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Notes -
Missing Petes - Where are the 30-something liberals?
This write-up was prompted by Zohran Mamdani’s rising popularity in the NYC mayoral race.
Pre-2016, American politics was run by boomers. As the youngest boomer, Obama was expected to pass the baton to the next generation of Democrats. Alas, geriatrics returned with a vengeance, and Gen-X tapped out for good.
Of the dominant American political groups, I'm most sympathetic to neo-libs with a YIMBY flavor. Therefore, I’ve kept an eye out for Millennial newcomers who fit into this mold. 'Left of center with accommodations for changing times' is a tried and tested formula for fresh Democrats. It started off great. Tulsi and Pete had respectable presidential runs for their age.
Then began the woke revolution and the COVID crisis. During this period, I expected radicals to be ascendant, and they were. Progressive Millennial faces were introduced through 'The Squad,' prison abolitionists, and protest movement leaders. All positioned in opposition to the neo-lib incumbents, all terrible policymakers. Thankfully, the progressives haven’t won anything at the national level just yet.
Their mortal enemies, the Boomer neo-libs (Kamala, Biden, Blinken, Pelosi), ran the nation for four years. Most of it was in a post-woke era where the nation was shifting to the right. Yet, we saw no new neo-lib faces during that time. At both the national and local levels, less-progressive democrats like Tulsi and Ann Davidson were pushed out despite their popularity, as proven by their rise in the Republican camp.
Train-man Pete is the obvious exception. But where are the other Petes? If boomer Democrats dislike AOC’s allies, why haven’t they groomed any young leaders of their own? Have boomers reinforced the stereotype by once more pulling up the ladder behind them?
I ask rhetorically, of course. The answer is yes. Boomers crushed the political prospects of an entire generation behind them. Millennials weren't going to have it any easier. The sheer greed of 80-year-old geriatrics is embarrassing. No policy goals left to pursue, just a legacy of corruption and unmet promises.
I dislike Zohran. Among my fellow Indians, he is what we call a 'chutiya' (hard to translate; the closest synonym would be wanker). Yet, I feel dirty saying anything positive about Cuomo. Do the two options have to be a corrupt neo-lib boomer versus a Millennial wanker? As the boomers die off, who will take their place in Democratic power structures? Because from my perspective, all the young leaders are socialist wankers.
So I ask again: Where are the other Petes?
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.
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.
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