We are hearing a lot of generational analysis when it comes
to the election, especially in regards to Millennials. This fits with broader
cultural discourses that are sometimes comically maladroit in determining what
Millennials are all about. We can all certainly acknowledge that generational
thinking is problematic because talking about people across race, class,
gender, regional, and sexual lines as if they share the same mentality because
they were born around the same time is rather specious. Articles about “the
millennials” are thus preferred by hack journalists who need to get something
in before deadline.
At the same time, generational thinking can help explain
some things, because those born around the same time grow up consuming the same
popular culture, living under the same government policies, etc. I recently
finally read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and although we grew
up in radically different places, we are about the same age, and I noticed a
definite Generation X feeling to his insights that really spoke to me. (The
growth of politically conscious hip-hop and interest in Malcolm X had managed
to reach me out on the Nebraska plains.)
So it is with a little trepidation that I am embarking on a
little discussion on an analysis of Generation X in the current political
landscape. There’s a lot of talk about how Millennials are more likely to vote
third party in this election, as well as the longings by white Boomers for a
past that never existed. What about my generation, stuck in the middle, the
product of a historically steep drop in the birth rate?
The first thing to note is that it now looks likely that much
like the Silent Generation, there will never be a Gen X president. While Barack
Obama has a certain Xer quality about him, he is still a Late Boomer. (They
came of age after the 60s but before the Reagan era had completely settled in.)
All four candidates for president are Boomers, and there does not seem to be a
Gen Xer out there able to rise to the top anytime soon. This is especially the
case on the Democratic side, where the failure to win local elections means
that they are not developing the next generation of politicians. On the
Republican side there are many Xers, but they are the simpering contrarian
Young Republican types that I encountered in college in the 90s, like Scott
Walker, Paul Ryan, and Ted Cruz. Coming up at the height of Ayn Rand’s
influence, they are too trollish to make it on the presidential stage, even if
they’ve had some political success. They are the product of the supercharged
post-Reagan conservative movement, and have succeeded within the party for that
reason, but with the rise of Trumpism the days of their power might be few.
So what about the voters? Part of the problem is that
pollsters don’t really use Generation X as a category, because when they
organize the data they may talk about voters under thirty or voters aged 30-55,
but not the parameters of Gen X (which I would define as those between roughly
35 and 50 years of age.) This is part of the larger trend of pretending that my
generation doesn’t really exist as a distinct entity. I think some of this is
rooted in the reality that the mentality of my generation is even more
disunited than that of others, especially the generation after mine. The War on
Drugs and mass incarceration raged during my coming of age, and the increase in
de facto segregation means that the experiences of white and black Gen Xers are
often completely foreign to each other, perhaps even more so than for other
generations.
Another difference has to do with religion. My generation is
less churched than our elders, but more churched than the Millennials. Lots of people my age rejected organized
religion, but we were also the guinea pigs for the revival of the Religious
Right, and many folks my age were subjected to extreme indoctrination. Many rejected
it, but a large number also embraced it. Gen Xers seem to be more broad minded
when it comes to gay marriage and transgender rights, but not as much as the
younger generation.
Generation X is, in many respects, a transitional
generation. The Boomers were established before the late 20th
century neoliberal onslaught; that’s the world we came of age in. The middle
class members of my generation were the ones to finally be able to buy their
first homes at inflated prices in the bubble, and then were thrust underwater by
the financial crisis. Contrast this with the Millennials, who have had our
economic difficulties growing up in a time of expensive college loans and
casualized labor, but even worse. They just aren't buying homes, period. We were the canaries in the coal mine, but
when we were transitioning into this new economy, there weren’t any sympathetic
think pieces. Things hadn’t gotten so bad that elite journalists bothered to pay attention.
Since generational thinking is so inherently troubled, I do
wonder if Gen Xers aren’t part of the discourse simply because it is too
difficult to cram us into an easy narrative. In my youth I remember all kinds
of concern pieces about how we were a “nation at risk” in schools full of
“super predators” and “slackers.” Perhaps generational political thinking then and now was just a reflection of anxieties about the younger generation, and in ten years as Millenials hit middle age they won't be invoked much anymore. Now that our youth is no longer a flashpoint
of anxiety amidst moral panics (as it was in the Reagan era), “Gen X” might as
well be another relic of the nineties, like grunge and MC Hammer. Perhaps journalists should drop the facile generational analysis and talk more about the broader changes -secularization, lowered economic security, etc- that are leading to the generation gap between Millennials and Boomers.
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