1. 1968 - Born to be wild
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2024
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The generation born in the 1940s grew up in a land of endless growth and possibility, ruled by a confident, moderate elite. But just as they were embarking on adult life, all that started to come apart. The economy faltered, and the post-war consensus came under pressure from two sides: from the radical right, who hated government moves on civil rights – and from the ‘New Left’, as boomers rebelled against their parents' generation and its war in Vietnam.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:05.3 | Here's a dirty secret about covering American politics. |
| 0:23.7 | Most days, it's the best job in the world, which is why I've been doing it for years. |
| 0:29.6 | But the thing is, and I know I'm not alone in this, I've been kind of dreading this election. |
| 0:34.7 | There's so much at stake. |
| 0:40.5 | The most important election in a generation, |
| 0:47.4 | as we newsfolk like to say. But this time, that really feels true, and yet it also feels like we've seen it all before. For months, when people find out what I do for a living, I've been asked the same thing. |
| 0:56.0 | How did two very old and unpopular men wind up running for the world's most demanding job again? |
| 1:03.0 | Why have they been so hesitant to let go of power and give someone younger a turn? |
| 1:09.0 | And after Joe Biden's disastrous performance in the first debate of this campaign, those |
| 1:14.4 | questions seem more urgent than ever. |
| 1:17.7 | If he steps aside now, leaving it so late will have plunged the presidential election |
| 1:21.6 | into chaos. |
| 1:23.8 | If Biden stays, Americans will choose between one president who will be 86 by the time he leaves |
| 1:28.7 | office and another who will be 82. |
| 1:32.7 | Why has this generation had such a grip on power? |
| 1:37.0 | This podcast is my attempt at an answer. |
| 1:40.6 | What I keep coming back to is this. |
| 1:43.3 | It's objectively weird that every president since Bill Clinton in 1992, with the one big |
| 1:48.2 | exception of Barack Obama, has been a white man born in the 1940s. |
| 1:54.8 | America's population is younger than any other rich country, yet a guy born in the age of |
| 1:58.8 | the jukebox could still be president at the end of this decade. |
... |
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