(05-23-2018, 11:44 AM)tg63 Wrote: I personally question the notion that the Boomers will start giving up power in 5 years or so. In 5 years they will range between 63-80. With improved health (compared with past saeculums) and with the benefits of technology, I think they will hang on to power as long as they can, and that will be much beyond age 63. They won't go without a fight.
And that will give them loads of time to make reactionary decisions (or to continue to), that we are left to deal with for a very long time.
Boomers will not simply disappear from public life just because Donald Trump leaves the scene. They will lose their ability to decide which boomer leadership shall prevail. That may be just as well. Younger generations may decide which sort of Boomers have the apices of power. That may ensure that people get Idealist virtues (vision, principle, and decisiveness) without the worst vices (ruthlessness, arrogance, and selfishness) in top leadership. The sort of person who exploits others while demanding to be seen as a benefactor will be a reject for both X and Millennial adults.
That will be a huge improvement. It might not be best to cast off the Boom generation altogether so long as it has people of great ability. Even if we get an X President (we already have had one), then there will be cabinet officers and of course leadership in Congress. Donald Trump is not the definitive Boomer; he is simply the worst sort of Idealist leader short of the Old Bolsheviks and Stalin.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.