Boomers Are Out in Pressure at Anti-Trump Protests. Why Is That?

I used to be trying via photographs from the anti-Trump and anti-DOGE protests throughout the US over the weekend, and I could not assist however discover one thing: There positive was a number of grey hair.

That struck me as totally different from what I bear in mind about latest protests of the previous — like Black Lives Matter and Israel/Gaza protests, the place youthful individuals appeared to be main the cost.

I am apparently not the one one who’s seen. On r/50501, one of many Reddit boards for organizing the weekend’s protests, somebody posted, “We actually obtained handy it to the boomers.”

“I noticed three fairly giant protests as we speak round the place I lived,” the individual mentioned. “Guess who confirmed up and gave the largest show of assist? Boomers.”

My colleague Lakshmi Varanasi flagged one thing comparable not too long ago, too. She reported on two “Tesla takedown” protests final month in Michigan:

I seen that the crowds in Ann Arbor and Troy have been primarily individuals over the age of 65, white, and retired from jobs that trusted public funding as lecturers, professors at native universities, and social staff.

Enterprise Insider reporters who checked out this previous weekend’s protests from places across the nation additionally seen the same development: “Many mentioned they have been most apprehensive concerning the financial system and their retirement investments, which have dwindled in tandem with Trump’s tariff bulletins.”

Anecdotally, I’ve seen one thing to this impact within the suburbs of New York Metropolis the place I stay — the small smatterings of protests on the town squares during the last month or two appear to be largely made of ladies over 60. (This will likely need to do with the general age demographics of the suburbs, so I did not learn an excessive amount of into it.)

Nonetheless, I’ve a number of theories as to why so many boomers are exhibiting as much as protest.

The primary is that child boomers (who’re typically 61 to 79 years outdated) are both at or close to retirement age. They’re probably the most involved with the destiny of Social Safety and their retirement portfolios. These two issues have been thrown into chaos. Elon Musk has referred to Social Safety as “the largest Ponzi scheme,” though he is additionally mentioned legitimate recipients may get extra advantages as soon as he is accomplished rooting out waste.

And the brand new tariffs have despatched the inventory market right into a nosedive during the last week, which may damage the retirement accounts of people who find themselves truly retired. If costs on every kind of stuff rise, that additionally hurts retirees on a set earnings. Consider, numerous boomers love Temu.

However let’s be sincere: A 65-year-old Trump voter who checked out their funding account in dismay on Friday wasn’t going to resolve to point out as much as the anti-Trump protests on Saturday. Child boomers, like every technology, aren’t a monolith. (Boomers voted equally for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump within the 2024 election.) And the individuals who attend a protest have most likely held the identical political orientation for many years. This is not a case the place the previous couple of weeks have radicalized and adjusted the minds of all boomers.

But I do suppose it is potential that latest occasions activated some sleeper cells — older Democrats who had stayed residence for the scholar Gaza demonstrations or the 2020 Black Lives Matter marches.

I requested Robert Cohen, professor of historical past and social research at NYU whose work focuses on the historical past of protest actions, for his tackle all of this. He warned towards making any sweeping generalizations.

Cohen acknowledged that child boomers who had lived via — or participated in — the protest actions of the ’60s and ’70s might, actually, have a barely totally different perspective and rationale for the anti-Trump protests as we speak.

“What does ‘Make America Nice Once more’ imply? It means America minus the social modifications of the ’60s,” Cohen mentioned.

Think about among the issues boomers take satisfaction of their technology pushing for: civil rights, girls’s rights, environmental causes — they might really feel an urgency to return to the rescue of these issues being underneath menace.

A technology that attended concert events for Dwell Help, the Live performance for Bangladesh, and made a Christmas tune with the lyrics “Do they know it is Christmastime in any respect?” may need a unique perspective concerning the implications of pulling USAID out of creating nations the place a part of its work was addressing international starvation.

Individuals over 65 are probably the most dependable voting bloc, and that could be significant right here.

“It is actually tougher for [politicians] to dismiss them each as a result of they vote extra, but additionally as a result of they have been round, and it isn’t like some form of a youthful exuberance,” Cohen mentioned.

I ought to as soon as once more give a disclaimer that any sweeping generalization about generations is all the time going to return up brief. (Trump himself is a boomer, in spite of everything.) And all of my proof concerning the age demographic of demonstrators this weekend is only anecdotal.

But when our picture of a protester from the previous couple of years was of a teenager with blue hair, maybe we have to replace to a retiree in capri pants and a “world’s finest grandma” shirt.