Gen X to Trump: let's roll

The famously forgotten generation remembered where it came from

Until about a week ago, Gen X was a bit of a forgotten generation. 

Gen X were famously feral: squeezed between the arch-narcissist Boomers and the spoiled offspring of their second marriages — the Millennials. We were cynical, because we came after the hippy years and the big money Wall Street years, missing out on both. We were battle-tested. From our parents’ divorces, from not wearing bike helmets, and from getting blackout drunk in fields and tripping balls in city parks. We tell stories from our childhoods and teen years that make us laugh deep belly laughs, then we notice our Gen Z interlocutors staring at us, aghast. We have always been — to bring back a word that has fallen out of use — kind of gnarly. 

When Trump picked JD Vance, a Millennial, to be his vice-presidential running mate, I inwardly sighed. I was heartened to see a younger generation getting a chance to replace the gerontocracy, but felt a tad slighted on behalf of my fellow Gen X’ers.

But turns out, I didn’t have to worry. Because the feat of re-electing Donald J. Trump to a second term, after everything the Swamp threw at him, was largely down to Gen X.

First off, we delivered bigly at the polls.

“What’s with Gen X women and Trump?” Monica Hesse at the Washington Post asked, reporting that only 41 percent of us voted for Kamala Harris, and 54 percent went for Trump. 

I can tell you what it is with us, Monica. We are kind of mean. Our favourite term of endearment for close female friends is ‘ho’ and ‘bitch’ — sometimes ‘slut.’ Ok — maybe that’s just me, but hurty words are not a thing for us. We refuse to stop saying ‘retard.’ We still smoke. Our anti-bullying programme consisted of being told by an adult to punch the bully in the face.

The iconic films of our childhood frequently featured scary government agents trying to take away things we loved (ET, Firestarter); or revolved around totally lame and vindictive school bureaucrats getting their comeuppance from cool rule-breakers (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Breakfast Club).

Here’s the evil government coming to take away our alien bestie, even if it means they kill him in the process:

And here’s the evil government shooting adorable pyro Drew Barrymore, for the crime of being born different.

And suddenly people are shocked that we voted for Trump?

When you think about it, our whole vibe is independence, scorn, mistrust of authority. Why would we vote for Devouring Mommy Government? We’ll take our chances with the roller coaster of chaos that was the Trump campaign, because it reminds of our unstable childhoods. And because we are fucking done with the woke scolds — entitled brats who never had to fight their own corner — telling us what to do.

We are MAGA now.

Since my early twenties, I’ve yearned for a real change agent to come along and implement some policy fixes that were not obvious power grabs for corporate America. Time after time, Democrats failed to produce that change agent. (Remember Howard Dean, anyone? Yeah, I supported him.)

Trump, Series One also failed to be that change agent. However, Trump Series Two is looking like a whole different story. And who are his most influential allies? Gen X’ers like Elon Musk (b.1971), Megyn Kelly (b.1970), Joe Rogan (b. 1967), Dana White (b. 1969), and Tulsi Gabbard (who’s a Millennial only by a few months, so we’ll claim her.)

Last week I came across  a video  of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee playing heavy metal with Korn’s Brian Welch (b. 1970). The video was from 2019, but was being shared again because Huckabee was just nominated to be Trump’s ambassador to Israel. There was something about him shredding on his bass guitar that awoke the 1993 version of me — the kid who would rock out to Guns N Roses in the nightclub I had illegally entered with my fake ID as an underage drinker. 

Despite how this looks, I was actually a straight A student in high school.

And that’s when it came to me: this whole Trump moment is a Gen X fever dream come true. It’s a band of outcasts and misfits, tough men and straight-talking women. Rogues and rakes, maybe.  But we’ll take that over prissy nagging and hypocrisy any day. We were raised on Han Solo and Chewbacca. We can be morally flexible for a cause that’s good and true. 

Obviously, we lost many Gen X’ers to Trump Derangement Syndrome and woke ideology. Plenty of Gen X moms turned into Transhausen monsters and had their sons castrated and their girls’ breasts cut off. We must own up to this. But until last week I thought that was the majority of my generation. 

I’m delighted to report that I was wrong.