As Donald Trump prepared to leave the White House Tuesday, he eschewed his habit of walking out of the Oval Office and engaging in “Chopper Talk” with 150 or so reporters and photographers gathered on the South Lawn to watch him board Marine One.

Instead, he took the same presidential limousine that recently cruised around the track at the Daytona 500 to Joint Base Andrews, where he boarded Air Force One. There he spoke with the pool of about 14 reporters and photographers who peppered him with questions of the day for about 15 minutes before he headed to Los Angeles. He’s never done that before.

The White House communications staff gave no reason for the change in protocol. One reporter smiled and said, “Well he’s getting older. Maybe he doesn’t like the long walk to the helicopter.”

“OK, Boomer,” another remarked.

When the dust finally settles on Trump’s Baby Boomer generation, it will be remembered for a lot of good things, including the civil rights, women’s rights, LBGTQ, environment and peace movements. It will also be remembered for rock n’ roll, though “You Never Give Me Your Money” rings far truer than “All You Need is Love,” because many Baby Boomers became self-indulgent narcissists. In other words—Donald J. Trump.

Born June 14, 1946, our president represents the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation. He was just 17 (and you know what I mean) when John F. Kennedy got assassinated. He was a few months older when the Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show. He was 23 when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and when Jimi Hendrix closed Woodstock playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Trump spent his late teens and early 20s avoiding the Vietnam War as many did, and when he joined the workforce with a set of bone spurs and his daddy’s money, he got in the game just in time to enjoy Studio 54 and Ronald Reagan’s Me generation. He is the privileged epitome of the shallowest of his demographic who apparently learned nothing about peace and love and everything about Roy Cohn and winning at any cost. He now threatens to be the legacy of his generation.

It will be a legacy of lies brought to us by social media—the vein into which Trump spews his unfiltered venom. “But, you know, everybody has the right to speak their mind. And I use social media,” he explained to reporters on Tuesday. “I guess I use it well, because here I am. I’m here. And I probably wouldn’t have gotten here without social media because I certainly don’t get fair press. So I wouldn’t have gotten here without social media and, perhaps, with all of the hoaxes—you had the impeachment hoax, you had the Mueller hoax, you had the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ nonsense. All scams. And if I didn’t have social media, I probably wouldn’t be here. So I’m very happy with social media.”

Since his acquittal Trump has happily tried to normalize his criminal behavior, but if we can learn something from him and thus avoid anything like him going forward, then perhaps our pain and suffering will be worth it.

The simplest lesson we should learn from the last three years is no system of government designed by man can overcome man’s stupidity and inhumanity to man. We should also learn the failure of our Founding Fathers wasn’t in how they designed our government, but in the false assumption two thirds of those elected to the Senate will act in good conscience. (To recap, all Trump needed for acquittal was 34 votes out of 100. On the first article he got 52 and on the second 53.)

Trump’s Boomers also taught us, through cautionary example, that education and participation matter. We enjoy the benefits of our democracy but fail to live up to the responsibilities needed to ensure the country’s survival. We’ve hit cruise control while falling asleep at the wheel. We are overwhelmed, bored or too bothered to participate in the most basic government decisions. Many don’t even know where the local county council holds its meetings, let alone ever attend one. Meanwhile malignant individuals have gerrymandered districts so they can stay in office until death. Many of us don’t vote, and in some cases Trump and his ilk are struggling hard to suppress those who do. Those working the hardest in this endeavor are in many cases members of the Boomer generation who fought so hard for civil rights.

Yes, Trump and some Boomers have drilled into us lessons about hypocrisy. They have also popularized the idea that all opinions are created equal; the president’s defense of social media says as much. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but as Isaac Asimov once said, “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ’my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

“Don’t trust anyone over 30,” Berkeley activist Jack Weinberg said during the Vietnam War. Now his generation gets fed the same from a younger generation—only more succinctly. OK Boomer?

All of these lessons are aimed at the symptoms of the real problem Trump represents: He believes he can create his own reality, and millions go along with it. He and those who serve him ignore science and facts in order to control the electorate. We have seen this before: In the Middle Ages, the church denied science to maintain its iron grip on society. It is the age-old fight between the haves and the have nots.

So here’s the ultimate lesson: Make time to take the time to be involved. Vote. Protest. Go down to City Hall. Visit the statehouse. Learn who your local, state and federal representatives are and let them know what you think. They all have hefty staffs to deal with citizen complaints.

Otherwise you end up with Donald Trump or worse. He’s tearing the fabric of the country apart while a third of the people cheer, a third of the country fights him and a third of the country watches.

“So my social media is very powerful,” Trump told us. “I guess Mark Zuckerberg just recently said, ‘Trump is number one in the world’ on social media, which is a very nice statement, I guess. Certainly it’s something you can be at least a little bit proud of.”

Pride goes before destruction, Donnie Darko, and a haughty spirit before a fall. You are very proud to bring it all down. Burn Baby Burn. You bring fear, rancor and hatred. You are the new Church, and social media is the means by which you spread your gospel in the New Dark Ages in which you declare yourself King.

When he spoke to the press pool on Tuesday, something odd occurred. Reporters asked him about pardons he’d issued that day and about the Taliban, China and national security. There was a moment of silence as the handful of reporters tried to think about what to ask next. “I can’t believe… so quiet all of a sudden,” Trump said with a small smirk.

He loves it. He’s winnowing down his interaction with the press and finally had a moment when the small number of reporters ran out of questions to ask. More and more Trump is limiting options and controlling the narrative. Following his impeachment he doesn’t care about condemnation of naked power grabs, whom he angers or that he only interacts with a small number of people. Nothing spoke more to this attitude than some of the people he pardoned and to whom he offered clemency.

He pardoned junk bond investor Michael Milken, whom he called “one of America’s greatest financiers.” He pardoned Bernard Kerik, a New York city police commissioner who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to eight felony charges for offenses including failure to pay taxes and lying to White House officials during a failed nomination to be homeland security secretary. He commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who was convicted of offering an appointment to the United States Senate in exchange for campaign contributions.

On Tuesday Trump told reporters he is the “chief law enforcement officer of the country” and has final authority over law enforcement, legislation, the courts and the executive branch. Millions of his followers have happily taken the wrong acid at Woodstock and believe it too, thanks to his social-media propaganda. “Social media, for me, has been very important because it gives me a voice, because I don’t get that voice in the press. In the media, I don’t get that voice. So I’m allowed to have a voice,” said the man who benefited from more free airtime than anyone in the 2016 election.

But there is one thing Trump cannot control. One day he will no longer be in office. The question remains how will he go and what comes after him. There’s already talk from Trumpocrats of a “Trump Dynasty” with Ivanka and Don Jr. being groomed for some sort of royal succession. Eric will apparently clean out the toilet stalls.

No one can say for sure who will follow Trump or when. But whoever comes next has a historic mess to cleanup. He or she will need intelligence, logic, stubbornness, respect for the Constitution, a broom, vacuum cleaner, mop, loads of disinfectant and ultimately the ability to bring people together using facts and empathy—well, if we want the U.S. to survive.

OK Boomer?