NH Lesson: Don't Insult the Boomers. Wait Until We're Dead!

If you want my social scientific take on what happened last night, it's on my site. But I'll tell you my nonscientific observations. They start with this. Just as we boomers were beginning to believe that maybe the forties are the new thirties, the fifties the new forties and so on, along came the Iowa Obama sweep. And who got told they were over the hill, responsible for all that's gone wrong, in the way, hardly better than George W. Bush, responsible for him as a generation, and to move aside? Boomers.

Well, for two days a lot of boomers surely went into decline. Many were depressed, especially women who, after considerable bashing of Hillary and more than a stomach full of sexist comments, were taking a double blow. Two days of dismay and the boomers of New Hampshire, as is their way, sat up on Tuesday morning and said: Not so fast!

Add to this the boomer mentality (especially in New England) that the price of my house and who I vote for are my business not yours and the outcome begins to make a lot of sense. Polls are only as good as the skill of those running them and the willingness of their subjects to answer.

Personally, I prefer a race to a rout. Democracy isn't about being swept off our feet - especially by a MSM that can't even get polls right let alone interpret them with caution. It's about thinking before voting and keeping options open until that process is complete.

All the speculation to come today won't explain what people felt in their hearts yesterday. No amount of fancy technology is going to prevent a serious voter from doing what he or she believes is right. And, having grown up only two state doors down from New Hampshire, I would have been surprised if they'd done anything else.

Dr. Reardon is the author of The Secret Handshake and It's All Politics.

Read more here.

Comments

[lynnn]

I'm just sad bc all my life I've only known Regan (briefly) Bush, Clinton Bush, and now____ I'm crying, this is not not Pakistan, this is not Argentina. If all your life you had only seen LBJ, Nixon, Johnson, another Nixon, what would you do.

[Mojane]

It's Iraq.
It's the Middle East perception of Clinton.
Are they cognizant of her votes to invade?
If so, will they remember her votes?
Will she be able to take a stand against the big guys who are funding her?

Obama. What better name and person could we have representing us in the world, particularly in the Middle East, than this guy? (Biden would have been a good bet.)

[feo]

If anyone thinks there's anything in common between me (Vietnam vet, liberal) and Mitt Romney (draft-dodging magic underwear wearing Conservo), that person is nuts or not paying attention. There's no such thing as a "generation." Lazy thinking is all it shows.

[Rescisco]

Could it be our nation went from the "greatest generation" to the "failed generation?" What's next? The "clueless generation?" I guess we probably need to talk less about generations an work harder to generate real soultions to problems that, to date, have confounded us across the generations. Good luck to us all.

[BarryChamplain]

I'm getting a little leery of the constant implication that George W. Bush represents the excesses of the "Boomer" generation.

Speaking as a somewhat late Boomer, I can report back from history that the George W. Bush types were a distinct renegade group from their (our) generation; the ROTC/asshole jock types, that seemed to want to represent their parents' generation, in DEFIANCE of the bulk of their contemporaries.

To add the Bushies to the list of so-called generational excesses, is to give fuel to the right-wing (think Limbaugh) meme that we were all a bunch of immoral, lazy, drug-smoking hippies. In fact, the creative product of "hippie" culture is now woven like a thread through our mainstream life in the 21st century, and we all take it for granted.

This conflation of the two disparate Boomer groups only serves to help conservatives. Whether a generation sucked because it produced heathen hedonists, or warmongering bastards... that still means it sucked, as a whole. And that's the rap the right has been trying to sell about Boomers, since Reagan.

We did not, for the most part, suck, and we weren't all the same.

And the people who still harbor resentment of their generation are the old asshole jocks. Currently snapping towels in the Bush administration and corporate America.

Keep that in mind, all you twentysomethings, who occasionally make little nasties about Boomers. Most of us were exactly like you, and in fact, we love your spirit and rejection of the status quo. Don't get caught up in the slime. We're not your enemies, and Bushies are not real Boomers.

[Democrab]

I know what a horrible country this is and how much everyone wants to "change" it.

Hogwash!

I'm pre-boomer and I love this country. The only thing around these parts that needs to be changed is the name plate on the oval office.

Maybe we should write in Vladimir Lenin.

He changed things a lot folks.

Meantime, I'm going to watch the playoffs this weekend and wait for the Texas primary so I can vote for Hillary down here.

Go Pats!

[Cathexis]

Sorry, Kathleen ... I can't get behind you on this one.

Personally, I am tired of Identity Politics. Just because I was born during a certain set of years doesn't mean I owe any special allegiance to an arbitrary group of people with whom I share some characteristic or geographic location.

I am disgusted at the decades of demonization of the word "Liberal." And I say that as someone who proudly wore the mantle Conservative for decades ... before finally starting to think for himself and realizing that my core beliefs were actually Liberal.


I have lived in three different states, over my lifetime, and now find it quaint and parochial when someone begins going on and on about how great his/her particular state is.

Every geographic location has its charms. Locking into one blinds us to others.

I was born in 1957. Does this mean I am supposed to give some special weight to my "generation" just because a bunch of us were all born within some arbitrary period of time? I have more in common with a 16-year-old ethic female who still cherishes progressive dreams than I do with another 50-year-old white guy ... if he happens to think the GOP is really "pro-business," just because that's what he's been told.

When I hear some people talk about supporting John McCain because "he's the most electable Republican," I think SO?!? Why is it you are subjourning all your true beliefs merely in order to get a *Republican* elected?!? If it doesn't matter who the person is, as long as you get "your party" elected ... perhaps it is a sign of successful brainwashing, over the years. (Or, maybe not -- I refuse to vote Republican until they regain some indication of sanity ... or at least integrity.)

Labels are handles by which we can be manipulated. "Boomers" are no better or worse than any other generation, when you really look at it. Let's stop defusing personal responsibility by buying into Group Identities.

[chefrasta]

How much more damaged do the boomers want to do?Do you stand up for the Constitution?It was the boomers who back in the 70's experience the first Oil shock who could of done something about our dependence on oil.Did the boomers fight for health care first propose by Truman?I say step aside and let the young try to fix what you all have broken.

[langstonhughesfan]

New Hampshire should be renamed: OLD Hampshire. Afraid of change, stuck in the past. (And for the record, I'm a boomer, born in 1962).

[MizLiz]

I guess I'm a PRE-boomer, born just before Pearl Harbor, but I came of age in the 60's, and I remember those years of idealism and change, and I'd sure like more of the same before I lose my marbles altogether. Obama's right -- we have to change this entrenched warfare and gridlock...nothing gets done, and the people suffer for it.

[cuthbertallgood]

Obama's campaign is too heavy on ageism, sexism and homophobia for many Democratic voters. His boosters are often more slanderous toward gays and women than the GOP ever thought about being. The worst anti-gay rhetoric I have read in my life was posted in Obama's name, and his campaign has been silent on that, and it stands behind its use of McClurkin preaching at campaign events.

They need to wake up. They need to reach out. That is if they don't want their butts in a sling in Florida and California and New York.

[bogtrotters]

I'm sick of being labeled a Boomer. Nowadays I'm more of a Farter.

[VicPerry]

Let's see, no generalizations about Boomers...unless they are of the inspirational, "aren't boomers just the most amazing things" variety. I'm going to take a wild guess that this standard will not be applied to other generations? (like Generation Jones, a sensible answer what one would think is a basic quandary: how can a mother from 1946 and her kid from 1964 come from the same generation?)

Well of course not! Other generations are all inferior, just listen to that CSN "Teach Your Children" song that re-emerged with a vengeance when the Boomers hit their late 30's. Anybody older or younger than you: just look at them and sigh. I suppose it's boomer bashing to cite an example of a very oft-engaged in generational smugness? Probably! But some folks need reminding that it's mighty convenient to START complaining about age-ism only when you get older.

[KenoshaMarge]

I guess the Obama supporters that wanted to bury Senator Clinton so prematurely think that insulting potential voters for their candidate is a good idea. Doubtless they confused youthful exuberance with intellect.
One thing you can always count on us old bats to do is vote. Maybe because we have nothing better to do. Myself I've always voted so that I could legitimately complain about things. I figure people that don't vote and then complain are bloody damn hypocrites.
So it might behoove the arrogant young whippersnappers to think a little further down the road. Their premature coronation of their candidate fell short in New Hampshire. Before they alienate us then might want to consider us as voters. Voters that it's pretty stupid to insult.

[bethinCary]

Maybe it's because the young people of this country are smart and realize that this country is headed in the wrong direction-It has been a DIRECT result of baby boomer decisions. Decisions of thiers that can see anything but a 9 to 5 world, putting thier happiness in Wallstreets hands by purchasing whatever it advertises-politicians, wars,....without doing thier homework and looking for actual truth about "enemy combattants" "war and terror"....so the boomers HAVE behaved as willing dupes for a political establishment that further enable Corp. and political corruption. They are guilty of selling out the decisions of those kids who come after them to find happiness and truth in life any other way but through"purchase power". They've let themselves be so scarred by assassinations, Vietnam...that they only identify with politicians who play the victim card--instead of siding with younger people who don't see themselves as victims, and want to get past that.
I'm 44 and have a daughter. I don't plan on waiting for boomers to die off-or thier sanctimonious "fake indignation"-such as this article---I plan on fighting WITH younger kids for a new vision-over the Ben-gay-smelling fears/divisions of the past.
Boomers DO have themselves to blame for the state of our country now-and need to recognize this in themselves.