I belong to the Baby Boom generation whose members are now between the ages of 55 and 73. For most of our adult lives we have been accused of being spoiled, naïve, unpatriotic, unAmerican, you name it.
Much of this has always been nonsense. As the largest generation until now, we were large and contained multitudes. We protested the Vietnam War, but we also fought the Vietnam War, and most of us did neither. We were countercultural hippies, MBA students, computer scientists, and country-western singing blue-collar workers. All we were saying was both Give Peace a Chance, and I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.
Still, the stereotype persists. It was fashioned by politicians and pundits of the previous generation in the fraught 1960s. The World War II pols like Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Bush the Elder, and reactionaries like Buckley and Buchanan didn’t like our attitude. Soon, however, you aren’t going to have us to kick around anymore.
I’m willing to admit Baby Boom presidents have been a decidedly mixed bag – Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and, God forgive us, Trump. Since he was born in June of 1946, however, he is on the cusp of the misnamed Silent Generation and the Boomers, so we don’t get all the blame.
If we haven’t been an unalloyed blessing, the crowd waiting in the wings may not necessarily be an upgrade. They may also have to keep waiting awhile. Amazingly, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, the frontrunners to be the next Democratic nominee, are even older than Trump, and thus from the generation prior to the Boomers.

And even if they are deemed too old to lead by voters who become younger with every passing election, Boomers still roam the hustings like dinosaurs, including Elizabeth Warren, Eric Holder, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, and Amy Klobuchar.

Those who’d rather welcome a new generation to the top job will have to choose between Gen-Xers like Kamala Harris, who’s almost old enough to be a Boomer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, boyish Beto and Julian Castro.
A snarky takedown of Beto in the Washington Post recently suggested what the invasion of the Xers may hold in store, given his resume, which “completely – and hilariously — embodies the stereotype of a while male Xer…” That is, a self-absorbed, dreamy, hyperactive, skateboarding, punk-rocking, computer-hacking slacker of independent means.

If that’s too horrifying to contemplate, as it may well be, there’s the only Millennial in the race, Pete Buttigieg, could quote with a straight face JFK to justify his own run as a passing of the torch to a new generation “tempered by war, discipline by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage,” and unwilling to permit the slow undoing of our rights.

Will 2020 herald a change of who gets to be in charge? Perhaps. It will be a tough choice. Will voters opt for the last of the Silent Generation who never seem to shut up, the increasingly out of it Boomers, the jejune Xers or the first of the Millennials. Since they now represent the largest voting bloc in America, they could be the deciders. If they are willing to bother going out to vote.

One thing is sure. Whoever comes next, every member of his or her generation will get to share in the blame. The Boomers have taken the heat for the last fifty years. Your turn.