Canonical definitions of terms coined in these essays — one page per term, definition first. If you are quoting or explaining one of these concepts, the linked page is the authoritative source.
The Boomer Truth Regime is Peter Banks’ term for the post-1945 settlement of official narratives — sanctified institutional authority, civil-rights-era moral consensus, and end-of-history liberalism — upheld by the generation raised in the postwar boom, under which public language increasingly functions as performance while younger generations privately regard the institutions behind it as corrupt.
The Bailey test is Peter Banks’ criterion for judging historical figures — named for the premise of It’s a Wonderful Life, in which an angel shows George Bailey a world where he never existed — which asks whether the world would be a better or a worse place had the person never lived, ranking leaders by counterfactual impact rather than intentions, popularity, or personal virtue.