Introduction
by Jack Beatty
| Round Three |
Tucker Carlson"No generation with an expectation of ever being poor would spend so much on mountain bikes." Read on...
Farai Chideya"The Iowa Straw Poll is precisely the kind of *!@%&! that young voters tell me they hate about politics." Read on...
Ted Halstead"Let me concede that I would love to live in [Carlson's] imaginary world: a world in which there are no vast and growing disparities between the haves and the have nots." Read on...
Andrew Shapiro"With all due respect, Ted Halstead seems to be changing his tune here to explain away a significant flaw in his article." Read on...
Scott Stossel"When the business cycle turns down, and when the stock market falls, the politics of this country (and the politics of our generation along with it) may lurch to the left or the right -- or both." Read on...
Join the debate in Post & Riposte. We'll highlight selected readers' remarks as the Roundtable progresses.
| Round Two |
Tucker Carlson"Thank God most members of Generation X don't vote. I'd rather have an oligarchy any day than government by the bored, lazy, and uninformed." Read on...
Farai Chideya"Tucker Carlson seems to see us as a bunch of whiners. But most young Americans are not crying wolf when they say they are disenfranchised from the political system." Read on...
Ted Halstead"The notion that each generation has a distinct outlook, influence, and agenda -- and therefore exerts a profound impact in the realm of politics -- is hardly new." Read on...
Andrew Shapiro"What, in Jack Beatty's terms, is the 'galvanic circumstance' of our era, the event which most defines us today? I'd vote for the Internet." Read on...
Scott Stossel"The sine qua non of any truly successful and unifying Generation X platform has got to be campaign-finance reform." Read on...
| Round One |
Tucker Carlson"I was born in 1969, and even at my lowest I've always felt superior to the Baby Boomers. Now along comes Ted Halstead to shake my faith." Read on...
Farai Chideya"When I think about ways that Gen X is divided politically, I think not only about income but also race, geography, and religion." Read on...
Ted Halstead"Whether the next major political consensus will be to the liking of most Xers will depend in large part on how many make their voices heard." Read on...
Andrew Shapiro"I was once a promoter of the Gen X meme -- the idea that the post-Baby Boom generation has some distinct politics." Read on...
Scott Stossel"Halstead's generalizations strike me as contrived to fit a snapshot of the political landscape that is far too neat." Read on...
Previous Roundtables.