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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Joshua Topolski. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm back. I haven't been around for a little while.

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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you the listener. I got to confine

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Speaker 1: in you that I have been dealing with some family business.

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Speaker 1: My family is of course in the mafia and no

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Speaker 1: my dad broke his hip and I had to go

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Speaker 1: to Pittsburgh and help out for a little bit. And

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Speaker 1: during that period I had to walk away from all

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Speaker 1: of my many many projects, including including this podcast, which

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Speaker 1: is very hard, and I barely looked at the internet.

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Speaker 1: I barely read the news. I did watch a lot

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Speaker 1: of nightly news in Pittsburgh, which is where my parents live,

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Speaker 1: and they love watching the news. They put it on

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Speaker 1: at like four o'clock because apparently there's just news, not CNN,

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Speaker 1: but like local news. You can start watching it, I

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Speaker 1: don't know four in the afternoon. They would put on

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Speaker 1: the news at four and then it would just be

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Speaker 1: on until ten or later, and it was really just

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Speaker 1: all about local stuff happening. So I learned a lot

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Speaker 1: about the many homicides that took place in Pittsburgh while

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Speaker 1: I was there, and I wasn't responsible for any of

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Speaker 1: them for the record. But anyhow, but I'm back and

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Speaker 1: it's so good. It's so good to be back because

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Speaker 1: I really have missed rambling like this. I haven't been

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Speaker 1: able to ramble to anybody. My parents when we're around,

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Speaker 1: they do most of the rambling, so you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a very different environment for me. Anyhow, we have a

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Speaker 1: great showed it. I'm very excited. I have to say,

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Speaker 1: I have been excited to have this conversation. We had

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Speaker 1: to move it a bunch of times, which of course

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Speaker 1: pained me emotionally. But we have an amazing guest today,

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Speaker 1: Philip Bump, who is a national calumnist for the Washing

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Speaker 1: and Impost. He also has a newsletter called how to

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Speaker 1: Read This Chart. He's kind of a data genius, and

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Speaker 1: he has written a book called The Aftermath about the

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Speaker 1: Baby Boomers and what they've done to America. So let's

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Speaker 1: not waste one minute. Let's get right into it and

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Speaker 1: talk to Philip. I want to tell the listener that

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Speaker 1: Philip has been instructed to sit as still as possible

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Speaker 1: because his mic is picking up some noises in the room,

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Speaker 1: some fabric noises from his shirt moving, or the many

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Speaker 1: flags in the background. We're not sure what it is.

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Speaker 1: It's something. Yeah. You know, if you end up seeing

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Speaker 1: any video from this and you're thinking, why is Philip

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Speaker 1: sitting so still, it's just in service of the audio quality.

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Speaker 1: All right, So I thank you for coming on the show.

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Speaker 1: First off, of course, I knew you're running around because

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Speaker 1: you've got a new book and you've got to talk

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Speaker 1: to a lot of people. I do appreciate you taking

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Speaker 1: the time, of course. But before we get into the

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Speaker 1: conversation that I would like to have with you, can

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Speaker 1: we talk about how much sleep you had last night? Sure?

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Speaker 1: Do you know how many hours you got? Actually? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: last night was unusual because I took my kids into

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Speaker 1: the city and we spent all day in the city,

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Speaker 1: took the train in, and you know, it was an

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Speaker 1: excursion a life of which we haven't usually had. We

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Speaker 1: have a three year old who usually naps, and so

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Speaker 1: we all were very worn out. So I got more

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Speaker 1: than usual last night, which is probably about seven hours.

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Speaker 1: Seven hours is not even what they recommend. That's still

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Speaker 1: a short night. Yeah, I don't know what time to

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Speaker 1: usually go to sleep, twelve to twelve thirty, Okay, so

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Speaker 1: you're kind of a night out a lot of parents

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Speaker 1: go to bed very early. Of course you're a news

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Speaker 1: persons that might have something to do with your sleeping habits.

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Speaker 1: But I stay up very late and wake up very early,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's terribly unhealthy. What time do you

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Speaker 1: usually wake up? Quarter to seven. We're on a sort

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Speaker 1: of similar schedule, though you're probably getting a little bit

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Speaker 1: more sleep than maybe because you seem I don't know,

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Speaker 1: better adjusted. Well, you know, we also have the occasional

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Speaker 1: kid having a nightmare, or dog howling, coyotes and things

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Speaker 1: alone those lines, Right, do you have a lot of

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Speaker 1: coyotes around your house, Well, you seem to the dog

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Speaker 1: picks them up. I can understand people be very upset

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Speaker 1: about that sound or a dog. Our dog starts starts

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Speaker 1: barking as well. So you're a calmness at the Washington Post.

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Speaker 1: A lot of your stuff is data based, right, and

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Speaker 1: you've been doing this for a long time. You tell

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Speaker 1: stories through data very often, or help to sort of

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Speaker 1: break down stories using data or correct people for misunderstanding data. Actually,

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Speaker 1: I see you do this a lot on Twitter, or

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Speaker 1: I feel like I see you do this a lot

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Speaker 1: where you sort of trying to explains something to people

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Speaker 1: that seems to have been misinterpreted. I mean, at this

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Speaker 1: point in time, do you feel like you're are you

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Speaker 1: getting through to people? Is it working? Because I feel

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Speaker 1: like we're not. We're not paying attention to the facts

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Speaker 1: that much like it. Is it frustrating for you? I

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Speaker 1: mean yeah, I mean, look, absolutely, there are occasions on

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Speaker 1: which it is frustrating. I mean, the the the extent

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Speaker 1: to which Americans broadly are willing to set aside very

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Speaker 1: obvious logical leaps in favor of the rhetoric that they

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Speaker 1: would like to believe is sort of astonishing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, Donald Trump could spend as

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Speaker 1: much times he did lying about a voter front and

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Speaker 1: there's obviously nothing to it. The fact that the next

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Speaker 1: DECUSA could have millions of dollars of revenue coming for

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Speaker 1: his terrible and totally idiotic movie two Thousand Mules. You know,

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Speaker 1: these are these are sort of the exemplars of the type.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, on a daily basis, we get nonsensical claims

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Speaker 1: about data which are very easily disproven. It's just but

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Speaker 1: people have little to no interest in having them disprove it.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is it's true, very much more on

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Speaker 1: the right. There are instances on the left as well,

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Speaker 1: but it's just it can be frustrating. But I really

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Speaker 1: do feel like my role to some extent is simply

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Speaker 1: to be the voice of reason, even if people aren't

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Speaker 1: necessarily listening to it. Right, That's a tough role. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would be very frustrated by it. I think it's

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Speaker 1: like in the same way I would be bad at

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Speaker 1: being a waiter because I would eventually have to wait

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Speaker 1: on someone like me. You know. I think trying to

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Speaker 1: convince people over and over again in the particular way

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Speaker 1: that you do, which is like very fact based, right,

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Speaker 1: very database, which often shouldn't be up for debate, is like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: widely and loudly debated. I got into an argument with

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Speaker 1: somebody when I was in California and I was at

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Speaker 1: a bar and somebody started talking about, you know, COVID

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Speaker 1: vaccines or whatever and that they didn't do anything. And

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I decided to enter the conversation

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Speaker 1: the guy. It's like, there were four people at the

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Speaker 1: bar and he was just happened to be sitting next

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Speaker 1: to me, and I started talking about the data of

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Speaker 1: if you look at you know, death rate of unvaccinated

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Speaker 1: versus vaccinated. Very early on, it was pretty clear like

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Speaker 1: there's a correlation, which seems to be a correlation between

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Speaker 1: getting vaccinated and not dying. I feel like if I

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Speaker 1: had to do that as a job, I would I

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Speaker 1: kind of go crazy. Well, I mean, but part of

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Speaker 1: the problem, honestly, is that I spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: time and energy writing pieces for the posts that explore

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Speaker 1: the stuff, and then I'll tweet about it, and then

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Speaker 1: people will respond to the tweet and not getting to

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Speaker 1: any of the actual analysis, and they'll be like, well,

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Speaker 1: what blah blah blant. It's like, well, look click the

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Speaker 1: link it you'll see like that's accounted. You know. The

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Speaker 1: exception here being that I did this really the only

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Speaker 1: time I've ever done a Twitter thread is I pulled

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Speaker 1: out a lot of my stuff on two thousand mules

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Speaker 1: just to be like, you know, to have this benchmark

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Speaker 1: of here are all the reasons two thousand mules is nonsense.

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Speaker 1: And even then people wouldn't read further in the thread.

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Speaker 1: They'd respond to like the first one like you obviously

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Speaker 1: haven't seen the movie and show. It's just like social

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Speaker 1: media in particular make this worse I can imagine being

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Speaker 1: in a bar doesn't necessarily help either. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: the thing about it is people are less bold in person.

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Speaker 1: That's true. I mean, you know, not to go down

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Speaker 1: a social media rabbit hole or anything. But in fact,

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Speaker 1: I just looked at Twitter for the first time in

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Speaker 1: actually in like kind of several days. I feel like,

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Speaker 1: or at least I haven't been looking at it very much,

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Speaker 1: and sort of wild what's going on there. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like it's really a strange experience now. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I just think people are very bold on social media.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's classic internet stuff, right, there's no consequences really,

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Speaker 1: like you can say anything and do anything, and what

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Speaker 1: are people going to do? They're not gonna you know,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no physical barrier, right, and in person

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Speaker 1: people are usually like you have to consider just I

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Speaker 1: don't know, what is it that feeling of being in

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Speaker 1: a room with somebody and making people uncomfortable, Like people

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Speaker 1: don't want to do that a lot of the time,

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Speaker 1: or they don't want to worry that they get somebody

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Speaker 1: angry enough that they get you know, punched in the

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Speaker 1: face exactly. Not I I would be the one getting

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Speaker 1: punched in the face. Just to be clear, for the rector,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't be punching anybody. But so you've written a

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Speaker 1: book called The Aftermath. Yes, well, I should say I

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Speaker 1: have not read the book, and that's on me though.

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Speaker 1: I have been in Pittsburgh for the last two weeks

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Speaker 1: dealing with some stuff, so I have not had a chance.

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Speaker 1: And we were trying to schedule stop and I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read it, or at least skim it,

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Speaker 1: you know, so I know what I'm talking about. So

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Speaker 1: I will join. If there's anybody listening to this who

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Speaker 1: has no idea what the book is about, could you

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Speaker 1: talk about what the book is about? Sure? So the

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Speaker 1: Aftermath is I realized a couple of years ago that

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Speaker 1: we were going through this very tumultuous period in politics

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Speaker 1: and culture in particular, and that we are also going

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Speaker 1: through this transition with the baby boom, that the baby

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Speaker 1: boomers started going into retirement, and so I decided I

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Speaker 1: wanted to look at the extent to which those things

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Speaker 1: might overlap. And what I realized as I was researching

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Speaker 1: the book is there's an enormous amount of overlap. That

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of characteristics of the baby boom,

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Speaker 1: and that the sheer scale of the baby Boom, which

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Speaker 1: I think people tend to underestimate or not recognize, really

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Speaker 1: helps to find the ways in which American politics and

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Speaker 1: economics and culture are all contributing to are all seeing

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Speaker 1: this same this level of tension between old and young

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Speaker 1: that manifests in a lot of different other demographic ways.

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Speaker 1: And so the book is an exploration of both what

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Speaker 1: this moment looks like, how it's driven to a large

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Speaker 1: extent by what the baby Boom is, but then also

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Speaker 1: what happens after the baby Boom is gone, which won't

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Speaker 1: happen for decades, and the subheads to the last days

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Speaker 1: of the Baby future Power from America. But it's really

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Speaker 1: an exploitation and basically what happens over the next several

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Speaker 1: is as the baby Boom loses its script on the

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Speaker 1: power that it's held since you know, the nineteen fifties. Right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot there, but that's along. But let me

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Speaker 1: just I want to back up and talk about the

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Speaker 1: baby boomers for a second. Define a baby boomer. Sure,

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Speaker 1: you know, if for someone who's listening who maybe does

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Speaker 1: not know, give me the kind of stock definition of

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Speaker 1: a baby boomer. Yeah, so a baby boomer is someone

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Speaker 1: who's born between nineteen forty six and nineteen sixty four.

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Speaker 1: And the reason that's important is twofold. The first is

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Speaker 1: that the baby boom is defined by those births. So

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Speaker 1: this is not just a you know, am gen X

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Speaker 1: because I was born in this general range of years.

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Speaker 1: And this is what we call is this is a

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Speaker 1: hard thing that the demographers that the Census Bureau said,

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Speaker 1: this is a defined and distinct generation that is identifiable,

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Speaker 1: will wipe the search in births, and so it's actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, we include anyone who's born in forty six

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Speaker 1: through sixty four, even though demographers actually see the boom

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Speaker 1: starting sort of in the middle of forty six and

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Speaker 1: ending in about the middle of sixty four. So you know,

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Speaker 1: there's some vagueness there, but the baby boom is a

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Speaker 1: clear event, demographic event that happened with this surgeon worse.

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Speaker 1: And the statistic I like the site to give some

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Speaker 1: sense of perspective is that there were one hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty million Americans in nineteen forty five. That's the total

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Speaker 1: population of the country over the next nineteen years for

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Speaker 1: the baby boom, Almost seventy six million babies were poor, right,

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Speaker 1: So that's more than fifty percent of the population nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty five are then boor okay, and so that means

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Speaker 1: that you know, a third of the country essentially is

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Speaker 1: nineteen or less at the end of the page, right, right,

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Speaker 1: And then you just consider how that reshapes everything moving

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Speaker 1: forward as they get older, and that's the effect of

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Speaker 1: the baby booms. Hat on the cot is there is

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Speaker 1: there no know this may be a stupid question, but

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Speaker 1: is there no other generation since the baby boomer generation

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Speaker 1: that has a comparative sort of birthrate? That mean, is

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Speaker 1: it just unmatched? Like who's after the Baby Boomers? It's

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Speaker 1: is it gen x X, right? That's that's right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's me. That's me the greatest generation in my opinion, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: which is another generation. But I think we should just

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Speaker 1: take it, honestly, I think we're outed at this point.

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Speaker 1: And Gen X birthrate, like comparatively, do you know the

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Speaker 1: number offhand, like how many babies were born? You said

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Speaker 1: seventy seven million from forty six to sixty four, is

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Speaker 1: that right? Almost seventy six Okay, almost seventy six million,

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Speaker 1: seventy six millions, So do we start at sixty five?

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Speaker 1: Gen X starts sixty five and goes to what that

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Speaker 1: goes to eighty eighty, so how many babies were born?

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Speaker 1: But no, but this is key according to Pew Research Center,

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Speaker 1: which is the the go to for the delineation so generations.

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Speaker 1: But it's made up, you know, I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: not a demographic with a distinct event to your questions

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Speaker 1: or answering your question in two ways. No, there was

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Speaker 1: not a similar, like defined period of births that tells

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Speaker 1: us what gen X was right. It was just sort

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Speaker 1: of like, well, this makes sense as a truncation point

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Speaker 1: that Pew decided, same with millennials. Money, that's what else

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Speaker 1: started eighty one and then go to I think it's

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Speaker 1: like ninety five something along those lines. But again not

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Speaker 1: a hard demarcation. The generation that is next closest in

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Speaker 1: size total population to the boom is the millennial generation,

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Speaker 1: which at the age of forty, there are about you know,

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Speaker 1: nine for every ten boomers at the age of forty,

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Speaker 1: it's about ninety percent the total number that Boomers were

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Speaker 1: when they hit forty, and so it's almost as big.

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Speaker 1: And millennials are the children of boomers. Is that correct? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, look, you know there were boomers that were

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Speaker 1: the children that boomer right, right, if you're eighteen, you

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Speaker 1: know it's crazy. So you know, again this is all

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Speaker 1: made up, right, sure? But what's interesting you're kind of

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Speaker 1: hammering on this point the baby Boomer generation, where Gen

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Speaker 1: acts or gen y or whatever, gen Z millennials may

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Speaker 1: be a kind of a marketing or just a way

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Speaker 1: to categorize a group of people from at a certain period.

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Speaker 1: Certainly is used in marketing, obviously, and some of it

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Speaker 1: is fueled by marketing. But you're saying that one of

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Speaker 1: the characteristics of the baby Boomers that is distinct is

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Speaker 1: that there is an actual demographic event that occurs in

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Speaker 1: that era that is different from what we would consider

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Speaker 1: to be previous generations. That there is a huge uptick

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Speaker 1: in births. That's right, That we have populated America full

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Speaker 1: of these people in a way that no other generation.

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Speaker 1: I guess you're saying millennial, But it's interesting to consider

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Speaker 1: that millennials are the future boomers, which kind of checks

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Speaker 1: out to me in a way. But so there's a

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Speaker 1: real defining characteristic of it that isn't just like a

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Speaker 1: marketing term. Yeah, that's right. I mean it's almost as

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Speaker 1: if the analogy like to use is to astrology. But

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Speaker 1: it's as though there was evidence that people who were

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Speaker 1: born under the star sign of cancer actually had a

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Speaker 1: certain set of attributes and that you could define that,

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Speaker 1: you know, cancer has had the set of attributes, and

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Speaker 1: then they just made up the rest of the zodiac

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Speaker 1: in order to sort of flesh it out and has

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Speaker 1: something to spear right, Right, So generations are very much

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Speaker 1: like the zodiac in that, you know, they have these

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Speaker 1: sort of theoretical attributes that everyone shares, and they have

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Speaker 1: sort of vaguely defined boundaries and you can be on

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Speaker 1: the cusp and what does that mean? Like, you know,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of parallels there, but there is

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Speaker 1: this real thing, you know, that that the baby boom

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Speaker 1: itself is actually real, right, And so as a result,

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Speaker 1: you've got a bunch of people who appear on the

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Speaker 1: planet at a certain time. Right. You said it's an

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Speaker 1: eighteen year period, right, it's nineteen years inclusive. Yeah, raise

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Speaker 1: in a certain environment, raised in a certain way in

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Speaker 1: a certain state of America that has had you know,

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Speaker 1: massive impact on the political and cultural landscape that we

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Speaker 1: currently navigate. Is that correct in saying that, well, it's

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Speaker 1: it's understanding, right, the Baby boom forced I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean not to be melodramatic, but you're like, no,

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Speaker 1: that's actually totally wrong. But the Baby boom really reshaped

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Speaker 1: what America looks like. You know, if there were external factors,

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Speaker 1: the development of television, transistor, radios, you know, geopolitical affairs,

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Speaker 1: those things had an effect as well. But when you

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Speaker 1: consider what it means you have to accommodate this massive

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Speaker 1: search and population, you understand how America had to reshape itself. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like imagine, you know, in the mid nineteen fifties, you

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Speaker 1: have to get not only a bunch of DW elementary

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Speaker 1: schools to accommodate everyone. You have to get a bunch

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Speaker 1: of elementary school teachers by the time they hit eighteen. Like,

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Speaker 1: what jobs are they gonna do? Are they're gonna go

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Speaker 1: to college? Who are the college professors? You can't just

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Speaker 1: whip up college professors, right, you send that, You send

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Speaker 1: a decent chuck of them off to Vietnam, right, you

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Speaker 1: know you give them to give them right different. They

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Speaker 1: are all these ways in which America change because it

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Speaker 1: had to deal with this, and this is the key point.

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Speaker 1: Now we're reaching the point where they're all hitting sixty

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Speaker 1: five somehow, a lot of us some sort of blinds.

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: there's all these seniors. It's like, yeah, man, we've seen

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Speaker 1: this covering since nineteen forty six. Well, now now we

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Speaker 1: have to figure out what we're gonna do. Right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: When you put it in these terms, it's like shockingly

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Speaker 1: obvious that this is a problem like that, of course,

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Speaker 1: this huge disparity in certain sort of expectations or politics

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Speaker 1: or cultural norms or whatever. Of course, like it makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of sense given what you were just saying.

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Speaker 1: But people talk about boomers, and it's a very broad

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Speaker 1: term to mean like a person who's like uncool and

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Speaker 1: has bad ideas and is selfish. There's more to it

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Speaker 1: than that, I'm sure. Can you can you like just

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Speaker 1: hit a couple of the points of like what is

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Speaker 1: the defining boomer characteristic? Yeah? Okay, so you asked a

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Speaker 1: couple of questions that, I mean, did it's your last

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Speaker 1: point about you know, what is what is a boomer?

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Speaker 1: That's sort of the astrology aspect of it, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: like who who they are sort of conscientiously is is

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Speaker 1: you know, I think there there's an answerable component to that,

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Speaker 1: which which I'll get to. But you also asked, you know,

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Speaker 1: what are the ways they recipe America? They answer that

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Speaker 1: as simple. I think nearly everything in America's recipe by

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Speaker 1: the baby boom. And you know, that's part of what

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Speaker 1: the book goes into what differentiates a boomer from someone else.

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Speaker 1: And this has a very clear and I think of

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Speaker 1: poor Nancier, You're you're absolutely right. This is a very

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Speaker 1: very large generation of tens of millions of people. So

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Speaker 1: it is certainly by you know, by no means are

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Speaker 1: they are they all the same, but they are. They

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Speaker 1: do share some characteristics. One is that they are much

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Speaker 1: whiter than younger Americans. And you have to consider that

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Speaker 1: it's about a century ago the United States imposed new

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Speaker 1: restrictions on immigration. Partly is a backlash to immigrants from

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Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, Southern Europe. Also immigrants from Asia. Those weren't

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Speaker 1: lifted until after the boom ended. So at the time

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Speaker 1: of the baby boom. Time baby booms started, the average

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Speaker 1: immigrant was someone's grandparent would come over through the allis

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Speaker 1: Island era of immigration. Right right then one immigration laws

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Speaker 1: were loosened, we saw a lot of immigrants from Asia

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Speaker 1: and Central America in Mexico who helped to diversify the

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Speaker 1: United States. And so we have a younger generation in

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Speaker 1: America that is much less densely white than the Baby

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Speaker 1: boom generation. Right O. That's interesting. I mean you're saying

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Speaker 1: like we based like hit pause on like a more

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Speaker 1: diverse form of immigration like during this period. That's exactly

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Speaker 1: what I mean. That's that alone is just a kind

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Speaker 1: of fascinated, you know. I mean maybe if I had

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Speaker 1: read more history books, that would be obvious to me,

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Speaker 1: but that is not obvious as a component of like

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Speaker 1: the Boomer generations. Sorr. I didn't mean to cut you off,

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Speaker 1: but I find that kind of fascinating. Yeah, but I

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Speaker 1: mean you can immediately understand how that overlaps with lots

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Speaker 1: of different strains of American politics, right. You know, when

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Speaker 1: you have this older, wider generation that all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden is very frustrated, and when they look at younger

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Speaker 1: Americans and they literally look different than they do, that

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Speaker 1: sort of freaks them out, Like you can see. Again,

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Speaker 1: not to oversimply, you can see how this plays out.

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Speaker 1: But there are other things too, and so the Boomers

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Speaker 1: started this trend, for example, of moving away from people

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Speaker 1: belonging to institutions. You know, they're less likely to go

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Speaker 1: to church than their parents, they are less likely to

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Speaker 1: participate in social groups and so on and so forth.

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Speaker 1: But that's really accelerated post boom, and so younger Americas

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Speaker 1: are much less likely to participate in institutions, much less

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Speaker 1: likely be members so political parties, much less likely to

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Speaker 1: go to church, mention less likely to be religious. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, they're also much better educated, so boomers

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Speaker 1: went to college more than their parents. But that trend

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Speaker 1: also continued, so younger people are much better educated, and

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Speaker 1: so over anyone who's pays its attention to politics again,

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Speaker 1: and you can see how these things overlap with democratic

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Speaker 1: and Republican orientation, right, you know, people who don't go

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Speaker 1: to church and have our college graduates and our people

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Speaker 1: of color are much more likely to be Democrats. Right,

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Speaker 1: And so that then also contributes to the tension. So

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of practical ways in which boomers

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Speaker 1: and young Americans are different. That then you can very

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Speaker 1: quickly see electricle selves. I mean this is maybe a

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Speaker 1: really stupid question. But do Republicans skew older than Democrats

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Speaker 1: across the board? Yeah? They do. I actually looked at

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Speaker 1: analysis for the Post that this has included some extent

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Speaker 1: in the book, but I pulled more recent numbers. You know,

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Speaker 1: about a third of the Republican Party registered Republican is

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Speaker 1: not including independent too lean Republican registered Republicans nationally, about

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Speaker 1: a third of the sixty five or over you know,

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Speaker 1: well over half of them at fiftyear over. Right, that's

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Speaker 1: not great for the Republicans, it's not. But then you

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Speaker 1: know this is this is like two chapters of the

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Speaker 1: book is so what does this mean? Right? Right? But

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Speaker 1: what does this mean? Over the wall? I was going

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Speaker 1: to get to that, like it's you know, you predict

428
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,719
Speaker 1: the future. But in essence, you're saying that like boomers

429
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:09,200
Speaker 1: are actually I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, more

430
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,159
Speaker 1: progressive because they're more educated. I guess, I guess I

431
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:14,320
Speaker 1: don't understand the distinction because you said they're more educating,

432
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:16,480
Speaker 1: that trend is continued, But that would mean that like

433
00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 1: boomers are buying large Democrats? Is that correct? No? No,

434
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,119
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is when you look at the density

435
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,680
Speaker 1: of college education over time. The Boomers really started the

436
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:29,120
Speaker 1: upward trend, right, But then once the boom was done,

437
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: it continued to shoot higher higher. So most boomers do

438
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:33,639
Speaker 1: not have a college education. Most young people don't have

439
00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:35,760
Speaker 1: coulege education too, but they're much more likely to have

440
00:20:35,800 --> 00:20:38,280
Speaker 1: a college education than that. That overlooks. I see that

441
00:20:38,359 --> 00:20:42,080
Speaker 1: accelerated as the generation war on essentially right, and continued

442
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 1: on that track. Okay, yeah, that's right, Okay, Okay, let's

443
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:46,800
Speaker 1: hear some other baby Boomer facts. This is like fascinating

444
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: to me. So they are so they are very white.

445
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:51,920
Speaker 1: I think we just stopped them very white. That was well.

446
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:54,680
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about it, though, is because immigration

447
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 1: laws were loosing, they actually got less white over time.

448
00:20:57,119 --> 00:20:59,920
Speaker 1: The Baby Boom generation kept growing in size until about

449
00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:02,840
Speaker 1: the year two thousand because of immigration, even though you know,

450
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 1: birth send in nineteen sixty four, because we kept bringing

451
00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:08,160
Speaker 1: people in who were born in forty from forty six

452
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:10,200
Speaker 1: to sixty four, they weren't part of the American baby boom,

453
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:13,360
Speaker 1: but we're part of other countries births over that period, right,

454
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:15,720
Speaker 1: The boom itself actually got less white over time, which

455
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: I think is also sort of fascinating, right, That is interesting.

456
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:22,160
Speaker 1: So you're saying, with a less limited immigration policy, there's

457
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:25,040
Speaker 1: an influx of non white boomer age people. Yeah, exactly,

458
00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 1: someone we moved here from China who was born in

459
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. They're a baby boom, right, right, Yeah, but

460
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: not not our baby boom, a totally different distinct one.

461
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 1: I'm sure, all right, what else should we know? What

462
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 1: are some other signs to watch out for, if you know,

463
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 1: if you want to know your baby boomer, well, I mean, look,

464
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,359
Speaker 1: you know, again, drawing these sorts of distinctions is tricky,

465
00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 1: just because this is not a generation which is cohesively

466
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:49,040
Speaker 1: the statium in a lot of different ways. Right, They're

467
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,880
Speaker 1: not a monolith. But if we reshaped America around their

468
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,840
Speaker 1: needs and wants and likes and dislikes and whatever, the

469
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:57,159
Speaker 1: kinds of challenges we were presented with because of this

470
00:21:57,240 --> 00:22:00,919
Speaker 1: new group of people that has appeared on the planet

471
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:05,200
Speaker 1: in this country, presumably there are some connective elements amongst

472
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:07,120
Speaker 1: that group that I mean, they may I'd just be like, oh,

473
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:09,919
Speaker 1: they prefer to eat you know, hamburgers or whatever, you know,

474
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking, there's got to be more, you know,

475
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 1: sort of demographically speaking, I mean, what you're talking about

476
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 1: is is a fact. Yeah, well, I mean from a

477
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 1: demographic standpoints, there's not a lot of other things. I mean,

478
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: younger people more like little live in cities, but not

479
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly so. And you know, there's a chapter in the

480
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: book the looks at this. But when we talk about

481
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 1: the things that define them, right, so, demographers look not

482
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 1: necessarily generations, but at cohorts, people who are who are

483
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 1: born in the same general time period and live through

484
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: similar experiences. And so when you look at, for example,

485
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:40,320
Speaker 1: people who are young during the Great Depression, they have

486
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 1: a certain relationship the money that other Americans probably don't. Right,

487
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:46,240
Speaker 1: So we understand that idea of how cohorts go. But

488
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:48,879
Speaker 1: when we talk about what are the defining characteristics of

489
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 1: the cohort of the baby boomers, it's every goddamn movie

490
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 1: you've seen in the past thirty years, right, you know,

491
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 1: it's it's a listen to rock and roll and you know,

492
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 1: I mean it's like it's like all of these stereotypes

493
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:02,120
Speaker 1: are born of young baby boomers who all of a sudden,

494
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: marketers have this massive opportunity because they have this huge

495
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: influx of teenagers who have a ton of disposable income

496
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: and start driving decisions with the families making you have

497
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 1: this emerge at the same time as television. They're buying

498
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: stuff they see on television, so markets are pitching, and

499
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 1: then you have you know, you have Dick Clark's American Dance.

500
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: They're like all these things that we now associate with

501
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:25,120
Speaker 1: the very stereotypical that's the baby booming. Well, it's interesting

502
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 1: that so much of Americana, or a nostalgia about the

503
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: way America used to be that we hear now, particularly

504
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,120
Speaker 1: from people like Trump and you know Republicans often not

505
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: just them. But it's funny when you said they were

506
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: very white, Like the first thought I had was like, oh, well,

507
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 1: that kind of explains why a lot of these older

508
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 1: Americans perfect idea of like what America should be like.

509
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: Is this like very white, suburban sort of place right

510
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: like this classic like where they were on top. They

511
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 1: were sort of like in the pole position all the time,

512
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: and they lived in these very like homogeneous sort of

513
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 1: environments that were that looked and felt very similar. Like

514
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 1: I feel like the immigration thing explains it better than

515
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 1: any anything I could imagine as to why their nostalgia

516
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 1: is so seemingly one sided, or at least a lot

517
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,639
Speaker 1: of people. Not again, not across the board, but you

518
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: do hear it a lot. So we've got this huge generation.

519
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: Again not monolithic in their behaviors or their attitudes, but

520
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: there is some stuff that has carried through. I mean,

521
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 1: is there a moment where their politics or their way

522
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 1: of living, or their thinking begins to truly clash with

523
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: like their children or the generations that are following them.

524
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: I mean it explained that to me. Yeah, no, this

525
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 1: is this is a great question. And again, this is

526
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: a generation the last of the course of nineteen years,

527
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 1: and so it itself is divisible in some ways in

528
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: terms of when things start to happen. We've had baby

529
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: boomers hitting retirement age for some time now, for example.

530
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: But consider in the moment. Consider you know that the

531
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: State of the Union address is a really good example

532
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: of the ways in which this manifests. And so for

533
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: a long time, the Republican part, it's like, we gotta

534
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: cut in title once, we got to cut social Security

535
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,159
Speaker 1: and medicare. We just talked about how Republicans are now

536
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 1: much older than Democrats and are older than they used

537
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: to be because America is older, and so all of

538
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: a sudden, President Bonding gets up in the State of Union, says, hey,

539
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 1: you know the problems want to cut Social Security Medicare,

540
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: and the problem is like, oh my god, no, no, no, no,

541
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: no no, we don't want to do that, which is

542
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: not the position they would have had previously, in part

543
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: because their base is so much older. Right, but when

544
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 1: you think about the Gen X did not push back

545
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: on the baby boomlat and part because we weren't. There

546
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: weren't as many of us, and so we weren't able

547
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: to sort of own culture in the same way that

548
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: younger you know, millennials and Gen Z are able to do.

549
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: So we own culture, just the cool parts that not

550
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: a lot of people are interacting with. Yeah, I mean

551
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: sort of which just comes as being young, right, you

552
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: know you're not much beyond that. I mean, you know

553
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: where we got our little blurp of the you know,

554
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: the hip hop the super Bowl halftime show last year,

555
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: which is about all we're going to get. That's true.

556
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,719
Speaker 1: I think if it as a generation that doesn't care

557
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 1: about whether or not their culture is necessarily the most

558
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: popular culture, I think a defining characteristic of gen X

559
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: as they kind of don't care about being like the

560
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: top dog. You know, well, you should then write about

561
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: about generations and see how many Gen xers complain about

562
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: not getting mentioned in every freaking interview. Maybe I will.

563
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: But then consider the fact that when now we have

564
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: this group of millennials and Gen Z people who again

565
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: are almost as numerous as baby boomers when they were young,

566
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: and now more numerous than baby boomers, who have a

567
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: very different set of needs than the baby boomers. And

568
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,679
Speaker 1: so we have this increased senior population now, so we

569
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: need to think about social security, and we need to

570
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: think about medicare, we need to think about senior housing,

571
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: we need to think about long term health re precautions

572
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: of that. But you also have this competing large group

573
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: of people increasingly voting, who are saying, actually, we also

574
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 1: need to invest in schools and BRICA and things along

575
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: those lines. And we know that historically that older Americans

576
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 1: are less likely to support things like school bond measures

577
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: because they're less locally have kids in schools. So this

578
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: sets up a political tension by itself just in terms

579
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 1: of where federal, state and local resources are going. This

580
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 1: is the moment when that's happening, because now old Americans

581
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 1: need those and now younger Americans also need to take

582
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: care of their own families at an increasing rape right

583
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: sore battling over resources. This is sort of like a

584
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: water world situation. I mean, that's one aspect of it, right, Right,

585
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: Do boomers get a bad rap? Like the word boomer

586
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: has become associated with something very negative? I said this earlier.

587
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: Is that a false representation? I mean the things you're

588
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: describing are I don't know. I mean we're constantly being

589
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: pulled backwards in this country, especially politically. I mean it's

590
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: not like every boomer is a is a Republican or something,

591
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: but it does feel like there's a very conservative element

592
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 1: in this country, whether it is you know, conservative Republican

593
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: or just somebody who is older and more conservative in

594
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: their thinking. That we make a lot of progress, then

595
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: it somehow gets like kind of there's always this group

596
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: trying to pull us back. Is that the boomers? Is

597
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: that our current you know, sort of the goal they've

598
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: been depicted as you know that it is sort of like,

599
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: you know, trying to rip us back to a simpler time,

600
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: as they would describe it, or is that misrepresentation. I

601
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: mean this is this is complicated and there are a

602
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: lot of different aspects to it. So so one aspect

603
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: is that we certainly do have older people tend to

604
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: vote more than younger people, and a result of that

605
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: is that the issues that are of concerned to older

606
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: people tend to get overrepresented in politics. And that while

607
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: boomers are themselves not robustly more republican than Democrat, that

608
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: they are much more republican than our younger generations. And

609
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 1: so if boomers themselves collectively just made a decision, they

610
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 1: would still be more heavily republican than what you're younger

611
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: people would do, just because they're more republican. But I

612
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: do think the boomers get a bad rap in the

613
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: sense that, for example, Baby boom controls, you know, a

614
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: disproportioned sheriff the wealth in the United States. But in

615
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: part that's because there are so many of them, and

616
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: when you look at a per capita basis that per capita,

617
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: baby boomers are no wealthier than any other generation. And

618
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: I think that when we talk about the ways in

619
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: which resentment manifests between generations who one of the challenges

620
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: is not only do younger people feel like, oh, baby booms,

621
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: they all got to buy houses, and you know they're

622
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: also wealthy. Look how wealthy hours of generation the baby

623
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: when we're saying basically are like, I'm not wealthy. What

624
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Like, right, you know, why why

625
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: are you mad at me? I didn't do anything, you know, like, yes,

626
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: I go on a house, but it's not worth that

627
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: much in YadA, YadA YadA. Right, So you see some

628
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: of that resentment, right, but you also see four examples

629
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 1: that young people can get in the face of old

630
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: people in a way that wasn't possible fifty years ago, right,

631
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: And I think this is how to recognize we like,

632
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: you know, in nineteen seventy, when young people wanted to

633
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: cause a ruckus that go on college campus and carry

634
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: signs and hopefully get coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle

635
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: or whatever it happened to be. Now they get on TikTok.

636
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: You know, there's a quote that I used in the

637
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: book from a guy who's talking to Harpers and he's like, look,

638
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: you know, you can be in your bedroom in Cleveland

639
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: get a million followers overnight, and you can and you

640
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: can get those million followers can be the you know,

641
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: gloment onto your song, okay boomer and getting mad the

642
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: boomers and making fun of that, right, and the boomers

643
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: have to deal with that and see that in a

644
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: way that was not the case previously. And you know,

645
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: and that also increases generational attention. So there are all

646
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: these ways in which this manifest that aren't specifically about

647
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: the struggle for power, but still do reflect, you know,

648
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: the elevated state attention between the generations, right well, but

649
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: to be fair on the point about TikTok notes boomers

650
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: that are worrying about or have to deal with the

651
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: sort of instantaneous popularity of you know, hate being tossed

652
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: at a certain group or whatever. I mean, it's it's

653
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, this is sort of a daily

654
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: habit now, right that we have to navigate some new

655
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: you know, movement of people right or wrong, good or

656
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: bad that has kind of allied themselves against a group,

657
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: some other group or some other person or whatever. I think.

658
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,719
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, Boomers get shipped for it, but you know,

659
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: millennials get shipped for it too, a TikTok, you know,

660
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: so sure, I think it's it's sort of evenly, somewhat

661
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: even maybe not evenly distributed. But yeah, but again, the

662
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: baby boom is used to wielding power, right, not necessarily consciously,

663
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: but they're used to being the most important element of

664
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: American society. You know, you and I are very used

665
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: to online abuse. We like we can understand that world.

666
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: You know, yes, of course, it's what makes our jobs fun. Big.

667
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: There's a great story in Bandy Fair today that was

668
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: looking actually at the generation in the NBA and how

669
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: older NBA players want to just say, oh this, you know,

670
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: these young guys were terrible because X, Y and Z

671
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: in a way that we're you know, you and I

672
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: grew up watching sports and you know, hearing commentators say

673
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: things like that. But the young people in that and

674
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: going out, the younger NBA players are like, now, to

675
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: heck with this guy. Here's why blah blah blah been

676
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: pushing back. And it really is this microcosm that that

677
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: of the way in which they are not used to this.

678
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,239
Speaker 1: They help power in the enemy there and they're not

679
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: used to having that be challenged in a way that

680
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: is so immediate to fans, right, And I think that's

681
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: a good microcosm of the effect that I'm talking about.

682
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: So that element is more like, these are people who

683
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: aren't used to being questioned when they when they're wielding

684
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: their power or whatever. Right, that's it. Yep. I can

685
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: see how that can manifest in all sorts of ways

686
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: in this country, and does manifest in in kind of

687
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: bad situations. Okay, So obviously Boomers very important to the

688
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: current fabric of America, A very misunderstood generation. Not all bad,

689
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: That's what I'm hearing. You know, we all probably know

690
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: some Boomers that we love, no question. You know, we

691
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: should be welcoming them and trying to understand them, right,

692
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be making them outcasts. But what do we do?

693
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: How do we fix this? Is there a fix to it?

694
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: Is we got people? Just have to die? Is that

695
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: the answer to all of our current woes? When the

696
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: boomers are dying off? Like? Do we know what's going

697
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: to replace it? Are we gonna be plunged into chaos?

698
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: Like without a shared enemy? I mean, what happens? You

699
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: have to predict the future? Well, I mean, you know

700
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: the second half of the you know the books called

701
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: the Aftermath, right, So you know I do spend some

702
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: time trying to figure out what this looks like. You know,

703
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: I try and do so with humility, and you know,

704
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: I recognize that a lot of people who made a

705
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: lot of predictions in the past that are wrong. But

706
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: what I try to do is I try to look

707
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: at three things. I try to look at culture, economics,

708
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: and politics and estimate as the Baby Boom power WANs

709
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: what happens. And my determination was the Baby Boom has

710
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: much less full cultural power now they're not the dominant

711
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: cultural force, in part because culture tends to be the

712
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: domain of youth, and in part simply because you know,

713
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: these things change every time. You know, the cultural customs

714
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: tend to change. Economically, you know, there is a real

715
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: question what happens that some people with whom I spoke

716
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: estimate that you know, last year, two trillion dollars worth

717
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: of wealth was transferred out of the Baby Boom generation

718
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: dot places and part to institutions, in part through bequeathments

719
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: to family members, and a part through you know, just

720
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: paying for things like buying a kid a house or

721
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: paying for a kid's collapse, things along those lines. But

722
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: you know, they estimate more than fifty trillion dollars or

723
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: the course of the next two decades, where does that go?

724
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: You know? The answer that I've gotten mostly from folks

725
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: was probably too people who are already wealthy and their families.

726
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: It's a generational wealth. Yeah, no, absolutely right, you know,

727
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: but that also depends on how long boomers live and

728
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: how much how much they have medical costs, and whether

729
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: they're able to afford see your housing, and then a

730
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: lot of the determinations that are being made now. Right

731
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: when we talk about political power, you know, the immediate

732
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: question a lot of people have is, Okay, if America

733
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: is more diverse, as you know, among younger generations, they

734
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: tend to vote more heavily democratic, does that mean we

735
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: can't learn for an uber democratic future? And the answer

736
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: to that I have to show. The complexity is that

737
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: when you look at the Census Bureau's projections for what

738
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: the demography of the United States is going to look

739
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: like in twenty sixty, you break it out by age

740
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: and by race. The state in the Union it looks

741
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: the most like what the Census Spureau thinks, you know,

742
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: the United States will look like on the whole in

743
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: twenty sixty. The state that currently looks like that it

744
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: is Florida, the state of Florida is not uber Democrat. No,

745
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: that's not good. How is that possible? Why is it Florida.

746
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: Here's here's why it's Florida. It's FLORIDAUS. Florida is very old,

747
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: and Florida as the largest Spanic popular Yeah, okay, but

748
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: it consider the qualifiers. Florida's old population is very heavily

749
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: white and more conservative than the old population elsewhere. That's

750
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: not going to be the case in twenty sixty because

751
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: the old population is going to get more diverse as

752
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 1: America ages, right. And Second of all, Florida's Hispanic population

753
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: is very heavily Cuban American, which is a more conservative

754
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: group of Hispanic voters, and so that probably doesn't reflect

755
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: what Hispanic voters will look like in the future. It right,

756
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: So there are caveats, but again, the point is the

757
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: complexity here. What's number two? Do you know what number two? Sorry,

758
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 1: I don't mean to cut you off, but Florida's number one?

759
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: What is number two? Of course I do Joshua the

760
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: state of New Jersey, which is a very blue state.

761
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: I mean, that's interest, that's slightly I mean again, I'm sorry.

762
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: It is kind of shocking to me that you're telling me,

763
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: like when they look at what defines America in a way,

764
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: maybe it all makes sense. But when you're saying number

765
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: one and number two, it's what will define America potentially,

766
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: what America will look more like in the future. Is

767
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: number one Florida at number two New Jersey, two states

768
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: that are often often considered to be two of the

769
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: worst places in America. Now, I'm not saying I agree

770
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: with that, but it is like, ye, but I'm not

771
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,359
Speaker 1: saying I agree with it. You know, there's wonderful parts

772
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,879
Speaker 1: of Jersey, wonderful parts of Florida, but but they are

773
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: like a often like the joke, you know, the end

774
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: of a joke for a lot of people. You know,

775
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: Florida man is a thing because there's it seems like

776
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: she know, every day there's some absolutely outrageous story about

777
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: a guy who went crazy in Florida and Jersey. You know,

778
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: let's we don't have a whole another hour to talk

779
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: about all the but you know, these are cliches, but

780
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: it is interesting. Okay, what's number three? Do you know?

781
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: I'm just I gotta know, um, I don't know all

782
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: the stuff I had to inform care let's say it's

783
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: like Delaware or something maybe a little more. No, it's

784
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: definitely not Dello Delwar is too white. Okay, not at

785
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: the top ten states and look the most like what

786
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: the census spar projects the demophy will look like. Our

787
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: blue states are Biden votes. They are, which doesn't surprise interesting, right, Yeah,

788
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: But the sense of spirits projections just a you know,

789
00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 1: and this is another chapter in the book. The sense

790
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: of spirits injections are based on an assumption that Hispanic

791
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: Americans will continue to identify as Hispanic. And they're all

792
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: sorts of calveiats to that, all sorts of calveats to

793
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: the way in which we measure diversity now, the way

794
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: in which we expect diversity to unfold over long term,

795
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: which may change that. It may mean that we actually

796
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: have a more conservative America than people expect. I mean,

797
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 1: isn't that in a way the assumption that an older

798
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: generation of any voter will act like a younger generation,

799
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: and sort of because that, I guess what would be

800
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: considered more blue, right, the Hispanic population If it's more

801
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: blue today, a younger probably. I mean, I don't know

802
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 1: how it's used, but I have to imagine it's got

803
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: to be maybe is it not younger, I don't know,

804
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: but as it gets older, I mean, isn't there just

805
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 1: there as an opportunity there for that older generation to

806
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: become more conservative as older people seem to do, like

807
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: because you're like, hey, I don't want people to get

808
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: the thing that's supposed to be mine, or I don't

809
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to be paying taxes for

810
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: these new people who just showed up or whatever the

811
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: whatever the I don't know. I can't put my mind

812
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: in the in the space to really understand the complaints.

813
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 1: But right, like, there's no guarantee that person who is

814
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: today a Democrat young and not like worried about the

815
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: same things would be sixty years old and feel the

816
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: same way. Well, you get to a few things there,

817
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: and one is that, hey, the parties themselves are fungible,

818
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: right Like, the Republican Party in twenty years time doesn't

819
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: have to have the same values and principles of the

820
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: Romical Party today though, And in fact, I think you will.

821
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 1: I think it will. Well, I mean, if it does,

822
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: then it's going to get you know, twenty percent votes share,

823
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: I think, right, And that's just good. Okay. So the

824
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: other thing is that, yeah, I mean when we talk

825
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: about this idea that people get more conservative as the age,

826
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: you know, that's based on we don't really have a great, long,

827
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: lengthy history of social science research, right right. You know,

828
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: it goes back to you know, not even a century

829
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: in terms of polling, goes less than that in terms

830
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: of like solid scientific research on sociological trans and things

831
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,399
Speaker 1: along those lines. So even if we assume that's true though,

832
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: which I don't know that we have a sufficient enough

833
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: sample size to say it is. Even if we assume

834
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: that's true, we're basing it on a very white population

835
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 1: of Americans. Right, Older black Americans today, they they're not

836
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 1: more conservative. Right, Older Spanic Americans to day still vote

837
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: heavily Democrats, right right, There are a reason to think

838
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: that those populations that are non whitey're going to get

839
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: more Republican. I don't know who there is. Well, actually,

840
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,279
Speaker 1: I mean, just going back to that point about the

841
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: future of the Republican Party. I mean, if anything, in

842
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: my adult life, I have seen the Republican Party become

843
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: less progressive. It was not normal when I was younger

844
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: for people who were identified as Republican to be like

845
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: kind of outspoken, full on racists or Nazis or like

846
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: aligning themselves with like, you know, white supremacy. That's a

847
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 1: pretty common thing in the Republican Party from what I

848
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: can tell. Now. A lot of it maybe broad trudged

849
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: up because of Trump, but like I mean, I remember

850
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: when Obama was running, you know, the first time around,

851
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: and it was like there was sort of unabashed like

852
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: oh ooh, people are bringing like you know, monkeys to rallies,

853
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: you know, to make fun of him, and just like

854
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: really weird racist shit that I'd never seen happen in

855
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: America in politics, not to that degree. That was just

856
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: kind of out just people couldn't help themselves. It was

857
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,439
Speaker 1: like very outspoken. To me, I've seen the Republican Party

858
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 1: seemingly go further into some kind of weird, you know,

859
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: race based sort of conservative standpoint. Like so explain that

860
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 1: to me, because it based on what you're saying, Like

861
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: it kind of like the thing with medicare. They're like, no,

862
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: we don't want that, we want to be whatever the

863
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: boomers are asking for it. But but I don't know that.

864
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: I mean, again, you said it was a very white generation.

865
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: But I see a Republican Party that moves further and

866
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 1: further to an extreme right position, which feels incompatible with

867
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: what you're to. What you're saying the demographics of the

868
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: country as they as they are evolving, And I am

869
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: I mistaken and in reading it that way, No, you're

870
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: not mistaken that. What you're doing, though, is you're you're

871
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: restating the thesis of the book, right, which is that

872
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: what happens in two thousand days, Barack Obama is elected

873
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: and at the same time you start to see this

874
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:54,439
Speaker 1: extremely sharp divide between older and younger Americans. Now they vote,

875
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: you have a new cadre of more diverse younger Americans

876
00:39:57,239 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: coming out to vote for a candid who excites them,

877
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: who isn't John Kerry, who is an al Gore. In

878
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: two thousand they'd left Barack Obama. And then you have

879
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: a reaction to that, which is a lot of people,

880
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: older people joining this tea party movement thing which is

881
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: heavily predicated on giving government funding to non white Americans,

882
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: on a perception of immigration as this toxic thing. But

883
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 1: also if you speak to people who study this thing,

884
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: concerned by older Americans about their younger family members who

885
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 1: are under the sway of this socialist who's not even white. Right,

886
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: this is a moment in which all this becomes very impotent.

887
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: Then you layer on top of that the census spirit

888
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: of first pinkance, projection of oh, by the way, in

889
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,720
Speaker 1: the next couple decades, whites are gonna be a minority

890
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: in the country, and everyone freaks out. And that's the moment.

891
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: This is why we're seeing this now, You're right, it

892
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 1: predates Trump. Trump leveraged it very successfully, leveraged BLM in

893
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, the Immigration Surgeon twenty fourteen for his twenty

894
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: fifteen launch of twenty sixteen campaign. But it predates him,

895
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: and it centers around an older, whiter America suddenly coming

896
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: to terms with they're losing their grip on power with

897
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: the election of Barack Obama. Right. I have long felt that,

898
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have expressed this, that Trump's rise to

899
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: power as the voice of the Republican Party is like

900
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: the death rattle of this generational thinking or this party

901
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 1: the way it has been. Like my hope was that

902
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,280
Speaker 1: like this was like close to the final most toxic,

903
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: most sort of deranged element kind of trying to get

904
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: its last gasp after they've experienced the Obama years and

905
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: had to think about in America where we could have

906
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: a black president and then some like you know, but

907
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like that was a temporary death rattle.

908
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: It feels like it was a more permanent, like realigning

909
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: of I don't know, like a set of values, like

910
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: I understand, holding onto the things that they feel like

911
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: we're the way they were and that they want them

912
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: to stay like. But it's unclear to me how a

913
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: political party in this country can navigate from that position

914
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: and we don't just end up in essentially like some

915
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: kind of civil war, a race based sort of war here,

916
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: because like, what's the logical end of that? I mean

917
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 1: not to be overly dramatic, but it feels like, what

918
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: is it We just wait for that generation to die

919
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:01,879
Speaker 1: out and hope that we don't meant too many new

920
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: people Like that is that basically the solution? So I'll

921
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: start by saying, there are four things that identified as

922
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: unknowns that that you know could certainly change the shape

923
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: of climate change is one of them. You know, how

924
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: long people live? As another with the extent to which

925
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: Hispanics continue identifies hispanic as. The third and the fourth

926
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: is does America survive as a pluralistic democracy? And yeah, right,

927
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: that is very much up in the air. It's not clear.

928
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 1: I mean, I think twenty twenty two was a good

929
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: step in that direction. But you know, you know, every

930
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: time I spoke with political science, they'd be like, well,

931
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 1: assuming America surprize as it is, ben X and I

932
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: spell that people who were very much like you know,

933
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: I mean, look, democracy, true pluralistic dromocracy in the United

934
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: States began in the nineteen sixties, began at the end

935
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: of the Baby boom. Right. You know, one of the

936
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: fascinating things that I noted in the book, which is

937
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: sort of the tangential here, is that you know, this

938
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: this whole reaction to like schools being named after Confederate leaders,

939
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: after Brown vers support of education. The reason there are

940
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: so many schools to name was because the Baby boom

941
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: and made them had to have to build all these schools.

942
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: And so you see this entrenchment of a very particular

943
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 1: style of American politics right at the moment the boom

944
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: is on set, and right when all of a sudden

945
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: you start to see blacks get more power. So yes,

946
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: that's very much a question mark. I do think it's

947
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: important to note three things. The first is that in

948
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, the Republican Party said, look, we either need

949
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: to become pluralistic or we need to, like, you know,

950
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: figure out what we're gonna do, and Donald Trump is like,

951
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:18,800
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna just you know, triple down on

952
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 1: appealing to the white vote. Then what happens is he

953
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: wins in sixteen by the skin of his teeth, he

954
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: loses in twenty and then the party gets demolished in

955
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Doesn't get demolished, it does it underperforms

956
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:29,879
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, do well, didn't do good? Yeah,

957
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: what's the party's first reaction? Ronald McDaniel says, you know,

958
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: what we need to do is reach out to a

959
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: more diverse group of voters, which they do need to do,

960
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: and the party recognize that. Right. Will they do it

961
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: with the short term I don't know, but I think

962
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: they internally recognize that something you have to do. The

963
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: second thing is that the issues on which younger Americans

964
00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: are more concerned, the Republican Party actually has moved left,

965
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: not on race based stuff necessarily, but on LGBTQ issues

966
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: on things like climate change, the Republican Party is not

967
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: as stringent as it was fifteen twenty years ago. Twenty

968
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, the party put all these anti

969
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: seems that marriage ballot measures to try and boost George

970
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: Bush's reelection right right, Nowadays, the party ostensibly and often

971
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 1: you know, basically the subset of the party which is

972
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: fervently anti same sex marriage. Yeah, is a minority that

973
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: is a change, and that overlaps with a thing that

974
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: is very central to younger voters. So it is already

975
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: making changes to be different to this group of voters

976
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: than it used to be, right. I mean, it is

977
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: fascinating to think about a future state of the Republican

978
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: Party that actually embraces that stuff, because I feel like, yes,

979
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: on the surface, that is feels like it's true that

980
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: there's been a loosening of sort of the conservative viewpoint

981
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: on things like the LGBTQ plus community, But at the

982
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: same time, I feel like, deep down they definitely would

983
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,839
Speaker 1: vote against anything that helps out that community. Right, They're

984
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: not really all had problem boys that the junior says, sure,

985
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: right exactly, and and and the leader of their party

986
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: is absolutely not aligning around. I mean, I guess in

987
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:56,759
Speaker 1: a way, maybe Trump is more progressive on that front

988
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: than than some of the other potential candidates, because he

989
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: at least kind of acknowledges the existence of those people,

990
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: where I think a lot of Republicans for a long

991
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 1: time did not. But unfortunately we don't have enough time.

992
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: I want to keep going because there's I'm so fascinating

993
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: by this, but I gotta say, like these sort of

994
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 1: big questions that you're you're opposing about, like the future

995
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: of America, are absolutely fascinating. I'm dying now, dying to

996
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: read the book because you know, I like the setup,

997
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: but now hearing you actually dig into it, it's just

998
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: to me, it's just it sounds like such a fertile

999
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 1: and frankly confusing moment in our history. I mean, to

1000
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: your point about people saying, well, maybe we don't continue

1001
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: to be you know, this democracy that we've enjoyed. I

1002
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,280
Speaker 1: know that it's talked about a lot. But what's interesting

1003
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: is I mean, and of course this is your forte

1004
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: presenting like data against the possibility of it and understanding

1005
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: the demographics that could drive something like that makes it

1006
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,240
Speaker 1: feel a lot more real. And so that's just scary

1007
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: and fascinating to me. Philip. Thank you so much for

1008
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: coming on and doing this. The book is the aftermath

1009
00:45:57,520 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: what is the subtitle of the book, The Last Days

1010
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,919
Speaker 1: of the Boom in the Future of Power in America. Yeah,

1011
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: so that sounds very dramatic. I know I was being

1012
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 1: dramatic during this, but I got to sell books, man,

1013
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely fantastic conversation. You've got to come back

1014
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 1: and do this again soon, of course. Thank you. Well,

1015
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: that was a fascinating conversation. I feel like I learned

1016
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 1: a lot and yet have so many more questions. We're

1017
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: gonna have to have phill It back, especially with twenty

1018
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: twenty four being just around the corner, which sounds crazy,

1019
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:35,240
Speaker 1: that sounds wrong, But with every passing day we're getting

1020
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:39,760
Speaker 1: closer and closer to a presidential election in this country,

1021
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 1: which sounds very frightening and upsetting to me personally. But

1022
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: love to find out what a boomer thinks about it.

1023
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: Love to get in there and just chat with them.

1024
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: Maybe I will. So, yeah, I got to get Phillip

1025
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: back to discuss the florification of America. Well, that is

1026
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: our show for this week. We'll be back next week, finally, thankfully,

1027
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: with more what future, and as always, I wish you

1028
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: and your family the very best.