Finally the generational transition we've been waiting for

In the course of a long, somewhat incoherent, interview that NYTimes super pundit Ezra Klein has published with super odds and data pundit Nate Silver, this confusing exchange grabbed my attention: 

Klein: Like, I think you’re just sort of seeing the arrival of a Democratic class that is just more native to this era — came in during Obama, then was shaped by Trump and understands communication now.

Just something seems to be changing that is actually across a different faction. They all now have stars in a way that I wouldn’t have said was true a few years ago.

Silver: I think some of it is kind of like a Steph Curry effect — with Obama as an analogue — where he starts shooting 3-pointers from where no one has before, and now kids are practicing that in high school, and they graduate and go to college in the N.B.A.

And who is Steph Curry in this analogy?

Obama, yeah.

I mean, yeah, El-Sayed and Ossoff, for instance, are both very influenced by Obama in different ways.

You know, Mayor Pete’s got a little bit ——

Yeah, Pete Buttigieg is another kind of elder millennial talent I would add to this.

I think, in some ways, what happened to Democrats after 2012 was kind of weird, right? Where Hillary lost to Obama [This was in 2008, but the point holds.] Bill Clinton became president in 1993, but for some reason, it’s like: Well, it’s Hillary’s turn now. [Neither of these guys seem to understand that bypassing the woman in 2008 offended a lot of Dem women.] And she had a very competitive primary against Bernie Sanders — and prevailed.

But that, in some ways, felt like a return to a different Democratic Party than the party that Obama was trying to craft. And then Biden, who was expressly chosen by Obama because he was old and not seen as a threat to run for president himself, kind of won amid this flight to safety.

Obviously, some of these were competitive nomination processes. But it feels like some trajectory got interrupted in the Democratic Party. Maybe now it’s being restored, I suppose, a little bit. 

The way I look at this sequence is a lot simpler. Yes, born in 1961, Obama is technically a Boomer according to the demographers. I was born in 1947 and so I am also a Boomer. Hillary Clinton was also born 1947. In terms of the life experiences which defined for us what might be possible, that demographer equation of the life experiences of early and late Boomers is nuts. I was born before the Civil Rights revolution forced its way into white American consciousness; Obama came along in time to be its most prominent politician beneficiary. Sticking us into the same demographic bag misreads American politics and history.

A 2016 Hillary rally

And, unhappily, Hillary Clinton's second serious run at the presidency in 2016 was an attempt to defy generational realities. There were good reasons why she seemed a plausible candidate then, besides a lingering sense among some that it was her turn to be "first woman". She was might have been one of the best prepared politicians to do the work of a presidency ever; that's seldom been the main criteria for election. But in the normal flow of generations, her second run at the big prize (remember she almost won the nomination in 2008) gummed up a better, smoother generational transition. 

And then we got a couple more ancients -- Trump and Biden -- who also ought to have been disqualified by age for the job, but whose interaction kept them in play, for worse, better, and worse. Bernie is a slightly different story -- clearly too old, but representative of an actual American ideology which most candidates are not and which overcame age as a qualification.

Finally, we have to be exiting the Boomer era. We're over, figuratively and increasingly literally! Gen Z and Millennial voters will, finally, be more than half the electorate in 2028. The America that survives Trump will be their America, their culture, their hopes. 

About time. My kind did some great stuff, but it is others' time.