10-06-2018, 10:57 AM
We Boomers have had a bad run for America even if we have had three Presidents -- the sort-of-OK Bill Clinton, the dreadful Dubya, and the worst President in American history, a President who would rule as a dictator or despot if he could -- as shown in his behavior. Add to this, Boomers have been the most rapacious executives who have made sure that people have lost all chance of getting ahead in life beyond a 'safe' level unless they are practically born into the elite. Business formation? Better than the Silent, but that is not saying much. Boomers have been far better at monopolizing and consolidating industry and commerce than at creating new industry and commerce -- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos notwithstanding. Note well that Microsoft and Apple (and its competitors) have done much to destroy well-paying clerical jobs and that Amazon.com has killed much small-scale retailing. So far Boomers will be remembered fondly only for cultural creativity, which is impressive.
That is not much different than what one could have said of Missionaries around 1930, either. Harding was a corrupt fool, Coolidge was a genuine dotard, and the heavily-touted Hoover was a complete incompetent at dealing with an economic downturn. Missionaries did pioneer cars as a solution to personal transportation and the supermarket as a retailing phenomenon, and I would say that those were more important than computers and e-retailing in people's lives unless they were employed in those industries.
Maybe we have not seen the last act of Boomer politics -- but that last act will involve the choices more of people younger than Boomers. That Boomer will (like FDR) appeal to the pragmatism of X and the itch of Millennial adults to have something benign and big. Maybe just in time for an economic meltdown or severe stagflation?
That is not much different than what one could have said of Missionaries around 1930, either. Harding was a corrupt fool, Coolidge was a genuine dotard, and the heavily-touted Hoover was a complete incompetent at dealing with an economic downturn. Missionaries did pioneer cars as a solution to personal transportation and the supermarket as a retailing phenomenon, and I would say that those were more important than computers and e-retailing in people's lives unless they were employed in those industries.
Maybe we have not seen the last act of Boomer politics -- but that last act will involve the choices more of people younger than Boomers. That Boomer will (like FDR) appeal to the pragmatism of X and the itch of Millennial adults to have something benign and big. Maybe just in time for an economic meltdown or severe stagflation?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.