Of Generations and Leadership
It is becoming increasingly clear that generation matters in this election. The media have made much of the generational phenomenon and its impact at the polls – in particular the ability of Barack Obama to attract younger voters – but for all the analysis it seems to me that something is being left out. The generational divide at the polls continues to beg some questions. To what can we attribute the surge of civic interest among a group of young citizens who are usually absent from the voting process? What is happening generationally within the Clinton and Obama campaigns? Finally, what if anything might this election cycle suggest about the workplace, this blog’s primary concern?
Something is going on generationally in the Clinton-Obama dynamic that transcends some of the more facile observations being made in the press. No doubt some of them, time-tested but also time-worn, have some truth. Obama’s considerable talents as a speaker surely help him woo a younger, more idealistic crowd. So too does his inclusive, post-partisan message, which appeals to those whose political memory does not stretch further back than the 1990s and find the acrimony that prevails in contemporary discourse distasteful in part because they did not fight the battles of yesteryear that created it.
Conversely, Clinton’s Boomer pedigree and Washington experience endear her to older supporters. Her political acumen, her policy prescriptions, and her association with the halcyon pre-Bush era strike a resonant chord among rank-and-file Democrats unhappy with the country’s direction. Add class, race, education and gender to the mix, and you’ve got the standard litany of analytical tools used to explain the current state of the Democratic race. As I said, though, I suspect that something more subtle is at work.
The candidates’ political narratives have managed, perhaps in spite of themselves, to project two very different images of leadership, and indeed two very different mindsets through which to view the world. Senator Clinton, in my view, is fundamentally a creature of the twentieth century. Her view of government’s place in society, America’s role in the world, and indeed of the very concept of power is a quintessential artifact of the mid-to-late twentieth century. She believes in bureaucracy, in hierarchy, and in her own (and others’) ability to mold the world as they see fit. Her policy proposals are targeted, specific, complex, “wonkish” even, and rely on the notion that, when competently managed, the U.S. government is capable of effectively implementing very specific solutions to very specific problems. On foreign policy, she holds fundamentally to the notion that America remains the global superpower, capable forging order from chaos, deus ex machina style, if it is well guided.
Senator Clinton, in other words, appeals to those who miss the sense of order to which, through all its turmoil, the twentieth century mind still clung. Problems made sense. They could be assessed and addressed through the correct application of power. For voters – older ones in particular – who look around with apprehension and even fear, who long to return to a time when the world made sense, Clinton offers a compelling story.
Obama, in a thousand small ways, demonstrates that he sees the world with different eyes. Though less than fifteen years younger than Senator Clinton, he seems to understand that her hyper-structured worldview is antiquated – perhaps even dangerous. His economic proposals are simpler, designed to nudge the economy in various directions, rather than to pilot it precisely. His international outlook – in particular his willingness to talk to world leaders that Bush (and Senator Clinton’s husband) have shunned – betrays an understanding that the United States’ “unipolar moment” has passed, and that the days when America (or any foreign power) can manipulate the world like pieces on a chessboard are finished. Former President Clinton has warned that nominating Obama would be like “rolling the dice.” In a way, he’s right, because a part of Obama’s appeal is uncertainty. Overall, Obama’s campaign seems to embrace, rather than seek to eliminate, the uncertainties of our age, recognizing that uncertainty will be the dominant characteristic of the twenty-first century. Younger voters, who have never experienced a time “when it all makes sense,” intuitively gravitate towards this understanding. Exhibiting the qualities of their “Civic” generational archetype, they know only confidence in an uncertain world, a confidence – a hope – into which Obama taps.
There is indeed a generation gap. It runs along a fault line within our collective psyche, a fault line marked by apprehension and mystification on one side and courage on the other.
This fault line passes through larger elements of our society than politics, something which I’ll address next time. The key question regarding this fault line recalls a mantra of my generation: Which side are you on?
Note: This post was co-written by myself, a boomer, and my son Matt, a millennial. References to the experiences of the boomer generation should be taken as reflections of my experiences, not of his.