving way to the baby boomers. Bill Clinton came to be seen as the typical boomer, ushering in a new set of morals and sensibilities to politics. For the last thirty years, baby boomer politics have been American politics. Now they are seen the out of date politics of a quickly fading era.

We are about to experience another generational culture shift as the children of the baby boom generation begin to push their parents over the side. This is why the term "boomer" has become an epithet. The derogatory use of the label is a signal that the user is not into conventional culture and politics. To reject "boomer politics" is to reject the old-fashioned dichotomy of left-versus-right, as is defined by cable news programs, talk radio and the mainstream media.

We are getting a glimpse of this in the Trump administration. Donald Trump is technically not a baby boomer. This must be said because otherwise you get six million messages explaining that the baby boomer generation starts with those born after noon on June 30th, 1946, and Trump was born on June 17, 1946. It is this sort of hairsplitting that makes generation politics so mind-numbingly stupid. It makes the blue pencil crowd seem stable minded by comparison.

That aside, Trump is emblematic of the politics and culture that we generally associate with the baby boomer generation. He is materialistic, hedonistic, and jarringly superficial in his politics. For example, his main interest in ending the Ukraine war is so we can do business deals with the Russians. The history and geopolitical import of what he is doing is never mentioned by him. For Trump, it often seems like that the only thing that matters is the acquisition of stuff.

Contrast this with J.D. Vance, the millennial man in waiting. His story is centered on his cultural journey from the underclass into the managerial class and then as a critic of the managerial system that made him possible. He is the most articulate critic of managerialism to ever hold office in Washington. It remains to be seen if he wins the White House on his own, but he is clearly setup as the heir to Trump. He will take the baton on behalf of his generation from the boomers.

Despite the millennial disdain for baby boomer culture, they are the results of it due to the fact they were raised in the product of it. Things like helicopter parenting and structured play time were boomer creations. Millennials are the first generations raised by people who used the word "parenting”, so it is no surprise that the millennials are the first to use the word "adulting." They were raised to expect a highly structured and safe environment where everything is clearly labeled.

There is far greater cultural intensity with millennials than prior generations. For the boomers, generational politics was mostly about marketing cultural items like clothing, lifestyle choices, and music. For millennials, culture is tangled up in the structure of life, so they are more keenly aware of themselves as a cohort. They are the first generation to sense that their identity is entirely exogenous. Individually and collectively, they are who they are because of taxonomical reasons.

This shift in generational identity can be seen in how millennials react to generalizations versus how baby boomers react. Make a generalization about baby boomers and you get flooded with boomers telling you that they are not like that. Make a generalization about millennials and they will agree and amplify it. Because conformity has always been a part of millennial cultural awareness, conforming to generational stereotypes does not bother them. It is their normal.

This is another thing with millennials that is different from boomers. They expect the systems they inherited to work as described on the box. The two sides of millennial politics are from those raised on the mother's milk of post-Marx culturalism and those raised on civic nationalism. The former is perpetually angry that things are not fair, and the latter is determined to make things work as described to them. Vance versus AOC is a duel between competence and anxiety.

That brings up something else about millennial culture. It is focused on the present, but in the context of what was promised. This makes it backward looking. The Vance side is determined to remake things, so they are what he expected, rather than something new that is a break from the past. The AOC side is similarly determined to remake the present to fit the promise, but the promise came from the New Left politics that sunk roots in the culture when her parents were kids.

Generational politics can only take you so far in getting a sense of what lies ahead for the culture and politics. Reality is the great restraint, and the millennials are inheriting an enterprise in decline, while their parents inherited one that was at its peak. This is the heart of the millennial critique of the boomers. They see their parents as living off the profits of the past and they see themselves as tasked with cleaning up the mess after a long generational party.

This is why the millennial age could turn out to be quite conservative. Necessity will mean relegating luxury beliefs to the fringe. No one has time for the hysterical and childish politics of the AOC side when there is work to be done, debts to be paid and institutions to be restructured. Millennial politics could be the domination of the organizational men, who take pride in making the machine operate and have no tolerance for throwing sand in the gears.