But it’s hard to be sure just how much political influence the Baby Boomers had in their youth. The lightning rod political issue of the late ‘60s – the Vietnam War – was started by a revered Democrat and ended by a hated Republican president that none of them would admit voting for.
Even the claim that a war in Indochina was of real generational importance is specious, since it slipped from their priorities when the draft was ended in 1973. The actual war ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975, by which time that generation had moved on to other priorities, such as making hot tubs an essential feature in homes, and overseeing a surge in rates of venereal disease. (I have long suspected a link between the two.)
