Gen X itches for the White House. How long will we wait?

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on May 31, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Age has never been such a magnetic issue in the race for the White House as it is right now.

If reelected, Joe Biden would be our oldest president, perhaps serving until the age of 86. He rasped and sputtered through the debate last week. And Democratic elected officials are joining anonymous sources in demanding a replacement candidate. Biden, they say, is receding from the job.

While Trump trounced Biden in the debate with an energetic (if dishonest) performance, he has been adding more and more flubs to his usual rants on the campaign trail. Does his age suggest he should be president again? He would be 82 years old in January 2029 if reelected this year. I check the real estate market in Montreal every time I imagine Trump as an aging, aggrieved autocrat in the White House four years from now.

Biden’s recent problems keep pundits busy. Each day they suggest new potential Democratic candidates who might replace Biden on the Democratic ticket: Vice President Kamala Harris, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Last month, the New York Times ran an interview headlined, “Gretchen Whitmer Wants a Gen X President — in 2028.” Judging by the public concern over Biden this week, some people in the party want to accelerate that process. (I agree.)

The headline got me wondering about Gen X and how long we, the 40-through-60 somethings in America, have waited for a president from our cohort. And how much longer it might take.

Gen X’s wait has largely been fueled by a string of Baby Boomer presidents starting in 1993 with Bill Clinton and ending with Donald Trump in 2021. Biden, as a member of the Silent Generation spanning birth years from 1925 to 1942, made the wait longer still. Biden’s election also marked the first time that a president was elected after presidents from the following generation. In this case, the span was four presidencies spanning 28 years.

So, Gen X waited. The first-born people from that generation were constitutionally eligible to be president in 1996. Yet, in 2024 we don’t have a viable candidate to break that streak, unless Biden steps away. (He should.)

The headline to Whitmer’s interview — and my own generational impatience — got me wondering how unusual this is. How long do generations usually wait before they earn the Oval Office? 

The answer: We Gen X-ers are indeed being slowly and definitively eclipsed.

Here’s what I did. Using conventional American generations (known as the Strauss–Howe generational theory), I cataloged the generation of every president from George Washington (The Liberty Generation) through Joe Biden (The Silent Generation). Next, I found the number of years that elapsed between the first birth year of that generation and the inauguration of its first president.

Some generations were quick to ascend. The Gilded Generation began with children born in 1822. And one of those 1822 babies — Ulysses S. Grant — became president at age 47. No one in that generation had to wait long. (They also earned seven presidential inaugurations before stepping aside.)

Biden’s generation waited the longest — by far. The oldest members of the Silent Generation were 96 years old when Biden took office in 2021. His generation will celebrate its centennial in 2025. If Biden had not defeated Trump in 2020, it’s likely his generation would have been the first generation skipped in American history. Silent Generation, indeed.

Another bit of trivia? The Transcendental Generation (1792 through 1821) and Greatest Generation (1901-1924) tied the Gilded Generation for the most total presidencies with seven. However, be careful what you wish for: Each of those generations lost presidents to assassinations or other early deaths.

Most generations see a president from their cohort by the time their generation is 60 years old. The average — after removing the outlier of Biden’s generation — is less than 58 years.

We Gen X-ers are staring at four more years without the Oval Office. My oldest Gen X siblings would be 68 in 2029 when the next inauguration from an election cycle would take place. At that point, we should be looking over our collective shoulders at the Millennials; some of them will be 46 for the next presidential election.

Even the oldest cohorts of George Washington’s generation didn’t have to wait that long. The first-born folks in our first president’s Liberty Generation were 65 when he took office. When Washington’s generation was born, there wasn’t even a United States to speak of. And still they got the presidency before Gen X.

Of course, it’s cliche to bemoan Baby Boomers clinging to power. Their four presidencies — back to back to back to back — eroded any political power that Gen X could have established during the turn of the century. Add to that, all four Baby Boomer presidents chose either fellow Baby Boomers as vice presidents or, in the case of Dick Cheney, someone even older.

Even more to blame might be the general disposition of Gen X. Ask Google for our chief characteristics and you get back a list that doesn’t suggest an appetite for political power: tech savvy, adaptable, entrepreneurial, independent. Of course, these are broad statements and don’t describe the millions of people who might have climbed to the presidency.

However, independence, while a quality, might also be the most glaring cause of our presidential delay. Pushing a person from our generation to the presidency is an act of collective will, and independence doesn’t naturally produce that kind of cooperation.

Let’s loop back to Whitmer, who is after all a member of Gen X. In one of her final responses during the Times interview, she described what she hopes Gen X can do for the country. She said: “We recognize that our parents’ generation has had a lot of excess. So I’m hopeful that we can really move the needle, whether it’s bringing down our nation’s debt or ensuring that we are active when it comes to climate and solidifying and protecting individual rights. These are really the existential issues that my kids’ generation is worried about, gun violence, etc. And so I’m hopeful that in 2028, we see Gen Xers running for the White House and that someone from my generation is ready to take the mantle.”

Did you hear that? When given the chance to make the case of Gen X, Whitmer couched her response as a reaction to older and younger generations. Even with this many years to form a unique political platform, our generation remains overshadowed.

For Gen Xers during the political season, the chant of “Four! More! Years!” sounds more like a taunt than a cheer.

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