Political consultants use marketing strategy in the service of their clients; but it remains doubtful that marketing theory, in particular, a half-baked version of that theory as reflected in commonplace generational labels, expresses the political interests of a national constituency.
When half-baked marketing guys talk politics, the language, as represented by Dr Slammy’s words, sounds as hollow as their favorite hollow men:
What Kennedy did accomplish was to give a booming generation of young people hope. John, and later his younger brother Bobby, established a vision of greatness through service that compelled the nation’s youth in a way that nothing quite had before or has since. Like Kennedy’s Baby Boom adherents, today’s Millennial voters (most of who are the children of Boomers) are part of a huge generation. Like the Boomers they’re hopeful. They’re convinced they can make a difference (a dramatic contrast to the Gen Xers in between the two, who learned way too many lessons about hope from what the Boomers became after Bobby’s death). And they may, like the Boomers, have found a symbol they can invest in.
Dr Slammy is talking about converting the President into a figurehead, euphemistically known as a head of state, something like the Queen of England. Our President: the embodiment of our generation’s hopes. One hopes a thoughtful Boomer would have something slightly more substantial to say than “I voted for the guy and I mourned his death because he gave me hope.” Gave him hope because he could’ve had a second career as a male model and he got laid a lot? A reasonable person would simply ignore such maladroit sentimentality. Similarly sentimental and hollow are the political aspirations that Slammy attributes to his Millennials. Parenthetically, it might be of interest to ascertain how MySpace Millennials poll vs. Facebook Millennials. Or has Slammy missed the social class divide in his new demographic of hope? Facebook Millenials look for their symbols on the national currency. MySpace Millenials find symbolic meaning in a tramp stamp (see left).
Slammy concludes:
John F. Kennedy was terribly flawed, but his legacy of hope drives Baby Boomers to tears even today. Barack Obama is showing signs of being the same thing to the children of those Boomers, and if so Iowa may have been the first little quiver in a massive political earthquake building just beneath the surface.
I know it sounds callous, but it’s hard not to laugh when Slammy asks me to envision a Boomer in tears over JFK’s legacy of hope. Man, I hope those Millennials aren’t as sad and drippingly maudlin as Slammy. Sirhan Sirhan: the best thing the Palestinians ever did for this country.
