Call this a pet theory. I’ve been wondering how boomers inherited pure Americana, yet turned into this majority that despised their own children and country, rebelling against their namesake. We already know Fabian socialism was fighting a quiet war over government control since right before the world wars, that the churches were being indoctrinated by Zionism during the same time frame.
What isn’t quite as clear is how the boomers became quasi hedonist/ nihilists which only solidified over time. There’s multiple facets you could point to like the sexual “revolution”, drug use, hippy culture, etc. these however don’t explain NeoConservatism which was/is overwhelmingly supported by Boomers, or how community disappeared overnight during the boomers reign as adults.
I would argue something different, the fallout of communism/ socialism in America created a fallout from tribalism/ community as a second order effect. “Rugged individualism” became nihilistic individualism which neocons embraced in totality, “you are only responsible for yourself, heritage means nothing, blah blah bootstraps”. This was/is the defining creed of the boomer “right”. This is where the “propositional nation” and “creedal nation” nonsense comes from. This is also why the left and right were nearly indistinguishable on immigration where H1Bs and illegal amnesty were actual neocon babies. (Reagan said he would grant amnesty years before the bill and “dem betrayal”, George Sr favored a second wave of amnesty, etc).
So you might think on the flip side of neocon boomers, the neoliberals, that if they were opposing force that they would be the “communal” party. Which is partly true, this is why leftists of the time created the NIMBY laws and why even today the wealthy left lives in overwhelmingly majority white gated neighborhoods. What the neoliberals would not do, however is support Americana, that was their great evil, and the best way to destroy it was “diversity”/ multiculturalism. It is societal nihilism versus individual nihilism.
This also supports why both the boomer left and right despises Nazis in totality and was their unifier. The neocon right sees Nazis as racial socialists, which is in opposition their founding myth of nihilistic individualism. The neoliberal left sees Nazis as racial nationalists, which is in opposition to their founding myth of societal nihilism.
I'm not convinced it is nihilism: it's a sort of solipsistic optimism. I think the Boomers, in their heads, are still living in the post-war period of the 50s and 60s, when you could walk out of high school and into a lifetime job with no qualifications that would buy you a house and a car and put your kids through college. When the space race was at its peak, but the cold war hadn't become the cynical power-play that it later turned into, at least not in the public consciousness.
It's hard for us to imagine the unbelievable optimism of those two decades, before the Vietnam War and the recession of the 1970s brought everybody down to Earth. If you watch media from that period, whether it's movies, TV shows or even just news broadcasts, it's clear that everyone was being indoctrinated with the notion that they really were living the end of history: convinced that the Ultimate Evil, the final boss, had been defeated and that we would be living on Mars by the 21st century and things could only possibly get better. The pie-in-the-sky futurism was almost cult-like in its pervasiveness.
Even now that everything's gone to shit, the Boomers still haven't shaken that programming. When you hear them say things like, "well, war with Russia might be bad, but I'll be dead by then," what we hear is "fuck you I've got mine." What's actually going through their heads is "They'll be fine. How bad could it possibly be?"
That's the maxim that's guided their entire lives, informed every decision they've ever made, every vote they've ever cast: We've already won. We're already on top. We can ride out any hardship because the good times are never that far out of reach. We have enough to share with everyone. They've lived their entire lives in a world without consequences, and so they make decisions based on the belief that consequences don't exist.
This is an excellent analysis and I think forms the core of what makes otherwise rational, loving boomers say such apparently callous things to their own children. They believe that America and the West are inexhaustible and undefeatable, so no matter what comes, their descendants will be fine.
With regards to the optimism of the 50s and 60s, Fallout does an admirable job parodying this (except it's almost difficult to parody, because people really WERE that optimistic at that time).
Yeah this take is the closest to the truth of any here.
Boomers are not nihilists.
Things DO matter to them. All the wrong things. They lost their shit over 9/11. And again over COVID. I think they mostly think that the game is over, the victory song is playing, and the credits are rolling. So when something like 9/11 or COVID happens it shakes their illusion and they have these knee jerk reactions. They MUST get back to a state of comfort as soon as possible, costs be damned. Maybe that's what it is... Comfort. Comfort matters more to boomers than anything. More than freedom,.more than culture, history, tradition, legacy, their kids or grandkids. Comfort.
Boomers in their 70s would happily have permanently derailed their grandkids career or their great grandkids learning development by forcing businesses and schools to shut down, if it meant alleviates ng their concern over catching the coof. They'd gladly jab their newborn grandbaby and give them autism or "SIDS" if it meant they could enjoy their 20th ship cruise worry free.
"Sorry your kid has arrhythmia. I'll send you a post card from Aruba! #wearamask"