Baloney and other processed lunch meats;) I knew the pre-boomer generations well, particularly the ones who lived through the depression, and you had to look long and hard to find anybody "economically on the left".

You are free to dismiss the truly revolutionary changes in gender equality, you don't really have to deal with the old restrictions, and for that I'm glad. The same for the birth of the environmental movement, utterly non-existent before the late '60s, or the revolution against racial discrimination. It's entirely human to take for granted changes when you never experienced what came before.

The labor movement didn't really gain widespread power until the end of WWII (the birth of the Boomers) and was still beset on all sides by labor movement haters. The post war economic boom gave labor a short 20 year golden period that faded hard under stagflation and anti-labor politics/sentiments.

In any case, "generations" Boom, XYZ, whatever, are inaccurate metrics to judge much of anything. There's so much age overlap and political/intellectual diversity that the noise swamps the signal.

Progressives are ALWAYS in the minority and getting progressive change always depends on activism and luck in that minority. I have great hopes for the young people coming along, I think in many ways their consciousness is raised far beyond those who came before them;)