When will the USA have the first millenial (Y) president?

[The Mikado]

I love how everyone has a different definition for what a Millennial is.

My favorite and the one I hear the most is something like 1982-1998 births.

[The Mikado]

I love how everyone has a different definition for what a Millennial is.

My favorite and the one I hear the most is something like 1982-1998 births.

The idea that any span of births crossing the 80s and 90s could be a culturally coherent generation is bullsh[inks]. Consider, someone born in 1985 was 16 during 9/11, old enough to understand what it was. Someone born in 1995 was 6, and wouldn't become politically aware until well after the Iraq War; whereas the '85 kid might well have been deployed to Iraq. The 1995 kid wasn't old enough to care about Obama, while the '85 kid put her hopes and dreams on the big O. The '85 kid graduated college into a recession, and feels cheated. The '95 kid grew up in the "new normal" sh[inks] economy, and knows full well that his degree won't land him a job out of college.

Our experiences are completely different. Generation theory only works if the generations are like 4-8 years long. I think categorizing political generations by who was president when they graduated high school is a more interesting exercise. "Millennials" break down like this (using Strouss-Howe's age range iirc):

1980-82: Clinton Generation
1983-90: W. Bush Generation
1991-98: Obama Generation
1999-04: "Next" Generation

Of course it's bull, it always has been. Note that the traditional definition of Baby Boomer is something like 1946-1964, when someone born after 1956 was too old to possibly be drafted for Vietnam and would have been a small child at the assassination of Kennedy etc.

[The Mikado]

The idea that the biggest generational cohort ever won't produce a President at some point is kind of hilarious. (Yes, bigger than the subsequent one...birth rates in the late 2000s-2010s have been pretty anemic)

Granted if we keep having two-termers like we have been, there will be a lot fewer vacancies than there were in more unsettled times. (5 presidents in the 20 years 1961-1981 vs 3 presidents in the 24 years 1993-2017 offers far less opportunities for individual presidents from various cohorts).

[The Mikado]

The silent generation never had a POTUS.

1929-1945 was an era of pretty low birthrates, though (especially the tail end of that). It's also far and away the shortest timespan of these generational cohorts, IIRC.