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“I think a lot about intergenerational justice,” Pete Buttigieg, the latest Democrat to enter the presidential race, said recently. Buttigieg is 37 years old. His generation, as he points out, has endured school shootings, post-9/11 wars, climate change, rising debts and the prospect that it will fail to earn more than its parents.

Buttigieg — pronounced “BOOT-edge-edge” — doesn’t have the typical résumé of a presidential candidate. He is a successful two-term mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has never held higher office. He will need to persuade voters that he has the experience and judgment to clean up Donald Trump’s mess. But I find his candidacy intriguing.

He has fully embraced the idea that the United States needs to focus on its future.

As Ben White of Politico tweeted, Buttigieg “running an explicitly generational campaign as a millennial screwed by boomers who wrecked the earth and destroyed the nation’s finances is super interesting.” An Atlantic piece yesterday by Edward-Isaac Dovere ran under the headline: “Pete Buttigieg Thinks All the 2020 Democrats Are Too Old.” Buttigieg himself says in an announcement video: “We can’t look for greatness in the past. Right now, our country needs a fresh start.”