The Boomers Created America As We Know It, Who Will We Be When They’re Gone?

Americans love to talk about our generational differences. Gen Xers complain about Millennials, Millennials can’t relate to Gen Z and on and on. But those defining distinctions are mostly contrived, their boundaries mushy. Except for one generation: Baby Boomers. The postwar population explosion dramatically changed the country and the boomers have dominated culture, politics and the economy since coming of age. But things are changing. Last year those who were born in the peak of the boom turned 65. “We are living through a historic disruption of the American empire,” writes Philip Bump, in his new book, “The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America”. We’ll talk to Bump, a Washington Post columnist focused on the numbers behind politics, about the new demographic changes and what a future without America’s most powerful, influential generation might look like.