In a Silent Way / Miles Davis
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Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” uses symbolism in an interesting manner. The quote asks a few questions. Is there a time in your memory when America was great? Yes, for the baby-boomers thus Trumps appeal to his own generation thinking back to the booming years of America. In the 1950s after the war. Those who remember when America was great are then asked if they want to see a return to this by the last word “again.”
One of the problems with this slogan was that it simply excluded at least two of the voting generations from voting for Trump. And interestingly, not because they were really against Trump. Rather, for the simple reason that they had no memory of a time in their lives when America was great. They were immediately not engaged in Trump’s asking them to go to that place when America was a great nation. In the 1950s and 60s.
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It is doubtful that a candidate for President of the United States can be elected by appealing to just one generation with his campaign message. This is a limiting factor if the original “Make America Great Again” was employed a second time when one is attempting to unite generations.
It seems the true strategic challenge of the parties today is to see which candidate can appeal to the broadest spectrum of generations. In effect, unite the nation through the largest group possible that have the same memories and experiences of the world. One generation. They have watched the same media and driven the same cars and grew up in the same general type of neighborhood.
So, in my assessment, the challenge is not speaking in just the current time but rather in the time and experiences of all voting generations. The entire voter spectrum in relation to the experiences of their generations and their current ideas and ideals.
| The Generation | Years Born | Age (Jan.2024) |
| Gen Z | 1997 – 2012 | 12 – 27 |
| Millennials | 1981 – 1996 | 28 – 43 |
| Gen X | 1965 – 1980 | 44 – 59 |
| Boomers | 1946 – 1964 | 60 – 69 |
| The Silent Generation | 1928 – 1945 | 79 – 96 |
Following the strategy of targeting various generations for a presidential candidate involves finding the ability to reach the uniting symbols of these five generations. That is, the images, music, people, places, things and technology each of the five generations.
Once the key uniting symbols of a generation are located, the challenge is in blending them together in some new form embodied in the campaign strategy, slogans and speeches of the five-generational candidate, appealing to five generations of America rather than one or two.
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The segmentation that began to break up mass culture of America in the 1970s, caused a segmentation of many things in the world. It was the medium of the day as McLuhan might have said. More media choices. More product choices. In the 70s and beyond, the nation no longer united by a common soap like Ivory, a drink like Coca Cola a car like a Model T Ford.
The segmentation infiltrated the university system and it was responsible for chopping up the great disciplines in the universities, disciplines that had for hundreds and thousands of years. And this chopping the world up into smaller and smaller pieces had an effect on contemporary people thinking about smaller and smaller things in life. In effect, segmentation became a type of McLuhanist “medium” that enveloped all thought during a period of the dominance of a particular communications technology.
Resulting in the fact that the modern voter does not think in large concepts or ideas. The kind of ideas their grandparents and great grandparents thought about the world in. The topic of inter-generational communication in America is something hardly ever discussed or even addressed. However, it might be the way to unite the nation in a truly unique way. The inter-generational uniting of the nation.
One’s major research people would be the social influencers of their particular generation. The presidential candidate on the Intergenerational Ticket would have five key demographics for his campaign. Not a campaign based on all the marketing hocus pocus of polls and studies of various groups. Rather, a campaign based on the reportage from the five key reps for the generations and their teams.
The blending together of the reports from the five generational groups. Of course various weights given to likelihood of voting of the particular age and generation as well as other factors that would extend the table above. But the key would be a blending of the various important uniting symbols of the five generations.
And carrying out the blending? One possible candidate is AI. I’m sure it should be up to this particular task as I’m sure it’s being used for other candidates in the upcoming election. One suggestion would have an AI computer read the greatest events and cultural events of the various generations and generate key symbols and sounds of the generation.
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Many out there must be thinking that our five generations candidate has to be a hypocrite. In effect, the candidate is an artificial candidate created from the above. The candidate doesn’t truly believe all of this and have this mystical connection to the various generations out there thanks to the five special envoys to these generations.
But then, one doesn’t realize that there is another procedure after the blending of the symbols together into the creation of this new person that appeals to all five generations. The reasons for his appeal are tied to the greatest symbols of the past hundred years in America. Using these symbols to bring the generations together.
In the end, a generation is the only thing bigger than race or DEI or whatever the nation has been capped up into. It’s more than “about time” to start thinking about this type of thing.
The final procedure, after bringing the symbols into a new blend, most likely with the assistance of AI with the data supplied from the five generational representatives and their teams, does not go to someone who has commissioned it for their own use.
No, there really is no person out there. The next step is to find this person by matching up the symbols found to a particular person. This entire process is only effective if it is undertaken without being under the contract of a particular person. The reason is that this person will attempt to take on the shape of the “character” painted by the inter-generational research. This composite is not something truly within their own heart and spirit. Their values and beliefs in life.
The final phase of creating an inter-generational presidential candidate – a modern Kennedy – is matching the data to particular individuals. Perhaps a current politician but not necessarily so. This “casting call” phase of creating an intergenerational presidential candidate reaches out to find the best match for the symbol blend the five reps for the candidate have come up with.
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The combination of the symbols of the five generations into one with their symbols blended like they have never been blended before. There are people in America who feel these symbols in the greatest manner today. The above research group reaches out to these people and filters them to find particular persons who match the data. But there is that number one candidate who matches all the data.
A team from the research company above then sets out to contact the person identified as the key target person who matches all the symbol blends of the various generations.
The intergenerational leader.
Whoever she or he is.
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John Fraim is author of Spirit Catcher: The Life and Art of John Coltrane and Battle of Symbols: Global Dynamics of Advertising, Entertainment and Media. He was a consultant on the film the Da Vinci Code and has posted much to various Jungian sites as well to the media ecology sites in the tradition of Marshall McLuhan. He is founder of Midnight Oil Studios.