I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been interested in the generational wars that we have seen in the presidential primaries. Hillary Clinton, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is a product of the 1960s; culturally she is a Baby Boomer. Barack Obama, although demographically a member of the post-war \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baby boom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a product of the 1970s and 1980s; culturally he is a Gen-Xer. A big part of Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political strategy has been to cast Clinton as the out-of-touch Baby Boomer who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand a post-racial, post-protest, post-New-Left, postmodern world.<\/p>\n
I will be curious to see if Obama follows the same strategy with John McCain, who is not a Baby Boomer. McCain is a product of the late 1940s and 1950s; culturally, he is a member of the generation who dressed in gray flannel suits. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be tempted to call McCain a member of the Older Generation. How will Obama deal with the older generation? The Baby Boomer strategy of dealing with elders involved open warfare and ad hominem attacks. But I expect Obama to deal with McCain the same way he dealt with Jeremiah Wright: dismiss him as out of touch and out-dated, and be vaguely patronizing.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m willing to bet that other Gen-Xers will copy this strategy in their own lives. For example, in churches I expect that Gen-Xers will start being dismissive of the Baby Boomers who run most churches these days. I expect them to look pityingly at the Boomers, but not engage in direct conflict with the Boomer power structure. I expect them to start talking about what it might mean to be a post-racial church and a post-protest church. I expect all this will drive the Boomers crazy. Indeed, some of this is happening now.<\/p>\n
The culture of presidential politics tends to have influence in the wider culture. When Bill Clinton insisted that fellatio wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really sex, I was doing a lot of youth ministry, and I was very aware that more and more kids got involved in fellatio at a younger and younger age. With George W. Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tendency to authoritarianism, I see many young people willing to accept a large degree of authoritarianism in their lives. So where else might the Obama\/Gen-X trend play out?\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
For example, if Barack Obama wins the presidential election in November — if he even runs a close race — what might that mean for the 2009 election for a new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)? Right now, we have two declared candidates, both of whom are Baby Boomers, and both of whom are pretty much indistinguishable. If a Gen-X candidate were to emerge in the next few months, I’d be willing to bet that s\/he could easily win the UUA election. I can think of three or four possible Gen-Xers whom I would vote for. So if you happen to know a viable Gen-X candidate for UUA president, encourage him\/her to make some connections at General Assembly….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been interested in the generational wars that we have seen in the presidential primaries. Hillary Clinton, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is a product of the 1960s; culturally she is a Baby Boomer. Barack Obama, although demographically a member of the post-war \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baby boom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a product of the 1970s and 1980s; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[309,341],"tags":[285],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-culture","category-uua-politics","tag-uuaga08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}