newswire: 6/5/2020
- In 1991’s Generations, Neil Howe and William Strauss predicted that a major crisis would take place around 2020—so what’s next? In a new piece, NYT reporter Jeremy W. Peters asked Howe to reflect on how our nation got here and how the end of the crisis may lead to a major generational realignment. (The New York Times)
- NH: This is a reasonably fair and insightful look by the NYT at the books on generations and cycles of history that I wrote with Bill Strauss.
- One generational dynamic that we examined is the regular oscillation between individualism and community as the preferred approach to solving society's problems. Fifty years ago, young Boomers definitely moved toward the individualist end of the spectrum--both on the left (in the culture) and on the right (in the economy). But today young Americans are definitely moving back in the community direction.
- The most revealing single question I have ever asked on a political survey of Americans of all ages (in 2014) was this: Which would you prefer: that government should reinforce the principle of self reliance? Or the principle of community? The gap between over age 50 and under 30 on this question was very large, over 30 percentage points.
- Yes, that's why the Democrats, who bill themselves as the party of community, have an historic 2-to-1 advantage among Millennials. Yet what's more interesting is that the response gap by age to this question was just as large among Republicans and Independents as it was among Democrats. As Peters correctly points out, young Republicans themselves are defying their elders by taking a more interventionist approach to trade, national security, industrial policy, antitrust, financial regulation, and social assistance.
- For the article, Peters interviewed me and three fans of our books: David Kaiser (a historian), Steve Bannon (Trump's advisor in 2016), and Dick Morris (Bill Clinton's advisor back in 1992). The best line in the story was Bannon's: "Where's my copy of 'Atlas Shrugged?' Oh yeah, it's in the shredder."
