Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics

and now the Joe Biden presidency. We will be looking at how a 78-year-old president

will change America and will be asking if normalcy, which is what he promised to bring, has returned to American politics?

The answer, of course, is no.

I'm joined today by Helen Andrews, who is senior editor at the American Conservative, and the author of a fantastic new book

called Boomers, The Men and Women, Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster.

Before we start, Helen, I'd just like to say congratulations on the book. It's absolutely brilliant.

Oh, thank you so much.

Well, I highly recommend every Americano listener buys it because it's the best book I've read, well, in you so much. Well, I highly recommend every American listener buys it

because it's the best book I've read, well, in quite a while, actually.

So that's the plug there.

But I would also like to start by talking about a little bit about American politics at the moment.

And of course, last week we had this very dramatic moment,

the storming of the Capitol when a lot of Trump fans, Trump supporters, broke into Congress.

And it's caused a lot of aggravation and a lot of upset in American politics.

But there was one video I saw that made me think about your book. And it was this

chap who, he was a boomer, definitely a boomer, who was standing in his leather jacket in the

Senate rotunda smoking a joint. And the reporter came up to him and asked him why he was smoking

weed. In fact, we can listen to that clip now.

How come you're smoking weed in the capital? Because I can.

Life sucks. I'm probably going to get in trouble again.

Well, that seems to me an amazingly boomer moment. And in fact, if you look at the sort of chaos of American politics at the moment, it's exactly what your book is talking about.

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