Is Obama a Baby Boomer?
posted by Nate Oman
Is Obama a baby boomer? He was born in 1961, so if you accept the Wikipedia definition of the baby boom (1945-1964), he qualifies. I don’t think, however, that baby boomer as a cultural identity ought to be defined in terms of the bulge in the demographic chart. Rather, I define a baby boomer as one whose passage to adulthood was defined by Vietnam. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. Obama was in middle school. Hence, I am inclined to exempt him from being a baby boomer. This will, I think, be good for American politics.
As a generation, the baby boomers have not done well on the presidential front. Their parents — those for whom World War II served as the decisive gateway into adulthood — produced, depending on how you define the contours of the cohort, seven presidents: Kennedy, Johnson (I admit that he’s a stretch), Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. The baby boomers, in contrast, have produced two presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It’s not an especially auspicious duo. Bill managed to become the second president ever impeached and W, well, has been W.
I am told that Reagan drove his opponents to distraction and clearly Nixon had a unique ability to get under everyone’s skin, but I have to confess that in my mind there is something a little unhinged in the sorts of reactions that Clinton and W called forth from their opponents. To listen to conservatives of my father’s generation, you would think that Bill Clinton was a Maoist radical rather than the largely moderate and at times even conservative (in policy if not glandular terms) president that he was. Likewise, I think that the Bush II Administration has been less than a sterling success but listening to liberals of my mother’s generation, you would think that under W the United States ceased to be a liberal democracy in any meaningful sense. My theory is that this is a baby boomer thing. Clinton and W got under the skins of those on the opposite political side of their cohort because they have served as cultural stand ins for debates about the 1960s.
To be sure, Obama is bringing out the lunatic fringe, but one hopes that it will remain the lunatic fringe. It would be nice to have a politics that was not a prolonged exercise in exorcising the demons of the 1960s.
December 8, 2008 at 10:42 am
Posted in: Politics
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Responses (5)
A.J. Sutter - December 8, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Call me a boomer, but I think your theory is flawed. An alternative theory is that W. evoked ire because of things like lying in order to get us into a war, not planning properly for that war, the torture memo, the trashing of America’s image overseas, etc. This is not a stand-in for any debate about the 1960s. I confess that W. has replaced Nixon in the lowest circle of my Presidential anti-Pantheon, but this is not because, say, Nixon now seems to me in retrospect to be more liberal than I thought back then; it’s based on a more absolute standard.
Carol Stanley - December 8, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I think of boomers who are in fifties and sixties..Others are young and have totally different agendas and ideas.
TrendsWatcher - December 8, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Well-written piece. Obama is part of the boom in babies after WWII, but he is certainly not part of the Baby Boom Generation. Many nationally prominent commentators have said that Obama is specifically part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Baby Boomers and Generation X. Google this and you’ll see it’s a pretty long list of commentators who have already stated this position. Among those who have publicly referred to Obama as part of Generation Jones are: David Brooks (New York Times), Karen Tumulty (Time Magazine), Roland Martin (CNN), Michael Steele (Chairman, GOPAC), Chris Van Hollen (Chairman, DCCC), Stuart Rothenberg (Roll Call), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), Juan Williams (Fox News Channel), Howard Wolfson (Political Advisor), Mel Martinez (U.S. Senator [R-Florida]), Carl Leubsdorf (Dallas Morning News), Jonathan Alter (Newsweek), and Peter Fenn (MSNBC).
You can see some of them discussing this topic in this 5 minute video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta_Du5K0jk
And lots more here about this specific topic: http://www.generationjones.com/2008election.html
As as a member of Generation Jones myself, I’m quite happy to see our long-ignored generation finally being recognized.
A.J. Sutter - December 8, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Thanks for the ammo, Trends. I had no idea I was part of Generation Jones before; but it’s more evidence to refute Nate’s idea that polarization caused by W., at least, is a Boomer-1960’s thang.
bill - December 8, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Strauss and Howe in their 1991 book Generations broke the country’s history into 20 year-span generations, with Generation X running from 1961-1981 — so Obama would be part of Gen X.
http://www.lifecourse.com/
But many define Generation X as something like 1965-1974, or even 1965-70, so that it’s not really a full generation, but more like a few random years between “Baby Boomers” and their kids (Gen Y).
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