I have seen the best minds of my generation, to steal a phrase from the late Allen Ginsberg, driven to heights of self-absorption, advocating policies that assure the failure of the next. Nothing so suggests the failure of my generation — the boomers — than its two representatives running for president.

What Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump reflect are two sides of the same nasty boomer coin.

On one side, there are aging boomers embracing Trump, an icon of materialistic obsession and a lack of concern for “losers.” On the other is a control-freak determination to tell everyone how to live, with instructions coming from entitled boomer politicians and bureaucrats.

Boomers benefited from the strongest economy in American history — they account for 44 percent of the population but 70 percent of the wealth, and have enjoyed far better income growth than later generations. Yet, despite their good fortune, many seem determined to pull ever more out of the economy as they age, while those stuck with the bills for their profligacy and indebtedness — the next generation — will have to do with less.

The ‘I’ve got mine’ crowd

Trumpian boomerism is easily evidenced in my own neighborhood of Villa Park in Orange County. Our lovely, well-maintained and aging little enclave is friendly, civic-minded and civil. But it also is the center of opposition to such things as school bonds that would improve local schools now in a shocking state of disrepair. Villa Park residents helped defeat the last school bond, and it’s a former (thank heaven) City Council member who seeks to lead the effort to overturn the one on the ballot this year.

The arguments of the anti-bond advocates, like those backing Trump, base their pitch on accusations of public incompetence but rest on a culture of selfishness. Many opposing the bonds, which would cost them a few hundred dollars a year on their property tax bill, think nothing of spending lavishly on luxury vacations or home upgrades. The fact that better schools might increase their own property values seems to sail against their mind-set, which apparently renders them oblivious to the penury imposed on the next generation.

This phenomenon can be seen in many communities across the country, notably, in boomer retirement havens like Missoula, Mont. Some of it seems plainly racial: The majority of children in our local schools, which my youngest daughter attends, are Latino and Asian. In other words, many don’t want to help “their” children, even though here in Southern California they are our future.

It takes a village to destroy a generation

Then let’s look at Hillary Clinton’s progressive boomerism. Clinton has long talked about her concern for children. Who could forget her immortal “It takes a village” slogan? But the policies she advocates, particularly on energy, urban planning and economics, will prolong the slow growth that makes upward mobility problematic for future generations.

Even worse are the influential green progressives, increasingly dominant in Democratic politics, especially here in California. Led by our illustrious and aged governor, our environmental zealots advocate reducing the living standards of the next generation, but many are from the older generation of property owners who reap the benefits of an increasingly scarce, and valuable, asset like houses.

Lately, green activists have taken their generational attitudes a step further. In a recent National Public Radio program, leading lights of the climate change establishment suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t be creating a new generation at all. The best way to keep the planet safe from rapid toasting, they suggest, is getting people in high-income countries — where birth rates are already low — to stop having babies. It’s OK for those who nobly live in poverty in the developing countries to keep having kids, just as long as they stay poor.

A look at our legacy

Someday, boomers will lose power, but right now they make up almost a third of the American voting-age population and hold nearly two-thirds of the seats in Congress.

Millennials, the next big generation, in the long run may prove better than their parents. But they are not well served by the insufferably smug, self-appointed spokespeople (many from the same upper classes that dominate the greens) who brag about how they purposely eschew cars and big homes in favor of riding bikes and living in group homes. I doubt they speak for the vast majority who dream of buying a house, usually in the suburbs.

There are also some promising aspects to millennial attitudes, notably, their rejection of the racialism associated with Trump. Less noted is that they also seem to reject the top-down progressive boomerism epitomized by Clinton. Millennials may largely be liberal on issues such as immigration and gay marriage, but one recent survey found that less than a third of them favor federal solutions over locally based ones.

The fact that millennials both reject Trump and voted heavily against Clinton in the primaries reflects their nascent rejection of boomer politics. Hopefully, their changes will come soon enough to allow the republic, and its institutions — including our local schools — to survive the current boomer plague.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).