In the April 24 Atlantic Daily, Tom Nichols predicted that the candidates for the 2024 Presidential election would be Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I wonder who Nichols would have predicted at this stage of the 2016 campaign? Not Trump, surely.
It is a cynical prediction, because it depends on candidates getting nominated for all the wrong reasons. Without going into them, I just want to say that 2024 could be the year for Gen X to kick the aging Baby Boomers off their pedestals. The problem is the old and tough Boomers don’t want to go.
Why do two-thirds of voters under 32 wish neither Biden nor Trump would run? They probably have their partisan reasons, but the elephant in the room is that these men are five decades older than their Gen X constituents. We have been trusting the old people in the room for a long time now, and the possibility looms bolder and brighter that Gen X will supply the candidates for the President of the United States. Because Gen X, Y and Z have begun to get politically active.
It started with the 2020 Election, which marked a dramatic change in the age of voters from the 2016 election:
Young voters also had record turnout: roughly 50%, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, a jump of 11 percentage points from 2016 and likely the highest youth voter turnout since the voting age was lowered to 18. https://time.com/6049270/2020-election-young-voters/
The trend continued in the 2022 election, and the voices of younger voters are multiplying as we enter the 2024 election season. The dramatic demonstration of three young Tennessee lawmakers on the floor of the state House rang true to the popular belief in controlling gun violence, a belief that has been silenced year after year since the horrific slaying of the Sandy Hook children in 2012. The candidates in 2024 better be prepared for an amplified debate on gun control and red flag laws, as well as younger faces in the coming election.
If the primary elections do not foresee this shift in voter demographics, they will hear it when it comes time to choose Vice-Presidential running mates. But if one Party chooses a candidate from the XY generations, then the generational divide will will bury the older Party candidate. The older partisans will be surprised by the power of Generations X, Y and Z, but they shouldn’t be.
I should be defending my fellow Boomers, but I realize that “politics as usual” has got to graduate to “politics as needed.” It is only likely to change if we select candidates from another generation, one that represents concerned Americans like Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson who stood up to the privileged white majority in the House and captured every voter’s attention two weeks ago. This was a stunt that took nerve and outrage, but it spoke to hearts on both sides of the aisle. It lifted up the voices that would challenge the old farts that have held their parties hostage for six years.
Personally I love Joe Biden, who probably made the same bold reforms and bolder mistakes I would have made in his place. I believe he would be the best choice, if it were not for inspirational younger voices in the Party: Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Duckworth, and J.B. Pritzger. Whether any of these younger Democrats have the gall to challenge Joe Biden remains unknown, but unless someone with their name recognition steps up to the challenge, he will be the nominee.
The survival of the Republican Party depends on the courage of one or two of the X-generation to stand up to Donald Trump, even with his 25% voter base. It will take someone braver than those who have declared their candidacy so far, someone with the thick skin to stand up to abuse. Could Marco Rubio or Chris Christie step into the ring again after he whipped them in 2016? What about Kristi Noem of South Dakota or Chris Sununu of New Hampshire? Would they dare? Republicans need to be rescued from a certain defeat with Trump at the top of the ticket.
All this will be known within a few months. The path of least resistance for both Democrats and Republicans would be to acquiesce to the Old Guard, a rematch of 2020. As much as I might relish a replay of the outcome of the 2020 election, I would not enjoy another four years of the election denying, which would inevitably follow. We need a better contest in the 2024 election.
“No one puts new wine into old wineskins: otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins: but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins” (Mark 2:22), as Jesus counseled two thousand years ago. If the ravages of old wineskins don’t catch up with these Baby Boomers, the new wine eventually will.