A Politics for Generation X:
As it turns out, however, the political views of most Xers are more complex and more interesting than that.
Like conservatives, they favor fiscal restraint—but unlike the conservative leadership in Congress, only 15 percent believe that America should use any budget surplus to cut taxes. Like Democrats, they want to help the little guy—but unlike traditional Democrats, they are unwilling to do it by running deficits…
[A] recent poll suggests that the highest priority for the majority of young adults is building a strong and close-knit family…
Improving public education is one of the highest policy priorities for Xers…
Xers are eager to do away with the two-party system. They register particularly strong support for third parties, for campaign-finance reform, and for various forms of direct democracy…
[A] commitment to environmental conservation.
If Xers had their way, the collection of taxes would become more progressive and the distribution of benefits more widespread.
(Via Andrew Sullivan.)
It’s odd reading an article that was written eight years ago and finding almost every paragraph describing my views very closely, despite the fact that I’m not even technically a Gen-Xer, having been born in ’81 (the article puts the cutoff date at ’78, which is later than most would have it).
Still, a lot of this resonated with me quite clearly, but reading it with the Obama mindset that Andrew Sullivan had put me into with the link, I’m failing to see a lot of crossover here. These policies are all pretty well accepted by the majority of the candidates, at least on a high level. But then there’s this:
Xers may be poorly informed when it comes to public affairs, but they know enough to believe that our political system is badly in need of reform. At a very basic level they recognize that the political system is rigged against their interests. For one thing, Xers continually see a large gap between the issues they care most about and the ones that politicians choose to address.
That sounds distinctly Obama-esque. But it sounds even more like Edwards, who was my first choice. And that paragraph goes on to say:
Xers long for leaders who will talk straight and advocate the shared sacrifices necessary to correct the long-term problems that preoccupy them most.
And this article was published a month before McCain announced his presidential bid in 2000, which heavily emphasized straight talk and shared sacrifices, topics he still runs on today.
But then, the article also says:
A glimpse of the future may come, strangely enough, in the election of Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota.
If that’s the yardstick we’re using, the outlook doesn’t look so great.