Did the Boomers Ruin America? A Debate.
About this episode
Writer Jill Filipovic and conservative editor Helen Andrews debate whether the baby boomers ruined America. Filipovic argues Reagan-era conservatism — union decline, tax cuts for the wealthy, reduced public investment — left millennials poorer, drowning in student debt and facing expensive college, while Andrews counters that boomers destroyed cultural and institutional norms, displacing class politics with identity politics and promoting excessive individualism. They clash over college expansion, feminism, two-earner households, childcare, pornography, marriage and the millennial 'sex recession,' with both conceding that boomers are politically polarized and technological change complicates generational blame. The exchange illuminates how generational analysis obscures the real story: ideology and policy choices, not birth years, determine economic and cultural outcomes.