A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

More than anything, Boomer influence is a story of sheer numbers. As of the early 1980s, when the Boomer revolution really kicked off, the generation represented no less than 42 percent of the voting-eligible population and up to 51 percent, depending on whether one calculates the Boom’s start from 1940 or 1946.2 Under either analysis, the Boomers have been by far the most important political group for several decades—e.g., there were roughly as many white Boomers in 1990 as all ethnic minorities, of all generations, combined.3 The Boomers’ numerosity meant that even a modest tilt in any one direction (self-serving sociopathy, as a pointed example) influenced outcomes profoundly. In matters where the Boomers identified themselves by generational interests, as they often did, their power would be overwhelming, allowing Boomers to set policy essentially by themselves, without any of the usual coalition building, compromises, or concessions to other interests. It has been an extraordinary situation in American democratic history.*