Kamala Harris identifies as Gen X – and, believe you me, you really don’t want to mess with us

Kamala Harris is apparently keen to be seen as the new Gen X broom to sweep out the Boomers that have dominated American politics for four decades. Born in 1964, she misses the official start year for Generation X (which spans from 1965 to 1980) but in these times of self-identifying, it’s all about passing and Harris looks pretty Gen X to me.

In 2018, Kamala Harris, then a senator, asked Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s right-wing nominee for the Supreme Court, a perfectly reasonable question about reproductive rights. “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” 

After much fudging, Kavanaugh admits that no, he could not. It was a stealth move by Harris. Still, it didn’t stop Donald Trump from describing her as, “extraordinarily nasty”. And then, this week, as a lunatic. But, do you know what, I can’t imagine that it bothered her one bit. Why? Because Gen X women are about as tough as they come. 

In The Future Laboratory’s influential annual Generation report published earlier this year, the authors describe X as, “Sceptical, fiercely loyal, cynical, independent in spirit… with a preference for equal, honest, two-way conversations.”

The Republican mudslinging aimed at Harris is likely to intensify until the election in November, but those comments won’t dent her Gen X armour. As a fellow childless Gen Xer, I momentarily felt stung by JD Vance’s malevolent comment that she was a “childless cat lady”; I was “triggered” as a younger person might say.

Except, beyond that first sting, I wasn’t actually, because the other trait of Gen X women is that we are wilful in not giving a damn about what anyone else thinks about us.

We started our careers in the not-quite-PC