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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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the Boomer neo-libs (Kamala, Biden, Blinken, Pelosi)

I have to quibble with your calling Kamala Harris a Boomer. I think that rather than treating generations as having hard temporal cutoffs (“she was born in 1964, Wikipedia says that’s the final birth year of the Baby Boomer generation, checkmate!”) we should instead consider cultural affinities and, also importantly, the individual’s actual relationship to the American post-war Baby Boom. Kamala Harris’ parents were not Americans. Their happening to conceive her on American soil while in between academic positions doesn’t mean that they should be considered part of the American baby boom. Culturally as well, Harris is extremely Gen-X in her demeanor, her points of reference, and her visible youthfulness relative to the cohort you’re lumping her in with.

Harris is definitely a "Boomer," culturally, even if it might sometimes be more helpful to call her a "cusper." (One of my students this past year referred to Obama as our first "Gen X President" and I was like... uh... no, but I can understand why you might think that.)

Remember that Harris made her childhood participation in the civil rights movement the centerpiece of her political identity, to the shocking degree of actually endorsing race-based busing not only in the past but also in the present. The civil rights movement was a, maybe the signature Boomer movement. GenX is as close to race-blind as an American generation ever got; Millennials manifested the pendulum swinging back toward identitarianism.

GenX is as close to race-blind as an American generation ever got

This is only true of white Gen-Xers. A substantial share of black Americans never stopped caring deeply about race; add in the fact that Harris is the daughter of two leftist academics and her opinions become entirely typical of highly-educated black Americans of pretty much any generation since the 1960’s.