12-02-2022, 12:00 PM
The Silent are nearly gone as a political influence except for Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell. Nancy Pelosi will no longer be Speaker of the House once the new Congress is inaugurated.
Boomers are on the fade, and they are a disappointment in politics and culture. Just look at poetry: who is their Walt Whitman or Robert Frost? The biggest political loudmouths are dead (Rash Libel -- OK, Rush Limbaugh) or has lost relevance (Newt Gingrich). If there is to be any lasting influence of Boomers upon American or world culture fifty years from now, then one will have to ignore the (then) Dead White Males aside from perhaps Steven Spielberg. For a generation that had all the advantages of privacy for developing individual thought and technology for expressing such, Boomers have been a big disappointment. Boomer politicians have been mediocre at best, and don't let me start talking about Donald Trump. Unless some late-wave Boomer (let us say Amy Klobuchar) becomes President, the Boom Generation will be known for three Presidents born in the same year, 1946.
For the next twenty years the big players will be X and Millennials as Millennial pols largely supplant Boomer pols. Boomer pols might have some success of they can harmonize X and Millennial agendas, but Boomers have had the opportunity to establish one agenda once-and-for-all, and have failed at that. Forcing a Boomer flavor upon political trends is now out of a question.
X starts off with the political advantage of having a near-great President in Obama, an excellent model on how to be President (as much as Donald Trump is an example of how to be a dreadful President). I expect the next effective conservative President to act much like Obama. You know -- untroubling sex life, rationality, sobriety, loyalty, overall caution, no personal scandals or corruption, clean government, respect for protocol and precedent, acceptance of a hierarchy of legitimate achievement, disdain for demagoguery, no sympathy for law-breakers, and not pushing his religious values or culture where such are unwelcome. These used to be the norms for conservatives at their best. Few expected Obama to co-opt the values that the GOP at its best used to hold firmly, but that is exactly what he did. They also serve liberalism well. and indeed any non-extremist ideology. By ordering an underworld-style hit on Osama bin Laden, Obama could show that he could learn even from some historical figures of Chicago that most of us (and likely he himself) despise.
The Millennial Generation is just starting to work its way into high office. Jon Ossoff is their first Senator, and there will be fare more of them, along with Governors, Justices of the Supreme Court, Minority Whips, Speakers of the House, and Majority Whips. Howe and Strauss predicted that they would be much like the GI Generation, and nothing says otherwise. They are collegial and rational, and they will likely be conformist. It is likely that their culture will be bland. So what? If you like your music, art, and literature to have substance, then you might want to look at the Missionary or Lost Generations.
I am going to make a prediction about the Homeland Generation: it will do what the Silent did and will do it well: comedy. With the exit of the Silent Generation from comedy either through death, debility, or even a loss of timing, we risk becoming excessively stuffy. I expect the Homeland Generation to fill that gap as they enter adulthood.
Boomers are on the fade, and they are a disappointment in politics and culture. Just look at poetry: who is their Walt Whitman or Robert Frost? The biggest political loudmouths are dead (Rash Libel -- OK, Rush Limbaugh) or has lost relevance (Newt Gingrich). If there is to be any lasting influence of Boomers upon American or world culture fifty years from now, then one will have to ignore the (then) Dead White Males aside from perhaps Steven Spielberg. For a generation that had all the advantages of privacy for developing individual thought and technology for expressing such, Boomers have been a big disappointment. Boomer politicians have been mediocre at best, and don't let me start talking about Donald Trump. Unless some late-wave Boomer (let us say Amy Klobuchar) becomes President, the Boom Generation will be known for three Presidents born in the same year, 1946.
For the next twenty years the big players will be X and Millennials as Millennial pols largely supplant Boomer pols. Boomer pols might have some success of they can harmonize X and Millennial agendas, but Boomers have had the opportunity to establish one agenda once-and-for-all, and have failed at that. Forcing a Boomer flavor upon political trends is now out of a question.
X starts off with the political advantage of having a near-great President in Obama, an excellent model on how to be President (as much as Donald Trump is an example of how to be a dreadful President). I expect the next effective conservative President to act much like Obama. You know -- untroubling sex life, rationality, sobriety, loyalty, overall caution, no personal scandals or corruption, clean government, respect for protocol and precedent, acceptance of a hierarchy of legitimate achievement, disdain for demagoguery, no sympathy for law-breakers, and not pushing his religious values or culture where such are unwelcome. These used to be the norms for conservatives at their best. Few expected Obama to co-opt the values that the GOP at its best used to hold firmly, but that is exactly what he did. They also serve liberalism well. and indeed any non-extremist ideology. By ordering an underworld-style hit on Osama bin Laden, Obama could show that he could learn even from some historical figures of Chicago that most of us (and likely he himself) despise.
The Millennial Generation is just starting to work its way into high office. Jon Ossoff is their first Senator, and there will be fare more of them, along with Governors, Justices of the Supreme Court, Minority Whips, Speakers of the House, and Majority Whips. Howe and Strauss predicted that they would be much like the GI Generation, and nothing says otherwise. They are collegial and rational, and they will likely be conformist. It is likely that their culture will be bland. So what? If you like your music, art, and literature to have substance, then you might want to look at the Missionary or Lost Generations.
I am going to make a prediction about the Homeland Generation: it will do what the Silent did and will do it well: comedy. With the exit of the Silent Generation from comedy either through death, debility, or even a loss of timing, we risk becoming excessively stuffy. I expect the Homeland Generation to fill that gap as they enter adulthood.
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.