Baby Boomer Political "Logic" Falls Short
America, more divided than at any time since the Civil War, needs maturity
This evening, Chris Christie, 61, bowed out of the 2024 Republican presidential primary race in Windham, New Hampshire, 13 days before the first-in-the-nation primary. But rather than making it about America and fixing what ails her, and graciously saying he just did not quite measure up, he used it to trash Trump as “divisive.” More important than his “personal ambition,” he said, is ensuring former President Donald J. Trump, 77, never becomes president again. As if voters are incapable of making the right choice.
And, this morning on MSNBC, Chris Matthews, 78, trashed Trump for saying Abe Lincoln should have negotiated to avert the Civil War.
Well, Chris, Trump was saying exactly what the pre-eminient Civil War historian Shelby Foote, known for The Civil War: A Narrative, a three-volume history of the American Civil War, said. The Civil War broke out because “we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise. Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising. Our true genius is for compromise. Our whole government’s founded on it. And, it failed,” said Foote on Ken Burns’ The Civil War.
And, Christie whined on and on about how he had made Trump president in 2016 because he pulled out and endorsed him. Won’t make that mistake again, he vowed, before taking a swipe at Nikki Haley for not knowing what caused the Civil War, who is, nonetheless, rising in the New Hampshire polls. Then he started listing Trump’s imaginary flaws — for instance asserting that if Trump had been president during 9/11 he would have run for the bunker. First of all, it’s a hypothetical. It’s impossible to know what Trump would have done. (Personally, I think he would have bombed Tora Bora, as I understand some in the military wanted to do, and saved us having to go into Afghanistan.) But, more than anything, it speaks to Christie’s relationship with Trump and how obsessed he is with the man.
It’s very sad for me, born on the tail end of the post-war baby boom, to see this immature display lacking in true critical thinking. Yes, it’s critical but not analytical, which is what a true thinker does—slice and dice and analyze and, in the case of America, get down to the essence of what ails us and what it will take to heal our nation.
How blessed “Baby Boomers” were because our parents, who grew up during the Great Depression, suffering great deprivation, wanted their children to have a better life than they had. But many are spoiled rotten. And, they are narcissistic. And, we see the fruits.
Trump, of course, is also a baby boomer, but his father was beyond strict and sent him to a military academy when he started getting out of line and then demanded excellence. And I’m sorry, but I don’t look at Trump to try and find flaws. I look at Trump and see flaws, yes. But, that’s what makes him interesting. Yet, I also see a man who truly wants “to make America great again.” And, he did it once and I have no doubt will do it again — sadly, without the Chris Christies of the world. Because Christie could make a good contribution in a second Trump term, if only he could look in the mirror and set aside his massive ego and massive grudge and put America first. The very thing he claims Trump is incapable of doing.
It will be an interesting ride, albeit dogged by a mega-dose of Baby Boomer ill-logic and narcissism at a time when American can ill-afford it.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends, published in Madrid under the title También Dios pasa por Hollywood. She recently finished writing a book about the life of Ernest Hemingway viewed through the prism of faith due to be published in late 2024.