September 29, 2015

Bad news for Sanders and Biden: No Silent Gen member has ever won presidency

It's worth revisiting this post on the generational stability and turnover of US Presidents. Members of the Silent Generation have been presidential candidates since Mondale in '84, but have never won the election.

Generational membership does not wander around either -- there are long blocks of between 28 to 32 years that belong to one generation, then it switches to another generation for another long block. Not every generation has its day in the White House sun, however, as though it were a simple progression from one to the next. Time and again throughout American history, the presidency skips over entire 20-year birth cohorts, the latest of whom are the Silents (born roughly from 1925 to 1944).

On the Democratic side today, both Bernie Sanders ('41) and Joe Biden ('42) are Silents. Given the track record so far, neither would win the election if they were their party's nominee. Hillary Clinton is a Boomer ('47), and would not be out of generational place if she won, continuing the current unbroken string of Boomer presidents beginning with her husband back in '92.

The front-runner for the Republicans, Donald Fucking Trump, is also a Boomer ('46) and would fit right in with the ongoing reign of Boomers. Most of the other candidates are Boomers, too, except for Gen X-ers Ted Cruz ('70) and lightweight Senator Marco Rubio ('71).

Neither one stands a decent chance at getting the nomination, so 2016 will not be the turnover year when Gen X begins its long presidential reign. And given the trend toward incumbency in political office since roughly 1980, the soonest the turnover could happen is 2024.

After that, the Millennials will be the next generation to be skipped over for presidency, when the torch will pass to whatever this post-Millennial generation of children today will be called.

I'm really hoping Sanders gets the nomination, not only because it would serve as a populist victory over the elitists within the liberal wing, but because it would hand the election to the populist candidate in the conservative wing, who is a Boomer rather than a Silent. I'd take a Biden nom next, since he too is a Silent but wouldn't send a populist signal to the elites.

Realistically, though, it will probably be a Boomer vs. Boomer showdown, with generation playing no role in the outcome.

54 comments:

  1. While 1946-64 is the orthodox Boomer range, not everyone agrees. The authors of "Generations" and "The Fourth Turning", Strauss and Howe, define the Boomers as 1943-60, which makes more sense to me culturally. Ergo, Obummer is Gen X.

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  2. Obama was born in '61, saw the Civil Rights movement on TV, smoked dope during high school in the '70s, and became a standard yuppie striver in the '80s. Ergo, Obama is Boomer.

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  3. Having said that, Obama is unusual for being a late Boomer.

    Clinton and Bush II were both born in '46. Trump is a '46 birth, and Hillary is a '47. Even if the GOP screws its voters and nominates Bush III, Carson, or Fiorina, they would all be early Boomer candidates born in the first half of the '50s.

    The reason why Obama was given some leeway by the voters about his late Boomer status is that he was the most impressive black candidate they were ever going to get, and really wanted to go big or go home, electing the first black President. Still a Boomer, though.

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  4. Yeah, the greater social pathologies of later Boomers probably deep sixed some of their future prospects (like getting elected). Also, didn't early Boomers and Silents basically surge so far ahead of the pack that later births are just not going to catch up until the earlier births drop dead? Too bad later Boomers have deluded themselves that they should stop at nothing to catch up. X-ers have struggled too but at least they have enough of a conscience, and are so sick of being pinballed around the striving machine, that they long ago distinguished necessity from ego driven desire and vindictive competitiveness.

    Boomers yearn to have the most expensive car, the biggest house, the most accomplished kid, etc. X-ers just want to survive and as they age they've tried to do it without running any one over if their riding high and without dragging any one down if they fall.

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  5. Looking at lists of celebrities (granted, not always representative of whichever race/gen./gender/region they belong to) I'd say the '63-'64 births can be a tough call.
    People born in 1964:
    http://www.nndb.com/lists/963/000105648/

    Do Keanu Reeves or Crispin Glover strike anyone as being pure Boomers? Both of Slayer's guitarists were born in '64. Metallica and Anthrax's guitarists were born earlier and they made more melodic and fun music than Slayer ever did. Maynard from Tool and Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine were born in '64, doesn't get much more Gen X than those bands.

    '62 births are def. more gray. How many X-ers are as grandiose and cocky as Tom Cruise? He usually plays characters who are immature hotheads rather than Gen X type weary cynics.

    This being said, I still think that there's a 4-5 year zone where people don't quite fit into one generation. One thing that sticks out about the '61-'64 births is how many of them were natural entertainers from a young age (the aforementioned thrash bands released records in '83-'84 that still are more exciting and well constructed than anything released by the 2nd tier bands at any age). Yet how many people born in the 50's would listen to Anthrax or Tool? Or relate to Axl Rose or James Hetfield?

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  6. Keeping to the point of the post, Obama's birth year of 1961 is unquestionably Boomer:

    http://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1961.html

    Clooney is Gen X? Eddie Murphy? Princess Di? Woody Harrelson? Dan Marino? Meg Ryan? Boomers, along with Obama.

    They may try to distance themselves from the label "Boomer," just like the early Millennials are desperate to distance themselves from the ones born after 1990, but they're still all Millennials.

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  7. The core Boomer traits are libertarianism, hedonism, and feel-good-ism, especially while young. 1961 births, along with the other early '60s births, are clear Boomers.

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  8. "I still think that there's a 4-5 year zone where people don't quite fit into one generation"

    I look at 75 - 80 births that way. Nominally GenX but in many ways precursors to Millennials.

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  9. @ Feryl The bands and actors you mention are all Boomers pandering to a demographic of Gen Xers. Although Slayer eventually started pandering to millenials when they were touring with Slipknot in 1998 and have been going that route since. What I'm trying to say is, people in the entertainment business stay relevant by pandering to younger generations usually because they have disposable income, but this trend may be coming to an end.

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  10. "Keeping to the point of the post, Obama's birth year of 1961 is unquestionably Boomer:

    http://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1961.html

    Clooney is Gen X? Eddie Murphy? Princess Di? Woody Harrelson? Dan Marino? Meg Ryan? Boomers, along with Obama.

    They may try to distance themselves from the label "Boomer," just like the early Millennials are desperate to distance themselves from the ones born after 1990, but they're still all Millennials."

    The whole Gen X thing was coined, ironically enough, by a Boomer born in 1960 (Doug Copeland) referring mainly to people born in the early 60's. I think he came to regret it since he's been rather cranky about the whole thing (what was intended to refer to late Boomers who didn't remember the Kennedy assassination came to include people who weren't even born in the 60's).

    Of course, being pushy and conceited about "your" ideas is typical Boomer behavior. Obama's lifecycle is classic Boomer:

    - early tom-foolery and privilege (albeit with a messed up family situation)
    - mid-life of self absorbed questing for enlightenment (the Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers)
    - later life glory seeking.

    I didn't mean to say that '61 or '62 births are Gen X-er; Hell I never meant to say that about '63-'64 births either. What I meant was that I feel that some very late Boomers aren't necessarily totally in line with earlier Boomers. That's just my 2 cents.

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  11. "I look at 75 - 80 births that way. Nominally GenX but in many ways precursors to Millennials."

    Strauss/Howe make a point that the "first wave" of a generation usually has different parental demographics than the "second wave". So X-ers born from 1965-1974 are more likely to have Silent and early Boomer parents, whereas the '75-'82(?) ones are much more likely to have mid-late Boomer parents. The early X-ers grew up in the wilderness that was Silent parenting in the late 60's/70's so they had to grow up fast with minimal parental involvement.

    Similarly, 90's/2000's births are more likely to have paranoid Gen X parents and as such are even more sheltered than 80's births who were raised by cocky mid- late Boomers insistent on molding their kids to be The Greatest Kids Ever. A local talk show host born in '58 finally had two kids in the mid 2000's and rather than expressing fears about the kid's safety and future he is constantly fawning over them about how great they are. Gen X parents just want their kid to come home alive while Boomer parents are shameless about competing with other parents in a contest of whose kid is better.

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  12. Obama just seems like an x'er to me. I don't see the hedonism or the quest for enlightenment. Cynically, he may have just wanted to use Rev. Wright to get ahead or perhaps, he just wanted to go to church to actually meet black people since he probably didn't know many people in Chicago. When I think of Obama I think pessimist. You can't be too pessimistic to get ahead but I really don't think he has great faith in this country or its institutions although, government when he is in charges works ok. "You didn't build that", does that sound like Donald Trump or any boomer? Anyway, we usually don't go from younger to older in Presidents so the X'er have a shot. Thank you for your blog and yes I am x'er getting tired of Obama and the boomers.

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  13. " Although Slayer eventually started pandering to millenials when they were touring with Slipknot in 1998 and have been going that route since."

    Pandering or running out of ideas? Most artists (even the best ones) ran out of ideas by 2000. Even the later 90's is a decline from the early 90's (which in turn weren't as exciting the 80's). There's a reason I mentioned the '83/'84 albums; however unpolished the playing or impoverished the recording budget, there's just a spirit and magic to stuff recorded from about '81-'87.

    http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1983.htm
    http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1984.htm

    It's a toss-up between '83 and '84 (with '85 solidly in 3rd place) as to which year had the best hit songs. In my opinion. You might question focusing on hits but the hits usually also are a reflection of the lesser known stuff being made at the time. All artists, populist or idiosyncratic, are always under the influence of the zeitgeist whether they would admit it or not.

    I wouldn't be exaggerating too much to say that I could comfortably sit through an entire playing of the top songs of '84 and '85, with only a few songs being skippable. The much loved (overrated by smug early Boomers) 60's and early 70's on the other hand are polluted by too many songs that are either boringly affected/sentimental or too bombastically overplayed/overproduced to compensate for a lack of good ideas (a lot of Motown "classics" are grating to me and a far cry from the excitement of later Disco and the leaner style of 80's R&B. Late 70's arena rock and 80's metal is a lot more of an adrenaline rush than morose early hard rock. The sophistication of hit songs peaked in the late 70's/early 80's by the way.

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  14. "Anyway, we usually don't go from younger to older in Presidents so the X'er have a shot."

    Johnson was about 9 years older than Kennedy, and Reagan was about 13 years older than Carter.

    Obama got the nomination due to affirmative action; it should have gone to Hillary, who would've won over McCain (economic crash favored Dems, and McCain was a terrible candidate, and Silent to boot). Even if she lost re-election to Romney in 2012, he's a '47 birth just as she is.

    Either way, the past two terms should have been filled by a '47 birth, but got pushed toward the late Boomer '61 birth in order to cash in on the ultimate affirmative action shot at President.

    If it goes as it should this time -- can't tell if the GOP will screw the electorate or not, though -- it'll be a '46 vs. a '47 birth. Talk about an incumbent generation -- it'll be 32 years of actual + should-have-been rule by people born in just the two years of '46 and '47.

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  15. "Obama just seems like an x'er to me."

    Obama is on the retiring and cerebral side, not presenting at all like a life-of-the-party let it all hang out type. So his moodiness might come off as Gen X alienation. But there are Boomers like him who affect a cerebral/dignified air rather than being a take no prisoners big ego Trump type. They're still Boomers though.

    Obama's own writings reveal his Boomer tendency to search for "what really matters" whereas X-ers are much more pragmatic and unpretentious. As an X-er, Mark probably remembers how often his peers skewered middle aged pompous Boomers who needed to get a life and start paying more attention to the realities of life.

    Of course, to the average Boomer what really matters most is getting it all and getting your way. If you tell them the truth they'll just brush it aside and get back to blowing smoke up their butts.

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  16. " I really don't think he has great faith in this country or its institutions although, government when he is in charges works ok"

    Most Silents and Boomers lost faith beginning in the 70's which is when Silents gained a lot of power. Arrogant Boomers, like you say, never give up the ghost that dammit, if you put me in charge, we'll be set for the future. Problem is, indecisive Silents and fractious Boomers can't accomplish anything either between or within their two generations. Thus explaining why we've been in a mess the last 30-40 years.

    Should Trump get elected, we'll just have to cross our fingers that he's dynamic enough to bust through the thick webs of inertia that is the product of 40 years of rule by cowards and blowhards. Some of whom, thank God, we'll finally be driven from office by some combination of mortality, infirmity, voter rebellion, the rising influence of less partisan folks born the last 50 years, or we can only hope, actual enforcement of the rule of law.

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  17. I think Obama is alienated and that is why he comes off that way. All his soul searching led him to the most powerful university in America and the city that is the pinnacle of black power in America. Smart, soulless moves if you are a young politician. I like this blog and I am an X'er but I just disagree with you about this. Obama seems so much younger than W. who really did grow up in the 50's and early 60's when it seems like America was so much different than today. Trump is falling apart. The catty Carly comment was his undoing. I think this is why we didn't see the usual swagger in the last debate. He knew he would have to answer for it and it knocked him ever so slightly off his game. All the other apes saw it and the fear is gone. When Bill Clinton attacks you, you know he wants to draw attention and support from the right wing crazies for Trump. That is why Hillary use to attack Jeb to keep him alive until November. Alas, Trump! and Jeb! will both disappear!

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  18. Trump has only gone up since the debate, and the latest poll has him at 10% above both Carson and Fiorina (23% Trump, 13% for the other outsiders).

    Remember to check the polls rather than pundits or debate performances. No one cared if Trump wasn't as hardcore during the second debate -- they're voting for him to inject some nationalism back into our economy and government, not to win some dopey debate team performance.

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  19. Moments ago, Trump on CNN: even if 200,000 Syrian migrants who may be ISIS come in under the weakness of Obama, they will all go back if I'm elected President.

    Boom! He's got it locked down.

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  20. "Keeping to the point of the post, Obama's birth year of 1961 is unquestionably Boomer:

    http://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1961.html

    Clooney is Gen X? Eddie Murphy? Princess Di? Woody Harrelson? Dan Marino? Meg Ryan? Boomers, along with Obama.

    They may try to distance themselves from the label "Boomer," just like the early Millennials are desperate to distance themselves from the ones born after 1990, but they're still all Millennials."

    There is no such thing as a "Boomer" or a "Silent"...there is no definition of those terms that is not arbitrary or even particularly useful. Grouping "generations" like that is interesting but it isn't particularly insightful.

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  21. Yep, Millennials on average are exactly like everyone else -- very insightful.

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  22. There is no such thing as a "Boomer" or a "Silent".

    Which is why teenagers:
    - In the 40's were square and overlooked by everyone
    - In the 60's were hedonistic and indulged by parents and authority
    - In the 80's were detached and tough but hated by middle aged people
    - In the 2000's were taciturn and led by their elders

    C'mon, generational differences explain a lot. Why has the social fabric been ripped in two over the last 30 years? People born from about 1925-1960 have a lot to answer for.

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  23. OT:On the effects of helicopter parenting look at this picture of the Blue Jays clinching a title:

    http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQPD8AtWoAAqRkp.jpg

    1) Isn't this the type of celebration that should be reserved for winning a title.
    2) Players are now wearing goggles because they're afraid of getting something in their eyes.

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  24. There are some generational differences in behaviour. Lots of those trends that do exist are going to reflect trends that show everyone changing, though. Hard to tell how much is from each effect.

    If you take the teen sex data from the US, which show a fall of around 10% in girls, 20% in boys (in terms of sex at least once, during teenage years), since 1988 to 2013, you could say half of that is the generational effect changing their personality, half is the spirit of the times, if you wanted to. (Changes in teen pregnancy are a little larger due to contraception changing more than sexual activity http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/17/3/gpr170315.html). As far as I know, there is a trend of reduced sexual activity at all ages compared to 30 years or so earlier, so this looks like a spirit of the times effect to a large degree, not mainly "generational".

    ...

    Re: US Silent Generation presidents, in the UK, we've had Silents - Thatcher and Major - and Gen X - Cameron - as the prime minsters while the Baby Boomers in the sense of the US era had a pretty short run - Blair and then Brown, maybe Corbyn, if his left populism gets going. It looks like the next one'll be a Gen Xer of one sort or another, and the current right wing rabble rouser, such as there is, Farage, is an early X. (As an aside, Cameron, as an Xer is not improving anything for the people. The opposite if anything).

    Part of that is probably the different birth dynamics - unlike in the US, the UK Baby Boom was not as major of a resurgence, cut during the '50s, then surged again the '60s. (http://blog.barrypearson.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Birth-rates-USA-and-UK-650b.png)

    So the number of "Boomers" (45-63) to Xers and Silents is not as relatively high in the US, and they weren't as able to replace the Silents in politics as much, then had to shuffle on for the Xers. There were a few Greatest, from the 1960s to 1970s, but they none of them had the longevity the two Silents did together.
    In the US, the Baby Boom was huge, sandwiching the Silents between two smaller generations, so there was a different dynamic.

    Be interesting to see how this is reflected the rest of the economy as well, in the US.

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  25. "I look at 75 - 80 births that way. Nominally GenX but in many ways precursors to Millennials."

    1969-'74 - Star Wars kids: early-70's-80's rough and tumble upbringing, violence against kids peaked in the early 80's, teens during the early COPS era. Star Wars itself is a dark and chaotic world with no children or young teen characters.

    '75-'80 - He-Man kids: late 70's-early 90's slightly kinder and gentler upbringing, culture begins to be shaped more around youth with greater awareness of child abuse and neglect. Greater emphasis on good Vs. evil in the Reagan era.

    '81-'86 - Teenage MN Turtles kids: mid 80's- late 90's upbringing: widespread embarrassment and fear regarding mercurial early Gen X teens/young adults causes the culture to put greater resources in teaching/guiding kids away from danger. Still have memories of things like cigarette vending machines/Joe Camel though. Domestic instability (like divorce, abuse, neglect, exposure to crime or violence etc.) begins to decline gradually in the late 80's/early 90's and is substantially reduced by 2000 because Boomers have aged enough to have learned not to make the same mistakes again while newly minted X-er parents are much more sensitive to kids than Boomers or Silents.

    '87-'92 - Power Rangers kids: 90's/mid 2000's ubringing: Gen X adults and Boomers well into middle age no longer tolerate the idea of their kids "growing up too soon". Kid culture becomes bland and dull. Minimal exposure to grit or fear. Little individuality (school uniforms become common), rowdiness, or sincere interest in anything resembling the Gen X "culture of 'apathy' or culture of 'death" (which actually was about defiance toward smug and self aggrandizing Boomer "enlightenment"/"awareness" culture). Definite signs of ill adustment are common. Stuff like being easily offended, a-sexual, meek, a plague of weak looking bodies (what do you expect when kids are constantly told to avoid anything that might hurt somebody?), and much more easily fooled/easily led around.

    Steve Sailer recently said in a snarky way that Mark Zuckerberg was into Power Rangers. Uh, no. He was born in '84; no way would he want to be associated with the later dorkier Millennials who were into P.R.

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  26. "Part of that is probably the different birth dynamics - unlike in the US, the UK Baby Boom was not as major of a resurgence, cut during the '50s, then surged again the '60s."

    Strauss and Howe speculate that because America is a young country that (at least before the 60's) is (was?) primarily comprised of individualistic Western Europeans, Americas is probably more affected by generational dynamics than most other places. Also, those who left their homelands to settle in America are probably even more individualistic and tolerant of a fluid society than those who stayed.

    M, maybe you ought to consider yourself fortunate that you didn't have to be subjected to one generation essentially remaking the culture in their own image (and arrogantly injecting themselves into everything whether it makes sense or not) over the last 50 years.

    The Boomers caterwauled about everything in their 60's/70's youth in spite of being profoundly privileged and indulged.

    -No great depression
    - newly built suburbs far from industry or smelly farms
    - resolute and upbeat fathers/doting mothers
    - a diverse set of means to avoid Vietnam service (many of them legal and established by elders) with the matter of how to deal with the unlucky few who served becoming a stain on the generation. Those who served often had terrible morale or were simply incompetent (High IQ types mostly didn't serve). "Peaceful" anti-war types often started shit with pro-war people and even with their fellow anti-war types. Into the 80's, veterans were treated at best like an embarrassment (we didn't win,no thanks to a new-ish crop of rising tepid Silent military/political leaders and the refusal of Boomers to be mature and selfless didn't help).

    This was the 1st and certainly not last moment which would serve as an indictment of the ability of Boomers to keep their mouths shut, play well with others, and seize the day. They made for simply awful soldiers (most Boomers would rather have fled to Antarctica than serve) because of their intransigent belief in their superiority as individuals who shouldn't deign to do many things. Said belief makes it impossible to follow orders or keep a sense of team focus and cohesion.

    The military became substantially better in the later 80's as no-nonsense Gen X-ers proved to be much better candidates for the military. Strauss and Howe say that the Gen X type has produced the only American leaders who physically led troops into battle. Not surprising from a generation that is exposed to humbling darkness from day one and does not believe in grandiose morality (the kind of thing that Boomers twist to their own benefit, "it's against my conscience to kill poor gooks in Asia").

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  27. While I agree with a lot of what you say, I think you are being too hard on the Boomers. Rebellion against Vietnam was more of an act of assertion and maturity(*not* the spitting on troops - which may be exaggerated - afterall, from what Baby Boomers alive at the time tell me, veterans themselves were very likely to become hippies). could the generations alive right now pull off something like that?

    the Boomers overthrew the old order and paved the way for the New Wave culture that we all yearn for. they are also fundamentally more mature, as Agnostic pointed out in a previous post - just in a more hedonistic bent.

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  28. As Agnostic wrote:

    "Youth activism sure has come a long way since the ’60s. Back then, it was students protesting actions by the government. And they tried to enlist as many of their peers in the movement as they could.

    Now it’s one subculture of students protesting against another group of their peers. And it’s over speech rather than actions. And they’re eager to receive the help of the government, the school administration, and other authority figures, in their so-called struggle."

    http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/03/campus-protests-as-sibling-rivalry.html

    As we see, the Boomer rebellion against Vietnam was a sign of their higher maturity.

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  29. "Rebellion against Vietnam was more of an act of assertion and maturity(*not* the spitting on troops - which may be exaggerated - afterall, from what Baby Boomers alive at the time tell me, veterans themselves were very likely to become hippies). could the generations alive right now pull off something like that?"

    Boomers have (and always will have) an immature, snotty sense of defiance towards authority ("Don't tell me what to do!") even if that authority is credible and deserving of respect. Regardless of how you feel about the legitimacy of a war, the way that so many Boomers gutlesslly dodged the draft (aided by elders who as usual spoiled the Boomers) is simply disgraceful. It relegated mostly 2nd and 3rd string Boomers to do the heavy lifting of service. That Boomers and sympathetic Silents/G.I.s hid behind the idea that it was ok for a Boomer to not serve as long as they supported ending the war to bring home the actual soldiers is irrelevant.

    Boomers showed their true colors with this offensive stance that "some people have better things to do than fight" instead of the Lost/Greatest Gen. attitude that no man should be above any kind of duty. Silents and Boomers continue to perpetuate their toxic narcissism and continue to play favorites with their kids/grand kids by being vehemently against the idea of a draft. "My kid is too awesome die in battle".

    Had the draft been implemented in the 80's and beyond, Gen X-ers and Millennials would've been much more conducive to serving than Boomers were in the 60's. Whereas Boomers spin everything to fluff up their ego and ambitions (after all, they think that the normal cycle of life is naive experimentation in drugs/sex/half baked spirituality, middle aged striving, and elder moralizing and judging no matter their own sins), X-ers are wisely and gracefully ready to accept a meeting with ill-fortune from day one.

    Keep in mind too that Silent activists and critics approached things like war protesting with some semblance of humility and good faith. When Boomer rabble rousers first appeared in the late 60's, any sort of taste or goodwill was often lost. Sure, not all Boomers were loudmouthed liberals, but enough of them acted that way to prompt Nixon to coin the term "Silent Majority" to remind people that many Americans were embarrassed by Boomer behavior.

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  30. Young people were the most in favor of the Vietnam War, according to polls taken throughout the duration. Middle-aged and older folks may not have loudly protested, but they were more wary of sending boys away to some jungle on the other side of the world.

    And a fair chunk of the Boomers who did get drafted or signed up were all gung-ho to go kick some ass. They were the generation raised on the Davy Crockett craze, and Western mania, during the '50s.

    I wouldn't say it was Boomer narcissism, but Boomer hyper-competitiveness that led them to be enthusiastic about going to war. Boomers have always been obsessed with WINNING, no matter what it's at. As opposed to the Greatest Gen who felt serving in WWII more as fulfilling a societal duty, whether they liked it or not, than a chance to go for the ultimate glory.

    The Greatest Gen also did not grow up on romantic / glorified images of war -- their childhood memories would have involved the bleak and senseless losses of WWI, mustard gas, shell shock, the Spanish flu pandemic, the Red Scare, and so on. That tempered any enthusiasm they might have had going into WWII. The portrayal of them at the time was that they were stoic rather than gung-ho in battle (e.g., movie version of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit).

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  31. Americans no longer know what WWII was like because of all the Boomer propaganda from the last 25 years. It's portrayed as Americans going in with the unbridled enthusiasm of the Boomers going into Vietnam, only this time against a truly evil enemy rather than one of ambiguous moral threat, and this time eradicating the threat rather than getting bogged down in a quagmire and having to leave.

    It's a clear case of a Boomer coping mechanism to deal with their psychological scars from the Vietnam era, by reliving the good war of WWII. And it's not a vicarious or empathetic experience -- wanting to feel as the Greatest Gen did as soldiers, stoic and wary, fulfilling a duty regardless of personal desire. Boomers want to have their hyper-competitive cake and eat it too, still identifying themselves as gung-ho soldiers champing at the bit to go kick some Nazi ass, and WINNING this time.

    To understand WWII, we have to return to the original time.

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  32. "Had the draft been implemented in the 80's and beyond, Gen X-ers and Millennials would've been much more conducive to serving than Boomers were in the 60's."

    No way. The GSS has asked about whether we should return to a draft or not, and support always shows a steep decline with the late Boomer and later cohorts. Support rises / plateaus with the Greatest and early Silents, with late Silents and early Boomers waffling somewhat over the years.

    Millennials go the distance just to get out of a final exam -- do you really think they'd go along with being drafted into the army? Gen X is hardly more likely to sacrifice personally for the greater good of society.

    Plus Gen X and Millennials have grown up in an environment where the military has steadily gone downhill in terms of goals -- spreading democracy and human rights to the Third World? LOL -- and in terms of effectiveness (Iraq War). Not to mention any personal stories they've heard from family and friends about how fucked up the military is these days. No way on Earth would they go along with the draft.

    At least the Boomers had recent memories of a good war (WWII), and pop culture revivals of fighting the Indians, during their sensitive developmental window.

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  33. So in defense of Boomer draft-dodgers, what the hell was the point of going into Vietnam? There was no Hitler, so that ruled out a motive of saving millions of lives and preventing future threats to life in the region.

    Even from a cynical "what's in it for us?" motive, there was nothing to win control over in Vietnam -- no oil, bananas, sugar cane, tobacco, gold, nothing.

    There was a populist uprising, but it didn't threaten American economic interests (there being none in Southeast Asia). What's the point of putting down every little Marxist wannabe rebellion around the world, if they don't threaten anything worth controlling? (Unlike Marxists or nationalists in the Middle East, who threatened to nationalize their oil fields and jack up gas prices for Westerners.)

    Vietnam was the first real symbolic war of no greater value, pure Our System vs. Their System, meant to show that we'll kick anyone's ass who even disagrees with us, whether or not they have anything of value to take after victory, and whether or not they pose a physical threat to our territory and citizens. But going down that road makes you the policeman of the world, ensuring you'll get bogged down in a quagmire somewhere, your reach exceeding your grasp.

    The late '60s and early '70s are when the zeitgeist began to shift away from the Great Compression, and toward hyper-competitiveness. That showed up at the elite level, with the drive to lose at all costs in pointless Vietnam, and the young people picked up on it at the grassroots level, and began to become more rightly skeptical of the purpose of going to war, in the here-and-now.

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  34. "Plus Gen X and Millennials have grown up in an environment where the military has steadily gone downhill in terms of goals -- spreading democracy and human rights to the Third World? LOL -- and in terms of effectiveness (Iraq War). Not to mention any personal stories they've heard from family and friends about how fucked up the military is these days. No way on Earth would they go along with the draft."

    The lack of a draft is a sign of how divided people are and how opaque America's mission is.

    In a homogeneous culture with wise leaders, a draft would be much more feasible.

    "Millennials go the distance just to get out of a final exam -- do you really think they'd go along with being drafted into the army?"

    Millennials are easy to push around. Maybe they'd do poorly in the service but I don't think most would make much of an effort to disobey a draft call up. They certainly aren't neo Boomers who brashly go all in on whatever their heart desires (whether it's kicking gook ass or dodging war altogether).

    "And a fair chunk of the Boomers who did get drafted or signed up were all gung-ho to go kick some ass. They were the generation raised on the Davy Crockett craze, and Western mania, during the '50s."

    I'm sympathetic to those who went, sure, but we shouldn't ever forget how the avoidance of service by many of the best and brightest (who would to a large degree become America's future elite, check out an online list of politician dodgers some time) was an early sign that the indulged Boomers had no intention of upholding the culture of their ancestors.

    And also, at this stage of the game maybe we ought to finally hold the Boomers accountable for a lot of the shit they did (and still do). Many Boomer veterans pissed and moan about society not being there for them but what do they expect when they've poisoned the culture into a free for all? I don't blame people who did some heavy lifting for resenting "the system" but as usual most Boomers feel entitled, like if they do anything tough or admirable their hometowns should erect statues in their honor. These traits seemed to be worse with later Boomers simply because by the time they hit adulthood in the later 70's earlier cohorts were busy climbing the ladder while leaving grease on the lower rungs.

    Like you say, G.I.s and Silents stoically dealt with whatever hand they got and moved beyond it. You'd think that people might be sick and tired of the pity party and me 1st get-while-the-gettins-good culture that's solidified on the Boomer's watch over the last 30+ years.

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  35. Don't forget that elite status-striving factors in - the rich made tons of money building airfields, supplying munitions, etc. in Vietnam, which may be one explanation of why we got into the war in the first place - though the war profiteers may not have expected it to become a quagmire, if they cared.

    George Friedman, of Stratfor, argues Vietnam was a symbolic war to preserve our alliance system - if we didn't at least cause the Russians some pain for beating up on an ally, our other allies would have abandoned us to go over to the Soviets. in this view, the long duration of the war was out of spite - make them pay in money and lives to show our allies that, even if we couldn't always protect them, we could make the enemy pay a price.

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  36. "but we shouldn't ever forget how the avoidance of service by many of the best and brightest ... was an early sign that the indulged Boomers had no intention of upholding the culture of their ancestors."

    Yep, nothing upholds the culture of our ancestors better than firebombing some jungle-dwelling Marxist wannabes who don't have anything of value to us and pose no threat to our security. Talk about blind faith.

    The Indians and Mexicans had lots of valuable, virgin land, and were launching raids against us from right next door. It's the polar opposite of the situation in Vietnam, which lay in a world apart from our ancestors' Monroe Doctrine.

    Our ancestors were purposeful with their courage, not indiscriminate. Boomer unwillingness to go to Vietnam, regardless of whether they served or not, was the right hunch to have.

    "My country right or wrong" only works when the goal is right. When the goals shift toward madness, blind loyalty is a recipe for collective suicide.

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  37. Let's make it more relevant: imagine there was a draft during the Iraq War. Would Gen X-ers and Millennials who dodged it be a sign of the unwillingness to uphold the culture of our ancestors?

    No. Our ancestors -- the ones who weren't crazy -- were spinning in their graves watching us hemorrhage trillions of dollars and thousands of lives just to topple the only stable leader that Iraq had had, turning the place into the stone age, leaving a vacuum for jihadi desert nomads to impose sharia and destroy the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia... all so we could lose our easy access to Iraqi oil that we enjoyed during the '80s when our client Saddam Hussein was in power.

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  38. I'm not a foreign policy apologist. What I was getting at was a sense of putting aside your ego and your complaints and getting along. A culture of modesty and camaraderie which as you suggest isn't exactly being built up by post Boomer generations after the Boomers wrecked it.

    And many of the same people who dodged Vietnam are now power tripping all over the place. Clearly, the dodging wasn't motivated by noble morality as much as it was by a selfish desire to put the burden of warfare on others. Now that their graying and they've kept their heirs out of danger, they have no qualms about starting shit with everybody. These post Vietnam conflicts overseen largely by Boomers are no more productive, clear of purpose, or well executed than Vietnam itself.

    I'm fairly sure that most people born since about 1970 absolutely detest America the swaggering bully. My boss (born in '66) actually has succumbed to neo-con/"modern" Christian propaganda about the U.S. "saving" brown people from themselves. Hell, we can't even save our own asses at this point, let alone any one else.

    My original point all along is that Boomers inherited much good fortune than did oh so little to use that privilege, that inheritance, for anything particularly effective at preserving pre decadent culture. To be fair, a lot of the nonsense that ramped up in the 60's/70's was perpetrated by Silents and even a few G.I.s. Just the same, it's not like many Boomers did much to reverse those trends. Some Boomers did wise up and aren't as reckless as they once were, but for the most part they'd rather jump on the last life boat and paddle swiftly away than try to keep the ship afloat.

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  39. "The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam" (on YouTube) is a pretty interesting documentary on the American-Vietnam War, worth watching. A couple things I think I remember in particular

    - US strategy to fight the VCs supposedly essentially to send squads out to get ambushed by the VC who actually knew the terrain and could see them miles off (from the obviousness of their approach by plane etc) and then the rely on calling in bombings. This was not great for morale.

    - The other side was bodycount quotas, as a metric of success.

    The whole thing apparently pretty managerial, oriented towards success as measure by metrics like tons of bombs dropped and numbers of people murdered, not strategic goals achieved. Based on this idea of an overwhelming American military war machine and industry, not tactical and strategic expertise and clear strategic goals. (In theory this was an evolution of the mythology of the WWII production effort, extended to the battlefield.)

    Though would we really call Vietnam the first symbolic war of no value? It sits in the context of the Korean War and other Cold War standoffs, which had got going earlier than Vietnam. Hard to see that there was much of a material interest in Korea, either, but that happened, because the North Koreans were communists backed by the Soviets.

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  40. "- US strategy to fight the VCs supposedly essentially to send squads out to get ambushed by the VC who actually knew the terrain and could see them miles off (from the obviousness of their approach by plane etc) and then the rely on calling in bombings. This was not great for morale."

    "Platoon" (from '86) captures this well, though I've heard that some vets find the movie to be too melodramatic and unflattering to the troops. Off the top of my head, one of the characters is borderline psychotic (Sar. Barnes), another is a macho idiot, and another is a coward. I think Stone had to caricature some of the soldiers so that the drama was higher and also to get the movie green lit. Still a good movie.

    If you read up on some of the more harrowing massacres (in which a shockingly small number of U.S. personnel attempt to stop the mayhem) , I'm willing to give Stone the benefit of the doubt. Serial killer Richard Ramirez claimed that his vet. uncle had photos of mutilated corpses. Why the greater sociopathy in this war compared to WW2? Part of it was the enemy being more alien, part of it was venting frustration, part of it was cocky Boomers egging each other on to go bigger (whereas Losts, G.I.s, and Silents were more content to simply follow orders and survive). Supposedly the U.S. military was spurred by reluctant G.I. Gen tendencies in WW2 to develop more techniques to break down the fighting man's resistance to violence and danger. But I'm sure that given their narcissism and striving streak, Boomers were more enthusiastic about dealing violence.

    "Hamburger Hill" (from '87) is more of an almost documentary style look at the war. The writer (a vet) said that he struggled to get the movie financed because he didn't want the movie to come off as too Hollywood or too messagey. Not surprisingly, the movie didn't do too well (compared to Platoon, a big hit) and critics were indifferent. It probably didn't help that the depressing subject was a bit tough to face given that several of these movies came out in a short burst.

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  41. "Platoon" shows the gung-ho soldiers as being more conservative, and the draftees as being more liberal blacks and working-class hippees and surfers. The movie def. has a more anti-conservative bent, as the ones committing the atrocities are portrayed as being conservative rednecks.

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  42. Hard to believe, but you could initially get out of the draft if you were a college student. Not sure if that was a sign of rising inequality, or more a sign of egalitarianism(rationale being that if you were learning to do something important, you shouldn't have to go fight the war).

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  43. to clarify what I meant, the college deferment may have been a holdover from the 50s when there was higher trust in institutions and people took college seriously. if you went to college, it meant you were going to make an important contribution to society by becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher, etc. as the war dragged on, they got rid of the college deferment because it became clear that the youth were using to purely to avoid the war(not that I blame them, since I agree with what Agnostic said about Vietnam being unjust and pointless).

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  44. it is interesting that the Silent Generation produced no Presidents...while the Silent Generation were the cultural icons of the 60s..For example every performer at Woodstock , with the exception of Santana , was born prior to 1945. and other notable 60s performers such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, James Brown, Jim Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin would have lasting impacts on the music of the 70s and 80s were all from the silent Generation.

    Similarly the noted actors from the 70s were mostlyl silent gen , Jack Nicholson , Warren Beatty , Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Harrison Ford, Richard Pryor. Strange they produced so many cultural icons but few political leaders.

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  45. "The movie def. has a more anti-conservative bent, as the ones committing the atrocities are portrayed as being conservative rednecks."

    Judging from the worst real life atrocities, there were more than a few bad apples. I'm sure that under the stress, it wasn't just the Al Bundy types who snapped. At the risk of being presumptuous, I'd say a lot of vets did very regrettable things. And given Boomer hedonism and also the apparent substance use (which both is an effect and cause of reckless and alienated behavior), god knows a lot of terrible things happened. With all due respect to the people who restrained themselves.

    Vietnam was the beginning of Boomers assuming bad faith, in both institutions and really their fellow man in general. And it wasn't going to be the last thing that exposed their inability to keep their shit together.

    "Hard to believe, but you could initially get out of the draft if you were a college student. Not sure if that was a sign of rising inequality, or more a sign of egalitarianism"

    The Boomers were profoundly indulged. They were showered with praise and privilege from day one. Especially the ones born in the 40's and 50's. Their elders couldn't bear the thought of Mark or Steve being blown apart in their youth. So they created all kinds of means to avoiding service. As you say, the more blatant exemptions were eventually tossed out (in keeping with the egalitarian mood) but there simply was no way that so many Boomers were going to be thrown against their will into the war machine ala the previous several wars.

    Losts faced WW1 as another obstacle to be cleared (some even looked forward to the danger, as they had come to view life with weary and cynical eyes). G.I.s saw fighting as a matter of social obligation. Silents simply did what they were told, ever cautious about going against the grain too hard.

    But everybody (most of all, Boomers themselves) thought the Boomers were wonderful, were "special". So they were amply supplied with freedom, with resources (shelter, clothes, food, money, etc.), with love by affable G.I. parents and very early Silent parents who followed the G.I. example until the later 60's.

    Yet what effect did this have on Boomers? They quickly went on a tear (of drugs, of sex, of loud music, of bizarre spirituality, of raging activism) while the culture mostly spun this "experimentation" as idealistic (at best) or naively silly (at worst). Those who disapproved (mostly grumpy old Losts or conscientious G.I.s) were dismissed as out of touch.

    When America began to wake from this whimsy and disorder in the early 80's, it would be none other than Gen X-ers who would face the wrath of an increasingly moralistic and vindictive set of adults. Just as Gen X-ers began entering their later teens in the early 80's, young criminals were no longer given excuses or light sentences. After being neglected in the 70's, these already calloused youth did not protest the bum deal they were getting, though their attitudes and tastes reflected a curiously detached and cynical disgust at the smugness and hypocrisy of the "flower children" who were now proudly embracing the authority that they had sworn to reject.

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  46. "For example every performer at Woodstock , with the exception of Santana , was born prior to 1945. and other notable 60s performers such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, James Brown, Jim Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin would have lasting impacts on the music of the 70s and 80s were all from the silent Generation."

    Right, most people (especially the Boomers) often erroneously lump in 60's culture as somehow the near universal product of the Boomers. Partly this is because Silents never made any kind of generational stand, partly it's because Silents were often fascinated by and encouraging of Boomers who seemed to be blessed with a charisma and boldness that Silents were mostly lacking in (1930's and 1940's culture expected youth to be well-mannered, subdued, and cautious).

    Silents mostly embraced young Boomer audiences, eager to soak up the energetic atmosphere even though they'd always harbor a doubt that they would never quite shake their sense of not being worth the adoration given to industrious G.I.s or vivacious Boomers.

    Only a small handful of Silents would ever really be that harsh on Boomers (Pat Buchanan is one of them). Silents believe in shades of gray, in being patient and reserving judgement. Meanwhile, any Boomer will always be ready to issue a resounding command whatever the subject or person.

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  47. It's interesting too that the relatively gentle Silent created culture of the 60's and 70's has become sacred, beyond reproach. As for the pure Boomer stuff (like arena rock, disco/dancier music in general, and prog rock) that made inroads in the 70's then became dominant in the 80's, it's much more divisive. As usual with Boomers, it's direct to the point of being shameless and you love it or hate it.

    Certainly, it seems as if the more studied and sophisticated approach favored by Silents and very early Boomers made for better movies. But maybe that's just because by the time Boomers were hitting middle age (the 90's for most of them) creativity was fading.

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  48. "Strange they produced so many cultural icons but few political leaders."

    Yes, Strauss and Howe nicknamed them the "Artistic" generation for that reason. Not sure why they produced so many iconic artistic figures. One idea I came up with is that, the conditions were so repressive for that generation, someone had to be really extraodinary to break through. BTW, Martin Luther King Jr. was also Silent Generation.

    One thing to keep in mind is that, in Britain, the social protests and cultural movements started earlier, in the late 50s. You could argue that the Beatles and Stones were more like Baby Boomers than the Silent Generation.

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  49. Per my post above, I think the lack of Silent political leadership at the highest levels in the US is mainly being a small generation plus luck. They're a smaller than the GI generation because they have a shorter "window" of years and there was just lower fertility at that time. The artistic side would be probably be because the Greatest Generation were too old to be involved.

    In terms of running the birth years of US Presidents against the Generations described by Strauss and Howe, the only one of their generations skipped over is the Silent Generation, if you go by S&H's years (although yes they put Generation X a little earlier than 1963, so count Obama with them).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_date_of_birth

    In terms of total term length, the Generations go Gilded>GI Generation>Compromise>Missionary>Republican>Progressive>Transcendental>Boomer>Lost>Liberty>Generation X if you go by S&H's definitions. Or Gilded>GI Generation>Compromise>Missionary>Republican>Progressive>Boomer>Transcendental>Lost>Liberty, if you count Obama as a Boomer. Trump getting it would make the Boomers among the longest reigning, with the Gilded and GI.

    The Obama as Boomer graph looks like this - http://i.imgur.com/5FOj9NU.png

    If you standardise Generations to 20 years, starting back from Millennials ending 2003, then no span of 20 years is skipped over, although the patterns remain similar.

    The span of Missionary->Progressive->Lost Generations seems like a good span for American Presidents, then going a bit more downhill with the GI Presidents beginning with Kennedy.

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  50. " The artistic side would be probably be because the Greatest Generation were too old to be involved."

    In terms of movies, I looked at Oscar nominated movies of the 70's and 80's. Many of them were directed by Silents with G.I.s being much less represented. I admit that movie making is less dependent on pure creativity than music, being that movie production is also about collaborating and craftsmanship as much as it is ideas. This actually would suggest that mature age is a plus in movie making so I believe that G.I.'s were simply less interested in advancing art than Silents.

    Also, G.I.s were highly practical, productive, and civic minded throughout their lives. So they didn't ever have much time to explore their imaginations. Silents spent much time wistfully asking "is this all there is to life?" and in the 60's they finally began to express their desire to explore aspects of life beyond the prosaic day to day tasks and obligations that G.I.s performed with disarming ease. Decades of bland conformity suddenly seemed not so satisfying anymore, as they found that they did not get the same sense of joy and accomplishment as G.I.s did out of life. Why would they, when they after all didn't build the system in the first place?

    Yet as soon as they spoke up (in art, in politics, in academic/intellectual circles, etc.) they found that the generation most likely to have G.I.s as parents (Boomers) were stealing their thunder. These boisterous kids (who were always encouraged to form a unique identity, speak their minds, and not take no for an answer) wasted no time at all playing by the rules.

    Still patient and blessed to inherit an economy and culture that took care of all as best it could, the Silents would find no difficulty in getting paid, staying healthy, and gaining esteem as analytical and acutely humble lawyers, critics, artists, and mediators. Ultimately, their lack of ability to just "do something" and constantly wandering hearts, when combined with the Boomers narcissism, would inflict destruction on the effectiveness of institutions. When Gen X came of age, the transfer of power from G.I. to Silent was nearly complete. Gen X would never know a world, a system, hell for some them even a home, where things worked well. Gen X-ers mostly didn't even know that things were supposed to work to begin with. Why would they consider it when their parents, their teachers, etc. seemed like such sanctimonious and pushy hypocrites. Why trust adults who never even seemed to take the time to consider what this sort of world was doing to kids?

    Silents longed to explore the world. Boomers did explore. Gen X-ers wanted escape from a frenetic, forbidding world that didn't care for them and did not entitle you to the sort of comfort that Silents and Boomers took for granted. Silent movie critics Siskel and Ebert praised the '89 Batman movie simply because "the characters are all played by adults". Such was the esteem that Gen X had at a time when children and teens were often treated as a strange nuisance threatening to intrude on the adult's career and leisure. Not helping was the tendency of Gen X kids to alternate between rowdy chaos and aloof detachment.

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  51. Feral,

    Man, your point that Gen-Xers have never experienced a world in which institutions work as they should is so true. In college there was a giant financial aid bureaucracy. The financial aid office was housed in a four-story building. There were Pell Grants, Stafford loans, work-study programs, scholarships, FAFSA forms -- and we STILL graduated with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt!

    The bureaucracy the GI Joes created worked just fine for the Boomers; for them, college was essentially free. For us, it was just a big con. All of the financial aid programs that benefited the Boomers were still there, at least in name -- the financial aid bureaucracy was certainly fully staffed with Boomers -- but we still needed to borrow to pay the tuition. The system was broken and didn't work any more.

    After college the pattern just continued -- you graduated without a job and had to do temp work or be underemployed, and even if you got a real job you'd probably get laid off eventually -- then the housing bubble created by Boomers caused housing prices to triple in just a few years, etc., etc.

    The thing is, since the media was still 100% controlled by Boomers, NONE OF THIS WAS EVER ACKNOWLEDGED. At least not until blogs came along. That was the worst part, the media talked about the housing bubble like it was an unmitigated good -- but it wasn't so good if you didn't own a house! And all of the financial advice that the Boomers gave was totally outmoded -- i.e. to save up for a 20% down payment, "brown bag your lunch for six months, cancel the cable TV, and stop patronizing Starbucks." Yeah, gee, that's just great advice for me, living in Los Angeles, where a decent house costs $600,000. If I follow that advice I can probably save $2,000 per year, which means that I'll have saved up a 20% down payment ($120k for a house that costs $60k) in only 60 years! Thanks Boomers, your advice is very useful, I can tell that you really understand my situation. Everything was like this, completely screwed up and for the longest time no one even spoke about it.

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  52. In fact, the Silents have come out best (with regard to personal well-being) over the last 50-60 years. Though some early Silents felt the great depression, by the time they ht adolescence and adulthood the economy was humming and America was a dream in terms of social equity and ideals of fair play and cooperation. It would be none other than Silents (the least diverse of all generations) who would become dominant activists, lawyers, and overall leaders in the push to make America a more "vibrant" and "sensitive" place. After a "just following orders" joyless period, many Silents became eager to make a splash by critiquing the G.I. machine like precise culture (which made the affluence of Silents possible) that simply made many things (like drugs, infidelity, divorce, unusual art, fraternizing outside of your race, etc.) out of the question.

    But since Silents would always be the cautious type, they often only dipped into these taboo things very tentatively. Some should've been more tentative; during the great 60's transformation, some Silents evidenced sexual psycopathy ( I just read an article about a serial pedophile being sued for 1960's abuse of Boy Scouts; the pedo was a Silent born in the very late 30's). The Silents sensed that the young Boomers were a different beast; they had been encouraged to follow their hearts and desires while Silents were steered towards minding their responsibilities by wise Lost parents and no-nonsense early G.I. parents.

    So with ample encouragement the Silents, with a mixture of envy and admiration, led the Boomers along. Though it was obvious by the late 60's that the Boomers were already making a mockery of the very things that resolute G.I.s and sensitive Silents held dear, the Silents would always be hopeful that, with enough communication and generosity between the camps, Boomers would finally overcome their gargantuan egos and do a better job of inheriting the Silent legacy of refinement and awareness. But this would never come to pass; Strauss & Howe expressed concern in the early 90's that if the Boomers never grew up and set a better example, our goose would be cooked by the 2020's. Looks like they were right.

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  53. "I think the lack of Silent political leadership at the highest levels in the US is mainly being a small generation plus luck."

    It doesn't matter if you give every generation 20 years. People born from 1925 to 1944 have never been President, despite making up a good fraction of the main candidates for over 30 years.

    "In terms of running the birth years of US Presidents against the Generations described by Strauss and Howe, the only one of their generations skipped over is the Silent Generation, if you go by S&H's years"

    In the original post on turnover and stability, I didn't say that the skipped-over generations mapped onto commonly accepted groupings. But there are entire 20-year-long cohorts that never gave us a President, and these gaps seem to happen at somewhat regular intervals.

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  54. Statistically that seems about possible. Purely by chance. Feel like finding out what they are and showing how they map to generations, and ideally are spaced at intervals that map to changes in crime rates? Since every one of Strauss and Howe's generations have had the US Presidency, those aren't the real generations being skipped over, and counting back in 20 year intervals from modern generations finds no generations skipped over. We might learn something.

    Sorting in order of incumbency, the largest difference in birth years between one incumbent and the next is 27 years, between Eisenhower and Kennedy, before that, the highest difference is 18 years between Buchanan and Lincoln.

    Sorting in order of years of birth, the largest difference in birth years between Clinton at 22 years younger than Carter. No other difference is larger than 18 years (Johnson-Eisenhower). Median gap is 4 years.

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