Donald Trump was born in 1946. Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. And as a result, the candidates, and their campaigns, are reflections of the same Boomer anxieties.
.. our self-representation of the latter half of the 20th century basically mirrors the average Boomer’s memory of his own life. In the 1950s, a Boomer would have been a child, and this is the decade we look at through rose-tinted glasses — simpler times, albeit wonderful ones. The 1960s we look at as a decade of trouble but also boundless possibility and fun, just like teenage years. Like young adulthood, we mostly remember the 1970s as a struggle, with high oil prices, unemployment, and inflation — the struggle of getting set up and making your way in the world. By the 1980s, a roaring decade for many, the average Boomer would be in the flower of life, with a young family. And the prosperous 1990s would be when the Boomer’s savings are finally starting to pile up.
.. Of course, the reason why that aspect of Clinton’s message works so well is because Trump is such a perfect foil for it. If Hillary is the Boomers’ nostalgia-filled ego trip, Trump is the Boomers’ fear of impending doom and insecurity. Trump is often compared to George Wallace and Richard Nixon.
.. our two political parties are obsessed with fighting the battles from those eras. The argument they are engaged in is how to return to which misremembered fantasy of the 1950s and 1960s.