They also may be less divisive and less harsh in their rhetoric, having not had to deal with the major conflicts of the Civil Rights and Vietnam eras.
I am less divisive BECAUSE I remember the Vietnam era, and all those stupid hippy freaks...
EXACTLY! I'm with ya, bro! I was born in 1955, and spent the years 1968-1973 constantly arguing politics with my oldest sibling. He was born in 1950 and bought the whole package of anti-Vietnam garbage - hook, line and sinker. He got his talking points from campus "Teach-Ins," liberal profs, the media, movies, etc. My sole source was Reader's Digest - the only widely read, staunchly conservative publication in those days (he derisively referred to it as "Reader's Disgust," "Reader's Digress," etc.) I lived those years in Boulder CO and was made to feel like a square (pun intended) peg in a round hole. I couldn't stand the hippie freaks either! Especially the slavish fawning they received from the press and the other culture machines. (At least my brother never "went hippie" in clothing, drugs, and most of the rest of that crap, praise God! And now like me he's a staunch member of the dreaded Religious Right.)
I always felt like a political freak back in those days. I can see now that a big part of the problem was spending my school years in Boulder. I had thought back then that it was JUST ME who was weird, for being different than the vast majority of both the Joneser's and the older Boomers. I was made to feel like I would be better off staying quietly in the closet.
It wasn't until recent years that I realized there had been a lot of others in my "younger Boomers" bracket who were like me politically, when I read an article about the phenomenon. (Wish I'd saved that). So, there HAD been others like me after all! Kids who spent our childhood rolling our eyeballs at the liberal antiwar antics of older siblings belonging to the first wave of boomers. A lot of us in this age group went down a different political path than our oldest siblings.
As I remember, the article attributed younger boomers' differences from older boomers as being due at least in part to the fact that from an early age we looked with suspicion and disfavor on the older boomers. The analogy the article used was that we still viewed that slightly older demographic in our mind's eye as being just that same old group of obnoxious, overbearing, power-hungry camp counselors, lifeguards, baby sitters and so on that we had to suffer under throughout most of our childhood.
Of course any kind of article along these lines contains a number of big generalizations, but it still rang true to me - especially that part about the camp counselors and lifeguards. As I look back now on all those Boy Scout and other summer camps with the counselors, lifeguards, swimming and boating instructors and the rest, it dawns on me that, yes - I have mostly favorable memories of those people who were adults at the time. But those who were from the leading edge of the Boomer demographic were truly insufferable!
Sadly, I only remember ever reading one article of that nature. Too bad the author of this new "Jones" article didn't talk about any of this. One thing he's got right though is that we truly are a "hidden demographic" in many ways.
I've spent decades now apologizing to other generations on behalf of "My Fellow Boomers". It would be wonderful if we could all "get a divorce" from the older half of our Demographic Pigeon Hole! Yeah!
Another thing I notice the author missed --- The 1946-1953 group would have been weighted heavily toward firstborn kids and middle kids, and the 1954-1965 group with middle kids and youngest children. So, "birth order" might be a significant factor in this difference. All in all, I think this author puts too much weight on "the Reagan factor". In fact, that wasn't a factor at all for me, because I was a conservative in most ways for 15 years before RR took office!
Also, since the older wave went heavily into "anti-establishment" (read, "anti-parents") politics that led them into liberalism, that old saying about "younger siblings feeling the need to exert their own individuality and a separate identity from their older siblings" might have been a big part of it.
Anyway, great article! I don't know if I like at all the "Joneser" moniker. Ugh! But I suppose it's better than others they could come up with! Like "Lil' Boomers" or "Boomies" or "Boomlets" ... ad nauseum.
slang term "jones'": a craving for someone or something.
Aha! So after wondering about it for 31 years now, I finally understand the meaning of that Cheech & Chong song --- "Bassetball Jones. I gotta Bassetball Jones. I gotta Bassetball Jones, so baby, oo-woo-woooo".
One last note here ... to our great shame, the vast majority of the Jonesers followed the Boomers down the path of The Sexual Revolution, even if we refused to follow their lead in many other things. I remember being in a discussion in a Christian singles group in the early 80s where I was the only guy defending abstinence before marriage. Sad!