I’ve been interested in the generational wars that we have seen in the presidential primaries. Hillary Clinton, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is a product of the 1960s; culturally she is a Baby Boomer. Barack Obama, although demographically a member of the post-war “baby boom,†is a product of the 1970s and 1980s; culturally he is a Gen-Xer. A big part of Obama’s political strategy has been to cast Clinton as the out-of-touch Baby Boomer who doesn’t understand a post-racial, post-protest, post-New-Left, postmodern world.
I will be curious to see if Obama follows the same strategy with John McCain, who is not a Baby Boomer. McCain is a product of the late 1940s and 1950s; culturally, he is a member of the generation who dressed in gray flannel suits. I’d be tempted to call McCain a member of the Older Generation. How will Obama deal with the older generation? The Baby Boomer strategy of dealing with elders involved open warfare and ad hominem attacks. But I expect Obama to deal with McCain the same way he dealt with Jeremiah Wright: dismiss him as out of touch and out-dated, and be vaguely patronizing.
I’m willing to bet that other Gen-Xers will copy this strategy in their own lives. For example, in churches I expect that Gen-Xers will start being dismissive of the Baby Boomers who run most churches these days. I expect them to look pityingly at the Boomers, but not engage in direct conflict with the Boomer power structure. I expect them to start talking about what it might mean to be a post-racial church and a post-protest church. I expect all this will drive the Boomers crazy. Indeed, some of this is happening now.
The culture of presidential politics tends to have influence in the wider culture. When Bill Clinton insisted that fellatio wasn’t really sex, I was doing a lot of youth ministry, and I was very aware that more and more kids got involved in fellatio at a younger and younger age. With George W. Bush’s tendency to authoritarianism, I see many young people willing to accept a large degree of authoritarianism in their lives. So where else might the Obama/Gen-X trend play out?…
For example, if Barack Obama wins the presidential election in November — if he even runs a close race — what might that mean for the 2009 election for a new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)? Right now, we have two declared candidates, both of whom are Baby Boomers, and both of whom are pretty much indistinguishable. If a Gen-X candidate were to emerge in the next few months, I’d be willing to bet that s/he could easily win the UUA election. I can think of three or four possible Gen-Xers whom I would vote for. So if you happen to know a viable Gen-X candidate for UUA president, encourage him/her to make some connections at General Assembly….
Or the GenXers can just stay away. Easier than dealing with Boomers. (God, no, not more James Taylor.)
I’m thinking that the Clinton/Obama gap might actually be a rift within the Baby Boomers between the older ones and younger ones. It’s such a giant demographic that I think the younger ones didn’t benefit as the older ones did.
The culture of presidential politics tends to have influence in the wider culture.
Can you explain how you think this works? I heard that about Clinton and his indiscretions, but I was a little hesitant to draw a direct causal line.
How do you think that the Gen Y kids are impacted by Bush’s authoritarian streak–or do you think that they’re maybe both being influenced by something else?
(I hope that didn’t sound dismissive or patronizing… ;)
Scott @ a — Yup. And that’s what they’re mostly doing right now, except in a few churches.
Ms. Theologian @ 2 — You write: “I’m thinking that the Clinton/Obama gap might actually be a rift within the Baby Boomers between the older ones and younger ones.” — Could be. I’m basically the same age as Obama, and I find I have very little in common with older Boomers (then too, my partner is definitely a Gen-Xer). But when you say people my age “didn’t benefit as the older ones did,” — benefit from what? The older Boomers strike me as clueless when it comes to things I take for granted like postmodernism, third-wave feminism, and systems thinking. So often, it seems that Boomers think theirs was the best generation ever, but boy it doesn’t look that way from my point of view.
ck @ 3 — I don’t know how it works. I don’t think these things are a direct cause-and-effect thing. I do know that after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, teens talked a lot more about having oral sex. As far as the authoritarianism, I think Bush’s example has given permission to schools and parents to be much more controlling of teens — the result that I have seen is kids are far more accepting of adults having control over all aspects of their life, simply because most of them haven’t seen anything else. But seems to me it’s a non-linear systems thing, not direct causality.
ck: It seems to me that Bush, as the Boomer parent of Millennial children, probably reminds the Millennials of their parents. While my generation (Gen X) would have HATED that*, middle-class Millennials tend to be closer to their parents than we were, and might find Bush paternal in a comforting way.
*I will note that my politically active conservative friends in high school and college seemed to feel that way about Ronald Reagan, so I can’t actually speak for my entire generation. :-)