Richard Hanania

Amazon offerings include A Generation of Sociopaths, How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, and two apparently unrelated books, How the Boomers Took Their Children's Future, and How the Boomers Stole Millennials' Future, and Boomers, The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom But Delivered Disaster.

You don't hate boomers enough has become a popular Twitter catchphrase.

Richard Hanania, who has tried hating every group once, has decided that hating boomers is his favourite.

Some people might say we just experienced a historic upwelling of identity politics, that it was pretty terrible for everyone involved, and that perhaps we need a new us-versus-them conflict like we need a punch to the face.

This, the boomer haters will tell you, would be a mistaken generalisation.

This time, we have finally discovered a form of identity politics which carves reality at its joints, truly separating the good and bad people.

I think these arguments fall short.

Even if they didn't, the usual bias against identity politics should make us think twice about pursuing them too zealously.

2.

Why exactly are boomers so bad?

Zooming out, it sort of seems like boomers have delivered the greatest period of peace and prosperity in history.

Global, American, take your pick.

The window of boomer dominance, circa 1980 to 2010, saw the fall of communism, steadily rising incomes, steadily growing life expectancy, and no foreign wars bigger than Iraq, with a total American death toll of 4,500.

The boomers could reasonably blame their greatest generation fathers for sending them to die in Vietnam.

Those greatest generation fathers could reasonably blame their fathers for plunging the country into a Great Depression.

In comparison, we're mad about... What, exactly?

Higher housing prices?

Hardly seems World War-level bad.

Earlier this month we investigated the Vibe Session.

The economists claim that, despite everyone thinking the economy is bad, actually the economy is good.