Does it blow your mind that America still hasn't had a Gen X president?

[Obama24]

Eh arguably Obama is close enough, I have a tough time seeing both him and Trump as the same generation and culturally he was much closer to Gen X even if he was just a few years too old. This is part of why he had such appeal to youth in 2008.

What's also interesting though is that Kamala Harris is the first Gen X VP. And even she's a cusp case, she's only three years younger than Obama.

But I'm actually more surprised by and didn't realize until now that Biden is the only Silent Generation President.

Generation Jones is the social cohort worldwide of the latter half of the baby boomer generation to the first year of Generation X.

Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population had; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them.

The term has enjoyed some currency in political and cultural commentary, including during the 2008 United States presidential election, where Barack Obama (born 1961) and Sarah Palin (born 1964) were on the presidential tickets. As of 2023, the current and preceding vice presidents, Kamala Harris (born 1964) and Mike Pence (born 1959) respectively, are members of Generation Jones.

[Obama24]

It blows my mind more that after 28 years of Boomers, America decided to elect a Silent Generation President.

I don't think Biden's age factored into it. Biden won because his name wasn't Donald Trump. Most young people think everyone over 50 is a Boomer and older people tend to conflate the Silents and Boomers as one big "Hippie era" generation.

[Obama24]

Biden will also be the last president who’s birthday was closer to the civil war than to today.

Biden is 82. 82 years prior to when he was born, the civil war hadn't even started yet (1942 - 82 = 1860). Lincoln wasn't even officially in office yet exactly 82 years before his birth.

[Obama24]

Obama is X’er

Gen X doesn't start until 1964 by all qualified definition. He is either a late stage Boomer, or if you agree with the idea of Generation Jones (1954-1964), a Joneser

[Obama24]

Biden will also be the last president who’s birthday was closer to the civil war than to today.

Barack Obama was born just a few weeks prior to the halfway point between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Election Day 2008 in the US.

The equivalent halfway point that November re: Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s DOB was in December 1876–as in, during the infamous US presidential election of 1876.

Not entirely on topic, so do figure, but I find it interesting that three of the Boomer Presidents besides Obama were born within 2 months of each other in 1946.

Trump was born June 14th, 1946

Bush was born July 6th, 1946

Clinton was born August 19th, 1946

There is only 66 days in total between the three.

[Obama24]

Obama is X’er

Gen X doesn't start until 1964 by all qualified definition. He is either a late stage Boomer, or if you agree with the idea of Generation Jones (1954-1964), a Joneser

It's a little known fact that people are actually born continously, so the idea of discrete "generations" is a bit hooky.

Obama occupies a unique generational setting among U.S. presidents in that all the other ones, in the past three decades, have been born in a 4-year period corresponding to the very beginning of the "baby boom" era.  Clinton, Dubya, Trump and Biden (along with nominees Gore, Kerry, Romney and Hillary) share the generational experience of '50s childhood with Vietnam-era coming of age.  It suggests there's something still relevant or long-lived about this era for our contemporary politics.

Obama was 8 when we landed on the Moon, 13 when Nixon resigned, and 14 when Vietnam fell. Old enough to remember seeing all three events live on TV. Whereas someone born in 1964 or after would be unlikely to remember either, especially the moon landing. He might not have been draft age, but the Vietnam War existing would still be within his generational memory. That he was cognizant enough to have even a dim memory of all three transformative events in our society says he is in the same long generation as the Boomers, to me, just of a lesser tier.