Chris Christie: Baby Boomers are ‘the most selfish generation in American history’

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.

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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18 Responses to “Chris Christie: Baby Boomers are ‘the most selfish generation in American history’”

  1. Brassy Rebel says:

    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.

  2. Kitten says:

    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.

    • Normades says:

      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

      • Kitten says:

        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.

      • Thinking says:

        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.

    • Nikki (Toronto) says:

      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.

      • Kitten says:

        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*

      • Liz says:

        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.

    • Elizabeth Kerri Mahon says:

      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.

    • KC says:

      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.

  3. Diane L says:

    Governor Bada-Bing should remember his hero Bruce Springsteen is also a Boomer. They aren’t all bad.

    • StellainNH says:

      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.

      • Betsy says:

        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.

  4. Lucy says:

    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.

    • Sue says:

      Boomers were also the same generation as hippies so I bet they do know how to protest.

    • Kitten says:

      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.

  5. Eurydice says:

    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.

  6. Chill says:

    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.

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