Boomer bust

It might help to read William Strauss and Neil Howe's book Generations: The History of America's Future, but it takes a while, so slog on.

Our political discourse is uglier than it has been in my memory (which stretches back to Watergate as a young lad). I don't know why it's popped up in the blogsphere today, but here is Glenn Beck's exhortation for the tea baggers to shoot in the head, anyone with whom they disagree because they are the enemy and trying to destroy this nation. Of course Palin claims that liberals are trying to bring this country to its knees.

So what the fuck is happening here? How did we get so far apart? Growing up in a Goldwater household I always thought that liberals were folks who wanted this country to be great, but were silly and ignorant about how to make it happen. I never realized they were bent on the destruction of everything we hold dear.

But now, I'm not so sure. Not about liberals, but about what Andrew Sullivan defines as the Christianist right. You have to ask yourself, which party has decided it's okay for the president to do as he damn well pleases, regardless of constitutional checks? Which party has run on a platform of imminent danger to this nation? Which party has decided it's okay to spy on citizens without a warrant? Which party has decided it's okay to torture? And most importantly, which party automatically vilifies as weak, dumb and un-American, anyone who dares oppose those positions.

But this isn't a left/right issue. The left is just as immobile, if not as dangerous at the moment. This is a generational thing. With credit to Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe, let me explain. The boomers are an idealistic generation (much as FDR's generation, or Ben Franklin's generation was). Fueled by the type of religious awakening that occurs every 80 years or so in this country, they have come of age believe with religious fervor that they are right.

When we 13 genners were coming up (GenX is a term hung on us by a boomer that we learned to despise 25 years ago) we thought of our parents' generation as a bunch of hippies, weird, but harmless. Well, not harmless, but well meaning. They had Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. We got AIDS, crack and Madonna. We resigned ourselves early to cleaning up their mess. But we assumed the Boomers' dominant trait was a leftist outlook toward politics and society. That turned out to be a crucial mistake.

Boomers dominant trait (other than group narcissism) is idealism. They simply take it as an article of faith that they are correct. This explains the how rise in fundamentalism that started in religion 25 years ago has spilled over into politics, as Sullivan so eloquently explains. And if you believe you are right based on faith (and from Todd Willingham to global warming to levitating the Pentagon, we've seen Boomers constantly ignore empirical evidence in favor of what feels right), then any disagreement isn't opposition, it's heresy and must be destroyed.

So it doesn't matter if death panels or a lie or not. It doesn't matter that there is no government takeover of healthcare. It doesn't matter that they impeached a president for lying about a blow job. "We're right Goddamnit, it doesn't matter if we lie to save they country from evil."

Boomers cannot compromise. Look at health care. You've seen the extreme right and the extreme left go absolutely batshit over the bill that came out. Have you seen any room for compromise? Here in Texas, look at Voter ID, which the state senate is debating today. Every senator has seen the estimates of zero impact on turnout for either party, but it's a matter of life and death for both sides.

I think we are going to see something different tonight. President Obama is on the cusp of the Boomer/13Gen divide. In temperament he is certainly one of us. If you step back and look at what he's done, not what its said he's done, he's shown the ability to compromise over and over. He's been painted as a hardcore liberal (or sellout) by people who simply cannot understand any narrative but the one that's been going on for 40 years. The boomers got control of the media early and they continue to hold it. Obama isn't one of them. He understands the Boomers, but they don't understand him. And that's why I think he'll prevail in the end. That's why I think Gary Johnson is the GOP's best hope.

The Boomers are too old to change, and — as Strauss and Howe point out — they don't have the numbers every one assumes. They have become monolithic and predictable. Flexibility and pragmatism will always win that battle. We got a president long before anyone thought we would. That doesn't mean we won't bear the brunt of whatever cuts and reforms are necessary to fix things, just as The Lost Generation went and voted for medicaid and medicare even though they would never get it. It certainly doesn't mean the Boomers won't overtake the so-called Greatest Generation in enriching themselves off the public teat. But it does mean that doctrinaire solutions that place more value on orthodoxy than effectiveness will lose out to things that really work.

And we can go on to the next crisis.