The Gen-Xer Obama ... and his desire to
        "Change" America

The shock of another Boomer president

Biden does ideology perfectly

America's generational differences are clearly demonstrated in the varying character of its late 20th and early 21st century presidents.  Interestingly, three of America's recent presidents were all born in 1946 … just months apart: Trump in June, Bush Jr. in July, and Clinton in August.  In quite unique ways, they were very "Boomer" in the way they went about their respective presidencies. Clinton actually seemed to vary from being something of a late-Silent to being more typically an early-Boomer ... depending on what the political realities happened to be at the time. George W. Bush (Bush, Jr.) Bush Jr. came to the White House in full Boomer bloom.  But he would stay that way ... even in the face of disasters his Idealism brought on him and America.  During his campaign for the presidency, he announced himself to be a "compassionate conservative" (as if other conservatives had no compassion) … and once in the White House, immediately undertook the effort to bring American education under new federal standards.  This was shockingly a very non-conservative view of the role of the national government in what traditionally in America had been a matter solely of American families … and the local school boards they supported and directed in how they wanted their children educated outside of their homes. 9/11.  But this Bush venture into Boomer Idealism would be rather immediately upstaged by the events of 9/11 (al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on the New York Twin Towers and DC's Pentagon building).  The world was shocked … and very supportive of American efforts to bring the perpetrators of this evil deed to justice.  But finding and bringing down the al-Qaeda organization behind those attacks would not be easy … because of the amorphous character of the "organization" (more an idea or philosophy than a social organization) and because neither the Pakistani government nor the Afghan Taliban (Islamic fighters who had recently taken control of Afghanistan) were willing to seize and extradite the al-Qaeda members operating in their respective countries. So what did Bush decide to do?  Pakistan was a nuclear power and very unwilling to cooperate in this venture into international justice.  Clearly, there was nothing to be done there … despite the fact the al-Qaeda's operational headquarters were clearly located in that country.  What about Afghanistan?  Al-Qaeda had a number of jihadist training bases in the country … although these moved easily from place to place and could easily slip into the Hindu Kush mountains where locating them would be virtually impossible. Afghanistan.  So ultimately what did Bush decide to do?  Invade Afghanistan … and make the country over into a more "democratic" society.  Would that bring al-Qaeda to justice?  Of course not.  But it would give the Boomer Idealist Bush the appearance of at least doing something "honorable" in response to the huge national hit America had just experienced. But of course making over a society that had been Muslim for well over a thousand years into something reflective of what Bush understood as "democratic" – the Boomer American Idealist version of "democratic" society anyway - was a task destined to grand failure. Did he not understand this?  No of course not.  No Boomer does.  Boomers live in a world of grand Ideals that make them qualify as "Progressivists" … "progressivism" being almost anything that takes society down a new – and thus of course always better – road than it has been on.  Do Boomers have any idea of how such a quest is likely to end up?  How could they, since they respect no social models offered by history to instruct them in the choices they would have to make.  After all, to a Boomer, history is simply a record of failures that Boomers are positive that they themselves will never repeat in their "progressivist" move into the future. And so off Bush – and his Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's new "professional" army – went in order to make over Afghanistan.  Did Bush learn nothing from the catastrophic Soviet venture into the same country so recently undertaken … during the time his father was Reagan's Vice President?  Of course not.  Boomers do not learn lessons even from recent history.  They dream dreams and chase after them … because they are so much more impressive than reality. Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  Then even more amazing was Bush's decision that while America's armed forces are over in the Middle East, they might as well also take down the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein … a task that Bush's father had failed to complete when he merely had American troops drive Saddam's forces out of neighboring Kuwait.  And why exactly was Bush Jr. deciding to undertake this task?  Even his Vice President Dick Cheney had once stated that going into Iraq would be to fall into a quagmire … wasting expensive political assets with no possible reward. But why was Cheney now supporting Bush's "democratic dream"?  That's just how politics in high places works.  You support the Big Man … no matter how foolish such support clearly happens to be. And so off America went, bombing and killing Iraqis (and ultimately Saddam Hussein himself) … in the name of "democracy for Iraq."  Did the Iraqis want this?  They never said so.  This was strictly a Bush, Jr. idea. And thus into the "quagmire" America went … spending lives, military machinery, and lots of dollars to bring "democratic happiness" to Iraq.  And of course, the Iraqis shot back.  But Bush simply poured more American assets into the venture … before announcing an Iraqi pullout as he came to an end of his eight-years in office.  Ultimately, during those many years in Iraq, he had simply switched the power base from one set of deeply dedicated Muslims (the Shi'ites) to another set of deeply dedicated Muslims (the Sunnis) … and left the Sunnis now as equally deeply dedicated enemies of America.  The whole of Northeast Iraq (spilling into Eastern Syria) became the seat of a very dedicated group of fiercely anti-American/anti-Western terrorists … that the Middle East, Europe and America would have to deal with.  What a political legacy! And the victorious Shi'ites he left in power in Iraq were vastly closer in their loyalties to the "death-to-the-Great-Satan-America" Iranians next door than they were to their American deliverers!  And all of this was achieved at the cost to Americans of over a trillion dollars.  Thank you, Boomer Bush. The American economic meltdown.  But the Boomer Bush economic catastrophe did not end there. When the American economy finally showed a slump in his early years in office, Bush decided to "free up" the American economy from a number of legal restraints placed on it dating back to the 1930s during Roosevelt's Depression Era New Deal.  And now enjoying the lack of economic boundaries (that actually had worked quite well to keep the economy under some kind of operating order) the American economy took off again … right into one of the worst economic meltdowns to hit the country since the Depression.  And Bush was forced to throw massive amounts of federal money after corporations facing bankruptcy from all the financial foolishness they had been recently caught up in … driving up the national debt to astronomical heights – in fact doubling the national debt from five to ten trillion dollars during Bush's eight years in office. Needless to say, all this left Americans feeling very grumpy … and the Republican Party (that Bush was supposed to have been leading) as an understandable target for disillusioned Americans going into a national election in 2008 – as Bush left office … and a shattered economy behind him.  Wow.  What a Boomer legacy. < THE GEN-XER OBAMA AND HIS DESIRE TO "CHANGE" AMERICA Not surprisingly, the 2008 elections brought a massive shift in favor of the Democratic Party (and all of its Boomer "Progressivism") ... and its Gen-Xer presidential candidate Barack Obama.  In so many ways Obama exemplified the American generation that was to follow the Idealistic, self-promoting Boomer generation.  He came from a divorced family, with a missing father and a well-educated and highly "professionalized" mother,  and raised here and there by various other sources … including simply the world of "others" immediately around him, the schools that gave him the social guidance that the family did not offer (though he was close to his grandparents … also typical of Gen-Xers) … and the entertainment and news (increasingly just social commentary) media as the ultimate informant for what he was to expect of himself – and the larger world. Like so many Gen-Xers, he did not have some kind of highly Idealistic dream to guide him … but rather a cynical view that "whatever" would work fine enough for him.  There really was no alternative.  Being personally bi-racial, after going through law school (and finding corporate law uninteresting) he got involved in "community development" … giving him some sense of larger purpose. But the Gen-X world was frustrating because it ultimately seemed to offer so little in reward for one's effort (whatever that effort might be).  Little wonder then that as a Gen-X presidential candidate, Obama's theme (offered repeatedly) was "Change" … change in in how things worked, whatever they might be – with the hope that what replaced old social patterns would make more sense and work better for everyone ...  because the "old" or "traditional" was not working very well. But unlike the well-focused and highly energized Idealistic drive of the Boomers, the Gen-X hunger for change tended to be rather random or "whateverish" in form.  In his campaign, Obama did not spell out exactly what his program of "Change" was to entail.  Certainly he was hoping for "better" in such social areas as poverty, health care, education, etc. … all the areas needing change in order to produce a more successful life. Little wonder that he chose two unmarried and childless women to fill emptied Supreme Court slots (thus part of the slim judicial majority throwing DOMA out as "unconstitutional") … with the clear expectation that they would certainly stand in favor of social "progress" … meaning, leaving he past behind and thus opening up opportunities for the future to take its new shape. Obama had little use for male authority … especially White male authority … and was quick to fill the ranks of his Cabinet (as well as the Supreme Court) with those who qualified as being not of the White male variety.  He did select as 2008 his running mate a White male, Joe Biden.  But Biden was there only to "balance" the picture … not to have any serious influence in matters.  Obama was a strong supporter of the "Black Lives Matter" Movement … formed up as a result of a (false) portrayal of events occurring between a White policeman and a Black pothead in a small town in Missouri.  America was torched by another round of Black anger … and Obama did what he could to spin the story in favor of the Black youth (not the first time he did this sort of thing either).  And when Black sports figures decided to not stand in honor of the country in the playing of the national anthem, in typical Gen-x mode, Obama as president of the country stood with those refusing to honor the flag … and whatever it might represent.  After all, it was exactly all of that (vaguely) that he wanted changed. And he was in office for eight years – enough time to double the national debt again (10 trillion to 20 trillion dollars) … and leave both militant females and disenchanted youth with an even stronger conviction that America needed to shake off its political traditions – shaped almost completely by White males – and move into a world that extolled those of not one or the other (or better, both) qualities.  Indeed … Black females (or at least non-Anglo females) would soon come into strong political-social-cultural influence … thanks in great part to the Obama legacy – carried forward as a virtual crusade by a "progressive" press corps. But the media also went down this same road with Obama … and so played a huge part as well in shaping deep "change" in the American social structure … all of it being done by those who congratulated themselves as being true "Progressives." The American press corps and entertainment media (Fox News being about the only exception) took up the Obama legacy as a virtual crusade that had to be carried forward ... against any and all opposition.  And the Democratic Party saw its duty to ally with just that same "Progressivist" urge.  Those who still supported conservative values needed to be completely brought down.  There could be no political compromise on the matter ... for "compromise" represented less than full embrace of the crusade. THE SHOCK OF ANOTHER BOOMER PRESIDENT The Democrats put forward as their presidential candidate Hillary Clinton … clearly moving down the Progressivist or post-traditionalist road in doing so – and expecting a dazzling electoral victory in the 2016 presidential elections in doing so.   But weren't they shocked when the person who represented most vividly the traits that Progressivist America deplored won the election.  How did this happen? Apparently there was a rather large "basket of deplorables" out there, conservative voters as Hillary herself termed them, unable to see the progressivist moral picture clearly.  And thus they voted for the highly ego-centric and theatrical (thus true Boomer) Donald Trump.  The reaction of the progressivist world was immediate.  Not only in America but across the world, masses of people (mostly women and youth) turned out in huge numbers to declare that Trump was "not my president."  Immediately, action was taken up by Congressional Democrats to find grounds to impeach Trump as quickly as possible (a Congressional process now being used regularly as a clever political tool to remove political opponents from the presidential office).  And they found documents (paid for by the Hillary election campaign) that supposedly connected Trump with some kind of Russian conspiracy to have him rather than Hillary elected as US President.  And surely these offered the legal means to impeach Trump.  However a search committee they were forced to assemble did not come up with the results they wanted ... so they tried again, basing their second impeachment effort on the way Trump held off American payments to Ukraine until Ukrainian corruption could be cleaned up a bit ... implicating Democratic leader Joe Biden's son in the corruption matter.  But the Democrats backed down when they realized that bringing Joe's son Hunter into the discussion would hurt rather than help their impeachment effort.  So they simply decided to impeach Trump because he refused to honor their subpoenas demanding his appearance in front of the Democratic-Party-controlled Congressional committee pursuing its impeachment possibilities. Tragically, all this pointed out how deeply America was divided.  There seemed to be no middle ground between Republican Party "conservatives" and Democratic Party "progressives."  America was splitting into two hostile communities.  And the media was no help in the matter, slanting the "news" (again, mostly just deeply ideologized social commentary) in favor of the "Trumpian" Republicans (mostly Fox News) on one side and Trump's enemies (mostly all the other media) on the other. And Trump, being a classic Boomer, was no help in the matter.  He had no professional experience in public office ... and seemed totally unaware of the niceties required to make a contentious political engagement not become poisonous.  Indeed, besides being a very wealthy, very successful, self-absorbed urban construction chief, he was a host for years of a widely-watched TV program … one that delighted in bring in contestants and then cutting them down in some kind of competition for larger service in the community.  Trump used that same TV flare for cutting out contestants to similarly undercut vocally his fellow Republican contestants in the 2016 race for the Republican Party presidential candidacy (issuing one ridiculous insult after another and interrupting their time to deliver their cases before the TV audience) ... thereby finally eliminating all but himself for the position.  Very clever.  And then sadly, when in office, he continued the same theatrics against anyone he decided that needed to be taken down personally a peg or two.  Trump simply had no idea of how to build support among any except those willing to follow him slavishly.  He had his wild supporters of course.  But he seemed unable or just unwilling to bring the all-important political "center" to his support.  That would require compromise.  And he was just not interested in such political niceties.  Theatrics seemed to be the only strategy (if you can call it a strategy) that he was willing to employ to get things done. He used those theatrics a bit in his effort to develop a Trump "foreign policy" ... although what that exactly amounted to was never very clear.  He seemed to repulse most of his European allies.  And neither Russia's Putin nor China's Xi seemed to have much regard for him. And finally his theatrics failed him … when he was shocked to find that he had not been reelected in the 2020 presidential election – claiming (without offering any material proof) that the whole process had been a fraud.  He was so loud in his protesting that he ultimately repulsed Georgian voters in a follow-up senatorial election enough to undercut the lead of the Republican candidate – ultimately bringing the Democratic candidate to victory … and thereby also cutting the Republican lead in the Senate down to a mere tie with the Democrats. Indeed, his persistent theatrics got him in deep trouble when they inspired a massive group of Trumpian hotheads to invade the US Capitol building – just as Congress gathered to confirm the official results of the election ... violence and death occurring in this most sacred of political sites.  At that point a number of Congressional Republicans seemed quite willing to join the Democrats in indicting Trump for criminal behavior … something with very serious consequences not only for Trump but also for the nation. BIDEN DOES IDEOLOGY PERFECTLY The winner of the 2020 presidential election was pre-Boomer, that is, something of a "Silent" ... one of those individuals born just before or during World War Two – and deeply committed to some higher cause shaped by forces larger than simply one's own imagination.  Biden was/is a "loyalist" not untypical of most Silents ... a loyalist especially to the Democratic Party of which he has been a longtime member.  He was elected to the US Senate when he was only 30, served numerous terms, becoming even the lead Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a Democrat running for the office of President a couple of times before becoming Obama's running mate and thus Vice President.  Now finally – after four years out of the electoral-office business (2016-2020) and in his upper 70s in age – he becomes America's President. Given the fact that America itself has seemed to have lost sight of exactly what it is that all Americans should stand for (and not just against), it is not surprising that Biden's "loyalism" finds its natural place in a much narrower context than that of the American national interest.   Indeed, is there even anyone with a sense of what that higher national interest truly should be ... something that all Americans could rally around?  At the point of Biden's taking office, political interests seem to register themselves only along the lines of the narrower ideologies dividing the country. Briefly – very briefly – a flicker of hope arose when Biden pledged in his inauguration speech than he planned to be the president of all Americans, not just those who voted for him.  But sadly, that same afternoon he entered his new presidential offices and issued 17 executive orders … each one of them in support of the ideological agenda of his Democratic Party.  No conferences were held across party lines to bring a larger American grouping on board; no discussion, no explanation was offered.  Biden simply jumped to the task of putting into full operation his party's political agenda … because as president, he supposedly had the power to do so. Biden is a Democratic Party loyalist through and through.  He has long served that particular political party.  And now in the White House, it is the Democratic Party's political agenda that he intends to focus his thoughts and efforts on.  That, and that alone, is as far as his loyalties will reach.  He will be all about ideology … and the necessity of putting it into full operation. Unfortunately, ideology is not strategy.  Ideology is about emotional attachments, not about well-thought-through programs.  It was ideology, not strategy the Biden was offering his his announcement that America would offer open borders to refugees seeking asylum in America (virtually everyone wanting a better life than they lived in their own parts of the world); or in his ending of national petroleum self-sufficiency because it contributed (a small portion actually) to the larger, and certainly very problematic, climate change impacting the world; and in his strongly held notion that the Washington bureaucracy should take care of a younger generation not able to be brought to a better world simply through the efforts of family and local authorities ... all of this, of course, undertaken at the taxpayers' – or rather future taxpayers' – expense.  Unsurprisingly, all this in very short order ran the federal debt up to astronomic heights … quickly hitting the 30 trillion dollar mark.  And all of this took place as massive inflation rocked the nation … making material needs (such as gasoline for the car and food for the table) extremely expensive for the average American. But Biden remained convinced that more than ever, the country needed to bow to DC's leadership … in every matter.  And symbolically, the wearing of masks, decreed by DC as an absolute necessity in fighting the Covid epidemic, should be obeyed across the country. Go on to the next section:  9/11 and Iraq   Miles H. Hodges