Donald Trump, born in 1946 (the same year as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush), was the oldest president ever to be inaugurated -- but it's looking like his nominal challenger this year will be even older, either Joe Biden (b. 1942) or Bernie Sanders (b. 1941). Not that either of them has a cat in hell's chance of winning.
Though there have been two presidents born in 1924 (Jimmy Carter and Bush père) and three born in 1946, not a single person born in the 21 years between those two dates has ever been elected president. Of the 12 generations (as identified by Strauss and Howe) from George Washington to Barack Obama, every one has produced presidents with the single exception of the "Silent Generation" of Biden and Sanders.
The graph below shows, for each Strauss-Howe generation, how many years it held the presidency vs. how many years of birth the generation spans. For example, Strauss and Howe define the Greatest Generation (actually they call it the "G.I. Generation") as those born in a 24-year period (1901-1924), but members of that generation held the presidency from Kennedy to Bush père, for a total of 32 years, for a ratio of 32:24 or 1.33. (The graph assumes that Trump will be reelected, giving the Boomers -- actually, giving people born in 1946 -- 24 years in office.)
Why did the presidency skip that entire generation? I have no idea. There is a similar gap in British PM birth years between Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925) and John Major (b. 1943), though Mrs. Thatcher does just barely qualify as a member of the Silent Generation according to Strauss and Howe's dates. However, Silents dominated the U.S. Senate for just as long as any other generation, so it's not as if there was a shortage of political talent.
6 comments:
Verrry interesting...
No theories - but I wonder why people have decided that variable-sized generations are 'generations'? A biological generation used to be defined as 25 years - four per century (on the basis that this was approximately the median age for mothers - the age when they had had half their children.
This also has social meaning in terms of upbringing and population age structure.
In The West (with increasing maternal age of first child) this should now be extended to 30 plus years - perhaps 33&4/12 to make it fit neatly into the centuries?
Anyway, since the observation is an artefact of dubious definitions; probably there is nothing to explain...
Well, however generations are defined, there's a noticeable gap.
@Wm - Well, in the first place it is one of the shortest (18 year) 'generations' - others nearby are 21 and 24 years.
That makes it more likely not to have a president. Secondly, I think (probably) pretty much any even and equal interval for generations would abolish the unique absence.
So there is perhaps less to explain than meets the eye.
Eiethr way, I have often wondered what is (on average) the major significance of a (real) generation - is it how we grow-up? And if so which part of childhood dominates. Of is the significance something imposed mainly by the conditions prevailing during adult life?
And how much does this change at different phases of history - after all, under ancient conditions it was perhaps usual for Nothing significant to change between generations. I would guess that the idea of generations only emerges during eras of perceived rapid change.
Here are my reasons for thinking this may be a legit explicandum.
1. The 1925-1945 period (21 years) is the longest period without presidential births in the history of the United States. The only other gap to even come close to that length is 1891-1907 (17 years).
2. It coincides very closely with a similar gap in births of British PMs (1926-1942, 81% overlap).
3. It coincides absolutely perfectly with the Silent Generation, a cohort already identified by demographers as significant for reasons unrelated to the presidency and variously defined as 1925-1942 (Strauss and Howe), 1926-1945 (Resolution Foundation), or 1928-1945 (Pew Research Center).
One problem, of course, is that "US presidents" is far too small a population for meaningful statistical analysis. I am in the process of tabulating data on the birthdates of governors of US states to see if a similar pattern emerges. So far (I've only looked at 20-some states), it is: 1924 and 1946 are the most common birth years (precisely the same as for presidents), and there is a noticeable slump between those two dates.
Do you have a theory why this might be?
One factor is wanting to be President - by and large, you don't get to be President unless you really want it.
For example, some races or ethnicities tend to seek political leadership more than others - e.g. the Chinese diaspora only rarely seek power, despite their economic success. The Irish, on the other hand, often do - despite their lack of economic success. Thomas Sowell has written about this kind of stuff.
Maybe something similar applies to generations? It would seem that the Boomer generation, for example, was characterised by an absolute belief in its own right to rule - even from a very early age and into extreme old age.
Maybe the Silents had an aversion to politics, or another dominant interest? The 25-42 era was, for example, that of artistic modernism and of the greatest triumphs of science, also the rise of the dictators (Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain) - could growing up then, have had an antipolitical effect?
I know very little about the rationale behind the commonly accepted generational divides (except the Baby Boom, which is self-explanatory). In general, I think the fact that the generations are not equal is a good sign -- an indication that the divisions are based on some observable similarities and differences rather than on the assumption that important changes will occur regularly every 25 years.
Later it might be interesting to look for generational patterns in Olympic medalists, Nobel laureates, etc. to see if your "another dominant interest" hypothesis pans out.
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