For a long time, I had believed that I was born in the last year of the baby boom. Turns out that I was not and that the population bulge that began in 1946 lasted until the end of 1964, not 1963. Why this had mattered to me I have no idea. I was a boomer but my younger brother and sister were not. Perhaps it was a way as a punk kid I could lord it over them, but it is hard to say.
If she becomes president, Kamala Harris could be the last of the baby boom generation to occupy the Oval Office. Ms. Harris was born about a month before the cutoff in 1964, making her a boomer, along with her running mate, Tim Walz. Donald Trump, born in 1946, is one, too, notably the oldest of the boomer cohort. Mr. Trump was born among the first of the boomers; Ms. Harris comes from the last of us. I was ready to see us oldies step back and let the next generation get to it. Oh well.
The other candidate for top office in the race, JD Vance, is part of Generation X. Oddly, though, it is Mr. Vance who espouses the most retrograde views of the bunch, especially where women are concerned.
The baby boom was lengthy by demographic standards, 19 years. Generation X and the millennials each spanned 16 years. The postwar birth bonanza is a big reason why Suffolk County’s over-60 population is a stunning 49.7 percent. In East Hampton, the boom is real, too, with people age 60 and older making up 30 percent of the resident population.
It is interesting to think about all the firsts a Harris presidency would rack up: first woman, first person of South Asian background. She has already been the first woman and first Black person to be California’s attorney general. That is progress enough. That she, too, is a boomer is of little significance, except, I confess, to aging cranks like me.