Boomers are ruining America — and it has nothing to do with politics

I keep hearing that we Boomers are to blame for just about everything wrong with America — unaffordable housing (because we bought up most of the housing stock and now refuse to leave), the depletion of Social Security (because we’re collecting it now), the national debt (because so much of it is being spent on Social Security, Medicare, and other benefits for us), inequality (because apparently we have so much money), climate change (because we’ve been polluting longer than anyone else alive), and even Trump (because he’s one of us).

I don’t have standing to contest these claims because, well, I’ve also made them. They’re a theme of my latest book, Coming Up Short (out in paperback in a few weeks).

All of this seemed confirmed by a recent headline in The Economist: WHY PEOPLE OVER THE AGE OF 55 ARE THE NEW PROBLEM GENERATION.

But not for the reasons I supposed. According to The Economist, the real problem with us Boomers is we’re partying too hard. We were too wild, crazy, and irresponsible back in the day, and we’re still too wild, crazy, and irresponsible.

The Economist opines that compared to younger generations, we’re drinking more and using drugs more, and we’re going to wild retirement-community parties where sometimes we’re even — oh my goodness! — having sex.

The venerable British publication quotes Lynette, a resident of Latitude Margaritaville (an assisted-living community near Hilton Head Island in South Carolina) who burbles: “There was a toga party this past weekend. There was a live band, and it was a riot.” Barbie, another resident of the community, compares living there to “starting college all over again” with “drinks on the driveway, cocktails on the concrete.”

The Economist goes on to report that “today, older adults are more likely to participate in the hookup culture of casual encounters and condomless sex, which might be further encouraged by the availability of drugs for sexual dysfunction, the commonality of living in retirement communities, and the increased use of dating apps for seniors.”

I’ll be damned.

Since its founding in 1843 by Scottish businessman and banker James Wilson, The Economist has been staid if not prudish. If memory serves, it intensely disliked the 1960s and the Boomer culture that reveled in it. But it seems to have burst its britches over what’s become of us Boomers in the roaring 2020s.

The article concludes:

The generations now ageing disgracefully were disgraceful in youth, and in middle age. If they’re behaving badly now, there is really not much to be done about it. If they choose to frolic at toga parties, no one will stop them. Except, ultimately, time.

Which is The Economist’s understated British way of saying that the solution to the Boomer problem is for we Boomers to just go ahead and die already.

I think The Economist is a bit harsh. I do concede in my latest book that we Boomers have produced some awful things — not just Trump, but also Clarence Thomas and George W. Bush. (Trump is probably the best thing ever to happen to George W., because George W. is no longer the worst and stupidest president in American history.)

But I doubt Boomers are having too much fun. I’m suspicious of how The Economist identified its sample of wild and crazy Boomers because the Boomers I know are anything but.

The question my friends and I jokingly (and brutishly) asked one other in our wild youth — “getting much?”— now refers not to sex but to sleep.

I can’t even make it through the end of a movie. Hell, I can barely keep my eyes open through a single episode of “All Creatures Great and Small.”

The most camaraderie I’ve been enjoying are my “organ recitals” with Boomer friends in which we ask each other: How is the back? Heart? Knees? Prostate? Hemorrhoids?

And the wildest party I’ve been to this year was when I got together with friends to watch the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, where Argentina failed to register a single shot on target during 120 minutes of a 1-to-zip extra-time defeat. (I didn’t see the end of that one, either.)

As for drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, all I can say for certain is I don’t have the same need to make an ass of myself as I did in the 1960s.

Yet I still mist up when I hear “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. (I should note it was released in 1975, by which time I was practicing law and my memorable nights were long over.)

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/