I WAS driving my son to Southampton a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me what I thought was the fundamental difference between my generation and his.
I have said before that I am not a big fan of my generation. We have no steel, possibly because we had no world wars to fight; we had no major global depressions to survive; and even the biggest loser could afford a pair of designer Nikes.
In fact, my generation’s biggest contribution to the world was the creation of the TV celebrity chef.
But one thing which does fundamentally stand out is that when I was my son’s age, it was hip to be an outsider.
In rock ‘n roll jargon, that meant you were against ‘The Man’.
Today, the outsiders are the most reviled people in the world – even when they are popular, if that makes sense.
Take Donald Trump. He is about as anti-establishment as you can get. Even some of his own party didn’t vote for him.
His opponent Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, embodies everything the establishment stands for. She is, ironically, the perfect personification of ‘The Man’.
Same with Brexit. The people who voted to leave Europe were voting against the establishment.
They were sick of being told that their taxes must pay for feckless layabouts to have multiple children and free council accommodation; that their national flag was ‘shameful’; and other myriads of intrusions into every aspect of their lives, including how many vegetables they must eat a day.
The hipsters in my day would say that was The Man telling cool cats what to do.
But not today. Hipsters now control the narrative. And even though they have lost to both Trump and Brexit, they still control the headlines.
Which is why the New York Times spills more ink calling on Trump to disavow the Klu Klux Klan (all two members) than they do calling on Hillary to disavow her supporters trashing cities and vowing to kill anyone who voted for Trump.
Hot air
Which is why the BBC emits more hot air on Britain’s imminent demise in leaving the EU than it does on new trade deals being fostered with Canada and China.
In short, as I said to my son, with my generation the hipsters were the anti-establishment. Today, they are the establishment.
This doesn’t mean that the hipsters back in the day would agree with Trump. On the contrary. It just is a stark illustration of where the pendulum has swung in the concept of ‘The Man’.
However, the one fatal character flaw is that being an establishment hipster is an oxymoron. You can’t be against The Man and be The Man at the same time. So even when hipsters win, they have to pretend they haven’t.
That’s why President Jacob Zuma shouts ‘umshini wami’ at rallies, as if he is still fighting a revolution. I would not call Mr Zuma a hipster, but he has the hipster trait of not being able to understand that when you win a revolution, it is no longer a revolution. It is what you would call … well, government.
The hipsters’ lament at the rising tide swamping their beliefs across the globe is such that you would need a heart of stone not to giggle.
One columnist wailed in the London Observer that Trump could have been defeated if only Bruce Springsteen had held concerts outside Trump rallies, which would purge his fans from ‘angry white haters’.
I kid you not. I love Bruce Springsteen and have spent many a wine-fuelled party in my youth singing ‘Born in the USA’, even though it was not true.
But I suppose ‘Born in Mutare’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.
However, this is exactly what today’s hipsters cannot grasp. The fact is that people like Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga and Green Day are exactly why Trump got elected.
By so passionately supporting The Man, they confirmed exactly what the millions of Trump supporters were saying all along; that the present system works for the elites, but not for you.
