Boomers

I saw a chart somewhere on Twitter that I think is an important corrective to how we view the 1960s and the backlash to it.  The common perception is that the 1960s saw a group of young people radicalized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam War proteststo fundamentally shift America leftward, which created a rightward backlash.

The chart shows that in fact the Greatest Generation was the most opposed to the war, with the young Boomers most in favor.  That's...odd.

Or maybe it isn't.  I would guess that you would have to tease out those numbers along educational lines, with college educated Boomers opposed to the war and WWC Boomers supporting it.  Montgomery notes this in the comments. And it would seem natural that those WWC Boomers remain the bulwark of American "Conservatism."  We know that Trump's support trends older and whiter, and that's precisely the Boomer Cohort.  Those white Americans who grew up seeing their position challenged by People of Color, Feminism and a growing sub-cohort of college educated peers they felt looked down on them.

As a Gen Xer, I've never been very fond of the Boomers.  To me, the quintessential Boomer presidents were Bill Clinton and Dubya Bush.  One represented the tremendous promise sacrificed in the name of appetite and expediency.  The other the easy, unexamined privilege of a generation that was catered to their whole life.  Trump shares the same birth year as Clinton, and he combines the worst of Clinton and the worst of Dubya (plus the worst of a lot of other stuff). 

Generational thinking is of limited use, but it is not unhelpful.  Two more things.  Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation is largely credited for both changing America and losing WWC voters from the Democratic party.  However, his education and immigration bills seem to be creating a new group for them to grow from.