Generation X trends MAGA

Get the Point

So, I wasn't surprised when I read a National Review article last November which noted that Donald Trump dominated Generation X, those born between 1964 and 1981, with a 54 to 44 percent margin of victory over VP Kamala Harris. While Harris polled better among voters 30 and under, and kept pace with Trump with voters over 65, it was Gen X—my generation—that went MAGA in droves.

The cast of the “Brat Pack” in St. Elmo's Fire circa ‘85

My lack of surprise stems from something I discuss with my closest friends, the Morehouse Florida Boyz, all of the time, which is that while we were the first to grow up during legal integration, in many places, our school and extracurricular activities were often separate and tinged with overt and covert racism! Further, while some didn't realize it then, some of our peers developed a latent racial resentment that has led to the current major backlash against "woke," "DEI" and the like!

To put it plainly, there was racial hostility from some white teachers and admins in the form of many of my academically gifted Black friends being tracked into slower classes; Black high academic achievers being denied valedictorian/salutatorian honors; Black high academic achievers not making the traveling squads for quiz bowl, math bowl, citizen or spelling bees, and one of the main topics of discussion in our AARP years, Black scholars being talked down to by some teachers and guidance counselors who held little to no interest in their post high school trajectories beyond encouraging their taking the ASVAB and entering military service.

At that same time, some (not all, but more than enough) of our white peers who now don the red MAGA hat grew up around us and never really "knew" us or cared to push the assumptions they made about Blacks being "given" special privileges and handouts, which was FAR from the case! Many internalized the negativity they heard at home about "lazy, drug addicted" Blacks or Ronald Reagan's "Welfare Queen" slur, despite the fact that drug abuse and public assistance run far more rampant in their own white communities because they held (and hold) the numerical advantage. Some of our white peers may have marveled at Black athletic talent on their youth and high school sports teams, but resented the fact that they received little to no playing time despite being raised with a false sense of superiority! And to keep it really real, some resented seeing their Black male peers date their white sisters, cousins, or the object of their desire while they remained involuntarily celibate due to their lack of "talk game" or scholastic/extracurricular achievements!

Final shot of Spike Lee’s School Daze circa 1988

And after our Gen X school days were done, as some of these types grew into a routine of holding jobs that they felt were dead ends, all the while seeing Black achievement on TV, newspapers, and later on the Internet, as some went to their 10th, 20th, and 30th reunions feeling as if they "deserve" better than what they perceive "others" to have been "given," well, there's no surprise that when Trump came along as the living embodiment of what Lyndon Johnson said years ago about convincing the "lowest white man that he is better than the best colored man," such provided an outlet for decades of racial resentment and false assumptions to bubble to the top and guide their voting decisions--even as they struggle (like many Americans) to make financial ends meet with little to no movement on those fronts in focus on Trump's Project 2025 agenda.

Again, if you're a member of Gen X and this perspective offends you, well, remember the old saying in the Deep South: "A hit dog will holler..."