First, Boomers will be present in large numbers -- a much larger share at the end of this Crisis (even if it ends as late as 2030) as it was with the Missionary generation at the end of the Second World War. Older Boomers are generally following the pattern that GI's set in the 1970's and that the Silent have continued: staying actively engaged in life as long as possible. We are not going like sheep into the nursing home so that we can be out of the way of out juniors as the Lost did. We are not going to give up our cultural influence. We might downsize in housing and on jobs... and of course the horrid Boomer executives who saw executive roles solely as means for enriching themselves by enforcing the misery and poverty of workers will be shown the door. That is the Boomer legacy that Americans cannot afford.
Some Boomers might even appear from seemingly nowhere. The Boomer Right has largely suppressed the Boomer Left, and X and Millennial liberals might find some of us very useful. We know a few things that the Boomer Right suppressed that Millennial and X leaders might not know.
Some of us might even redefine conservatism to transform it from a pretext for exploitation of people that elites render helpless to one in which people have the responsibility to make things good for themselves. That is libertarianism over semi-fascist corporatism. America needs more enterprise and less bureaucracy, and more innovation and less entrenchment of power. Small business creates opportunity and jobs; Big Business generates profits and executive compensation.
In any event I see Barack Obama more the harbinger of political life of the post-Crisis Era. Sure he is liberal on human rights and economic fairness by standards of the neoliberal Reagan-through-Trump era... but he proved a staunch conservative in style and practice on many things. The coming 1T may be a rejection of populism that has shown how badly it can work on behalf of the Right against anyone else. Obama was more subtle than the usual chest-pounding types on law and order. "Do the crime and do the time" is his attitude, as shown by the rarity of pardons on his part.
I have often compared Obama to Eisenhower in temperament. This said, a conservative President is going to act much more like Obama than like Trump in practice. Maybe we will see that America is not so much a struggle between tradition and some super-modernity but instead alternative sources and expressions of tradition. Is Trump compatible with Chinese, Korean, Jewish, Arab, or Hispanic tradition? Not in the least!
I'm not sure of what my tradition is in view of being about half German or Swiss and about half English or Welsh... but all I can say about Donald Trump is "Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" I hate his business techniques, his abusive sexuality, his demagoguery, his contempt for legal tradition, and his solipsism that tells him that what he wants to be true is the truth. I have no children or grandchildren, but I will say this: I would do everything possible to prevent them from becoming like him. If that means getting them to join the Armed Forces or to do salesclerking, factory work, farm labor, or domestic service before they ever set forth into college, then so be it. Human suffering is one way to learn empathy for people who, due to their limited talents, are compelled to endure it all their lives. Being a good person matters far more than being spectacularly competent at what one does for a living. Take that, Bill Cosby, Phil Spector, Jeffrey Epstein, William Jefferson, Ghislaine Maxwell, Jim Bakker, Kent Hovind, Harvey Weinstein, etc. Moral disgrace from doing bad things to people should be personal ruin.
To that end, I expect most people to be concerned that their kids or grandkids become good people -- the old Boy Scout ideal
"A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent."
That rejects being out for oneself alone, cynical, cruel, destructive, and wasteful -- 3T behavior at its worst. Much dies in a Crisis era, but most of what dies other than moribund institutions like businesses limping along as they consumer their assets is fads and crazes from the 3T. Society finds that it can't support those. (By the way -- the Multiversity that offers intellectual rigor but no coherent program of predictable learning from the 2T will die, too). We are going to see more shopping malls... die. We are going to see televangelists lose their relevance; although religion will be on TV it will be more like church services and educational programs or panel shows than the flamboyant Wealth Cult and ignoramuses ridiculing science because of "evil-u-shun".
The upcoming 1T will be a fairer, safer more equitable world with more opportunity for more people. Institutions will enforce that. People will be happier. Maybe it won't be quite as bland as the last 1T; there will be far more old boomers who draw attention for the right reasons. I hope to be one of those.
I predict that more and more Americans will deprecate Donald Trump over time. The liberals already do for his degradation of civil liberties and human decency that are grossly illiberal. We are seeing some conservatives reject him for his rejection of necessary traditions -- like respect for protocol and precedent (in that Obama is the conservative and Trump is the radical), valuation of a hierarchy of talent (liberals aren't really against that), and insistence upon rational thought. Such is better for a society that recognizes political polarization as a dead end.
COVID-19 will color attitudes of all people who remember it, whether they be Silent who will likely go extinct around 2060 or children in early-elementary years of life who cannot avoid seeing the major disruptions of their lives. The youngest who remember the lessons of COVID-19 will have the sharpest impressions. I expect it to color the political culture and even entertainment. Consider that for years after the French Revolution, aristocrats had parties in which the mocked the Reign of Terror. Consider also that very old people, the last survivors of the Holocaust, keep reminding us of what they went through. We will see that exclusively in print and video as survivors die off. Time extinguishes human memories.
Some Boomers might even appear from seemingly nowhere. The Boomer Right has largely suppressed the Boomer Left, and X and Millennial liberals might find some of us very useful. We know a few things that the Boomer Right suppressed that Millennial and X leaders might not know.
Some of us might even redefine conservatism to transform it from a pretext for exploitation of people that elites render helpless to one in which people have the responsibility to make things good for themselves. That is libertarianism over semi-fascist corporatism. America needs more enterprise and less bureaucracy, and more innovation and less entrenchment of power. Small business creates opportunity and jobs; Big Business generates profits and executive compensation.
In any event I see Barack Obama more the harbinger of political life of the post-Crisis Era. Sure he is liberal on human rights and economic fairness by standards of the neoliberal Reagan-through-Trump era... but he proved a staunch conservative in style and practice on many things. The coming 1T may be a rejection of populism that has shown how badly it can work on behalf of the Right against anyone else. Obama was more subtle than the usual chest-pounding types on law and order. "Do the crime and do the time" is his attitude, as shown by the rarity of pardons on his part.
I have often compared Obama to Eisenhower in temperament. This said, a conservative President is going to act much more like Obama than like Trump in practice. Maybe we will see that America is not so much a struggle between tradition and some super-modernity but instead alternative sources and expressions of tradition. Is Trump compatible with Chinese, Korean, Jewish, Arab, or Hispanic tradition? Not in the least!
I'm not sure of what my tradition is in view of being about half German or Swiss and about half English or Welsh... but all I can say about Donald Trump is "Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" I hate his business techniques, his abusive sexuality, his demagoguery, his contempt for legal tradition, and his solipsism that tells him that what he wants to be true is the truth. I have no children or grandchildren, but I will say this: I would do everything possible to prevent them from becoming like him. If that means getting them to join the Armed Forces or to do salesclerking, factory work, farm labor, or domestic service before they ever set forth into college, then so be it. Human suffering is one way to learn empathy for people who, due to their limited talents, are compelled to endure it all their lives. Being a good person matters far more than being spectacularly competent at what one does for a living. Take that, Bill Cosby, Phil Spector, Jeffrey Epstein, William Jefferson, Ghislaine Maxwell, Jim Bakker, Kent Hovind, Harvey Weinstein, etc. Moral disgrace from doing bad things to people should be personal ruin.
To that end, I expect most people to be concerned that their kids or grandkids become good people -- the old Boy Scout ideal
"A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent."
That rejects being out for oneself alone, cynical, cruel, destructive, and wasteful -- 3T behavior at its worst. Much dies in a Crisis era, but most of what dies other than moribund institutions like businesses limping along as they consumer their assets is fads and crazes from the 3T. Society finds that it can't support those. (By the way -- the Multiversity that offers intellectual rigor but no coherent program of predictable learning from the 2T will die, too). We are going to see more shopping malls... die. We are going to see televangelists lose their relevance; although religion will be on TV it will be more like church services and educational programs or panel shows than the flamboyant Wealth Cult and ignoramuses ridiculing science because of "evil-u-shun".
The upcoming 1T will be a fairer, safer more equitable world with more opportunity for more people. Institutions will enforce that. People will be happier. Maybe it won't be quite as bland as the last 1T; there will be far more old boomers who draw attention for the right reasons. I hope to be one of those.
I predict that more and more Americans will deprecate Donald Trump over time. The liberals already do for his degradation of civil liberties and human decency that are grossly illiberal. We are seeing some conservatives reject him for his rejection of necessary traditions -- like respect for protocol and precedent (in that Obama is the conservative and Trump is the radical), valuation of a hierarchy of talent (liberals aren't really against that), and insistence upon rational thought. Such is better for a society that recognizes political polarization as a dead end.
COVID-19 will color attitudes of all people who remember it, whether they be Silent who will likely go extinct around 2060 or children in early-elementary years of life who cannot avoid seeing the major disruptions of their lives. The youngest who remember the lessons of COVID-19 will have the sharpest impressions. I expect it to color the political culture and even entertainment. Consider that for years after the French Revolution, aristocrats had parties in which the mocked the Reign of Terror. Consider also that very old people, the last survivors of the Holocaust, keep reminding us of what they went through. We will see that exclusively in print and video as survivors die off. Time extinguishes human memories.
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.