Gen X went from leaning slightly right in 2016 to become, as one analysis puts it, “the bedrock of Trumpism.” Derek meditates on what happened to his generation by reading from four different thought pieces on the topic.
Show Notes
Wait, What Is Really Up With Gen X’s Politics?
Is Gen X a Bunch of Trumpers? Maybe That’s the Wrong Question.
How Gen X Became the Trumpiest Generation
How Gen X Went from Raging Against the Machine to Swallowing Misinformation While “Doing Their Own Research”
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In the 2016 presidential election, Gen X cast 35.7 million votes, which was the highest turnout for our age demographic up to that point.
In 2020, it was 36 million votes.
And then in 2024, estimates say up to 44 million of us voted.
And with each election, Gen X has been getting more conservative, or, as many headlines have stated, Trumpier.
I want to meditate on what happened to my generation today.
Let's start by looking at some data.
Gen X was already showing signs of being less democratic than millennials in 2016.
Back then, 49% of Gen X voters leaned democratic compared to 55% of millennials.
Exit polls at the time indicate that we were more evenly split than boomers or millennials, but leaned slightly right of center.
And then we get to 2020, and even though Biden won, Gen X edged further right, voting for Trump by a one-point margin.
Millennials and Gen Z were more evenly split at that time.
Then came 2024.
Gen X favored Trump by a 6 to 9 point margin, and that made us his strongest generational base.
Millennials and boomers moved less dramatically, and boomers trended slightly more democratic in the last election cycle than they had previously.
Some reporting on Gen Xers found that we feel financially insecure, and that was the reason for this shift.
Data do back this up, given that we're unlikely to earn more than our parents did, but in my opinion, it doesn't really explain my generation's turn towards Trump, a man who is not going to help out anyone who's not a billionaire, or has the Trump name.
While reviewing materials for this episode, I've read that Trump's brash style, his irreverence, his use of irony appealed to Gen X sensibilities.
His controversial statements were apparently less off-putting compared to other generations.
I mean, maybe?
A lot of that has to do with geography.
I grew up in Jersey in the 80s.
We all knew that Trump was a hack, especially after what he did to Atlantic City.
There's a certain type of person that you quickly knew not to trust, and Trump embodies that person perfectly.
He's like a caricature of that person.
But I also recognize how power and money are so seductive, so it makes sense that he'd have lackeys around, just not as many as I thought he would.
There are a few other explanations that I'll entertain during this episode.
I think the cynicism angle holds some weight, but not all of it.
We are the latchkey generation, that is true.
I started walking to school by myself in first grade.
It was about a half a mile away.
Parents just set me off and I walked home.
I mean, there would be entire days I wouldn't see my parents.
They didn't ask me where I was, and I didn't tell them.
I didn't speak to them much at all, and that's not unusual among at least my anecdotal cohort of people who I grew up with.
Perhaps now I am a little bit more unusual in that I'm really close with my parents and so many of my friends aren't.
But regardless, I get this impulse to assign our independent upbringings with Trump's selfish policies and his ego, but I don't think that's it either.
And of course, we have to talk about the music and the movies because that is so definitional of Gen X. We had a very specific genre of both, but all generations do.
In the 80s, we had the good guy always win, John Cusack, Hero's Journey ethos, which I remember fondly.
But I also realized how ill-prepared that made me for reality because of that sort of good guy is always going to win mentality.
To be honest, the whiteness of it all fit quite well into the Reaganomics dynamic America was enduring at that time.
I will say, though, I'm happy to report that unlike a number of my childhood heroes, John Cusack is a prolific anti-MAGA voice on social media, so that makes me happy.
And the music, of course, was all about the rage.
And I know music isn't life, but it does reflect life and the time and the culture that breeds it.
The most common comparison that you'll see in media is that Gen X once raged against the machine and now they put Trump in power.
I have some personal weight in that.
I mean, rage against the machine was extremely influential.
In 1993, I got to hang out with Tom Morello when I was a freshman in college just for an evening, but it was really informative and incredible.
And then a couple years later, I wrote a cover story for a magazine about Rage Against the Machine and talked to Tom and caught up with him then.
And thankfully, he is definitely still the anti-Trump.
I understand the idea that the entire generation was raging, but as we're going to get into, it didn't represent All of my peers.
And that's really important to point out.
So, I'm Derek Barris.
You're listening to a Conspirituality Bonus Episode.
How did Gen X go MAGA?
Let's get into it.
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