1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,966 GEOFF BENNETT: The impact of the Baby Boom generation is impossible to ignore. The roughly 2 00:00:04,966 --> 00:00:09,966 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964 have reshaped American society at each stage 3 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:17,400 of their lives, crowding American classrooms in the '50s and '60s, filling the labor and 4 00:00:19,933 --> 00:00:22,700 housing markets decades later, ultimately leaving their imprint on our politics and institutions. 5 00:00:24,566 --> 00:00:27,100 Philip Bump is a national columnist for The Washington Post. And he takes 6 00:00:27,100 --> 00:00:31,366 a closer look at the generation's impact. His book is "The Aftermath: 7 00:00:31,366 --> 00:00:35,433 The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America." 8 00:00:35,433 --> 00:00:36,966 Phil Bump joins us now. 9 00:00:36,966 --> 00:00:38,466 It's great to have you here. 10 00:00:38,466 --> 00:00:41,066 And when we talk about the Baby Boom generation, 11 00:00:41,066 --> 00:00:45,633 we're talking about the 76 million people that were born during that 19-year span. 12 00:00:45,633 --> 00:00:50,366 Their influence is really stitched into the fabric of modern-day America. 13 00:00:50,366 --> 00:00:53,733 And you borrow an analogy in the book. You say: 14 00:00:53,733 --> 00:00:57,633 "When the Boomers entered the world, it was like a python swallowing a pig." 15 00:00:57,633 --> 00:01:00,900 In what way? Why is that a fitting analogy? 16 00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:02,866 PHILIP BUMP, Author, "The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and 17 00:01:02,866 --> 00:01:04,900 the Future of Power in America": Well, I mean, it's certainly not a charming one. 18 00:01:04,900 --> 00:01:08,466 But it is fitting, in the sense that you can imagine very easily this fairly narrow python 19 00:01:10,433 --> 00:01:12,100 that all of a sudden has this huge bulge in it. Not only does it have a huge bulge in it, 20 00:01:12,100 --> 00:01:14,433 but the bulge has to sort of work its way through the system. 21 00:01:14,433 --> 00:01:17,633 And so your point about the 76 million people being born, 22 00:01:17,633 --> 00:01:22,633 the population of the United States in 1945 was only 140 million. So it is this massive increase, 23 00:01:25,166 --> 00:01:28,633 particularly in young people right at the outset of the Baby Boom, that forces the United States, 24 00:01:30,633 --> 00:01:33,400 the python in this analogy, to try and deal with the pig that has just swallowed. 25 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:38,333 And the important factor here is that the pig is still passing through the python. And we have now 26 00:01:38,333 --> 00:01:42,933 reached the point where Baby Boomers are older and retiring. And it's creating a new set of 27 00:01:42,933 --> 00:01:45,900 urgencies that the government has to deal with and that our society has to deal with. 28 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:49,533 GEOFF BENNETT: What characteristics do Baby Boomers share? How is their 29 00:01:49,533 --> 00:01:52,833 generation different from the one that preceded it and the ones that followed? 30 00:01:52,833 --> 00:01:55,700 PHILIP BUMP: So one of the fascinating things about the Baby Boomers, 31 00:01:55,700 --> 00:01:58,400 it began at a low in American immigration. 32 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:01,900 There were -- about a century ago, there were new restrictions placed on immigration, 33 00:02:01,900 --> 00:02:05,633 a backlash to immigrants from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe in particular. And that 34 00:02:05,633 --> 00:02:08,633 was still in place when the Baby Boom began. At the time of the Baby Boom, 35 00:02:08,633 --> 00:02:11,700 one demographer told me, the average immigrant was somebody's grandparents. 36 00:02:11,700 --> 00:02:15,766 And right after the Boom ended, there was - - the immigration laws were loosened. 37 00:02:15,766 --> 00:02:20,266 So you started seeing more immigrants from Central America and Mexico and Asia. And so 38 00:02:20,266 --> 00:02:24,166 what happened when the Baby Boom began is, it began at a time when America was very, 39 00:02:24,166 --> 00:02:26,800 very heavily white in a way that it no longer is. 40 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:31,800 And so the Baby Boom has -- obviously, it's a very heterogeneous generation. It has to be. There's 41 00:02:34,333 --> 00:02:37,900 tens of millions of people in it. But it tends to be much more heavily white than the generation, 42 00:02:37,900 --> 00:02:41,133 particularly the one that followed it. It tends to be less heavily made up of 43 00:02:41,133 --> 00:02:46,133 immigrants. It tends to have other characteristics as well. It has -- it's less likely -- Boomers 44 00:02:48,133 --> 00:02:50,833 are less likely to have gone to college than millennials or Gen Z, for example. 45 00:02:50,833 --> 00:02:55,566 They're more likely to participate in institution, marriage among them, 46 00:02:55,566 --> 00:03:00,566 the military, things along those lines. And those really shape both the culture and politics 47 00:03:03,033 --> 00:03:05,500 of the Baby Boomer in a way that makes them distinct, particularly from younger generations. 48 00:03:05,500 --> 00:03:09,100 GEOFF BENNETT: Well, understanding that generational analyses are in many ways unavoidably 49 00:03:11,466 --> 00:03:14,700 sort of crude and imprecise, when we talk about the Baby Boom, we're talking about the Woodstock 50 00:03:17,233 --> 00:03:21,000 generation, in many ways, who, in 2016, these were the same folks who put Donald Trump in office. 51 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:24,100 Help us understand how that happened. 52 00:03:24,100 --> 00:03:27,100 PHILIP BUMP: Yes. No, it's a great question. 53 00:03:27,100 --> 00:03:30,833 And, fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that the Baby Boom really is 54 00:03:32,766 --> 00:03:35,033 two separate political groups. There is a Republican group and a Democratic group, 55 00:03:35,033 --> 00:03:38,500 which obviously isn't unique to the Baby Boom. But it's also the case of 56 00:03:38,500 --> 00:03:41,500 Boomers are less likely to be registered independents than younger generations. 57 00:03:41,500 --> 00:03:46,000 And so you had this tension between left and right in the Boom itself. But because 58 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:51,000 the Republican Party itself is so much older than the Democratic Party, Baby Boomers make 59 00:03:52,933 --> 00:03:55,466 up a larger percentage of the Republican Party than they do the Democratic Party. 60 00:03:55,466 --> 00:04:00,300 So, yes, the politics certainly shifted to some extent for individual Boomers over that time. But 61 00:04:02,733 --> 00:04:05,700 it's also the case that, fundamentally, the Baby Boomers who voted for Donald Trump were sharing a 62 00:04:08,233 --> 00:04:10,733 similar sort of concerns, particularly around race oftentimes, to some extent, economics as well, 63 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:16,133 that made them vote more homogeneously than the Democrats on the -- in the Baby Boom. 64 00:04:18,133 --> 00:04:21,833 And so we had this effect where, yes, this was the generation that fought against things like 65 00:04:21,833 --> 00:04:26,733 the Vietnam War draft, but then, ultimately, over time, had gotten to a point where they 66 00:04:26,733 --> 00:04:30,700 saw Donald Trump as the preferable candidate in 2016 and helped propel him to the White House. 67 00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:32,633 GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk about the impact on the economy, 68 00:04:32,633 --> 00:04:35,400 because reading your book, I was struck by this line. 69 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,700 You say: "The Baby Boom has accumulated an enormous amount of wealth during its 70 00:04:39,700 --> 00:04:44,266 three-quarters of a century of existence." Baby Boomers, many of them are supporting 71 00:04:44,266 --> 00:04:47,866 their millennial children. In some cases, they're supporting their grandchildren. 72 00:04:47,866 --> 00:04:52,866 What happens to the distribution of wealth in this country as Baby Boomers age? 73 00:04:54,833 --> 00:04:57,633 PHILIP BUMP: Yes, I mean, it's -- an enormous amount of wealth is being transferred already 74 00:04:57,633 --> 00:05:01,666 from Baby Boomers primarily to younger family members, but not exclusively, 75 00:05:01,666 --> 00:05:06,666 $2 million -- or $2 trillion, according to some experts I spoke with, in 2022 alone, 76 00:05:08,266 --> 00:05:10,900 upwards of $50 trillion over the course of the next several decades. 77 00:05:10,900 --> 00:05:13,966 That's an enormous amount of wealth. But there are a lot of questions about what happens with that, 78 00:05:13,966 --> 00:05:18,966 right? What happens, for example, as Boomers age and they need more medical attention? How much of 79 00:05:21,033 --> 00:05:24,300 that is siphoned away in terms of the cost of medical care or senior housing, senior living? 80 00:05:24,300 --> 00:05:29,200 How much -- what happens with the housing market as seniors age, right? A lot of senior 81 00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:34,200 citizens in particular view their houses as a storehouse of value for their retirement. How 82 00:05:36,300 --> 00:05:38,900 does that affect house prices? What does that mean for millennials looking to buy houses? 83 00:05:38,900 --> 00:05:43,500 There are all these ways in which this massive amount of wealth that is held by the Baby Boomers, 84 00:05:43,500 --> 00:05:48,166 it's not really clear how much of that will end up trickling down, particularly to their families. 85 00:05:48,166 --> 00:05:51,600 But it's also important to note, because the Baby Boomer generation is so large, 86 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:54,700 it's not the case that Baby Boomers themselves are particularly wealthy 87 00:05:54,700 --> 00:05:58,233 on an individual basis. It's just that they have a lot of wealth because there 88 00:05:58,233 --> 00:06:01,333 are a lot of them, even if most of them aren't particularly wealthy themselves. 89 00:06:01,333 --> 00:06:03,466 GEOFF BENNETT: And, Phil, as we wrap up our conversation, 90 00:06:03,466 --> 00:06:07,066 I want to ask you about one of the unanswered questions in your book. 91 00:06:07,066 --> 00:06:11,500 You write this: "A generation used to accruing and defending its power through 92 00:06:11,500 --> 00:06:15,933 sheer scale is watching that power crumble. We have seen generational tensions before, 93 00:06:15,933 --> 00:06:19,900 as when the Boom emerged, but we're now living through something exceptional, 94 00:06:19,900 --> 00:06:22,300 a decline not of the Spartan civilization, 95 00:06:22,300 --> 00:06:27,300 but of the Roman one.We are living through an historic disruption of the American empire." 96 00:06:29,233 --> 00:06:32,966 So, what's this all mean for the future of our politics, for the future of our democracy? 97 00:06:32,966 --> 00:06:35,100 PHILIP BUMP: Yes. No, absolutely. 98 00:06:35,100 --> 00:06:39,233 And, unfortunately, I'm not so brash as to be able to have a hard answer on that. But, yes, 99 00:06:40,700 --> 00:06:42,900 I mean, the Boom really shaped what America looks like today, 100 00:06:42,900 --> 00:06:46,366 both in terms of just the Boomers themselves making decisions, 101 00:06:46,366 --> 00:06:49,966 but also in the way that America had to respond to the emergence of the Baby Boomers. 102 00:06:49,966 --> 00:06:53,333 And we're seeing that change. We're seeing the Boom now having to deal with this younger 103 00:06:53,333 --> 00:06:58,066 generation, millennials and Gen Z, who are contesting for power, contesting for it: 104 00:06:58,066 --> 00:07:01,200 I don't want to spend on senior housing. I want to spend on schools and things along those lines. 105 00:07:01,200 --> 00:07:04,733 And that is contributing some of the political reaction that we're seeing, 106 00:07:04,733 --> 00:07:08,633 some of the backlash against -- some of the increased tension that we see 107 00:07:08,633 --> 00:07:13,233 in our politics. Does this mean that young people, for example, if they are more diverse, 108 00:07:13,233 --> 00:07:15,833 which they are, does that mean they're going to vote Democratic forever? 109 00:07:15,833 --> 00:07:20,700 No, probably not. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration here. But this moment 110 00:07:20,700 --> 00:07:25,700 of tension is particularly acute because the Baby Boom has for so long been so powerful, 111 00:07:27,733 --> 00:07:29,600 and now for the first time is having to compete for that power in a real way. 112 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:32,033 GEOFF BENNETT: Philip Bump, his book is "The Aftermath: 113 00:07:32,033 --> 00:07:35,733 The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America." 114 00:07:35,733 --> 00:07:36,666 Thanks for your time. 115 00:07:36,666 --> 00:07:37,900 PHILIP BUMP: Thank you, sir.