Each "generation" is
supposedly defined by events but how that works is all over the place. I know my mother's family was greatly impacted by the Depression and it's pre-WWII aftermath. My dad, not so much as his dad had a good job with the railroad. My dad never talked politics much, or at all. Reading his WWII letters home though I noted a bunch of rants about big business which he than called "Capital" with a capital C. Talked about strikes back home and Roosevelt etc including a statement to his dad that he'd better stop talking or his dad would think he was a socialist. So, my mom who suffered as a poor family ends up being a died in the wool big biz supporting Republican and my dad, who's family was fine, ends up being a closet socialist.
Peeps think because I am a 1951 baby that Vietnam or something was my influencer. Wrong. My influencer was the original Warner Brother cartoons. Without the cast of Looney Tune characters, the assassinations, Vietnam, the racial strife and Nixon would have made me a total cynic. As it is I am deeply skeptical but not totes cynical. Yet.