newswire: 7/2/2020
- A new op-ed by columnist Jennifer Finney Boylan talks about being a member of “Generation Jones,” or in other words, being born in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Jonesers are different from early-wave Boomers: They fared much worse economically and have long leaned conservative. (The New York Times)
- NH: Imagine a generation that combined all of the surly rebelliousness and downward economic mobility of late-wave Boomers with the blunt pragmatism and low collective self-esteem of first-wave Xers. Actually, there is such a generation--or rather, half-generation. Its name is "Generation Jones," a label invented by Jonathan Pontell, and it includes all Americans born in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
- Musically, they came of age with the Ramones and the Clash--not with the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel. Politically, they were shaped by stagflation and the Reagan Revolution of 1980--not by Vietnam and the Cambodian Invasion of 1970. Religiously, they were less likely ever to attend a mainstream church and have since been more likely either to attend no church all or to become "born again."
- These differences have since stood the test of time. Americans today around age 60 are significantly more conservative than Americans today around age 70--and, as governors and members of Congress, are significantly more likely to be Republican. In surveys, this group is a noteworthy exception to the rule that voters always become more progressive as they become younger.
- There are other differences compared to first-wave Boomers. For example, they married later and were more likely never to marry. Joneser women are much more likely to be childless. Joneser men scored much lower on their SATs and ended up less likely to have a college degree or enter a profession. Overall, this is the group--not later-born Xers or Millennials--that represented the first steep cohort decline in the share of Americans who end up meeting or exceeding their parents' income by age 30 or 50. All their lives, this sub-generation has pushed the envelope on social pathologies like suicide (see "America's Suicide Rate--Up One-Third Since 1999") and homelessness (see "The Boomer Boom in Homelessness").
- What explains these contrasts? Probably, one simple fact: The sweeping cultural revolutions that arrived in America from the mid-'60s on--divorce, drugs, protests, sexual liberation, and rock 'n roll--hit first-wave Boomers on their way to college, but they hit Jonesers in childhood, often early childhood. According to author Susan Faludi (born 1959), as related in this essay, "As a girl, I had, God help me, a suede fringe vest and a hippie doll that came with a sign that said 'You Turn Me On!’'"
- So they became the traumatized fans of the Brady Bunch, yearning--maybe even "Jonesing"--for nothing more than to rediscover the close family they missed. “Older boomers may have wanted to change the world,” recalls one Joneser, “most of my peers just wanted to change the channel.”
- Jennifer Finney Boylan, the author of this essay, puts it well. "Jonesers expected that as adults, we’d inherit the same wide-open sense of opportunity as our older brothers and sisters. But when those opportunities dried up, we became begrudgers instead — distrusting of government, nervous about change and fearful that creating opportunities for others would mean a diminishment of our own."
- In her final twist, Boyan suggests that Jonesers may forsake their conservatism in 2020 and vote for the Democrats. Why? Partly because so many of them can't stand Donald Trump any more than they could stand Hillary Clinton--both of whom represent all of the ego, entitlement, and meritless success that they think characterizes early-wave Boomers. Maybe it's time to go for a candidate like Joe Biden, a low-key kind of guy shaped long before the '60s ever happened, a guy who may remind many of them of... their fathers.
