Post Game Analysis

As predicted, John McCain's popularity ratings sank even lower after his two-fisted, tough-guy performance in the last McCain-Obama debate. The Republican Party misses what seems obvious to most of us -- i.e., "the American People" don't want another cowboy president, nor do we value "looking tough," to each other or to other nations. The entire culture of confrontation is outmoded -- we don't want a "strong leader" as exemplified by over-use of the first person singular pronoun, nor a leader who takes cheap shots, or attempts to verbally "defeat" his opponent by being more aggressive and negative, employing character assassination rather than staying on topic.

The reappearance of "Scrappy McCain" is a poignant example of the mid-20th century thinking of the Republican Party -- we'll show 'em, just let 'em try, why I oughta...and like that. The scrappy, independent Everyman who loves his country -- it's a cliche from a WW II era propaganda film starring, say, Jimmy Cagney. This is the older end (1945-1952) of the Baby Boom Generation at its worst -- smugly convinced that they are the revolutionaries, while they cling to traditional values their Depression-era parents would have endorsed.

The younger Boomers (1953-1959), Generations X and Y, and those who follow, think differently. Maybe the Early Boomers (1945-52) were the trailblazers who paved the way to Social Change in the US. The problem is that, with the exception of a few visionaries, the vast majority of them could never quite shake off the mantle of Depression-era thinking handed on by their parents. The Younger Boomers grew up after the revolution -- that is, us. Honestly, we weren't part of the Revolution, we were the recipients of it. By the end of 1964, desegregation was a fact, and we were at war with Vietnam -- I was 8 years old. I grew up listening to the Beatles, the Stones, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Cream, the Dead, and so on. They were fixtures in my young life--no longer the cutting edge, but more a part of the background. The fact that my parents either disapproved or were tolerantly dismissive of that music and the counterculture it represented was more than outweighed by the fact that it defined my cultural experience as I grew out of the 1960's and into the 1970's -- into my teen years and young adulthood. My identity was forged in the context of that counterculture. To me, it wasn't "counter" at all -- it was my reality, my culture.

So my belief system about the world contains ingredients absent from that of the Early Boomers. Thanks to growing up witnessing the daily horror of the Vietnam War on television (and as I approached the age of 18, my increasing fear of ending up a part of it), nationalism wasn't as pure an ideal for me as it was for kids ten years older than me. Thanks to the way our government dealt with civil unrest during the riots in Watts, Detroit, and Chicago, and the National Guard's handling of student demonstrations at Kent State, my faith in Authority was not unwavering, and I did question it; I did not trust my own government. Thanks to the consecutive assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, I grew up not believing what the media told me, unconvinced that "lone nuts" could be solely responsible in a country where "the government" wielded so much power. I was influenced by counterculture gurus like Ken Kesey, whose views on protesting the Vietnam war were even more radical than those of the protesters -- his view was, if you engage with them (authority), you're playing their game and you've already lost, "So just say F*** it..." Later, I listened to what John Lennon said in "Imagine," and really thought about it. A lot. What are the roles of nationalism and religion in a world that has grown so small? Are they just an excuses for imposing your will on others? "Imagine" and the billboard ads Lennon purchased saying "War is over if you want it" made me believe that we really can change the world for the better, into a new kind of world not defined by the old rules. Someplace kinder, freer, and more intelligent. These opinions earned Lennon a prominent place on Nixon's "Enemies List," and I vividly remember the day that Lennon was shot and killed by a "lone nut" in 1980.

All of these views and values somehow never made it into the consciousness of my Older Boomer counterparts. They continued on in the path laid down by their Depression-era forbears, clinging desperately to material gain for security, and ironically, destroying the economy in the process. They continue to beat the drum of national pride while looting other nations; they talk a lot about being Christians, but somehow forget what Jesus said about a rich man's chances of getting into heaven, or how we should treat each other. They use their religious beliefs instead as some kind of bludgeon, to impose their will on others and tell them how they should live their lives. They kill for profit and justify it with jingoism.

So I guess it should be no surprise that behavior dictated by this outmoded thinking keeps popping up in the McCain campaign, even after many of us make broad commentary about how outdated it is, and predict how disastrous the outcome will be. It is rather sad, in a way. The RP doesn't see that life has passed them by. They are an historical artifact. They just don't know it yet.