Are Gen Xers the new Baby Boomers?

Still, I was willing to take these claims at face value because honestly, it kind of makes sense that a chunk of the last Cold War kids might end up breaking MAGA. The neoliberal regime of Ronald Reagan (along with Margaret Thatcher in the U.K., the provenance of so much of our favorite music) portrayed everything from record unemployment to the crack epidemic as a failure of personal responsibility, rather than results of policy decisions, institutionalized discrimination, and purposeful slashing of social services. Laissez-faire economics decimated entire industries, and widespread deregulation let corporations prioritize shareholders rather than invest in workers. By the time Gen X reached voting age, registration drives like Choose or Lose and Rock the Vote were carefully calibrated to Xers’ characteristic distrust of dogma and groupthink.

The polls that illustrate Gen X’s alleged MAGA heel turn aren’t clear-cut, as the Washington Post’s Philip Bump concluded after crunching the numbers. The margins highlighted by Anderson and Jacobs, for instance, didn’t fully map onto the generational cohorts as outlined by the Pew Research Center (which, not for nothing, recently got fed up with this whole discourse and changed its guidelines on generational framing). Jacobs, meanwhile, draws much of his insight from a 2019 Columbia University paper that puts not just a thumb but an entire fist on the scale by referring to people born between 1956 and 1980 as neither Xers nor Boomers, but as “Reagan Conservatives.” More glaring is that those polls either don’t break down their numbers by race or, in the case of the Columbia paper, only survey white voters to begin with. These are crucial omissions in any poll, but are egregious when they erase almost a full third of the generation they claim to be surveying.

This is a fundamental snag in the narrative of Gen X conservatism: The 60 percent of us who are white have always been the face of the brand. The story that pundits want to tell must necessarily erase, for instance, Black women, who not only vote overwhelmingly Democrat, but consistently vote in numbers higher than other racial groups. As Elie Mystal noted in The Nation, “If there is a Gen X problem for Democrats, it is very likely a white Gen X problem.” More specifically, it’s a problem of a sustained white Gen X backlash to the social norms and ideals that have been part of our cultural backdrop since the needle dropped on Free to Be You and Me and the TV dial landed on Sesame Street.

Politico’s suggestion that Cherielynn Westrich’s trajectory from apolitical hipster to Trump foot soldier represents Gen X as a cohort doesn’t fully land—most notably because Westrich, by her own admission, only began paying attention to electoral politics in 2016. But a 2021 Vanity Fair story about Vice co-founder–turned–fascist agitator Gavin McInnes offers a more convincing portrait of an Xer’s far-right evolution. McInnes claims to have been, at the dawn of Vice, both a “tree-planting vegetarian” and “a self-described ‘dogmatic feminist.’” But what gave Vice traction was that it reflected neither of those things; its appeal was that it cloaked reflexive, resentful opposition to social progress in the plausible deniability of “ironic” humor.

Not every Gen X man became a Proud Boy, obviously, but the ease with which McInnes was able to use white male grievance to mobilize a militia should never have come as a surprise. And the outsize political, media, and social influence of other Gen-X reactionaries—among them Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Ron DeSantis, Joe Rogan, and brand-new GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson—is still growing. The conventional wisdom that voters across the board grow more conservative with age doesn’t always hold up, but we also can’t deny the ascendance of Xers who would rather watch the world burn than share it with others.

Generation X doesn’t get criticized as much as Millennials and Gen Z do.

Searching for “Gen X” on Reddit yielded, as expected, a goldmine of bi-directional trash talk. The threads that caught my eye, though, were ones with subject lines like “Why does it seem like Gen X is the least criticized generation?” and “Gen X doesn’t catch enough shit.” The thread authors didn’t necessarily have their own beef with Gen X; it’s more that they seemed to find it unfair that Gen X has magically escaped the criticism heaped on Millennials and Zoomers. Well, Skyler, have I got news for you.

After the 1990 publication of Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, and as many Xers were graduating college and entering the workforce, mainstream media was suddenly all over us like Tipper Gore on a pile of Prince cassettes. Unambitious, unmotivated, disaffected, cynical, drifting, and lost were the kinder adjectives used; in a 1993 piece titled “The Whiny Generation,” Newsweek christened us “pusillanimous purveyors of pseudo-angst.” Time’s 1990 survey made more of an effort to both hear from actual Xers and explore the material realities that shaped us—divorce, stagflation, the twin shadows of nuclear war and AIDS—but still led with the negative, writing, “They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial.”

The one advantage we had only became apparent in hindsight: These eviscerations happened in a pre-internet world. No 24-hour news cycle, no right-wing echo chamber, no click-driven media apparatus pinging tales of our predetermined failure around the globe. Time was eventually gracious enough to correct the record and report that we had not, all things considered, turned out to be lazy, entitled losers. But yes, kids, we got our fair share of shit. We got analog shit. We got shit on microfiche, Skyler. Look it up.

Gen X are just as bad as Boomers because they ruined the world and aren’t trying to fix it.

It’s tempting to go full X eye roll here, because one of the most frustrating downstream effects of generational demarcations is that collective problems end up pinned on a single group. For years, Boomers have gotten the brunt of it; now it’s our turn. Fine, I get it. But the things that Gen X is currently blamed for—including environmental destruction, extractive capitalism, resource hoarding, the death of organized labor, wage stagnation—are longstanding, systemic issues. They have been researched and debated and working-grouped for decades, and for just as long their possible solutions have been continually kicked down the road—because, with few exceptions, any solutions are economically and politically unviable to those with the money, power, and will to put them in place.

Gen X’s actual history of activism is almost never acknowledged, but we were out there—in person, in marches, at rallies, at rap and punk shows, doing volunteer grunt work, wheat-pasting protest art to scaffolding as cities slept.

It takes a lot more time to undo damage than it does to inflict it, so the idea that any one of these entrenched problems could be repaired within a single generation is unrealistic. The suggestion that Gen X whiffed on getting them all done is simply delusional. Really, that was on us? A cohort considered so statistically insignificant that infographics and studies and respected news analysts regularly forget we’re even here? Skyler, you sweet summer child.

There are more Fortune 500 Gen X CEOs than Boomers. They're the ones behind the corporate greed and price gouging. They just hide behind Baby Boomers.

Every generation becomes "boomers" as they age and younger generations rise. Remember this.

At least Baby Boomers are transparent about their villainy.

Gen X are fake fucks with a reputation for being laid-back that they do not deserve.

Why so divisive, OP?

As someone who straddles boomer and gen x, I'm at a loss as to what we supposedly did or did not do. I certainly do not fit into any of these little niche stereotypes the boomer troll is tossing around. I was too young to protest the Vietnam War. Apparently, I missed all the "boomer" shit.

They love making public scenes and speaking to managers.

Yes. Mostly Gen x at J6 behaving like total scum.

R9 most of Gen X is total MAGA scum.

Half of the time when people complain about Boomers they're actually complaining about Gen Xers!

We're not yet dead!

R4, Um, no. You've heard of World War II? You know what a "boom" in industry is?

Now put together "returning GIs to post-WWII America" and "subsequent boom in birth rates," and you get the "Baby Boom Generation."

It is not an inheritable title. We are sui generis.

These generational stereotypes are reductive and silly.

Well, at least on DL someone's remembering that we exist.

Voted Democrat almost entirely since turning 18 in 1987. Never once asked to speak to a manager. I will admit to having to chuck my Converses due to age-related foot ailments I can't afford to fix, because like so many of my GenX peers, I am financially FUCKED.

I was actually referring to the younger generations shitting on the older generations and vice versa, not the terms themselves R13. The terms may change but human nature doesn't.

Gen X seems to be the forgotten generation....a blend into Baby Boomers and Millennials.

[quote] Why so divisive, OP?

OP is the Generational Troll who constantly spams hateful, divisive threads pitting generations against each other.

He has a particular fixation/hatred on Generation X for some deranged reason and seems to harbor a desire to stoke a Jedi/Sith-type war between them and Millennials that will end in tears for Generation X.

He’s that sick.

What OP doesn’t understand through his pathetic, unhinged hate is that most people don’t give a shit. Normal people have friends, family and significant others who span his absurd generational labels and are just trying to live, love and enjoy life, hate free.

OP doesn’t realize he comes across as a tragic, lonely fool. Because he is. And will likely always be.

So sad to be so consumed with hate and never feel love and happiness while wishing misery on strangers.

Most likely Borderline Personality Disorder. He unfortunately can’t be fixed.

OP’s other hobby includes hating Emily Blunt because he’s envious of her seemingly ideal life.

He’s a cautionary tale for all.

[Quote] At least Baby Boomers are transparent about their villainy.

The first ones became adults during the Reagan/Bush era. Is it any wonder they were warped?

“Gen Pitting” is what people use to dislike someone who’s older or younger than they are.

“I hate Uncle Barney. He’s so boomer.”

“Well, I hate Cousin Kayleigh. She’s such a millenial.”

Do Europeans have a “Generation Zed”? Or is it just Americans and their Russian and Chinese trolls who are obsessed with generational internet combat?

Maybe not so much the arguably universal need for younger generations to overtake their elders [See: Titans; Olympians vs], r22, as it is America's love of shortcut "talk," with acronyms, nicknames, and catchy slogans.

Who ever said Gen X were laid back? Is that another mistranslation into Russian?

Whatever

OP, you are so lame.

Like we GAF what you think of us. You are totally bogus.