I am very worried about a Trump Presidency. I know the polls don’t really show it. I know it’s not the sentiment reflected back to us by our televisions. But I’m worried, nonetheless.
I’m not worried about racists. We know what part of the political spectrum concentrates its power with the Southern Strategy. Racist who vote at all will vote predictably.
I’m not worried about Brexit America. Not exactly, anyway: I genuinely think there is some unique and perplexing thing about British citizens who time and time again said they didn’t think their vote would matter. Or perhaps it is we that are the perplexing ones. Either way, in America, if you don’t think your vote counts you generally don’t vote at all.
What worries me is that even among the staunchest of liberals in my father’s generation, I hear a common sentiment. That sentiment is that “in the 60’s, it was about all of us. Peace and love. But I guess now it’s just about black lives mattering.” I do hear it. And I hear it often.
Never mind that the fight for civil rights far predates and postdates the Flower Power movement. Set aside the fact that the 60’s entire claim to fame basically boils down to That Time Privileged White Kids Cared About Social Justice. Baby Boomers seem to think that every stride Black America has made since Hendrix was because they bought the same albums and smoked the same pot.
And now that the rallying cry doesn’t include them, they seem put out. “All Lives Matter!” they cry. Because the one thing you can’t do to a Baby Boomer is uninvite them to the protest.
For how many of our parents’ generation does a vote for Trump represent the Great Shrug of Baby Boomer indifference? Like a sullen Randian character, do Boomers simply reject the politics of the day? Do they throw off any pretensions of liberalism, conservatism or even stewardship and simply vote “Crazier than You?” Maybe I really am worried about a Brexit. Even a Boomer sit-out might be enough to sway the election. Everybody in the Liberal wing of the Boomer gen just sits down, smokes their medical marijuana and says, “I’ve done enough.”
Will the Great Shrug be a vote to reanimate Barney Fife? Donna Reed? Sammy Davis, Jr? Will the Great Shrug be the collective sigh that pines for the days when television told you what to believe and cameras never interfered with the message? Because the sentiment in my parents’ generation feels a lot like technoshock: the moment when you stop understanding what your technology is telling you. That moment when the world moves beyond what you can cope with.
I can sympathise with anyone who can’t handle Hillary Clinton. I’m not anti-Hil, but I certainly would have preferred a better choice than between the Orange Menace and yet another sample of the Bush/Clinton/Bush years. But I smell something nasty in the wind. I hope I’m wrong.
