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Boomers say that because historically, with increasing age people usually also managed to have some things they might want to conserve, like a home and some financial assets to cover their retirement. I’m in my mid thirties and the only feasible way for me to ever own a home is inheriting one. My retirement plan is to die in the revolution. I have nothing to be conservative about
I’m in my 30s and fortunate to have a house, but as I age I become more liberal.
I grew up with conservative parents and mostly conservative extended family as well. It wasn’t until I was older and in college that I started to become liberal. Before that I considered myself a Libertarian because I hated the two-party system and didn’t identify closely with any other parties.
I can’t imagine anyone that isn’t in the the top 1% that considers themselves conservative unless it’s based purely on hate or ignorance.
Generally, what it used to be is that people got more liberal as they got older, but society became more liberal faster.
Nowadays, millennials are getting older and mostly keeping up with liberal trends because we have so little invested in the status quo to slow us down from changing with the times. Amongst other factors.
Basically, "people are selfish and will do what benefits them"
Except when they vote against their own interest
“Will do what they believe benefits them”
Which I'd say is a pretty right-wing sentiment
There's nothing selfish about wanting a home and a viable retirement plan. Everyone should have those things.
Finally bought my first home at 40 using all my life savings. Couldn't afford to have kids. I got no one to leave any heritage to. Fuck everything.
I’m 31, I was most conservative in my teens when I was in a private Christian high school in the south. Then I went to college, worked at a jail, went to law school, and in the process learned about the world and the people in it.
I am still astonished at the people who have done similar things and still don’t have an ounce of compassion for the poor and struggling. Conservative values only make sense when your sense of self only encompasses you, your family, and your religion. Once you realize that you are a part of something bigger, and the gay Hindu man and the black Muslim woman has the same consciousness and feelings as you it’s a lot harder to think of them as enemies or pitiful souls who need to be saved.
When you realize that people are people, and we are all the same, but for our circumstances, then it’s impossible to be conservative.
I think some people have trouble conceptualizing those around them as human. From what I can tell it's not intentional cruelty, at least at first, they just struggle to conceptualize and understand the idea that all of the people around them have just as dynamic and complex inner worlds as they do. When it's a struggle to make that connection, it's easy to go through life ignoring the plight of those around you, disregarding them with the same ease most people dismiss a warning on a computer.
As someone formerly in the same boat, I think belief in the Abrahamic religions makes it hard to identify with the plights of others, because if you believe in a just, loving god, then "those people" have the religion and hardships that they do for a reason (and the reason is usually either "it's part of God's plan" or "they made bad decisions").
When you base your entire worldview on a faulty premise, you can use sound logic to get all the way to libertarianism without a problem. Once I reexamined and discarded my belief in the Christian god, it was like flipping a switch; I went from douchey religious Libertarian to bleeding-heart socialist almost literally overnight.
My favorite part of Libertarianism is that Saint Rand collected Social Security.
It exemplifies the shameless selfishness of the libertarian philosophy and really links well with the conservative mindset of "I got mine, fuck you".
Once you realize that … the gay Hindu man and the black Muslim woman has the same consciousness and feelings as you
Therein lies the disconnect. Religious zealots regard people like that as abominations to be destroyed in the name of their god, not people to be loved.
Past generations saw some level of stability by their 40s and felt that something worked.
Ain't nothing worked for any of us and those people who did turn conservative in their 40s are now 80 and voting to literally murder gay and trans folk.
Anyone who believes this is just as deranged as the Q people lmao. What an outright fabrication of anything resembling the truth. Nobody on either side of the spectrum, be it left or right, are voting to murder anyone. Maybe take a peak outside your Reddited echo chamber because the real world has much more nuance than it’s allowing you to see.
I'm in a demographic that's probably not common on this site. I work a physical, traditionally "blue collar" job. It's the kind that attracts the "male with no college education, conservative politics" -- you know the type.
The thing is, I am also a white guy that looks and sounds like them. I own guns, I'm an outdoorsman, I can crack off-color jokes with the best of them. They assume I'm "one of them" and openly share shit with me they'd never say out in the open.
I hear Qanon adjacent crap far more than I care too. A current favorite of theirs is the "Trans people and drag queens are grooming kids!" A disturbing number of them frequently speak in support of violence against or even the murder of LGBTQ/leftist/woke people. Hell, listening to them talk I'd expect a few of them would probably do it themselves if they thought they could get away with it. This is the sort that got excited when they heard there was a shooting at a Pride (unrelated to Pride it turned out) event near our town.
So you're right: nobody is voting to murder anyone ... yet. But the aforementioned exist and vote for those that absolutely would if they could. That happily support policies pushing society in that direction, and would be thrilled if murder of their political "enemies" were a reality.
Everyone who's a conservative right now, is either:
A: completely forgotton their live before turning 25-30
B: Is a massive asshole who actively wants others to suffer for their own gain
C: Is a completely brainwashed morons who legitimately can't see the problems they're causing.
I would give this more upvotes, because I’m feeling exactly this.
“Just wait till you’re my age…” is the dumbest bs I will ever hear from older people. As if everyone will inevitably turn into an old, bitter, narrow minded, conservative person some day.
Was raised on Rush Limbaugh starting in the 5th grade, did the edgy Libertarian thing and now ... now Bernie Sanders is like the only guy in the country that makes any sense. And now I get to argue with most of my family and many of my friends or just never talk politics or walk away completely. And I get to reckon with all the harm I've caused.
Know what's fun? Constantly realizing what a piece of shit you've been. Feeling incredibly stupid for not realizing it sooner. Wondering how you can possibly atone.
Hey, as a minority I just wanted to tell you thank you. You may feel like shit when you think of the person you used to be, but I appreciate you for becoming the person you are now. Your only "atonement" is to just keep truckin, friend. Keep working on being the person you want to be
I think reflecting on your past and changing yourself is huge.
You might have been dick before but you aren't anymore guy.
Yeah, you seem chill to me. ❤️
I was born in 1991 and I've noticed a trend amongst people my age reaching their 30s which I call "the middle generation conundrum"
Basically, most of us grew on our parents belief that hard work meant a good life.
But as time passed we started to notice a couple of things:
The result is that whereas me and my friends would have tended to move right on the political spectrum, the majority of us are actually moving far left as we age.
Last (French) presidential elections, I actually couldn't believe how many people around me voted left. It would have been unthinkable a couple of years before
Maybe GIVE ME SOMETHING WORTH FUCKING CONSERVING YOU GREEDY FUCKS
I feel like this often.
In my case it has been the exact opposite tbh. The more I have to deal with reality there more I wander to the left. I’m kinda ashamed for my edgy centrist years as a teenager. Fuck that guy.
Damn, I feel that in my soul. Edgy centrist 13 year-old me and edgy nihilist 15 year-old me would be aghast at the bleeding-heart liberal I became.
I would rather be ashamed of my past self than to have grown so little as a person that I cannot experience such shame.
As a Millennial, the only thing I want from the younger generations is to see them restore my faith in humanity. We're so tired, but we won't stop fighting. Attrition is on our side and it will be on your's too. Chin up.
The kids are alright.
Other than their cringey Fortnite obsession. Damn, maybe I should vote to fuck their future over, just for that....
Actually I went from moderate liberal to pinko-tree-hugging-anarchist-commie-radical thing.
Some folks did the math For me, it was watching shit go down in Ferguson 2014 and then realizing this what America looks like a bit too often. Next thing I knew, I was outraged and reading Das Kapital and singing glorious Bolshevik anthems.
That always pissed me off. They were basically telling me "You're going to become a selfish fuckwad by the time you're my age. You'll stop caring about civil rights. You'll stop caring about the environment." Etc.
I was always leaning liberal and now I'm even more leftist. Mainly because conservatives got even more dumb.
And I'm someone who grew up with parents that were staunch republicans and made me go to church every Sunday. Then I turned 18 and my parents are still christian, but they don't do church anymore. hmm wonder why. Also one of them hates republicans now and switched registrations. I don't even think older people even believe that whole "you get more conservative as you get older" garbage.
This will never stop being weird to me, or at least unfamiliar.
Reason; I was raised by boomers, but they were legitimate 1967 Haight-Ashbury hippies (actually my dad derosed out of Vietnam in '67, so he wasn't in SF until '68, but leave us not quibble) who even now, though both my parents are dead, are still far to the left of me, and I'm basically a Bernie-style democratic socialist.
To put in perspective, while my parents weren't actually part of the SLA, they personally knew and were friendly with some of the most notorious of the lot, though they had parted ways by the time the SLA started to get seriously crazy.
All of which is just to say that growing up with Boomer parents in NorCal was a very different experience for a lot of gen Xers like myself.
Similar for me. I was told this repeatedly when I was younger, but all I heard was "If you get rich and successful then the wealth will corrupt your values". I'd like to think I could keep my values if I became wealthy, because I know what it's like to be homeless and hungry. But money does change people.
Boomers say that because historically, with increasing age people usually also managed to have some things they might want to conserve, like a home and some financial assets to cover their retirement. I’m in my mid thirties and the only feasible way for me to ever own a home is inheriting one. My retirement plan is to die in the revolution. I have nothing to be conservative about
Also conservatives: let's murder the gays!
My mother was a hippy before I was born, marched in every march going when I was a kid. Anti war, greenpeace, Land Rights the works. The last thing she did on her drive to the hospital for what would turn out to be her last time, was post in her postal vote for gay marriage rights. She was 74 years old. You don't get more conservative as you get older unless you choose to.
Keep drifting left and I've gotta say, that sweet sweet Libertarian Anarchism/Communalism seems pretty level headed to me. Vertical hierarchy inevitably leads to abuses/corruption and representative democracy infantilizes and negates the will of the people. Direct democracy and horizontal organizing structures keep everyone accountable and makes every voice heard. A world of contemporaries working towards our common goals sounds like the kind of thing you build a future (that's not on fire) out of.
What they meant was: you'll become more conservative when you own a home, have kids, and start thinking about retirement.
They were wrong about that too
We don't have lead in our veins this time around.
Same here. I became even more left leaning, the longer I had to partake in the shit Show called economy.
When a Boomer complained to me, that our generation never got anything done and I reminder him which generation was responsible for our low incomes and our inability to move upwards in our carrers thanks to there being to much of them and bl9cking the opportunity, he got really pissed.
Funny enough, the youth vote used to be hotly disputed between liberal and conservative candidates. Nixon won the youth vote in 72, Reagan in 80 and 84, before the "Fuck everyone not alive right now" effects of his administration kicked in for the incoming generations. The 20 years of neoliberalism in the 80s and 90s erased all incentive for the youth to support the status quo, and now conservatives are wondering why they're unpopular with the kids.
I was born in 1970 and have steadily grown more and more toward the left. Mainly that's because the right has gone completely insane.
The older I get the more I learn about the workers history that the rich have hidden from us, so of course I become more socialist.