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counterculture in the 1960s, the personal lib-

Republican pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick

eration and self-help movements of the 1970s,

agreed: "Above all, Xers are entrepreneurial,

and the entrepreneurial upsurge of the 1980s.

self-reliant, multicultural, tolerant, and liber-

tarian."57 Those are the people who now live

All those trends build on the liberal individu-

alism of the American ethos and point toward

in the neighborhoods that reporter Jackie

the weakening of traditional authority struc-

Calmes described recently in the Wall Street

tures and an increase in individualism and

Journal:

self-reliance.

Conservatives resist cultural change and

As the [Republican] party has grown

personal liberation; liberals resist economic

more socially conservative over the past

dynamism and globalization. Libertarians

quarter-century, the suburbs where

embrace both. The political party that comes

many Republicans live have become

to terms with that can win the next generation.

more diverse and politically indepen-

Generational change is an important part

dent, marked by a mix of fiscal conser-

of the story. As noted above, libertarians are

vatism and social liberalism that is test-

ing Republicans' dominance there.58

more likely to be young than are liberals, con-

servatives, or populists. For the foreseeable

Conservatives

future, that suggests the likelihood of growing

As Lilla noted, the cultural revolution of

resist cultural

libertarian strength. Astute analysts have

the 1960s and the economic revolution of the

noted that trend for some time. The late

1980s both happened. Every year a larger

change and

Republican strategist Lee Atwater said in

number of people have grown up in a world of

personal

1985, "Each year the populists will probably

tolerance, with gay friends, with minorities

liberation;

decrease in number and the libertarians will

represented at all levels of society, with most

grow larger and larger as a result of the influx

women working. It is unlikely that those peo-

liberals resist

of the baby boomers into the decision sys-

ple will ever be conservative in a pre-1960s

economic

tem."54 D. Quinn Mills, a Harvard Business

sense. Similarly, the old orderly economy of

big business and big labor with lifetime

School professor and author of a book on

dynamism and

employment and guaranteed pensions is gone

baby-boom executives, told Fortune that 60

globalization.

in a world of free trade, globalization, and cre-

percent of young managers in the 1980s could

Libertarians

be considered libertarian.55

ative destruction. Political organizers who

expect to rebuild the old liberal-Democratic or

Baby boomers, of course, are now middle-

embrace both.

conservative-Republican coalitions are likely

aged, the bulk of American voters. They have

to be disappointed.

been followed by Generation X, the baby

busters born in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Douglas Coupland, the author of Generation

Conclusion

X, the novel that gave the group its name,

told USA Today, "The old left-right paradigm

is not working anymore. Coming down the

We noted earlier several reasons that the

pipe are an extraordinarily large number of

libertarian slice of the electorate tends to be

fiscal conservatives who are socially left."

overlooked: The liberal-conservative para-

USA Today went on to write:

digm is familiar and comfortable. Although

libertarians vote in large numbers, they are

What liberalism was to the Sixties and

less likely to be organized in political pressure

conservatism was to the Eighties, liber-

groups. The news media perpetuate the idea

tarianism may be to the youth of the

of a liberal-conservative, red-blue dichotomy.

1990s--the de facto philosophy of a gen-

The increasing safety of incumbents also

eration steeped in the precepts of latch-

plays a role at the congressional level.

key self-reliance and the individual

Incumbents have made their own lives much

freedoms of the Internet.56

easier over the past few decades by making it

20