Chris Christie is currently jobless, I believe. I glanced through his Wiki, trying to see if he currently has any kind of position with the Republican Party, but it doesn’t look like it. I also totally forgot that he ran an uninspired presidential campaign in 2024, only to pull out right before the primaries. I truly have no memory of that. Well, he’s a former US Attorney and former New Jersey governor, so he still gets invited to speak at various institutes and colleges. On Monday, he spoke at Harvard’s Institute of Politics about how much he loathes Donald Trump, how his party has become unprincipled as the GOP circles around a cult of personality, and then Christie started complaining about Boomers.
Christie: Baby boomers—the most selfish generation in American history, the most self-centered generation, the least sacrificing generation American history. You look at Biden and Trump in particular, and they personify that pic.twitter.com/gHOTLAc12L
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 6, 2026
He’s right and he’s wrong. He’s right that there’s a huge generational divide. He’s right that the Boomers are one of the most selfish and politically self-serving generations in history. His argument completely goes off the rails when he both-sides Donald Trump and Joe Biden though – Biden isn’t a Boomer! Biden was born in 1942. He’s pre-Boomer, the Silent Generation. Trump is a Boomer though, and he personifies everything ugly about his generation. Just at a political level, the fact that Christie is ranting about how dare Biden run for reelection… while saying nothing about Trump’s senile gibberish on the campaign trail in 2024, well, it’s telling. Christie can’t even bring himself to criticize Trump’s age and obvious dementia. Also: by most metrics, Christie is a young Boomer. He was born in 1962, and he has more in common (generationally) with Trump.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (L) shakes hands with United States President-elect Donald Trump at the clubhouse of Trump International Golf Club, in Bedminster Township, New Jersey, USA, 20 November 2016.,Image: 509494685, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS- Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Peter Foley/Avalon
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- Former Governor Chris Christie (Republican of New Jersey) looks on as United States President Donald J. Trump holds a news briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Sunday, September 27, 2020.,Image: 562905390, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Chris Kleponis/Avalon
Christie has always been very passive-aggresive when it comes to Trump. He was quite close to him during the first disastrous term—close enough to catch COVID at a White House event. He only soured on Dear Leader when he never could crack the inner circle. But he consistently hates on Democrats like Joe Biden and always has. As for his comments on boomers, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Generalizing about whole generations is oversimplifying complex demographics and political trends. As a boomer, when I was in college, everybody hated us for our “radicalism”. Now, apparently, everyone hates us for not being radical enough.
When someone says “not all …” they have failed to grasp the point. If it doesn’t pertain to you personally, move on. The sacrifices of prior generations for the greater good (especially the silent generation) was not repeated by Boomers who embraced the motto “greed is good” and elected Ronald Reagan is dismantle the welfare state. Christie is technically Generation Jones. As a Gen Xer the selfishness of Boomers has been clear to me for decades.
I feel like that’s a technicality. Silent Gen is 1928 to 1945. My parents were born in ’44 and ’46 and both consider themselves Boomers even though my dad is technically Silent Gen and my mom is *barely* a Boomer. I was born in Dec ’78 and even though I’m technically Gen X, I identify much more with Millennials. Generations are more a state of mind lol.
Interesting and I get what you’re saying but personally Boomers will always be to me people born after WW2. Biden is no Boomer. And I would definitely claim you as one of us but as a Xillenial!
But I understand what you mean. It’s what you identify with. I’m just a little bit younger than the fictional Stranger Kids characters (Mike etc) and I consider that culturally the prime of Gen X. Like Obama and Kamala are Gen X but they feel older to me
That’s a pretty good way to gauge and ITA that Obama and Kamala feel older.
I’d also add that if you suffered he economic crisis of ’08, the COVID pandemic and bought your first home in your late thirties/early forties, you’re a Millennial in mind, heart, and soul if not in age.
Millennials are by far the generation that has gotten the most d*cked.
Biden has had a lot of personal tragedies and always dealt with these tragedies with a great deal of silent resilience. In that sense, I think of him as being part of the Silent Generation in terms of how he approaches communication with the public – he gets on with things in a “silent” way. I figured he just kept on working to deal with his personal pain — it gave him something to do.
Gen X has always been a confusing category to me in that only those born right in the middle of it feel truly Gen X whereas everyone born on the tail end of it have shifted between being categorized in two different generations depending on how researchers decided to change the birth years impacted. I could have sworn the category Gen Y was used at one point, but then it disappeared.
If you were born in 1962 and your parents were the “Silent Generation”(aka too young to have fought in WWII or Korea as the “Greatest Generation”) then you are NOT a boomer, you are of “Generation Jones”.
@thinking I totally agree with you about Biden being silent Gen because how he communicated and lived his tragedies in life. Not a Boomer. The silent gen’s parents were the greatest Gen. That was absolutely true for my dad who was too young to fight in WW2 and too old for Korea and Vietnam. Afterwards Boomers are really baby boomers who got to see the sexual revolution and became yuppies. That is my mom and Trump (not putting them in the same basket but just saying). They brought up the latch key Generation X. When CC calls them selfish I kinda agree
Biden is more of a boomer than a silent generation, as well. He helped cause the student loan crisis. He was pro-segregation in that he opposed school busing and the separate but equal nonsense. Nothing silent about him, ever. Boomers are highly problematic, for the most part.
I’m shocked you want to align with Millennials over Gen X. I claim the X and Xennial labels. Proudly Xennial.
I identify with some traits of Gen X (music & pop culture, disaffected attitude, cynicism, irreverence) but Millennials have suffered the most. I’ve rented most of my life and didn’t buy my first home until I was 42. Most Gen X people I know have owned their homes for decades. *shrug*
GenX here. My cohort of GenX came of age in the echo of the stock market crash of ‘87, however the ripple effects were not felt in other countries for a few years after. When we graduated uni in the early 90s in the middle of a recession with a youth unemployment rate that varied between 14-17% and youth programs were cut during austerity measures. Many of us moved overseas (Japan, Korea) to find work, pay off student loans and not fall further into debt. We also worked as servers, baristas (before the term was coined), and in retail. Many of us went back to school to get additional training. In my case working 4 jobs in the evenings, Saturdays and Sundays in addition to attending classes M-F 8:30-4. For two years. So many of us didn’t actually start our careers until our early 30s after a decade of underemployment. Then the dot com crash, then the 2008 financial meltdown- job losses, etc. All this to say, generalizations that pit one generation against another do nothing but distract from the real issues. Increased private sector interference and undermining of government. Private equity buying up housing, health care clinics, day care, dentistry practices, apartment building, etc while lobbying government and undermining wages and job security.
@Liz: yes, agreed. Gen X and most of my friends are either Gen X (solidly) or Millennials. I’m the only person in my Gen X friend group who owns a home: a condo. And only recently (in my 50s). My circle is huge, having lived across the US and abroad, and the only home owners I know are elder millennials. But again, not a lot. Most of my Gen X friends are not only renting, but have roommates. I think basically we’re all sort of locked out of home owning, especially if you live on the coasts (where the meager jobs are). I myself will probably have to sell because it’s costing too much to own (condo = paying an ever increasing HOA on top of a high interest mortgage, but could only afford a condo and not a house). On the one hand, boomers brought us the civil rights movement, free love, gay rights (Act Up). On the other hand, a whole lot of them are selfish and sold out once they got theirs. It’s hard to generalize a generation….and I think doing so keeps us divided and in-fighting rather than fighting the actual oligarchs and billionaire edgelords who are the real villians.
And Chris Christie is actually part of Generation Jones, a micro-generation born between 1954 and 1965, spanning the late Baby Boomers and early Generation X.
I was also born in ‘78 but consider myself solidly a young Gen Xer. I think birth order and class have a lot to do with where cuspers feel the most affinity. I have siblings who were born in ‘65 and ‘70 and my parents were older. We were also working class so were not early adopters of computers and I started working right out of high school. My best friend, also born in ‘78 is the oldest child to younger parents and she went to college straight from high school. She identifies as Gen X but we feels like she has more in common with Millennials than I do.
Gen X is 1966 to 1976
No 1965-1980 is Gen X. Generations rarely span only a decade.
This is a really interesting discussion with no right or wrong opinions, thanks y’all!
Yes. What I call Senior Boomers those born from 1946-1956-ish are the selfish ones. Those of us born 1957-1964 are Junior boomers or what I’ve always called “Sweepers.” We’ve been sweeping up boomer crumbs our entire lives. Christie can go suck an egg. We sweepers are the ones who will be denied as and Medicare, thanks to greedy politicians.
Governor Bada-Bing should remember his hero Bruce Springsteen is also a Boomer. They aren’t all bad.
Yeah, one can not lump every world problem on boomers. it was boomers who protested Vietnam war. This whole blame a generation on world problems is ridiculous. It’s bad people, not a whole generation.
But we can look at voting patterns, and on the whole, the boomer generation started becoming more conservative in 1980 and then just more so. Is every individual selfish? Obviously not. But on a population level, they are the ones who were able to take advantage of multiple social programs and norms, and then pulled the ladder up after themselves.
Obama is a Boomer.
I was born in 1955 and I just read that I’m part of the Generation Jones cohort born 1954-1965 but ALSO a member of the terribly selfish first half of Boomers born 1946-1956. My younger siblings must hate me and I’m having an identity crisis.
I don’t know, I’m an Xennial and I find these generational warfare moments less helpful as time goes on. Are the Boomers absolutely delusional re: what it takes to buy a house in the US in the year of our lord 2026? Absolutely.
On the other hand, I was pretty negative about Boomers until I started going to the No Kings protests. You know who knows how to protest? Boomers. They took the streets in their tens of thousands while their friends were dying in Vietnam. Younger people were just like strolling meekly along the street with their signs while the Boomers organized shouting chants and got mad.
Boomers were also the same generation as hippies so I bet they do know how to protest.
Yes I am the first to complain about Boomers not fully grasping how difficult it has become for younger generations to achieve the American Dream but this generation understands the importance of protesting, that’s for damn sure. My parents protested the Vietnam War on Boston Common back in the day. Being around so many Boomers at the No Kings protests has really softened me and given me a new appreciation for them. And I agree that the criticisms feel a tad counterproductive at this time. We need all hands on deck.
I hate these bull sh*t generational arguments. To the “selfishness” add fighting for civil rights, women’s rights and against dying in Viet Nam.
I’m a Boomer. Born in 1955. Wow, I taught in the city. My fellow Boomers who taught wanted to change the world and help inner-city kids have a better life. We worked for little pay and few rewards.
I’m retired now and a life long Democrat. At all of the marches we see BOOMERS. They are the ones protesting Felon 47 and showing up to protest him.
He may be right about some of the Boom, but NOT ALL OF US.
Yes, I have seen a lot of boomers at the “No Kings” protests. That generation of women, and enlightened men, also did an incredible service to those that followed.
I honestly think that young women nowadays don’t understand just how bad it was for women. In 1974 I could not take a drafting class in high school (I wanted to be an architect) because I was a “girl.”. Difficulty in getting a job. Sexual harassment at the workplace. Sexual harassment at university (usually from professors). It was accepted by the police in my town that men could rape their wives. Because, well, it wasn’t rape. This was just routine. On and on.
It was largely female boomers, in the trenches, that helped break the glass ceiling and fight for the rights of women for even basic things… like, getting a credit card (!).
Having said that, and having been born in 1959, I NEVER considered myself a boomer (although i greatly admire the women of that generation).. Why? The Vietnam war and segregation (effective if not legal).
No one my age was ever subjected to the possibility of being drafted and sent to war. The types of communities we entered into as teens, in high school and university, were very different from teens even just a few years older than us.. A huge cultural shift happened. This affected the type of music we listen to, the favored types of recreational drugs, our complacency about the way the world was, and so on. Our concerns, unfortunately, were more frivolous than those of more years than us and I just never saw a boomer mentality amongst my circle or the same-aged community at large
Thank you for this. I was born in ’57 and never felt part of the Boomer range because all of the civil unrest, protests, and cultural change happened when I was in elementary school. In 1974 my mother still could not apply for a credit card without my deadbeat acoholic father giving consent at the bank. Thank the gods that changed by the time he left our family for good.
Another ‘59 here, and Amen to everything you said, although my father’s death in 1974 meant that my sister (a year younger) and I were able to go to college thanks to Social Security Survivor benefits – you qualified as long as you were a full-time student until 22. Ronald Reagan killed that in 1982 – we both went for four years, no breaks, and with some student loans, but way less than we would have had otherwise. I have never forgiven Reagan his major role in starting us down the path that’s led to Chris Christie and the Orange Nightmare.
My parents were Boomers who grew up first generation middle class in post WWII prosperity. They had access to good colleges that they dropped out of to join war protests and live on a commune. I grew up with much less privilege than they did and always considered them selfish jerks. They’ve changed. I’ve changed. We have a good relationship now. But I’m not here to defend boomers. Nope.
They had access to good colleges *and* tuition was affordable back then.
The thing that drives me crazy about my parents is how they define hardship in their twenties and thirties. They’ll say “we had to save up for a year to buy our house! We were poor during that time and then house poor afterwards.” or “I had to live with my dad and work part time to pay my way through college.” without realizing what a privilege it was to able to buy a house after saving up for only a YEAR (!) or the fact that someone could work part-time to pay for their tuition at a great university.
A down payment on a house where I live is $110K *minimum* and there is absolutely no way in hell I could afford to rent an apartment and save that much over the course of a year. And no young person is working part time to pay for a great college–not unless they have a shit ton of scholarships to subsidize the tuition cost.
It’s the disconnect about the widening economic wealth gap that bugs.
Well, everything is about the economy now, so it makes sense to compare lives based on economics. But, from my standpoint as a not-quite boomer, the hardships were societal. The immediate terrors were not about buying a house or going to college, they were about being killed in a miserable war or ruining your and your family’s lives by getting pregnant out of wedlock. And for many women and people of color, the issue wasn’t whether they could afford to go to college, but whether they’d be allowed to go at all.
58,000 dead and 300,000 wounded and countless more with PTSD – everyone of a similar age knew someone affected by the war and the country was incredibly divided. Add to this civil rights protests, women’s rights protests, campus protests, airline hijackings, bomb scares. And this coming after a childhood of safety drills, hiding under desks in case of nuclear attacks. Boomers I know will talk about the economy of the past, but they won’t talk about the terror.
Chris Christie should take a very large seat.
Christie was the first politician to embrace Trump and take him seriously. For that I can never forgive him.
Don’t take the bait, folks. Any talk of generations is a distraction from the ultimate problem which are the billionaires. Who do you think is propping up ol Christie? It’s the same thing happening with socials. You’d do better to get off those and tell your friends to do the same. They are propaganda machines that turn everyone against each other so we get distracted from the real fight.
Incredible he mentions any type of ethics: HE is the guy who closed a crucial bridge merely to annoy someone he had a grudge against. Traffic was snarled so badly a man DIED when an ambulance couldn’t get through after his heart attack. He also kissed Trump’s ass when he thought he had a chance to he Trump’s Vice President. The man is UTTERLY LOATHSOME.
Deborah, it was democrats that changed the law so women could get a credit card. Fair credit act of 1973. Every good thing that has happened in the last 60 years is down to democrats.
It literally blows my mind that women voted for trump. DGMS.
Abzug first brought forward legislation for equal credit for women, and it was a Republican, Ford, that signed it into law but that legislation was pushed forward by untold feminist boomers who demanded a change.
As a Boomer, myself, can I just say: my brother sent pix from the Stop the War on Iran rally at the White House tonight.
Without Boomers, the crowd would’ve been half its size!
Q. How many children has Chris Christie lost?
A. Zero. ‘Based on public records, Chris Christie has not lost any children. He and his wife, Mary Pat Christie, have four children.’ (Google AI)
Q. How many children has Joe Biden lost?
A. Two.
(1) Joe’s wife, Nelia Hunter Biden, and his 1-yr old daughter, Naomi Christine Biden, were killed in a car accident shortly after Joe was elected to the US Senate.
(2) Joe’s son, Beau Biden, died in 2015, from brain cancer, while serving as Attorney General for Delaware. Beau previously worked for OSCE training judges in Kosovo after the 1998-1999 Kosovo War. Beau also joined the Delaware Army National Guard in 2003, and was activated to deploy to Iraq in 2008. Beau’s 1-yr active service included 7-month deployment in combat zone with JAG.
Q. How many times has Chris Christie visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?
A. There is no known evidence that Chris Christie ever visited the Vietnam Memorial. Chris Christie has never served in the military. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial lists 58,279 names as of May 2021. According to DoD and National Archives there were 58,220 military fatal casualties during the Vietnam War and over 300,000 were wounded. The Vietnam War was fought primarily by the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation with some older members from the ‘Silent Generation.’
For whatever it’s worth, generational theory for modern generations is often attributed to Strauss & Howe. Their books define some pretty fascinating insights about the relationships between generations and how they are cyclical. Recommended reading for anyone who works in advertising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory