Bye, Bye Boomers

We're at a Turning Point in Our History...and Not a Minute Too Soon

Here in Washington, the past two weeks have seemed like two years. So much has happened since President Biden decided not to run again, he endorsed Kamala Harris, and she and her team have stepped up and transformed the U.S. political landscape.

But as I have gone from meeting to meeting, especially during the past several days, it has become clearer and clearer to me that no matter how momentous the upheavals of have seemed to be…they’re actually greater than we know. That is because the change that took place atop the Democratic ticket may actually have been as profound as it felt. It may actually live up to some of the hyperbole that surrounded it in commentaries and headlines and on social media.

Notably, the change from Biden to Harris is in fact, one of the most important generational shifts in U.S. politics to occur in decades. The last comparable such shift occurred in 1992. That year, the Democratic Party nominated its first Baby Boomer president. Bill Clinton was born in 1946, in the first wave of the post-War generation in the U.S. His predecessor, George H.W. Bush had served in World War II with distinction as a Naval aviator. He was a member of the so-called Greatest Generation. Reagan served during WWII. Carter entered the Naval Academy during WWII. Ford served in the Navy during the Second World War as did Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy. (It is interesting that for three decades, from the sixties to the early nineties, every president had served in the Navy except Reagan whose tour of duty was in Army.)

Although Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, he was of the prior generation, the one whose careers had been initially shaped by the First World War.

When Clinton was nominated and then chose as his running mate, Al Gore, born two years after him, it sent a message of youth and change that energized the electorate. Interestingly, of the presidents that followed, two others, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, were also born in 1946. Obama, though 15 years younger, was still technically part of the Baby Boom generation.

This was a generation of leaders that came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, whose political views were formed more in the context of domestic social upheaval than in the crucible of war. We are a long way from history’s final judgment of the Boomer presidents although I would say at this point that no one is going to use a word like “greatest” to describe them.

Interestingly, technically, Joe Biden, born in 1942, was pre-Boomer but I suspect he will be looked at as being of the same cadre as the group who followed him by a few years. His Vice President, Kamala Harris, was born in late 1964. Although some define Gen-X as starting in 1965, the Social Security Administration uses 1964 as the cut off point, so I think it is fair to say Harris would be the first Gen-X president and she is already the first Gen-X major party candidate.

While these distinctions may seem arbitrary, they are not. They help us understand what the formative experiences of leaders were. Boomers were shaped by the civil rights struggle, the rise of the counter-culture, the Vietnam War, men landing on the moon, and the big cultural influences of their era from rock and roll to the rise of anti-heroes in film and literature. It helps to think of the fact that Clinton, Bush, and Trump all turned 18 in 1964. Biden did in 1960.

Obama turned 18 in 1979. I once gave a talk to employees at the Israeli embassy in Washington in which I noted that unlike prior presidents who were shaped by an image of Israel that was a struggling David amid the Goliaths of the Arab World and was the nation that had been responsible for the miracle of “turning the desert green,” Obama only ever really knew Israel as the predominant power in the region. The war in Lebanon that preceded his 1983 graduation from Columbia by a year in which Israel’s role was a subject of considerable criticism was more responsible for shaping his views of the country and the region. I suggested they prepare for the changes that this generational shift would bring. Most of those to whom I spoke rejected the thesis and the newer perception of Israel among Americans…and they were wrong to do so.

Kamala Harris graduated Howard University in 1986. She graduated law school in 1989. She was admitted to the bar and began her career as a prosecutor in 1990. To put that in some perspective, the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and became open to the public in 1991. AOL had been founded in 1989. Within just a couple years of her beginning her career the world really entered the Internet era…with nearly 20 million people using the web by the end of 1993. This not a random observation. Because Kamala Harris’ career started in Northern California not far from Silicon Valley. She is very much a product of that transformative explosion of creativity. Many of her supporters and donors over the years have been drawn from that world.

I was struck by this when this week, in a conversation with a senior White House official who I have known for many years, we began to discuss how the economic policies of Kamala Harris might be different from those of Joe Biden. Both are Democrats, of course. Both share values and views that are focused on creating jobs, improving educational opportunity, fairer tax codes, social programs that ensure dignity all Americans, etc.

But Joe Biden is a blue collar Democrat from the rust belt. His economic perspective is that of the manufacturing America of his era. Kamala Harris is a growth and opportunity oriented Democrat from the heart of America’s technology revolution. This is not to diminish the contributions of the Biden-Harris administration to investments in science and technology. Their role in that respect has been groundbreaking. But it has also been indicative of the transition that is underway within the Democratic Party and within the country, a transition that is only likely to accelerate under a Harris presidency.

There are other areas that the generational shift associated with Harris will increasingly manifest themselves. We can already see them on views toward Israel and Palestine. It is not a shift away from Israel. But it is a shift toward more balance, toward a recognition of the changing strategic landscape of the Middle East post-Cold War and in the wake of the rise of the U.S. as an energy superpower. The rising focus on climate and green energy will only continue to grow more important. Next gen tech issues from AI to bio-engineering will grow more central…and the VP has been actively involved in monitoring and seeking to develop policies to deal with next gen threats throughout her tenure. She is certainly already seen as being more in tune with the concerns of rising generations and she is much more comfortable with a political and social reality in America dominated by digital communications and idioms.

She came of age on America’s Pacific Coast, in a part of the country more connected to the economies of Asia than to those of Europe. While she has distinguished herself in the role she has played advancing U.S. interests in Europe, with our NATO allies and in the Middle East, issues associated with China and also with the growing importance of the rise of powers like India are certain to gain centrality and are already areas to which she has devoted great time and thought.

Generational shifts are not bright lines that result in abrupt or stark changes right away. But they are real and significant. And one is happening now in the U.S. with the rise and likely presidency of Kamala Harris. We have been caught up in much of the drama of recent moments and for good reason. But it is worth taking a step back and considering the broader implications of a new generation assuming power in the U.S. and around the world might be.

From the perspective of this particular (young) Boomer, these changes are welcome and overdue. Onward!