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How will America change as Baby Boomers retire and Millennials gain more power? White House advisor Andy Slavitt talks to Washington Post columnist Philip Bump about what sets these two generations apart from one another and how the transition will impact the future of politics, wealth, and culture.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter and Post @ASlavitt.

Follow Philip Bump on Twitter @pbump.

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Take this quick survey to help us shape future episodes: bit.ly/itbquestions
Check out Philip’s book, “The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696653/the-aftermath-by-philip-bump/
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Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com/show/inthebubble.
How will America change as Baby Boomers retire and Millennials gain more power? White House advisor Andy Slavitt talks to Washington Post columnist Philip Bump about what sets these two generations apart from one another and how the transition will impact the future of politics, wealth, and culture.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter and Post @ASlavitt.

Follow Philip Bump on Twitter @pbump.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.

Support the show by checking out our sponsors!

• Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/

Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

• Take this quick survey to help us shape future episodes: bit.ly/itbquestions
• Check out Philip’s book, “The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696653/the-aftermath-by-philip-bump/
• Find vaccines, masks, testing, treatments, and other resources in your community: https://www.covid.gov/
• Order Andy’s book, “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com/show/inthebubble.

Transcrip

SPEAKERS

Andy Slavitt, Philip Bump

Andy Slavitt  00:18

This is IN THE BUBBLE with Andy Slavitt. Don’t forget, you can email me at andy@lemonadamedia.com, I do have a favor to ask you before we kick into the episode. If you listen to the show, I’d like you to take a very quick survey about the show, it will really help us. If you go into the links that are provided i1n the description of the show, you will see a link to a survey. It’s like literally four or five questions. Don’t shoot me if it turned out to be six. I think it’s four or five, though. And it is going to be really helpful to me, really helpful to us. And we will look at all of them. So please take the survey about in the bubble. One thing COVID showed us was that even with a very unifying event, something that was a common experience for everybody. It wasn’t exactly unifying. And it’s gotten us focused here on the show on the question of so how divided are we? And what are the ways we’re divided? And why are we so divided? And what can we do about it? We did an episode on what’s dividing rural and urban America, blue and red America. In early January, we did an episode around the divisions in this country around race on Martin Luther King’s birthday, we’ve done an episode on how culture wars get started with the gas stove. Example may be a funny one. But it’s illustrative of the how the rage machine kind of works. And then Wednesday, you may have heard our most recent episode on feuds within the Republican Party, and how Ron DeSantis in particular, is using division as actually part of his campaign strategy. So today is an additional critical piece of that narrative. It’s another way where we count ourselves more divided these days, and that is generationally, the boomers, versus the millennials, and the sort of the outlook on where people have come from dictating very much of their perspective on what they want in this country. But the fact is that boomers and millennials are in a fight over money, over power over policy and the shape of this country and ultimately, over how politics reflects all of those things. There really are generational forces at work. Most people you ask, and there’s a recent poll that showed the majority of people think this country is getting more and more divided every day. And if you ask a lot of experts, they will tell you, they don’t know how that improves. They don’t know how we put these divisions ahead. So conversation like we’re gonna have today with Philip bump, who’s a columnist for the Washington Post is really edifying to me in this context, because it asks the question, what is the generational power struggle? economic struggle, political struggle all about? Where does it come from? Or why are we having it, and through that, I think it helps me see people more clearly, who may be on the other side of the debate for me. But I very much want to believe a sense of, of unity with I very much want to believe that there’s a sense of commonality that you can create with people. So love this dialogue. Very interesting. Let’s bring Phillip onto the show. Before I do, let me remind you again, please go take our survey. It’s right in the show notes should take you a matter of moments. And it’ll be very valuable. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Andy Slavitt  04:12

Philip, welcome, welcome to in the bubble.

Philip Bump  04:14

Of course, thank you very much for having me.

Andy Slavitt  04:16

You know, it strikes me that we are dealing with some pretty major structural issues in the country. Right now, you know, what is described economically, at least as a structural labor shortage, a culture war between kind of older, mostly white citizens and kind of a more diverse, younger country. And then, of course, how that plays out politically, right. I would have described all those three things individually. But until I saw your book, I might not have all connected him to one underlying theme, which is the aging of the baby boomers. Can you tell us, first of all, you know, for those who don’t want a cursory definition of the baby boomers, but then How the baby boomers play into these kind of major thrusts of things that we’re dealing with a society.

Philip Bump  05:07

Yeah, sure. So the baby boom is defined by the Census Bureau as being people who born from 1946 to 1964, as a little bit of gray area, but that’s the baby boom. And that’s something that the Census Bureau defines, in part, because it was just this massive surge in literal births, right, that baby boom, you know, the population of the United States in 1945, is 140 million. And over the course of the next 19 years are about 76 million babies born right. So it’s a huge percentage of the population being added over a relatively short period of time. And so one of the things that we saw happen then, is that the entire country had to sort of reshape itself to accommodate the boom. But this created a pattern by which the United States was necessarily responsive to this massive surge and population that was progressing through time, right, as it got older, the United States had to deal with it. And one of the things I think is underrecognized, at this moment, is that we’ve reached a point where the baby boomers have begun to retire, they now make up most of the retirees in the United States, and are reaching their other older years. And so now we have this moment where we have to pour a lot of resources into this older population. This population also the baby boom began to point when immigration was restricted, it was a much more heavily white population than America is now. So we have this tension all the you know, a lot of the tensions of race. And the overlapping tensions of immigration, also overlap with generations, the baby boomer is older and whiter, as you mentioned, then the younger generations, they literally look different. And we also see this moment, where now we have this for the first time since the baby boom began, we have this younger generation that can actually compete with the baby boom, politically and economically. And they want things like funding for schools and funding for childcare. And so that creates an actual literal political tension that has also been manifested at this moment.

Andy Slavitt  06:51

So maybe we spend a second on this degeneration you talk about and what it’s meant. Sure. And I think it’s worth thinking about kind of the impact on our culture. I mean, on the one hand, when I think of baby boomers in sort of, in their prime, you think about Vietnam, the anti-Vietnam protests are the Beatles, rom coms. Sure. And then, when you think about baby boomers as they appear, in their latter stages, maybe the way they appear towards millennials, it’s the Iraq War, the financial crash, automation, which outsource jobs, climate change, and of course, Donald Trump, right. Is it possible that one generation could be responsible for both sides of that?

Philip Bump  07:39

Well, I mean, it is from the standpoint that the generation is includes 10s of millions of people, right? You know, one of the things that’s poorly understood about the baby boom, is, at the same time that you have baby boomers making up a disproportionate percentage of the Republican Party, because the Republican Party skews older and whiter. Right, they make up more of the Republican Party than they do the Democratic Party as a result. But you also have the organized resistance Donald Trump was really led kicked off this the you know, the literal resistance was kicked off by older white women, most of whom had college degrees, right. So you so you have these two sides of the boom manifested Justin, that, you know, when you talk about things like one of the things that I think people don’t really appreciate about the political tension, even on the left, there’s political tension between the older people and younger people. And in part, that’s because the fights that younger people really care about today, for example, climate change, for example, LGBTQ rights, and things along those lines. Those are not fights that were important when liberal states were fighting for, you know, their political goals in the 1980s and 1990s. They said they simply weren’t as salient to the political conversation, as they are now. liberals were very effective at the fights and they engaged with decades ago, to the extent that those aren’t the fights that young people are having today. And I think that creates some tension between older and younger even on the left. But you’re absolutely right. I mean, this is a very large and diverse generation, at least in terms of politics, if not ethnically. And so we see that different aspects of it get highlighted different points. And at this point, I think to the chagrin of a lot of left leaning boomers, the aspect of the boomer generation that’s really seizing attention is the more conservative way.

Andy Slavitt  09:10

Did you say your generation X? Is that right?

Philip Bump  09:13

I am, I mean, to the extent that these differentiators matter which, you know, the Census Bureau only recognizes the baby boomer as a real generation. So we sort of invent these things. But yes, within the construct of each grantee, yes,

Andy Slavitt  09:24

yes, we all want some belonging. So we create these exact these groups. There’s not a lot of us a Generation X, apparently, but, you know, the fact that, you know, one of the major implications that we’re dealing with, and you know, the Federal Reserve Chair commented on this very recently, is you just have a lot more people that are either partially retired or fully retired or not working. A lot of our country’s wealth sits in the bank accounts and in the homes of the of these folks. Right, so help us understand what happens what are the consequences of, of his large bolus of population sort of leaving the workforce.

Philip Bump  09:59

So the wealth issue is fascinating because when you think about the wealth issue, it actually manifests in a lot of these other things. So there are, you know, that I spoke with a firm that does these sorts of assessments. And they figured that, you know, more than $50 trillion would essentially be transferred out of the baby boom, over the next couple of decades, in part through bequeath mints as they died give living to the family or to institutions, but also what they call invivo transfers. So like, you know, paying for kids, colleges, buying kids houses, things along those lines. So a lot of the wealth of the baby boom has in the world, the baby boom, isn’t really, baby boomers individually are not necessarily much wealthier than other generations, just there’s a lot of them. So they collectively have a lot of wealth. But a lot of that wealth is tied up in their homes, right. And a lot of them see their homes as a storehouse of value that they’re going to be able to turn to once they retire. And that’s why to some extent, we have a lot of this tension about should we build new homes or not, because there’s a lot of protectionism, you want to protect the value of your home, because you see that as a storehouse of value. So we have those sort of tensions that are playing out. But we have this overarching question when it comes to wealth of how long are baby boomers going to live? How long are any elderly Americans going to live? Right? We’ve seen people living longer, we’ve seen retirements lasting longer, we’ve seen expectations around the cost of retirement, that have started to get a little bit out of whack. You know, obviously, COVID is a wrench that gets thrown in the system as well. But we don’t know the answer that we don’t know how long people are going to live, how long they’re going to be drawing down this resources.

Andy Slavitt  11:23

But that wealth in even assuming some of it does get spent down on people’s retirement or medical costs. To me, there’s a really salient question of where does that money go, because it can either go to the next generation in some form, or it can go into taxes or to some charitable events. And to me, if one of the measures of our society is the level of equality or inequality we have, that’s really foundational, because there’s so many Americans that didn’t have a chance to inherit wealth, largely people of color, immigrants, et cetera. And then you’ve got people that through good fortune, or what have you ever seen a lot of value grow in their homes and in their stock market portfolios, or whatever? So should we be thinking about that $50 trillion is moving into another generation of inheritance? How is that going to exacerbate challenges we already have in the country?

Philip Bump  12:17

Now, that’s a great point. You know, the people with whom I spoke regularly pointed to wealth inequality as one of the factors that’s going to differentiate where this money goes. The best example that was raised to me was Ivanka Trump, right? Ivanka Trump does not need to inherit a lot of money from her father, she’s already rich, because her father has spent a lot of money investing in her over the course of her

Andy Slavitt  12:37

And from her perfume.

Philip Bump  12:39

Yes, and of course, her branding opportunity. But yeah, so it is not the case, to your point that this $50 trillion, will suddenly be dumped into a big pool from which Americans draw equally wealthy people are going to be more likely to invest that in their kids and their family members, they are also more likely going to bequeath it to their family members. And so it’s going to continue that same sort of wealth divide. And there’s some question as to whether or not in the future, right now we see this tension between younger and older in terms of younger people thinking that older people have more wealth, which of course, in some ways they do. And in some ways they don’t, but that that tension will just sort of shift downward. So it’ll just be the people of the same generation that are arguing over that same sort of class divide. And I’ll point out that that also holds for some of the intergenerational tension that we see. Because baby boomers, I mentioned that baby boomers collectively have a lot of wealth individually are not particularly wealthy. But that leads to some resentment from baby boomers that say, why do you keep saying I’m wealthy, I’m not wealthy, I’m not Bill Gates. And it’s true that because of wealth inequality, that you have a huge number of baby boomers who are below the average amount of wealth that a baby boomer holds simply by how these definitions work. And as such, you know, there can be some resentment when they are held up as this wealthy generation, which they individually are not.

Andy Slavitt  13:52

Right. It strikes me that our economy is because it’s 70% driven by consumption. And we’re going to have many fewer workers and consumers that a rational society would consider, hey, maybe we need to increase taxes in order to support elderly people, yet, the boomers have passed in the Trump era. And before then, really large tax decreases. Right, you know, those tax decreases are really another form of sort of intergenerational warfare in some respects, aren’t they?

Philip Bump  14:25

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s important to recognize that they’re not necessarily consciously intergenerational warfare, right? You we see, for example, and I point to one example, in the book, but we see, for example, that when you have things like funding mechanisms for schools on the ballot, that they are less likely to be supported by older populations. And the reason for that is obvious that older people are less likely to have kids in school. So you ask them to raise their taxes and they don’t necessarily want to do that don’t have kids in the schools. You know, like I one can understand that from a practical standpoint of sort of however short sighted it may be, and that you know, the fact that old where people tend to vote disproportionately more than younger people means that we are skewed toward that sort of response to these needs for funding mechanisms. And so when I mentioned earlier that for the first time, the Generation X, your generation, and my generation is relatively small, we couldn’t really compete with the baby boomers resources, they were also largely our parents. So you know, there’s sort of a complicating factor there as well. But the millennial generation is, the number of baby boomers there were when the baby boomers were turning 40 was almost one to one with Wow, many millennials that are one of millennials are turning 40. And so this is a large generation that can actually compete with the boomers and say, hey, you know what, we need to have these resources of going to these other things, which exacerbates that tension and also makes it so that we’re more likely to see this sort of collective response to what the baby boomers are doing. I think that on an individual basis, it’s not necessarily irrational to not want to fund, you know, kids schools when you’re worried about funding for senior centers. But you do see an increase in that tension at this moment, because you have these two blocks.

Andy Slavitt  16:00

no, no, all of this is rational. All of its rational, right? All of its rational. But it’s a question of, of the numbers and the power and numbers. And if what’s rational for you just doesn’t carry the majority, then this is where a lot of the resentment and where the you know, the I presumably the okay, Boomer meme derives from Yeah, okay, let’s take a break. And I want to come back and talk about how our culture will change as the baby boom generation, exit stage left in the new generations, become more dominant. One thing that strikes me in this situation is the notion that institution to the country were very important to a large portion of boomers, whether that’s religion, or marriage, or the military. So let’s talk about what’s replacing these dominant sort of cultural institutions for millennials.

Philip Bump  17:11

So this, what’s fascinating about it is that this is actually the boomers themselves saw the sort of erosion of institutions, there was the famous book by Robert Putnam Bowling Alone, which 20 years ago looked at ways in which Americans were less likely to participate in these kinds of institutions. And that trend is continuing. And so while you do have younger people being more likely to go to college, for example, they’re less likely to be union members, they’re less likely to attend church, they’re less likely to participate in other institutions along those lines. So what is replacing it? Obviously, there is a strong online component to it. And I really think that this gets understated in an important way, which is that younger people participate in online communications and communities in a way that older people haven’t or are sort of slower to get to. But they also have this method of amplification that older people didn’t when they were young. And so when we talk about cultural effects, the fact that social media empowers young people to be able to be present and heard in the in the broader national conversation, that simply you couldn’t do that to the same scale 1970 1980 9090. And so that too, I think, makes baby boomers and older generations have to have to be aware of the arguments and concerns of younger people in a way they weren’t able to do previously. And so we see a lot of organizing around a lot of different things. You know, when you speak with people to do organizing for younger people, you see how much of that is centered online. But speaking to experts, I also learned that Gen Z is more likely to actually want to start their own organizations into you know, real organizations, you know, tangible organizations, if you will. So there may also be some sort of, you know, I don’t know how much it’s, I would like to describe this trendy, but sort of a shift back in the other direction, potentially, as well.

Andy Slavitt  18:54

Interesting. Let’s talk about you mentioned organizing, let’s talk about politics. I’ve always been struck by you correct me if I’m wrong here, that I believe Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump were born within like a couple of months of one another. That’s right. 1946 in 1946, which is the very beginning of the baby boom, right? Obama, of course, came late in the baby boom. But what’s interesting is like, I think about the metaphor of Clinton, Bush and Trump, with Clinton being kind of an early Boomer and sort of representing somewhat progressive politics, hope, Vietnam era, kind of coming to power. Bush was sort of like classic establishment. And then Trump has resentment, right? And it just strikes me as like, if that were one individual aging over time, it might represent what we’re seeing over as the baby boomers have age. I don’t know how much of that is just a construct versus reality. What can be your thought on that? But then there’s a couple of questions wrapped in that I’d love to get to.

Philip Bump  19:52

Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right about those three presidents, but I think you’re sort of you’re inverting the causality here, which is that the baby boomers as The Age saw each of these presidents appealing in a different way, each of these 1946 presidents was appealing for different reasons. And so it is definitely not the case that all baby boomers are hard, right, MAGA conservatives. But it is the case that boomers are a disproportionate part of the hard right MAGA movement, even if the baby boomer itself isn’t necessarily collectively holding that same sentiment. And so yeah, you’re right, that those three presidents born within two months of each other in the summer of 1946, right at the start of the baby boom generation, they really show how the baby boomers politics changed, even if their own personal politics didn’t.

Andy Slavitt  20:36

The obvious question to ask, which I’m going to hold on to asking you to come back to is this question of whether or not people naturally become more conservative as they age, the sort of the trope that that happens, or whether there was something specific to that generation? I think the question I want we want to get to know is, how will things be different? And how will the younger generation assuming the mantle of political leadership, cultural leadership, and economic leadership? What clues do we have about what’s going to change in society?

Philip Bump  21:08

So let’s look just through the lens of politics for a second. So you’d mentioned earlier, this long standing assumption that people get more conservative as they age, which one of the things I found as I was doing my research is that’s really not well founded. I mean, in part because social science research doesn’t go back that far. And in part, because when we think about what young people look like today, it’s a much more diverse generation of people than it was the case with any previous American generation. So I don’t think it’s safe to assume that those young people who are now very heavily Democratic are going to suddenly become a Republican, in for the same reason that I don’t think, you know, older African American people, we don’t assume that they are more Republican. Right. So there are a lot of the reasons that I think that we should throw asterisks on that sort of common assumption, to your point about, you know, how the world in which Millennials grew up, some of the research that I looked at shows that it’s basically from 14 to 20, fours, when people’s political views are really start to be firmly set. And that’s often through the lens of how people see the president. And so, you know, if you look at how generations that are more heavily Democratic, they tend to have been 14 to 24, in a period when Democratic presidents were more popular or republican presidents less popular millennials, for example, having Barack Obama versus George W. Bush in the Iraq War. Right. Those are those are two very defining presidencies for that generation. So the question then is will this population of people continue to be more democratic as they get older, which is, I think, probably a better proxy than just talking about more conservative since that can be somewhat malleable? And I think the answer is, it depends to a large extent on what Republicans do. You know, we’ve already seen the Republican Party changed its politics, on some things, however, slightly, but significantly, that it is not as a stripper, mostly opposed to climate change legislation, or at least acceptance of climate change as an existent thing. As it used to be back in 2008-2010. That’s changed slightly, its approach to gay marriage has changed slightly. And I think that as we see this generation continue to get older, and importantly, as we see this often race centered group that is supportive of Donald Trump, fade as a force in American politics, that we’ll see less focus on those sorts of things and more focus on the sorts of things that are important younger people, and as such that may shift to these ratios of Democrat versus Republican simply because the parties themselves are changing.

Andy Slavitt  23:26

My sense is, though, that there are certain assumptions, like, for example, take universal health care, I don’t know that they would necessarily equate that with government spending, even though that’s obviously what it is. But I think there’s a sense that like climate, that that’s something that this generation, sort of assumes it’s gonna get fixed. And it’s one of my one of the big questions is, you know, is this a generation that tries to write some of the wrongs that they’ve seen, makes their own mistakes, but writes their own wrongs they’ve seen, like climate like on, you know, better mental health care for people like on healthcare issues, like on wealth inequality? Or is it a society that no, they’re inheriting $40 trillion, and when they inherit $40 trillion, that will change them to such a degree, that they will see some of these issues differently.

Philip Bump  24:13

The extent to which the specific left wing politics that we absolutely see manifested among younger people is pervasive throughout the broad spectrum of possible political opportunities. And that it is a fixed it that that will continue over the long term. Both of those are very hard to say. You know, it’s hard to say this is this is likely to continue that they are both saturated with liberal politics and that that saturation will continue. I don’t think either of those is necessarily the case. And if you look at polling, it suggests that there may be places where you can make a more moderate appeal to this generation and have some success. Even if you are not going to win the fight on trying to convince them for example, you Should outlaw gay marriage right that you’re not going to win that fight? But there may be other places that I mean, look, look at 2020. Right. So one of the things we saw in 2020, is we did see a shift among Hispanic voters who tend to vote more heavily Democratic toward Donald Trump. And one of the reasons for that is because immigration was not seen as salient and issue in that election, as was the economy. And that was to the benefit of Donald Trump had the election been all about immigration, Donald Trump would probably not have fare that well. This is according to research done by Equus laboratories and others that looked at this and the fact that the salient issue for Hispanic voters was really the economy as opposed to things like immigration benefit of Republicans, if Republicans continue to walk that line with younger generations, as the years progressed, they’ll be doing better than we might assume.

Andy Slavitt  25:46

Let’s take one more break, and come back and discuss what does it actually mean to be an American today and whether that meaning is different depending on what generation you’re from, or grow back. So we’ve been doing some actually, some episodes, Philip, on what are some of the things that are dividing the country? We did one with Governor Tim Walz from Minnesota, who’s from rural part of the state now, the Democratic governor, about the urban rural divide that’s emerged. And then you’ve talked about here, you know, the generational divide, certainly changes a lot of our perspectives and attitudes, if not our beliefs, as you say, there’s diversity among these generations, but certainly where you come from, and your starting point is very affected here. And if one were to try to get to the bottom of what’s really at the center of what’s cleaving our society, you study a lot of this data, which things would you point to? Would you think, would you say it’s, it’s the sort of where people live or urban? Would you say it’s the education level, college educated? Or would you say, it’s generational, which of these is kind of the most powerful

Philip Bump  27:14

force? Or you might add race, right? And race? It’s fascinating, cuz I actually pitched a piece that I haven’t gotten to yet. That’s looking at that, which is the more salient factor when you’re trying to predict presidential outcomes? Is it where you live? Or is it who you are? Demographically, my gut says, and this is based on, you know, familiarity with polling. But you know, I don’t know that I could, you know, write a thesis on this and defend it successfully. My gut says that education is a key point here overlapping with race, that I think it’s certainly the case, the Republican party thinks that they have an advantage with nonwhite Americans who did not go to college, as they you know, amplify these sorts of class tensions that are downstream from college education.

Andy Slavitt  27:59

So as we tried to wrap up this conversation, which there’s probably no logical stopping point, you could probably talk about this topic forever, because there’s so many places to go. And so if you’re feeling that way, let me suggest a book called The aftermath, that happens to be written by Philip is about the last days of the baby boom in the future of power in America. And if you find this conversation, as fascinating as I do, it really causes you to think about these issues. But if you think about all of these forces, that you’ve written about, and thought about, if you’re going to answer the question, how do we best get on a path to create a more common uniform feel and experience? And I’m not just talking about politically, because I actually think the cultural piece may come first and the politics may follow. What would you say are the right suggestions or ideas for us to pursue?

Philip Bump  28:54

One of the things we are seeing is a reassessment of what it means to be both American and to be white, and that those things overlap. And I think that we are going through a period we have in the past seen America rally together in moments of conflict. And I think we’re living through one of those moments of conflict, sort of cold conflict, if you will, in which what it means to be American and what it means to be America is being tested. And the idea that we have this relatively young pluralistic democracy, a democracy in which everyone can participate and have a voice that’s only been around really since the 1960s, in which, you know, once the Voting Rights Act passed, and the civil rights movement was active, that we have this young democracy that is diverse, and has people from all sorts of different places and different viewpoints. And we’re really testing the extent to which we want that democracy to actually continue as a democracy. And we’re seeing this struggle between autocratic tendencies and this pluralistic democracy. I think that the resolution of this which overlaps very much with this generational divide, I think the resolution of that may provide this moment around which we can all rally and say, You know what we overcame this. And we are collectively now we recognize that we are in America that’s pluralistic. We are in America, that you can come from anywhere, and you can share this ideal. And it’s sort of a reimagining of the way in which we’ve always thought about America as the place anyone can come. You know, that meant something different. And the only people were coming were people who sort of collectively fit under the umbrella of white. And now I think we’re sort of reimagining what does it mean to have all these people come collectively together under this umbrella to be American? And we’re, you know, it’s we’re having to reshape some people’s expectations of what that looks like.

Andy Slavitt  30:37

Well, let me ask it, then to the most maybe, inappropriate way possible. Is it just a generational thing? I mean, will it take an older generation that’s mostly white and wealthy, dying for that kind of realization coming together to occur?

Philip Bump  30:56

The way that I see the baby boom, broadly, is that it provided a massive market opportunity as it evolved. And so now we’re at a point in time, where not only is the market evolving for senior care, senior housing things along those lines, but the market exists for white resentment in a way that it hasn’t necessarily in the past. And so you see purveyors of white resentment like Donald Trump and Fox News that are really preying on people’s impulses in that regard, not to say that all older people have white resentment, that’s certainly not the case. But there is a market because there are so many people in this age group and who have this this idea, in part, because it’s been fostered that there really is this marketplace for it. But what we’ve seen with the baby boom over time, is that that marketplace changes and fades, you know, the diaper companies were an absolute Bonanza in the 1940s and 1950s. And then it crashed because there weren’t as many babies anymore, right? You had to build all these schools to accommodate all these young people. And all sudden we have all these massive empty schools that simply aren’t being filled, because there aren’t as many students, right. And so I think that yes, you’re right, that there is a period of time through which the tension is peaking. And I’m hoping that’s now that this tension between these two worldviews is you know, and I think that obviously, the results of 2020 and 2022, to suggest that potentially that peak has been reached 2024, we’ll have to see what happens. But I think that we sort of reached another point like that, and that the resolution of this has the it has, it has the potential to sort of make America stop and be like, Okay, we went through this thing. And now here’s where we are. And I think we’re all probably comfortable with it, we still have, you know, weirdo fashi, you know, 20 year old white dudes wearing MAGA hats around, you know, but everyone regards them as an outlier, who should be ignored? And, you know, and we’ll see, you know, and then there’s the possibility that we turn into Hungary. And I think that, you know, obviously doesn’t benefit anyone I’ve met.

Andy Slavitt  32:43

You know, as we close, I would say that the one thing that I don’t know if I could say recommend, but I think I found useful in my own life, is, I have a number of millennials that I get to spend time with, and I get to work with. And I do feel like, a productive way to think about this whole situation is, you know, what can we do to really support this generation, and listen to this generation. And, you know, I think about the fact that we’ve got people voting people in and out of office that aren’t going to be around to see what happens to the climate, right. So a really interesting, important use of our attention and resources. And mine has been to support and mentor to the extent that I’ve got things that I can do that that’s arguable, probably, to this sort of younger generation of people that are building ideas, trying to solve problems, trying to focus politically and socially on movements that will help and I think that’s an interesting way for us to all think about paying some of this forward. Great to have you on Phillip, I’d love to have another conversation again, and see where things move on. But great luck with the book. And thank you for giving us a lot to think about.

Philip Bump  33:55

Of course, thank you very much for having.

Andy Slavitt  34:10

Thanks to Phillip, thank you for listening. Let me give you the sense of what you’re going to hear next week on in the Bible because we’ve been working on some really interesting shows. The first one I would love to tell you is good news, but it’s not. We’re going to take a look at the avian flu and some of the implications of what’s going on. You may have noticed the price of eggs going up. But what does that all mean? It could mean something quite serious. As this is a very scary flu. It’s jumped species already. We’re looking at what’s happening in the lynx population. We’re looking at what’s happening in the seal population. And this is not the kind of flu you want to jump to humans. There are some interesting ramifications that we’re going to explore including The ability for us to get vaccinated, including how this thing behaves, and whether it jumps easily or not, and whether it can morph. So I know not what everybody wants to talk about. But we have to, we have to hear about it. So you’re required to listen, while you’re not required, technically. But I thought I’d say that Wednesday, we’re going to talk about the challenges with policing in America as we move from Ferguson, to Minneapolis to Memphis with DeRay Mckesson very important show, and then Friday, just so we have something to really take our teeth to do over the weekend, we’re going to look at whether or not the answers to some of these challenges we face exist in other planets. And we’ve got the director of Jet Propulsion Lab and NASA, who’s agreed to come on the show, and tell us the inside scoop of what we’re learning about life in the universe, and efforts by many to try to resettle to other planets over time. So kind of a far reaching topic, but I got a chance to meet Lori and she is terrific. And then we’re going to do a show the following week on COVID In the end of the public health emergency, so we are very, very busy here. That’s what I want to get to know. And you can help us. If you fill out the survey that’s in the show notes that I mentioned at the beginning of the show, please, please please, please, that we really want to hear from listeners. Okay, that’s all for now. It’s weekend time. Have a great one. Oh, and enjoy the Super Bowl if you’re so inclined.

CREDITS  36:40

Thanks for listening to IN THE BUBBLE. We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kathryn Barnes, Jackie Harris and Kyle Shiely produced our show, and they’re great. Our mix is by Noah Smith and James Barber, and they’re great, too. Steve Nelson is the vice president of the weekly content, and he’s okay, too. And of course, the ultimate bosses, Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs, they executive produced the show, we love them dearly. Our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill, with additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @LemonadaMedia where you’ll also get the transcript of the show. And you can find me at @ASlavitt on Twitter. If you like what you heard today, why don’t you tell your friends to listen as well, and get them to write a review. Thanks so much, talk to you next time.