David L. Rosen is the founder of First Person Politics, a consultancy specializing in the strategic applications of political psychology. Follow him on Twitter @firstpersonpol.

House Speaker Paul Ryan may dream of leading a more harmonious, more substantive GOP, but that’s not going to happen until he gets a majority in Congress—and, no, I’m not talking about the Republican Party. I’m talking about Generation X.

It might sound odd, but the generational composition of Congress has an enormous impact on the country. Building on William Strauss and Neil Howe’s groundbreaking generational theory, original research authored by my consultancy First Person Politics shows that each new generation to win a majority in Congress brings about a large-scale shift in the national political culture. These shifts, determined by each generation’s unique character, unfold over 20- to 25-year time spans, which makes them difficult to recognize for those immersed in the 24/7 news cycle. But they are as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.


Some shifts are good for the country; others not so much. Consider the generation currently in charge—the baby boomers (born 1943-60), whose time in power has been marked by rising extremism and polarization as well as historically low productivity. Luckily for the country, our research shows that a Generation X Congress is likely to be a very different kind of governing body—one that will have its own issues, to be sure, but that will cope well in crises and be more productive and more flexible than its forebears.

We still have several years before this new normal will take effect. Ryan might hold the gavel, but Generation X (born 1961-81) currently holds only about 37 percent of the seats in the House and a quarter of the seats in the Senate. Projections show that Gen X is unlikely to win its first majority in the House until the 2018 election cycle. And it could happen as late as 2024 if Gen Xers shy away from running or if incumbents in their late 70s and 80s continue to postpone retirement.

Until then (unless voters in 2016 unexpectedly decide it’s time to retire members of Congress over age 55), Ryan will be managing a chamber and a caucus still controlled by baby boomers—who will prevent him from inaugurating a new era of productivity and pragmatism.

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When some generations come to power, they transform the nation for the better. The so-called Greatest Generation (born 1901-24) obtained its first congressional majority in 1953, coinciding with the start of the Eisenhower administration. Leaders from this generation built our national highway system, founded Medicare and Medicaid, established groundbreaking environmental protections and passed historic civil rights laws. At the height of their power in the 1960s and early 1970s, congresses led by leaders such as Lyndon Johnson, Carl Albert and Mike Mansfield were among the most ambitious and accomplished in our nation’s history.

Some generational transformations are visible only in retrospect, and their merits remain open to debate. The silent generation (born 1925-42) won its first majority in the 1976 elections. The year its members assumed power, 1977, seems unremarkable except to those who know their history. Consider the explosion of inequality over the past few decades, the declining influence of labor and the rise of the business lobby in Washington, along with the Republican Party’s long march to the right. All of these trends trace their origins to political and policy changes that started in the year 1977. Newly empowered members of what we’ve dubbed the “silent majority” helped initiate every one of them. On a more constructive note, the silent generation’s technocratic skill, parliamentary savvy and conciliatory style set a new gold standard for leadership in Washington in the 1980s. Ted Kennedy, George Mitchell and John McCain—all legislators known for their ability to work with members of the opposing party—come from this generation.

But the era of policy complexity, objective expertise and negotiated compromise the silent generation once championed didn’t last. The anti-establishment baby-boom generation acquired its first congressional majority in 1995. The 1994 wave election, known as the “Republican Revolution,” ended four decades of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House and swept boomers into power. Speaker Newt Gingrich and the freshmen class of 1995 inaugurated the present era of ideological and partisan polarization, government shutdowns, leveraged brinkmanship and gridlocked, do-nothing congresses. These trends, driven by the intense concentration of radical boomer individualism within the Republican Party, have reached new extremes as boomer power in Washington has peaked in the past few years.

It’s true that Ryan and the most recalcitrant congressional factions managed to pass a spending bill in December without shutting down the government, though they came close several times. But, the spending bill enraged the Republican conservative base, and Ryan is walking on thin ice. I’m not optimistic that the kind of changes he—and undoubtedly many others—would like to see will take hold until a new generation takes power. One man—even the most powerful man in the chamber—isn’t enough to challenge the congressional character of the boomer majority, which, as with any generation at the height of its power, is too entrenched to allow a new political culture to emerge.

Still, this highly destructive political culture is in its terminal phase, which makes us wonder: What will come next? To see what kinds of changes might be in store for Congress over the next few decades, it’s instructive to examine the last time a generation similar to Gen X in character and temperament came to power.

According to Strauss and Howe’s generational theory, there are four basic types of generations: idealist, reactive, civic and adaptive. Idealist generations are expressive, narcissistic and principled; reactive generations are competitive, cynical and tough; civic generations are cooperative, ambitious and rational; and adaptive generations are anxious, sensitive and sophisticated.

A generation’s “type” is established in childhood, determined by the prevailing attitudes towards childrearing at the time. By the time a generation reaches adolescence, has its first coming of age experiences and begins to form its political consciousness, the cohort’s instincts and expectations toward authority are already very deeply engrained—as are a wide variety of other characteristics and predilections with lasting implications for the generation’s long-term development and civic potential. In short, generations are formed by the way they are born and raised, endowed in childhood with generation-wide traits that reveal themselves in an astonishing variety of ways throughout a cohort’s life cycle.

In some seasons of history—the 1960s and 1970s are the most recent example—child-rearing is frowned upon, and parents are relatively disengaged from the lives of their offspring. This kind of neglectful parenting style produces children who are emotionally and socially alienated and learn at an early age to aggressively assert themselves to get what they need and want. These children grow into adults who fear dependency, may struggle to form intimate relationships, embrace a competitive (at times Darwinian) worldview and are deeply uncomfortable with authority figures (having been raised in an environment with few or weak authority figures). It’s these alienated, edgy and impatient tendencies that have led generational theorists to describe these generations as reactive.

Generation X is a reactive generation; the last reactive generation in American history was the lost generation (born 1883-1900). And as reactive generations the two share similar upbringings and life-cycle trajectories. Like Gen X, members of the lost generation were born and raised during an era of social and cultural upheavals, urban blight and neglectful parenting. Like Gen X, the lost generation became alienated young adults who chased fame and fortune when the times were good. And as with Gen X, global economic catastrophe struck the lost generation during their peak earning years—a brutal and sobering midlife wake-up call.

Leaders from the lost generation (think Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton) controlled the House from 1935 until 1952 and the Senate from 1941 to 1957. The lost generation helped forge the New Deal, reorganized the executive branch to respond to the exigencies of World War II, created the wartime economic effort and then managed demobilization, established the modern congressional committee system and navigated the tumultuous early years of the Cold War. It wasn’t easy, but this generation pragmatically remade our government and economy, triaging a series of unprecedented national and international crises.

Generation X, too, is facing serious national and international problems: Whether it’s due to the collapse of the middle class or government paralysis, rising inequality, corruption and extremism, demographic and climate change, increasing terrorism and turmoil aboard, there’s a growing sense across the ideological spectrum that the current system is broken beyond all possibility of repair, that something fundamental needs to change and that the failure to change could result in cataclysmic consequences for the nation and the world. Gen X will be called upon to lead the nation through these massive issues; the lost generation tells us that its reactive successor will handle them with effectiveness and practicality.

Of course, history rhymes but never repeats, so the solutions Gen X leaders embrace will reflect their own unique character, life experiences and place in history.

Here are a few trends to watch: Having grown up as latchkey kids with weak parental supervision, Gen Xers are distrustful of authority and used to playing by their own rules. This underprotected upbringing has given Gen Xers a “hands off, leave me alone” mind-set, which often resonates with libertarianism. It was Gen Xers who popularized the phrase “socially liberal, economically conservative”—an ideological orientation reflecting their underlying distaste for authority. Indeed, many Gen X leaders—especially those on the right such as Paul Ryan—will turn out to have libertarian philosophical roots.

Another consequence of growing up in a rules-free environment is that Gen X leaders have a tendency to break the rules instead of following them. Every generation has its share of misfits and outlaws, but generations differ in the ways they tend to misbehave. Whereas boomers—a self-indulgent “idealist” generation—are likely to be remembered for their era-defining sex scandals, Gen Xers are likely to be remembered for far more sinister, self-aggrandizing transgressions. Gen X has a real and menacing dark side—a product of its alienated upbringing and antisocial tendencies. Campaign finance and ethics violations, corruption scandals and abuses of power are likely to proliferate in the decades ahead. Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Thaddeus McCotter, Jesse Jackson Jr., Laura Richardson and Michael Grimm are just a few of the Gen X leaders who’ve already gotten themselves into trouble for exactly these sorts of infractions—or allegations of them.

Some generational trends first become evident at the state and local levels, where a rising cohort of leaders can wield power and influence at a younger age than they can at the national level. Over the past decade, Gen X leaders at the state and local levels have begun reinventing the way governments interact with citizens using various forms of civic technology. From social media to online town halls to public comments by text message, Gen Xers are helping state and local agencies begin the transition from paper and pen bureaucracies into the digital age. Civic technology is already transforming the way election campaigns are waged and won, thanks to the pioneering use of big-data analytics by another noted Gen Xer, President Barack Obama.

Finally, while partisan conflict will undoubtedly remain, Gen Xers are likely to put an end to the bomb-throwing, gridlocked brinkmanship that has become routine under boomer rule. Historically, reactive generations have turned away from the moral crusades of their elders after assuming positions of national leadership.

If generations could be said to have mottos, Gen X’s would almost certainly be Nike’s omnipresent corporate slogan: Just Do It. Thanks to weak parental supervision, Xers learned at a very young age that they had to assert themselves to get their needs met. If you wanted lunch and mom and dad weren’t around, all the moral values in the world wouldn’t add up to a grilled cheese sandwich. As a result, Gen X has a pragmatic orientation that instinctively favors action over moral posturing.

On the other hand, Gen X’s individualism, cynicism and competitive spirit make it doubtful that the congresses of the 2020s and early 2030s will ever become paragons of productivity. But history shows that reactive generations usually find a way to get big things done when faced with a genuine crisis.

All in all, ushering a new generation into congressional power is likely to have some negative, but mostly positive, results.

It won’t be easy to accelerate the process, though. Communal life-cycle events—such as the timing of generational majorities—cannot be controlled or manipulated wholesale. Still, generational shifts in Congress probably can be tweaked at the margins with concerted effort. Early retirements combined with aggressive recruitment of younger candidates could probably hasten a generational transformation by a cycle or two.

It is often said that politics is the art of the possible. During the past 20 years of boomer dominance, the possibilities have been relatively constrained—but that is going to change when Gen X wins its first majority a few years from now. If Ryan is serious about transforming Congress, he would be wise to bide his time, focus on keeping his job and direct his efforts toward electing Generation X members—hastening the day when a real transformation will finally become possible.