Past 5 American Presidents Have Been Born in 1 of 3 Years - Could It Be a Sign?
Have you ever noticed this about the recent presidents in American history?
The last five Presidents were all born in one of three years.
Aspiring politicians who were born in the year 1946 hit the chronological jackpot. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump were all born that year, the first after World War II’s conclusion.
Barack Obama is the only President who wasn’t born in the 1940s in this category. Obama was born in 1961.
President Joe Biden was born in 1942 — a timing that establishes him as the oldest President to be inaugurated, by far, and a member of the so-called “Silent Generation” that preceded the Baby Boomers.
Biden was 78 when he was inaugurated, seven years older than Trump, the age runner-up, according to the New York Times.
There might be more to this “coincidence” than immediately meets the eye.
Americans who were born during or in the years immediately after World War II benefited from circumstances perhaps unrivaled in the nation’s history.
Values such as communitarianism, traditional families, patriotism, and social trust were much stronger in the late ’40s through mid-1960s than they are today, according to Robert D. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.”
In layman’s terms, this was an era in which Americans trusted their neighbors.
Not to mention, this was a time in which the American middle class was largely forged, and the average American had strong prospects for upward social mobility.
If you were born in ’46, you’d stand to grow up and go to school with a class of Americans who had the post-war prosperity of the world’s new superpower at their fingertips.
Your accomplishments might even overshadow those of your younger or older peers — so much as to form the basis of a presidential campaign.
Bill Clinton even defeated two members of the “Greatest Generation” in George H.W Bush and Bob Dole, in a political career that could be viewed as symbolic of a generational transfer of power in the 1990s.
Americans who were born in ’46 did stand a chance of being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, but they were more likely to qualify for a student or marriage deferment than their younger siblings.
This was especially the case with the generation’s college students. Clinton, Bush and Trump all found ways to avoid serving in Vietnam, even though they were young men at the time of the conflict’s peak.
It’s all but assured that either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be the last President in American history who was born in the 40s, especially if Trump succeeds in making a White House comeback.
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