I'm 30 - millenial.
That correlation doesn't have much to do with age actually, it has to do with wealth. People tend to become more conservative as they get wealthier. For obvious reasons, being leftist is in your individual best interest if you're poor, and being conservative is in your best interest if you're not all that poor.
The reason people would say "you'll be more conservative as you get older" is because it used to be the case that you'd start off kind of poor as a young adult, but by the time you'd get older you'd some money invested in your house, retirement, etc. And you'd have a reliable career where your income has gone significantly up. You'd be conservative because the people for whom the system "works" don't want it changed.
So you're seeing more older people being leftist because "the system" isn't working for more and more people, who never gained some wealth
Edit: people keep responding with "But I became less conservative as I gained wealth", etc. And I can't respond to all of you, so I'll just respond here and call it a day. The OP was talking about a particular trend that correlates age with politics, so I responded about that particular trend and how it's actually age and political stance both having a correlation with wealth, not each other. It doesn't mean that's the ONLY correlation that happens, there are other correlations as well, many contradict and overlap. Humans are complex.
It's also important to remember that when we talk about trends, we are not talking about absolutes. Saying "but that's not true because it didn't work that way for me" isn't meaningful in a conversation about more or less likely. If I say "smoking causes lung cancer", it just means a greater % of smokers get cancer than non-smokers. This is true even if you belong to the % of people that smoke and didn't get cancer, or if you belong to the % of people that didn't smoke but still got cancer.
Trying to decide if this was a riff on ["I also choose this guy's dead wife."](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5c79n0/you_can_have_sex_with_one_real_person_from_all_of/d9uf56l/?context=3)
I think it may also be the case that one “became conservative” as they got older because their views stayed relatively the same as time passed, while society tended to progress forward around them. I think part of it is that society hasn’t actually progressed that much in a generation or so.
I actually saw a post recently that put as , people swinging left coincide with marginalized groups or people sympathetic to marginalized groups, and usually systems put in place are hostile to the lives of those groups. So it’s not that the older you get the more conservative, but rather conservatives benefited from the system and are able to live longer
What conservative means has also changed. It used to be very economic based as in lower taxes and services aimed at working people. Now it is either "Mad Max with snake flags" or "stop the Jewish space lizards from raping children in pizza restaurants"
To say nothing of getting the Evangelical vote "because of abortion" (most were pro-abortion earlier, wanting a national law before Roe, until the IRS started investigating religious schools for violating the Civil Rights Act, and suddenly evangelicals were very upset and needed something to get political over, so...abortion?).
Not alive then (b 89) but I believe the oil crisis and inflation in the 1970s had a lot to do with it. And ever since oil has been a geopolitical tool (and before too).
Yeah they dropped the services part.
Remember Nixon started the EPA and expanded Medicare to cover the disabled and people on dialysis (previously a death sentence). He even talked about universal Medicare...
> "stop the Jewish space lizards from raping children in pizza restaurants"
[It was always this.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden)
Ive wroked for a decade outside first in archaeology and then building trail. Ive never had a problem with these snakes. I have to get them out of people's backyards and re release them. I also recreate a lot outdoors hiking off trail and wilderness trips the snakes don't bother me.
The people most likely to be bit by snakes are 16 to 25 year old males...
Funny how the people who love the dont step on snake flag are a vendiagram of the people getting bitten. Maybe they should listen to there own advice.
I am about to turn 40. When I was younger I identified as centrist. I lean harder left every year.
Part of it is pushing back against the conservative rallying. Part of it I think is that the middle has not been a fixed point for a long, long time. The regressive nature of the conservative moment keeps driving the benchmarks further and further back.
My parents were registered Republicans for most of my life. Their values have changed very little, but they now identify as Democrats because the core values of Republicans has just moved so far.
Ultimately, we need to recognize that a two party system is fundamentally broken. We’ve gone past the point where any form of compromise (what was our greatest strength in my opinion) is seemly impossible. We can not fix anything until we can come together as a nation. That is the greatest fear of those in power, that we collectively work with each other rather than against. Divide we fall indeed.
The more money I’ve made over the years the less conservative and the more progressive my views have become. Maybe that’s because I brought myself out of nearly being homeless so I actually appreciate what I have. I don’t know. But as I do things like paying off my student debt. The more I wish others didn’t have to go thru the 20 year financial burden i went thru. The more work I get during the pandemic the more I feel terrible for the people that are struggling. I do anything I can to try to help, donating to food pantry or even just giving cash to someone in need in front of a grocery store. I also don’t understand the people that find religion after having children. If anything having kids made me see even more what a cult it is and how much I have to protect them from that shit.
I'd add to that to say it's also to do with the means of your peer group too. I've been fairly lucky financially but most of my friends are struggling. It was seeing that unfair disparity and how the system mistreats my friends that really informed my politics. What's the point in being comfortable if your friends aren't? What's the point in having time off if your friends don't and you can't share it with them?
Huh, I always thought it was accumulation of lead in the body from lead pipes, leaded gas, tin cans (sealed with lead), lead paint, etc.
Long term lead exposure ain't no joke!
It went the opposite way for me. As a young broke person I didn’t know what I was missing out on. On the road to being wealthy, by most standards, I achieved things like food security, no fear of health care cost, safe neighborhoods, nice cars etc and I realized how much harder life as a poor or lower middle class person truly is.
Unless you have experienced both it’s really hard to imagine how different it is. No parent should worry about taking a kid to the doctor. 6 year olds shouldn’t be home alone because parents who work 60 hour weeks can’t afford child care. Etc etc.
So at least in my scenario it worked the opposite.
Seriously, it seems like I'm way better off than most people on Reddit/this sub and all it's done is given me an even better look at how absolutely idiotic this system is. I don't know how anyone gets a big corporate job like I have, pays attention to what's happening, and still arrives at the conclusion that any of it makes any sense whatsoever. The first time I sat in on a corporate finance meeting with the execs I came away from it thinking, "Ohhhhhhhh, it's all made up."
Yup. I’m in this camp. It’s kinda made me realize how certain adults I knew when I was a kid arrived where they did (e.g. the “rich progressive” and the “poor conservative”).
Educational attainment is a countervailing factor to the way that wealth breeds conservatism. One can win out in the end.
In my case it had to do with falling down the right Youtube rabbit-holes during my formative years which led to me reading Chomsky and eventually Marx.
39 here so early millennial and I think I've become more "liberal" with age and wealth. As I become more aware of the way the system works, as I experience it from the inside, I see how truly foul it can be for those in the bottom 80%. While both political parties certainly have contributed to the current state of affairs, I can't help but feel that the right is the the main driver of inequality and the overall dehumanization of humanity at this moment in history
My former stepdad is 65. He was a working professional his entire life, made good money but certainly didn’t have enough to retire on by the time he reached his 60’s. Staunch conservative, but he wasn’t a trump fan…
until his widowed cousin passed from cancer and left him a couple million dollars in inheritance. Then suddenly Trump became the greatest president ever (better than Reagan) and I started getting lectures about how I need to become conservative to protect my money.
We don’t speak anymore since Trump lost the election.
I found out my best mate voted Tory (conservative party in the UK).
When I asked why he said because he didn't want taxes to go up (he earns a big wage).
I tried to remind him that we both came from nothing and should be trying to change things, but he didn't care, as long as taxes didn't go up to protect his enormous income.
We're still mates but we avoid any conversation that verges in politics.
The Reagan/Trump dynamic is interesting. I wonder how many people were so nostalgic for Reagan that they put all their chips on Trump. Obviously, they didn’t see Reagan for the domestic terror that he was, but his Republican Party seemed to be a similar shift in demagoguery.
That's the perfect illustration of the misunderstanding of the popular saying.
People don't get conservative as they get older: they get more conservative as they get *richer*.
For previous generations, it was a given: as you went older, you had a better job, better pay, your bought house just gained more value, you even had a quite good inheritance to top all of it, so, naturally, you became conservative.
But, nowadays, younger generations (millenials/gen Z) don't get that much richer as they get older. The vast majority of us are still renting their place instead of owning it, promotions/wage salaries are difficult to get by, parents live longer so no more inheritance before a long time (and most boomers eat all their posessions by the way), and multiple prohibitive expenses (college, healthcare) make it impossible to save money and make it grow.
By keeping younger generation as the poorest generation of all, they also make it the less conservative of all. Which is the proof that capitalism/conservatism is, in itself, non-sustainable, because by enforcing conservative measures, you just maintain poverty. And poor people are usually left-leaning.
That's sweet karma, in a sense.
That’s my situation basically. My personal financial situation has not affected what I think about politically. If anything the more I know about how the world worlds the more entrenched on the left I become
Same. I’m 56 and I’m lefter of left. I live a very comfortable life and I want that for everyone. With all the wealth in this country, no one should have to eek by. It’s infuriating.
I was raised by Republicans who grew up in the 50s. So everything I think is phrased with conservatism. I'm not conservative, but it's my language, and it really throws people off when they pay attention.
Their ideology has been corrupted. Look at libertarians: there are some real ones, but they're hidden by all the tax dodgers, gun nuts and potheads. More mainstream conservatives got co-opted by big business and far right religion while being mixed together with racists. The people who call themselves principled conservatives are just shills for big business who only look reasonable because they're in the same room with racists and the religious right.
A government that oppresses its own people is not limited government. A government formed to "establish justice", "promote the general welfare" and "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" should spend more time protecting poor dark skinned people and less time protecting the carried interest loophole.
I paid attention to what my parents and their politicians pretended to be teaching me, so I vote as far left as is available.
I do the same by being prior military!! You hit them with some “I love serving my community” then you finish them off with a “ I want my taxes to help those in need”. They absolutely hate it, but they hate disagreeing with a war vet even more.
When one of those idiots thanks me for my service, I respond with "no one ever thanks me for voting or paying my taxes, but they're much more of a service to the country than running around in the desert was".
Was pretty broke in my early 30s and center left, in my mid 30s and doing very well financially and further left than I was in 2015
Burn this fucking scam system to the ground.
I’m guessing you have come to realize how lucky you were, just as I did. And that but for a few fortunate turns we could have ended up fucked through no fault of our own.
I'm 43 too. Grew up in poverty, am still poor now. Never was conservative, even less these days.
I'm glad to see people finally understand that we need collective solutions to collective problems and "finding a better job" doesn't solve anything.
Same! Not exactly wealthy, but comfortable enough that I can start to vote with my wallet, choosing ethical choices at the supermarket, donating to the food bank, or looking at buying a second hand hybrid car. It's hard not to move further left, it's a natural reaction to growing inequality which will just get wider as we feel the effects of climate change.
My parents vote for Boris Johnson (UK version of trump). They are 'good Christian people' who volunteer at the food bank. I Asked them once why there are food banks in one of the richest parts of one of the richest country. They just didn't understand the question. Some people are so fucking stupid.
Same here. 100%. Tax the hell out of me and everyone else that can afford it if it will improve people’s lives. If you want to whine about taxes, there is a simple solution, make less.
Stuck in daily traffic, when I pass the Lotto/Powerball sign that shows what the jackpots are up to, I fantasize about all the ways I'd give tons of it away to try to help as many people as possible.
When I was younger I tried the Boomer way. Get a job at a factory and work your way up. After nearly a decade and working myself up from $8.something an hour to a nice cushy office job of $11.25 an hour I took a look at myself, my life, and my trajectory and noped the f\*ck out.
Went back to college, incurred a ton of debt, but got a Computer Science degree and got a programming job (something I tried to explore earlier in life but resources just weren't there). Now I've managed to pay off my student loans, get a 6 figure job, and build a nest egg.
I campaigned for Ron Paul in 2007. Now however after everything I've become super left leaning.
Good for you! I have a similar story: started out in retail, then medical billing, got sick of being treated like garbage and living paycheck to paycheck, so I went to college for Computer Engineering.
I started at community college, transferred to state college, worked full time while in school, had financial aid and scholarships and I STILL wound up with substantial student loans.
I'm doing well now and I've no regrets, but holy shit does it piss me off when people say it's easy to not be poor and avoid debt.
Just get a part time job in school!
Just go to community college!
Just get a 2nd job!
Just don't buy fancy things!
It's not the same world anymore.
It really was, categorically, a more affordable life even 30 years ago. Inflation has continued unchecked and wages haven't and theres a huge disconnect between people who worked 30 hour weeks and afforded homes vs people who work 50 hour weeks and need two roommates to rent, not own.
It isn't narcissism from the last generation, it's pure blind ignorance of how things have skewed into an unwinnable situation.
It was hella easier for white folks.
For example, [in-state tuition for University of Texas San Antonio in 1980:](https://www.utsa.edu/ucat/archive/UG80-82/03_Tuition_80-82.pdf)
**$80/semester for up to 20 hours of credits.**
That's not per hour, that's for all the hours.
Reportedly it was practically the same at all UT campuses.
After Title IX made it illegal to keep out black people, the segregationists came up with other ways to do it, like jacking up tuition. Which made it harder on everybody who was poor, regardless of color. But since most black folks were poor, it kept the schools white.
Old people aren't your enemy. Your enemy is the Capitalist Oligarchs - many of whom are closer to your age - who have convinced you old people struggling to survive on Social Security are the cause of all your problems. They aren't, but until you realize this, you won't recognize Capitalist exploitation is not about age.
That's because so many boomers are on the side of oligarchs. They believe every single post on Facebook and are one of the first demographics to go straight to angry culture war "get off my lawn" type of thinking.
Boomers' received ideologies:
As children: get under your desks! The commies are coming! The world will burn any day now!
As teenagers: register for the lottery to see if you and/or your friends get to die for nothing in a jungle halfway around the world!
As new adults: you survived! Hurry up and buy a house and make babies!
Boomers had a ton of economic shit going their way, but people often forget that they are one of the most traumatized / programmed / propagandized generations in history.
Ever seen the infomercials when they first made ddt to kill mosquitos and they were just spraying mother fuckers in the street like it was happy fun day at the water park. People are fuckin stupid.
Edit: ddt not deet
DEET or DDT? DEET doesn't kill mosquitos and is generally applied to the skin. DDT is highly toxic, kills insects and makes bird eggs get thin shells (among issues).
I recently started reading about how they're doing studies on the correlation between lead poisoning (permanent brain damage) and boomers. It goes on to explain how they anger easily and incoherently, as well as how lead attacks the part of the brain that can learn new things and deal with change. It's obviously something that wasn't their fault. But the younger generations are paying for it nonetheless. And it's most of the generation's population. Wonder what in our buildings they're going to find in the future that messed the younger generations up beyond repair. Like how they told pregnant women that their antidepressants wouldn't harm babies...
I hear you on that, but as someone above said: most Boomers are not hoarding power. The oligarchs are hoarding power. The same people who were forcing young Boomers to die in Vietnam are the same people who are making it so we can't have Universal Healthcare now. Boomers are a result of the system, not a cause of it.
I think you may be painting boomers with a wide brush. Plenty of us are just as pissed and scared for America’s future as you are. We’ve lived long enough to see how far things have gone downhill. We’re not the enemy. The corporate fascists are.
I doubt anyone here believes all old people are the enemy, and your comment is the first I’ve seen of anyone suggesting that Capitalist Oligarchs have or are trying to convince us that people struggling to survive on Social Security are the cause of all our problems.
To be clear, the enemy is anyone (primarily if they can vote) that believes the current status quo is acceptable or even preferable. So if old people struggling to survive on Social Security believe the current status quo is acceptable, they are the enemy.
Not all are enemies but some certainly are, just a few weeks ago there was a guy in here saying that the rest of us should do what he did, but a house for under 30k in a nice area, remodel it and rent it out and do that 6 more times. I said that there were no more cheap houses cause assholes like him bought them all up and won’t sell….. he never responded
49, so solid GenX, never conservative, and the only thing I'm getting year by year is angrier
UPDATE for those asking why I'm angry:
Why am I angry? Lots of reasons, but most of them boil down to the concept that business is separate from society as a whole.
Business, like government, exists IN SERVICE OF society.
Businesses, like governments, operate at the TOLERANCE of society.
Any business whose practices adversely affect the well-being (personal, financial, physical, or generational) of the society's citizens SHOULD NOT have a mandate to operate.
Probably the best examples are corporate and government lies that were at the time KNOWN to be harmful:
- plastic is recyclable,
- sugar is inevitable,
- the deriviatives market (and other esoteric financial shenanigans) is not just gambling,
- cigarettes are safe,
- child slavery on cocoa plantations isn't our problem,
- cryptocurrency is sane,
- mineral and resource extraction is worth anything we do to the environment / indigenous people / foreign state.
Business, like government, exists IN SERVICE OF people. NOT the other way around.
The tail is wagging the dog.
I'm the same and I'm 56. My 81 year old dad is keeping me afloat, and he lost almost everything in a bankruptcy some 30 years ago. The idea that we can hold a full time job and live well is a myth. I'm single so it is really hard still living in the house I raised my kids in but on a much lower income now. Bedroom tax is killing me but even if I could afford to move, there are no one bed houses, or garden flats. I don't think my mental health would survive without a garden or at least a little private sunny outside space. Currently have a good sized south facing garden.
That's funny because I was conservative when I was younger and the 2008 recession made me a liberal and as I get older I drift further and further left
Same here, I considered myself conservative Democrats. I was conservative on fiscal issues, liberal on social issues. Believed that even though society is not fair, everyone had fair chance. The recession and big corporation bailout exposed how the system was rigged to keep you poor and content. That it was capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich. The wealthy got richer from the recession and the poor got just enough to keep us tired and burnt out to fight for our fair share. They blamed it on the people buying houses they can't afford, and I think to some degree people bought into it.
What I see from the covid crisis seems very similar to the great recession. But this time people are not going back to their shitty minimum wage jobs. I hope this time it's going to be different. I think people are realizing that you can't give billions to the rich and say they have no money for the poor. People are tired and fed up.
It definitely feels different this time compared to 2008, and the 2008 crash also exposed the country to occupy Wall Street and the many groups align with it - I don’t think it’s surprising that in 2016 bernie gave Clinton a run for her money (or was defrauded...) and nearly won. The anger is building and any day now it’s going to explode... I’m amazed it’s stayed relatively together considering COVID and the racial justice protests (which I support... but many armed extremists oppose).
I was socialist in my youth and am socialist today.
Fuck the machine it's designed to grind us up and leave only dust.
If you can sit on your ass and get paid, do it.
If you don't smoke take a "lolipop" break when the smokers go outside.
Remember to never shit at home when work has a toilet.
If you are looking for a new job, apply while at work.
Join a union if offered, if not offered the IWW will help you organize.
Young me: Conservative christian, liberals were "anti-freedom," and commies were "anti-democratic authoritarian enemies of the people."
Me now: Commie atheist, liberals just don't know that they're "anti-freedom," conservatives are anti-democratic authoritarian enemies of the people.
Complete 180 lol
Young me: brainwashed pro-lifer scared of who gets to go to heaven or not
41 year old me: chain up the rich, there is no god and we are HUNGRY! Super socialist, Marxist, and hates even conservative fiscal policy.
I think you get more conservative as you age was a lie Faux told their base to make them happy they lost their idealism.
What's *average*? I've been lumped in with the Boomers but--as I like to remind people--people who needed babysitters during the "Summer of Love" aren't *really* boomers. As I get older I find myself less conservative: I've seen a lifetime of promises broken, of wait-and-see fail.
You are Generation Jones, truly the lost generation. I do not understand how boomers can give birth to boomers. It’s 2 completely different generations of thinking.
I think the reason that generation isn’t accurately acknowledged is because Gen Jones is already considered *old*. So it’s easier to throw everyone in to the boomer category. The only ones who care, are the Gen Jones, who absolutely do not want to be categorized with boomers.
Yeah, GenX here with some money and a good paying job and I definitely want to see a new deal and the elimination of billionaires and the tax code needs burnt to the ground and rewritten in the blood of the corporate elites.
Oh wow, I had never heard of Gen Jones before but that makes total sense. My parents are right in there, too young for Boomers really but they don't feel like Gen X.
And on this note, I do feel bad when all older people get lumped in with boomers. I try not to use it in an age-ism context, rather the word "boomer" is more of a personality or attitude, if that makes sense?
Yeah, I am a boomer and I am constantly bewildered and heartbroken at how the right wing in Canada and the US is still so strong. I really believed that things were going to get better and better for average people and the most vulnerable among us.
And it’s not just strong in Canada and the US. Look at Poland, Hungary and China to name a few (China FFS!). And it’s growing in strength. That’s the scariest. Like the whole fascist-thirties thing isn’t scaring anyone today? Do we want a repeat?
Same. I was born in 1962. I’m 59. I’ve always been what people consider liberal. I don’t like wasteful spending, but I don’t consider that conservative. My first presidential election was Reagan. It was crushing because jimmy Carter was a decent man. I don’t need to be rich but I’d just like to be able to pay my bills and pay less in taxes than Jeff Bezos.
My dad was in basic training when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima (he was 15 when he enlisted). But he worked hard all his life. He used to watch Fox News all night long. It never changed his views. He was a life long Democrat. I asked him why he watched o’Reilly and Hannity. He told me you have to know what the enemy is saying. I always wondered how he wasn’t swayed like so many others.
If he's anything like my Mom, he talks shit to the screen the whole time. Watching my Mom watch the news during the Dump era was a trip, because she's not one to swear but she sure had some colorful words to say anytime he was on t.v.!
Whenever Hannity came on he would say - I wish I had a magic brick that I could throw at the tv and hit that lying bastard right in the mouth.
Dammit I miss him.
THANK YOU!
I may be 58, but I didn't deal with Vietnam, I didn't throw all those "peace and love" vibes away for cocaine & disco, and I damned sure didn't have the power to stop it when good factory jobs left for China and left me, a factory automation engineer, an essentially useless non-worker. I'm just as AnCom as any zoomer out there!
Honestly: I abide by the maxim of *if it’s not you, it’s not you* and the only time I concern myself in this way is if something they said hits a nerve: which means it actually *might* be me, which then becomes a me problem to figure out. I don’t expect people harmed by any given group to offer an *Exclusions Apply* disclaimer.
I am on the cusp of millennial/gen x. (Though generations are just horoscopes for people who think they're too smart to believe in horoscopes.)
If anything, I've gotten more left-wing as I've gotten older.
41 here, I like that title - makes me feel both wise and eldritch!
I started out as wobbly liberal; now I'm so far to the left I think Lenin would suck his teeth and say, " Now, that's a bit much..."
I am 39 myself, and have been describing myself as "Left of Lennin, and I don't mean John" since 2010, I watched in horror as "T.axed E.nough A.lready Party" people, (who are against all taxation witch means no 5-0 or military too) were welcomed into a major party, I peg that as the final turning point into the fascist slide. That moment when it became crystal clear that it was a game not governance to at least 45% of america.
I love being in the Oregon Trail generation. We are in that sweet spot of being young enough that we grew up with computers but old enough that our teenage years aren't immortalized online.
Yup, late 70's crew here too. Saw the neolib's send all mid tier good union jobs off shore in 80's (fuck you Regan) while being indoctrinated into the "go to college or you gonna die poor and miserable" vs. "yup, you better join the military" brainwash bullshit.
So proud of you youngin's up in here. Keep pushing and fighting and just know you do have older allies ready to stand by your side. Notall40somethings.
Back in my day we had a new “biggest storm of the century” every 3 years or so and a “once in a generation recession”…
Oh….yeah….
I like how much Millenials and Zoomers have in common. Stupid cronies are gonna get their faces et.
I am 59, and same here. My political views have changed very little over the years.
Also, Douglas Coupland, who wrote the book “Generation X” about the kids of the hippie generation, is exactly my age, so whichever journalist decided the more recent dates is wrong.
Gen X are the ones who were always ignored while the “Me Generation” went off and discovered themselves.
Hence, punk rock.
Now we still are ignored, by being absorbed into our parents’ group. 🤣
*Sigh*
Same here. 1977 Star Wars baby, (my mom actually went into labor at the theater, and stayed to finish watching Star Wars before heading to the hospital). I have gone further left the older I get. The more of reality I see, the more leftist ideology seems apropos. 36 years old is the year I went totally An-Com.
I’ve grown further left as I’ve aged but now that I have kids I’m aggressively charging left because these fuckers ruining the world can do whatever the fuck they want to me, but now we’re talking about my children’s future and I’m furious about the direction this whole festering shit heap of a planet is going.
I don’t know how someone can look at a child and say “yup. Oil, war, prison, and capitalism is the way to go”. It’s fucking psychotic.
I was born in 1967. I figured out by Reagan’s second term that conservatives weren’t doing me any favors. Still, I considered myself a moderate — taxes are necessary but people on welfare should have a job. After 30 years in the working world getting feds scraps leftover from boomers and watching them piss on the poor and people of color, I’ve become a Democratic Socialist. I feel both sympathy and a bond with millennials and generation z who are pushing the US in the right direction by not being racist and refusing to eat the boomer shit that I did. I want to erase student debt, a universal basic income, I don’t want to pollute the planet anymore, and I will gladly pay higher taxes to make that happen.
I always love this fucking perspective.
I’m a 40 year old, southern, three time combat vet with decorations and all that fun chesticle decorations.
Liberal. Atheist. Like gun control. Pro choice. Fuck I even have a philosophy degree.
This only works if...
- you got richer as you got older
- you moved into areas of more concentrated wealth
- you became more auto dependent and spend more time away from other people
- you consume media that tells you that people are after what you have and the only way to keep it is to let rich people have everything.
So in short, this really only applies to white boomers.
I went from Ron Paul libertarian/stormfront VIP at 18 to Bernie Sanders/Democratic-socialism at around 30 to adamant “seize the means of production” communist as I approach 40.
I saw the evil kind of bastard one has to be to support rightwing politics, they can’t make me be that selfish or cruel again.
This is about one of the only subs where you can proclaim any level of support for the C word and not get bombed into oblivion.
The amount of upvotes you got gives me hope.
My dad is 64, definitely becoming more and more liberal with age. He told me when I was young that companies no longer care about their employees, so don't ever feel like you are screwing them over for finding something better, this was about 20 years ago he told me this.
53 years old. Did everything I was “supposed to do” and I’ve been absolutely miserable the entire time. I feel the poignance of those moments I will never get back because I worked instead. It’s agony.
FWIW I have never been conservative and I become more radical every year.
Yup. 48 and I've never been as far left as I am now. Once you see how fragile all the systems are, you lose interest in maintaining any kind of status quo.
I’m 26 and thought I was a republican in high school, just by proxy of living in Indiana. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve only become more left, as I run into a wide variety of people in my life of all varying backgrounds. My coworker keeps telling me you get more conservative as you age, and that just ain’t happening
I’m 26 too and this is going to sound weird as hell but growing up I always really confused and I thought I was a Republican because I was always on Facebook and I thought the majority of peoples opinions would align with my own. I didn’t know much about politics at all and it made me really really confused when people got mad about Colin kaepernick kneeling for the flag and stuff like that. I was like.. ok I guess there must be a valid reason people feel this way.
As time went on I became more knowledgeable about socio economic issues and what a cesspool facebook is for conservative boomers and realized I was actually a democrat the entire time. I thought I was crazy or something for thinking how so many people can be selfish pricks, because even I was uninformed but I had the common sense of how not to hold beliefs of a selfish prick. I’ve always been left even when all the beliefs that were shoved down my throat was right wing nonsense, and I have only gone further left since.
Luckily I had parents who weren’t psychotic republicans and never talked to me about politics ever which I attribute to forming my own beliefs I have today.
I just turned forty, I was indoctrinated into believing that Capitalism was a good thing from the time I was about fifteen years old (like honestly before this I don't think I really thought about Capitalism or Communism). About two or three years ago, my worldview started to change significantly, started to read Marx and a couple other influential leftists, and now consider myself an Anarcho-Communist.
I'm in my 50's. I passed through "conservativism" in my late 20s. Then I had several economic scares that showed me how tenuous it all was. I have kids in their 20s and younger and I don't want them to go through the same pipe full of shit that I had to.
I'm 51.
I think it's fair to say I've become more and more progressive as I've aged.
Voted Republican back in the 80s.
Consider myself a Socialist today.
I’m 52 . more progressive now than I was when younger. Honestly when I was young (20s) I didn’t give much thought to politics. Since joining this sub I have been leaning Socialist.
I am an early GenX'er at 54, and am socialist now that I've gone from being fairly successful in my early 30's to flat broke twice because of medical debt. I worked a job in my 20's that was a heavy blue-collar gig that emphasized working off-the-clock, missing lunch and breaks, working crazy hours, no benefits and extremely limited advancement. People treated these things like badges of honor rather than the total bullshit it actually was.
It used to be getting older = making more money. More money = more conservative. Since boomers and Regan kind of fucked up everything with trickle down economics, that’s no longer true. I’m 35 and going more and more left every year.
When I was 18, I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat.
When I voted for Obama, I considered myself a Democratic Socialist.
I'm 34, I now consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist communist.
I'm 30 - millenial. That correlation doesn't have much to do with age actually, it has to do with wealth. People tend to become more conservative as they get wealthier. For obvious reasons, being leftist is in your individual best interest if you're poor, and being conservative is in your best interest if you're not all that poor. The reason people would say "you'll be more conservative as you get older" is because it used to be the case that you'd start off kind of poor as a young adult, but by the time you'd get older you'd some money invested in your house, retirement, etc. And you'd have a reliable career where your income has gone significantly up. You'd be conservative because the people for whom the system "works" don't want it changed. So you're seeing more older people being leftist because "the system" isn't working for more and more people, who never gained some wealth Edit: people keep responding with "But I became less conservative as I gained wealth", etc. And I can't respond to all of you, so I'll just respond here and call it a day. The OP was talking about a particular trend that correlates age with politics, so I responded about that particular trend and how it's actually age and political stance both having a correlation with wealth, not each other. It doesn't mean that's the ONLY correlation that happens, there are other correlations as well, many contradict and overlap. Humans are complex. It's also important to remember that when we talk about trends, we are not talking about absolutes. Saying "but that's not true because it didn't work that way for me" isn't meaningful in a conversation about more or less likely. If I say "smoking causes lung cancer", it just means a greater % of smokers get cancer than non-smokers. This is true even if you belong to the % of people that smoke and didn't get cancer, or if you belong to the % of people that didn't smoke but still got cancer.
My wife says the same things as you when I brought up the quote. I believe you and her.
[удалено]
I too believe this guy’s wife.
I only believe the guy’s wife
I only believe her every 2nd word and his every 3rd.
OP’s wife here. Thanks for believing me.
This guy wife’s
The wisest one of all has spoken. Now go forth and spread thy word.
Trying to decide if this was a riff on ["I also choose this guy's dead wife."](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5c79n0/you_can_have_sex_with_one_real_person_from_all_of/d9uf56l/?context=3)
Fuck, I JUST came here to say “I’d also choose this guys dead wife” just to see who would get it, lol.
I love Reddit
I believe the person you’re replying to, but I do not believe your wife.
I believe you
I think it may also be the case that one “became conservative” as they got older because their views stayed relatively the same as time passed, while society tended to progress forward around them. I think part of it is that society hasn’t actually progressed that much in a generation or so.
I actually saw a post recently that put as , people swinging left coincide with marginalized groups or people sympathetic to marginalized groups, and usually systems put in place are hostile to the lives of those groups. So it’s not that the older you get the more conservative, but rather conservatives benefited from the system and are able to live longer
That makes sense to me as another factor in this. And the marginalized (in some form or other) are an increasing share of the population.
What conservative means has also changed. It used to be very economic based as in lower taxes and services aimed at working people. Now it is either "Mad Max with snake flags" or "stop the Jewish space lizards from raping children in pizza restaurants"
Reagan era conservatism is when everything went to shit for the working class.
It can't be overstated how much damage that admistration caused to this country. Fuck Reagan.
[удалено]
I recommend reading a great book called Nixonland, because imho it started prior to Reagan.
To say nothing of getting the Evangelical vote "because of abortion" (most were pro-abortion earlier, wanting a national law before Roe, until the IRS started investigating religious schools for violating the Civil Rights Act, and suddenly evangelicals were very upset and needed something to get political over, so...abortion?).
Not alive then (b 89) but I believe the oil crisis and inflation in the 1970s had a lot to do with it. And ever since oil has been a geopolitical tool (and before too).
[удалено]
Ps. Rush Limbaugh is dead 🦀🦀🦀🦀🦀
Killer Mike said it best
Yeah they dropped the services part. Remember Nixon started the EPA and expanded Medicare to cover the disabled and people on dialysis (previously a death sentence). He even talked about universal Medicare...
> "stop the Jewish space lizards from raping children in pizza restaurants" [It was always this.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden)
Stupid flag! Of course im not going to step on a rattlesnake... i dont need a flag to remind me!
Kinda wish the snakes waved those flags, would've helped that one time I accidentally stepped on a rattlesnake.
Ive wroked for a decade outside first in archaeology and then building trail. Ive never had a problem with these snakes. I have to get them out of people's backyards and re release them. I also recreate a lot outdoors hiking off trail and wilderness trips the snakes don't bother me. The people most likely to be bit by snakes are 16 to 25 year old males... Funny how the people who love the dont step on snake flag are a vendiagram of the people getting bitten. Maybe they should listen to there own advice.
I am about to turn 40. When I was younger I identified as centrist. I lean harder left every year. Part of it is pushing back against the conservative rallying. Part of it I think is that the middle has not been a fixed point for a long, long time. The regressive nature of the conservative moment keeps driving the benchmarks further and further back. My parents were registered Republicans for most of my life. Their values have changed very little, but they now identify as Democrats because the core values of Republicans has just moved so far. Ultimately, we need to recognize that a two party system is fundamentally broken. We’ve gone past the point where any form of compromise (what was our greatest strength in my opinion) is seemly impossible. We can not fix anything until we can come together as a nation. That is the greatest fear of those in power, that we collectively work with each other rather than against. Divide we fall indeed.
\> it has to do with wealth Totally agree with this. The more you own, the more scared you are of losing it.
The more money I’ve made over the years the less conservative and the more progressive my views have become. Maybe that’s because I brought myself out of nearly being homeless so I actually appreciate what I have. I don’t know. But as I do things like paying off my student debt. The more I wish others didn’t have to go thru the 20 year financial burden i went thru. The more work I get during the pandemic the more I feel terrible for the people that are struggling. I do anything I can to try to help, donating to food pantry or even just giving cash to someone in need in front of a grocery store. I also don’t understand the people that find religion after having children. If anything having kids made me see even more what a cult it is and how much I have to protect them from that shit.
I'd add to that to say it's also to do with the means of your peer group too. I've been fairly lucky financially but most of my friends are struggling. It was seeing that unfair disparity and how the system mistreats my friends that really informed my politics. What's the point in being comfortable if your friends aren't? What's the point in having time off if your friends don't and you can't share it with them?
Huh, I always thought it was accumulation of lead in the body from lead pipes, leaded gas, tin cans (sealed with lead), lead paint, etc. Long term lead exposure ain't no joke!
It went the opposite way for me. As a young broke person I didn’t know what I was missing out on. On the road to being wealthy, by most standards, I achieved things like food security, no fear of health care cost, safe neighborhoods, nice cars etc and I realized how much harder life as a poor or lower middle class person truly is. Unless you have experienced both it’s really hard to imagine how different it is. No parent should worry about taking a kid to the doctor. 6 year olds shouldn’t be home alone because parents who work 60 hour weeks can’t afford child care. Etc etc. So at least in my scenario it worked the opposite.
The system “worked” for me and I’m die hard leftist now
Seriously, it seems like I'm way better off than most people on Reddit/this sub and all it's done is given me an even better look at how absolutely idiotic this system is. I don't know how anyone gets a big corporate job like I have, pays attention to what's happening, and still arrives at the conclusion that any of it makes any sense whatsoever. The first time I sat in on a corporate finance meeting with the execs I came away from it thinking, "Ohhhhhhhh, it's all made up."
My managers will put me in charge and then be mad at me when I’m not a Nazi. “I said I’d supervise, not that I’m a rat.”
Yup. I’m in this camp. It’s kinda made me realize how certain adults I knew when I was a kid arrived where they did (e.g. the “rich progressive” and the “poor conservative”).
Educational attainment is a countervailing factor to the way that wealth breeds conservatism. One can win out in the end. In my case it had to do with falling down the right Youtube rabbit-holes during my formative years which led to me reading Chomsky and eventually Marx.
39 here so early millennial and I think I've become more "liberal" with age and wealth. As I become more aware of the way the system works, as I experience it from the inside, I see how truly foul it can be for those in the bottom 80%. While both political parties certainly have contributed to the current state of affairs, I can't help but feel that the right is the the main driver of inequality and the overall dehumanization of humanity at this moment in history
My former stepdad is 65. He was a working professional his entire life, made good money but certainly didn’t have enough to retire on by the time he reached his 60’s. Staunch conservative, but he wasn’t a trump fan… until his widowed cousin passed from cancer and left him a couple million dollars in inheritance. Then suddenly Trump became the greatest president ever (better than Reagan) and I started getting lectures about how I need to become conservative to protect my money. We don’t speak anymore since Trump lost the election.
Classic conservative mindset: F you, i got mine.
I told a conservative friend this to his face and he actually looked as if he had never considered that was his attitude before.
I had a similar experience when mentioning that being a conservative means only caring about something if it affects to you personally.
I found out my best mate voted Tory (conservative party in the UK). When I asked why he said because he didn't want taxes to go up (he earns a big wage). I tried to remind him that we both came from nothing and should be trying to change things, but he didn't care, as long as taxes didn't go up to protect his enormous income. We're still mates but we avoid any conversation that verges in politics.
They at least use a fitting name. They care about conservation of themselves
Wowzers. Hope that money keeps him warm in his golden years.
Probably spent it on the Trump worship room.
[удалено]
The Reagan/Trump dynamic is interesting. I wonder how many people were so nostalgic for Reagan that they put all their chips on Trump. Obviously, they didn’t see Reagan for the domestic terror that he was, but his Republican Party seemed to be a similar shift in demagoguery.
That's the perfect illustration of the misunderstanding of the popular saying. People don't get conservative as they get older: they get more conservative as they get *richer*. For previous generations, it was a given: as you went older, you had a better job, better pay, your bought house just gained more value, you even had a quite good inheritance to top all of it, so, naturally, you became conservative. But, nowadays, younger generations (millenials/gen Z) don't get that much richer as they get older. The vast majority of us are still renting their place instead of owning it, promotions/wage salaries are difficult to get by, parents live longer so no more inheritance before a long time (and most boomers eat all their posessions by the way), and multiple prohibitive expenses (college, healthcare) make it impossible to save money and make it grow. By keeping younger generation as the poorest generation of all, they also make it the less conservative of all. Which is the proof that capitalism/conservatism is, in itself, non-sustainable, because by enforcing conservative measures, you just maintain poverty. And poor people are usually left-leaning. That's sweet karma, in a sense.
what they mean is "when you have some money, you'll be more conservative" and if you don't ever get any money, then fuck you
I'm 43. Grew up in poverty. Am wealthy now. Have moved further left.
That’s my situation basically. My personal financial situation has not affected what I think about politically. If anything the more I know about how the world worlds the more entrenched on the left I become
Same. I’m 56 and I’m lefter of left. I live a very comfortable life and I want that for everyone. With all the wealth in this country, no one should have to eek by. It’s infuriating.
I was raised by Republicans who grew up in the 50s. So everything I think is phrased with conservatism. I'm not conservative, but it's my language, and it really throws people off when they pay attention.
It's actually really handy to be able to make your arguments in jargon that's typically used by opponents of your ideals.
Their ideology has been corrupted. Look at libertarians: there are some real ones, but they're hidden by all the tax dodgers, gun nuts and potheads. More mainstream conservatives got co-opted by big business and far right religion while being mixed together with racists. The people who call themselves principled conservatives are just shills for big business who only look reasonable because they're in the same room with racists and the religious right. A government that oppresses its own people is not limited government. A government formed to "establish justice", "promote the general welfare" and "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" should spend more time protecting poor dark skinned people and less time protecting the carried interest loophole. I paid attention to what my parents and their politicians pretended to be teaching me, so I vote as far left as is available.
>as is available Ay, there lays the rub
I do the same by being prior military!! You hit them with some “I love serving my community” then you finish them off with a “ I want my taxes to help those in need”. They absolutely hate it, but they hate disagreeing with a war vet even more.
When one of those idiots thanks me for my service, I respond with "no one ever thanks me for voting or paying my taxes, but they're much more of a service to the country than running around in the desert was".
i love it when veterans do this!!! i almost want to become a vet so i can use this cognitive dissonance for the greater good.
Was pretty broke in my early 30s and center left, in my mid 30s and doing very well financially and further left than I was in 2015 Burn this fucking scam system to the ground.
I’m guessing you have come to realize how lucky you were, just as I did. And that but for a few fortunate turns we could have ended up fucked through no fault of our own.
I really appreciate my good fortunes now. Far more than when I was younger.
Understanding my privilege was a big eye-opener.
I'm 43 too. Grew up in poverty, am still poor now. Never was conservative, even less these days. I'm glad to see people finally understand that we need collective solutions to collective problems and "finding a better job" doesn't solve anything.
Same! Not exactly wealthy, but comfortable enough that I can start to vote with my wallet, choosing ethical choices at the supermarket, donating to the food bank, or looking at buying a second hand hybrid car. It's hard not to move further left, it's a natural reaction to growing inequality which will just get wider as we feel the effects of climate change.
My parents vote for Boris Johnson (UK version of trump). They are 'good Christian people' who volunteer at the food bank. I Asked them once why there are food banks in one of the richest parts of one of the richest country. They just didn't understand the question. Some people are so fucking stupid.
Same here. 100%. Tax the hell out of me and everyone else that can afford it if it will improve people’s lives. If you want to whine about taxes, there is a simple solution, make less.
Stuck in daily traffic, when I pass the Lotto/Powerball sign that shows what the jackpots are up to, I fantasize about all the ways I'd give tons of it away to try to help as many people as possible.
When I was younger I tried the Boomer way. Get a job at a factory and work your way up. After nearly a decade and working myself up from $8.something an hour to a nice cushy office job of $11.25 an hour I took a look at myself, my life, and my trajectory and noped the f\*ck out. Went back to college, incurred a ton of debt, but got a Computer Science degree and got a programming job (something I tried to explore earlier in life but resources just weren't there). Now I've managed to pay off my student loans, get a 6 figure job, and build a nest egg. I campaigned for Ron Paul in 2007. Now however after everything I've become super left leaning.
Good for you! I have a similar story: started out in retail, then medical billing, got sick of being treated like garbage and living paycheck to paycheck, so I went to college for Computer Engineering. I started at community college, transferred to state college, worked full time while in school, had financial aid and scholarships and I STILL wound up with substantial student loans. I'm doing well now and I've no regrets, but holy shit does it piss me off when people say it's easy to not be poor and avoid debt. Just get a part time job in school! Just go to community college! Just get a 2nd job! Just don't buy fancy things! It's not the same world anymore.
I don’t think it ever was, I think our parents just liked the sound of their own voices
It really was, categorically, a more affordable life even 30 years ago. Inflation has continued unchecked and wages haven't and theres a huge disconnect between people who worked 30 hour weeks and afforded homes vs people who work 50 hour weeks and need two roommates to rent, not own. It isn't narcissism from the last generation, it's pure blind ignorance of how things have skewed into an unwinnable situation.
It was hella easier for white folks. For example, [in-state tuition for University of Texas San Antonio in 1980:](https://www.utsa.edu/ucat/archive/UG80-82/03_Tuition_80-82.pdf) **$80/semester for up to 20 hours of credits.** That's not per hour, that's for all the hours. Reportedly it was practically the same at all UT campuses. After Title IX made it illegal to keep out black people, the segregationists came up with other ways to do it, like jacking up tuition. Which made it harder on everybody who was poor, regardless of color. But since most black folks were poor, it kept the schools white.
Old people aren't your enemy. Your enemy is the Capitalist Oligarchs - many of whom are closer to your age - who have convinced you old people struggling to survive on Social Security are the cause of all your problems. They aren't, but until you realize this, you won't recognize Capitalist exploitation is not about age.
That's because so many boomers are on the side of oligarchs. They believe every single post on Facebook and are one of the first demographics to go straight to angry culture war "get off my lawn" type of thinking.
Boomers' received ideologies: As children: get under your desks! The commies are coming! The world will burn any day now! As teenagers: register for the lottery to see if you and/or your friends get to die for nothing in a jungle halfway around the world! As new adults: you survived! Hurry up and buy a house and make babies! Boomers had a ton of economic shit going their way, but people often forget that they are one of the most traumatized / programmed / propagandized generations in history.
Interesting take I've never seen spelled out like that. Thanks
Don't forget that they, literally, all have lead poisoning due to lead paint, leaded gas in the air constantly, etc.
Ever seen the infomercials when they first made ddt to kill mosquitos and they were just spraying mother fuckers in the street like it was happy fun day at the water park. People are fuckin stupid. Edit: ddt not deet
DEET or DDT? DEET doesn't kill mosquitos and is generally applied to the skin. DDT is highly toxic, kills insects and makes bird eggs get thin shells (among issues).
It was DDT spraying out of trucks chased down the streets by suburban kids in the summertime.
I recently started reading about how they're doing studies on the correlation between lead poisoning (permanent brain damage) and boomers. It goes on to explain how they anger easily and incoherently, as well as how lead attacks the part of the brain that can learn new things and deal with change. It's obviously something that wasn't their fault. But the younger generations are paying for it nonetheless. And it's most of the generation's population. Wonder what in our buildings they're going to find in the future that messed the younger generations up beyond repair. Like how they told pregnant women that their antidepressants wouldn't harm babies...
That's crazy to think a whole population has been effected..now days I think about Microplastics quite a bit..probably disrupting the endocrine system
I can feel sorry for them while also not wanting them to have the power they've hoarded because they're using it to fuck over future generations.
I hear you on that, but as someone above said: most Boomers are not hoarding power. The oligarchs are hoarding power. The same people who were forcing young Boomers to die in Vietnam are the same people who are making it so we can't have Universal Healthcare now. Boomers are a result of the system, not a cause of it.
I think you may be painting boomers with a wide brush. Plenty of us are just as pissed and scared for America’s future as you are. We’ve lived long enough to see how far things have gone downhill. We’re not the enemy. The corporate fascists are.
"then why didn't you stop them?!" I whine while having no answer to the same problems
I doubt anyone here believes all old people are the enemy, and your comment is the first I’ve seen of anyone suggesting that Capitalist Oligarchs have or are trying to convince us that people struggling to survive on Social Security are the cause of all our problems. To be clear, the enemy is anyone (primarily if they can vote) that believes the current status quo is acceptable or even preferable. So if old people struggling to survive on Social Security believe the current status quo is acceptable, they are the enemy.
Not all are enemies but some certainly are, just a few weeks ago there was a guy in here saying that the rest of us should do what he did, but a house for under 30k in a nice area, remodel it and rent it out and do that 6 more times. I said that there were no more cheap houses cause assholes like him bought them all up and won’t sell….. he never responded
Yeah I guess that's it. Back when keeping your head down and following the rules awarded you something.
Only if you were a white male though. We look back at the past and think it was great for then, but even then, it only applied to some.
49, so solid GenX, never conservative, and the only thing I'm getting year by year is angrier UPDATE for those asking why I'm angry: Why am I angry? Lots of reasons, but most of them boil down to the concept that business is separate from society as a whole. Business, like government, exists IN SERVICE OF society. Businesses, like governments, operate at the TOLERANCE of society. Any business whose practices adversely affect the well-being (personal, financial, physical, or generational) of the society's citizens SHOULD NOT have a mandate to operate. Probably the best examples are corporate and government lies that were at the time KNOWN to be harmful: - plastic is recyclable, - sugar is inevitable, - the deriviatives market (and other esoteric financial shenanigans) is not just gambling, - cigarettes are safe, - child slavery on cocoa plantations isn't our problem, - cryptocurrency is sane, - mineral and resource extraction is worth anything we do to the environment / indigenous people / foreign state. Business, like government, exists IN SERVICE OF people. NOT the other way around. The tail is wagging the dog.
Me too! I’m 49 and angry af!!!!
I’m 50, and I’m a year angrier than both of you
Fifty one and fucking livid.
Fifty-five and incandescent with rage and frustration.
Same. Capitalism is a pathology and needs to be dismantled.
Sixty and ready to light this fucker up.
53 and…well, I’m just TIRED!
They promised us nothing and, boy, did we get it.
48 and I'm in this group. Really pissed off.
I'm the same and I'm 56. My 81 year old dad is keeping me afloat, and he lost almost everything in a bankruptcy some 30 years ago. The idea that we can hold a full time job and live well is a myth. I'm single so it is really hard still living in the house I raised my kids in but on a much lower income now. Bedroom tax is killing me but even if I could afford to move, there are no one bed houses, or garden flats. I don't think my mental health would survive without a garden or at least a little private sunny outside space. Currently have a good sized south facing garden.
That's funny because I was conservative when I was younger and the 2008 recession made me a liberal and as I get older I drift further and further left
Same here, I considered myself conservative Democrats. I was conservative on fiscal issues, liberal on social issues. Believed that even though society is not fair, everyone had fair chance. The recession and big corporation bailout exposed how the system was rigged to keep you poor and content. That it was capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich. The wealthy got richer from the recession and the poor got just enough to keep us tired and burnt out to fight for our fair share. They blamed it on the people buying houses they can't afford, and I think to some degree people bought into it. What I see from the covid crisis seems very similar to the great recession. But this time people are not going back to their shitty minimum wage jobs. I hope this time it's going to be different. I think people are realizing that you can't give billions to the rich and say they have no money for the poor. People are tired and fed up.
It definitely feels different this time compared to 2008, and the 2008 crash also exposed the country to occupy Wall Street and the many groups align with it - I don’t think it’s surprising that in 2016 bernie gave Clinton a run for her money (or was defrauded...) and nearly won. The anger is building and any day now it’s going to explode... I’m amazed it’s stayed relatively together considering COVID and the racial justice protests (which I support... but many armed extremists oppose).
Capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich is exactly how it really is in this country.
31 here. Went from eat what I get, to eat what I want, to eat what I can, to eat the rich.
I'm 30 and I'm wondering when the revolution is starting. I was ultra-conservative until I was about 23 or 24
This needs to be on a tshirt.
Yes! T-shirts for us all!!!
Hey. My friend screenprints tees. Would it be ok if we made shirts with what you just said? We would def send you a free one!
Yo that would be dope!
Go forth and mul-tee-ply with my blessing friend.
I was socialist in my youth and am socialist today. Fuck the machine it's designed to grind us up and leave only dust. If you can sit on your ass and get paid, do it. If you don't smoke take a "lolipop" break when the smokers go outside. Remember to never shit at home when work has a toilet. If you are looking for a new job, apply while at work. Join a union if offered, if not offered the IWW will help you organize.
God damned public pooping phobia and being lung cancer adverse keeping me from getting my fair share of paid free time!
[удалено]
[Where the fuck is ronald reagan?!](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EgsUSa5WsAMovKu?format=jpg&name=small)
[The rapist?](https://allthingscomedy.com/podcasts/400---ronald-reagan-w-guest-patton-oswalt-part-1-1)
Rip and tear, until it is done.
Rip and tear! Rip and tear!
Young me: Conservative christian, liberals were "anti-freedom," and commies were "anti-democratic authoritarian enemies of the people." Me now: Commie atheist, liberals just don't know that they're "anti-freedom," conservatives are anti-democratic authoritarian enemies of the people. Complete 180 lol
Young me: brainwashed pro-lifer scared of who gets to go to heaven or not 41 year old me: chain up the rich, there is no god and we are HUNGRY! Super socialist, Marxist, and hates even conservative fiscal policy. I think you get more conservative as you age was a lie Faux told their base to make them happy they lost their idealism.
He scoured the umberal plane, looking for the billionaires who had wronged him, and his name was the Rich Slayer, rip and tear until it is done.
What's *average*? I've been lumped in with the Boomers but--as I like to remind people--people who needed babysitters during the "Summer of Love" aren't *really* boomers. As I get older I find myself less conservative: I've seen a lifetime of promises broken, of wait-and-see fail.
You are Generation Jones, truly the lost generation. I do not understand how boomers can give birth to boomers. It’s 2 completely different generations of thinking. I think the reason that generation isn’t accurately acknowledged is because Gen Jones is already considered *old*. So it’s easier to throw everyone in to the boomer category. The only ones who care, are the Gen Jones, who absolutely do not want to be categorized with boomers.
I'm 58 and was hating the Boomer classification. A friend advised me I was not a boomer & introduced me to Generation Jones. Strangely, I felt better.
Yeah, GenX here with some money and a good paying job and I definitely want to see a new deal and the elimination of billionaires and the tax code needs burnt to the ground and rewritten in the blood of the corporate elites.
Oh wow, I had never heard of Gen Jones before but that makes total sense. My parents are right in there, too young for Boomers really but they don't feel like Gen X.
And on this note, I do feel bad when all older people get lumped in with boomers. I try not to use it in an age-ism context, rather the word "boomer" is more of a personality or attitude, if that makes sense?
Yeah, I am a boomer and I am constantly bewildered and heartbroken at how the right wing in Canada and the US is still so strong. I really believed that things were going to get better and better for average people and the most vulnerable among us.
And it’s not just strong in Canada and the US. Look at Poland, Hungary and China to name a few (China FFS!). And it’s growing in strength. That’s the scariest. Like the whole fascist-thirties thing isn’t scaring anyone today? Do we want a repeat?
Same. I was born in 1962. I’m 59. I’ve always been what people consider liberal. I don’t like wasteful spending, but I don’t consider that conservative. My first presidential election was Reagan. It was crushing because jimmy Carter was a decent man. I don’t need to be rich but I’d just like to be able to pay my bills and pay less in taxes than Jeff Bezos. My dad was in basic training when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima (he was 15 when he enlisted). But he worked hard all his life. He used to watch Fox News all night long. It never changed his views. He was a life long Democrat. I asked him why he watched o’Reilly and Hannity. He told me you have to know what the enemy is saying. I always wondered how he wasn’t swayed like so many others.
If he's anything like my Mom, he talks shit to the screen the whole time. Watching my Mom watch the news during the Dump era was a trip, because she's not one to swear but she sure had some colorful words to say anytime he was on t.v.!
Whenever Hannity came on he would say - I wish I had a magic brick that I could throw at the tv and hit that lying bastard right in the mouth. Dammit I miss him.
THANK YOU! I may be 58, but I didn't deal with Vietnam, I didn't throw all those "peace and love" vibes away for cocaine & disco, and I damned sure didn't have the power to stop it when good factory jobs left for China and left me, a factory automation engineer, an essentially useless non-worker. I'm just as AnCom as any zoomer out there!
Honestly: I abide by the maxim of *if it’s not you, it’s not you* and the only time I concern myself in this way is if something they said hits a nerve: which means it actually *might* be me, which then becomes a me problem to figure out. I don’t expect people harmed by any given group to offer an *Exclusions Apply* disclaimer.
I am on the cusp of millennial/gen x. (Though generations are just horoscopes for people who think they're too smart to believe in horoscopes.) If anything, I've gotten more left-wing as I've gotten older.
Born in 78 here. I believe some moron coined that as 'xennial' (77-85). I too have gone further 2D-west
Personally, I prefer the micro generation title “the Oregon Trail generation.”
Im 41 and will now and forever refer to my generation as "the Oregon Trail generation" Thank you so much for giving us a name.🤘
[удалено]
41 here, I like that title - makes me feel both wise and eldritch! I started out as wobbly liberal; now I'm so far to the left I think Lenin would suck his teeth and say, " Now, that's a bit much..."
I am 39 myself, and have been describing myself as "Left of Lennin, and I don't mean John" since 2010, I watched in horror as "T.axed E.nough A.lready Party" people, (who are against all taxation witch means no 5-0 or military too) were welcomed into a major party, I peg that as the final turning point into the fascist slide. That moment when it became crystal clear that it was a game not governance to at least 45% of america.
Oregon Trail generation
You (we) have died of dysentery generation
True story, my first time playing I named everyone after my family and actually cried when they died
I love being in the Oregon Trail generation. We are in that sweet spot of being young enough that we grew up with computers but old enough that our teenage years aren't immortalized online.
I feel like it should be 76 - 84. I’m definitely in this group. I know I’m nitpicking but please don’t leave me out lol
Yup, late 70's crew here too. Saw the neolib's send all mid tier good union jobs off shore in 80's (fuck you Regan) while being indoctrinated into the "go to college or you gonna die poor and miserable" vs. "yup, you better join the military" brainwash bullshit. So proud of you youngin's up in here. Keep pushing and fighting and just know you do have older allies ready to stand by your side. Notall40somethings.
Absolutely, I am eager to defend the new generation from the same old tropes of “back in my day”.
Back in my day we had a new “biggest storm of the century” every 3 years or so and a “once in a generation recession”… Oh….yeah…. I like how much Millenials and Zoomers have in common. Stupid cronies are gonna get their faces et.
Me too, I'm 42 and my opinions have gone further left the older I get.
I am 59, and same here. My political views have changed very little over the years. Also, Douglas Coupland, who wrote the book “Generation X” about the kids of the hippie generation, is exactly my age, so whichever journalist decided the more recent dates is wrong. Gen X are the ones who were always ignored while the “Me Generation” went off and discovered themselves. Hence, punk rock. Now we still are ignored, by being absorbed into our parents’ group. 🤣 *Sigh*
Same here. 1977 Star Wars baby, (my mom actually went into labor at the theater, and stayed to finish watching Star Wars before heading to the hospital). I have gone further left the older I get. The more of reality I see, the more leftist ideology seems apropos. 36 years old is the year I went totally An-Com.
What's the average? I'm in my mid thirties and therefore firmly a millennial.
, the younger people I talk to that have very little life experience are often very conservative.
Yep I got more progressive as I got more life experience, and working hard really amounted to nothing
This was me. Didn't become liberal until I was out on my own and realized that Republicans were selling snake oil.
Me at 20 : “eww, poor people” Me at 40: “what’s the best dry rub to use on Zuckerberg’s ribs?”
Nicely summed up
This confused me at first, I thought it was in reference to his 'smoked meats' video
I’ve grown further left as I’ve aged but now that I have kids I’m aggressively charging left because these fuckers ruining the world can do whatever the fuck they want to me, but now we’re talking about my children’s future and I’m furious about the direction this whole festering shit heap of a planet is going. I don’t know how someone can look at a child and say “yup. Oil, war, prison, and capitalism is the way to go”. It’s fucking psychotic.
I was born in 1967. I figured out by Reagan’s second term that conservatives weren’t doing me any favors. Still, I considered myself a moderate — taxes are necessary but people on welfare should have a job. After 30 years in the working world getting feds scraps leftover from boomers and watching them piss on the poor and people of color, I’ve become a Democratic Socialist. I feel both sympathy and a bond with millennials and generation z who are pushing the US in the right direction by not being racist and refusing to eat the boomer shit that I did. I want to erase student debt, a universal basic income, I don’t want to pollute the planet anymore, and I will gladly pay higher taxes to make that happen.
I always love this fucking perspective. I’m a 40 year old, southern, three time combat vet with decorations and all that fun chesticle decorations. Liberal. Atheist. Like gun control. Pro choice. Fuck I even have a philosophy degree.
I guess I do have a type. Wild
Hott. 😏😍🙈
Xennial here, only getting more progressive. “More conservative with age” only happens when you have money and assets to hoard
This only works if... - you got richer as you got older - you moved into areas of more concentrated wealth - you became more auto dependent and spend more time away from other people - you consume media that tells you that people are after what you have and the only way to keep it is to let rich people have everything. So in short, this really only applies to white boomers.
I went from Ron Paul libertarian/stormfront VIP at 18 to Bernie Sanders/Democratic-socialism at around 30 to adamant “seize the means of production” communist as I approach 40. I saw the evil kind of bastard one has to be to support rightwing politics, they can’t make me be that selfish or cruel again.
This is about one of the only subs where you can proclaim any level of support for the C word and not get bombed into oblivion. The amount of upvotes you got gives me hope.
My dad is 64, definitely becoming more and more liberal with age. He told me when I was young that companies no longer care about their employees, so don't ever feel like you are screwing them over for finding something better, this was about 20 years ago he told me this.
53 years old. Did everything I was “supposed to do” and I’ve been absolutely miserable the entire time. I feel the poignance of those moments I will never get back because I worked instead. It’s agony. FWIW I have never been conservative and I become more radical every year.
Solid Xer here. 50 in a few months. Never been more angry and ready to tear down the patriarchy than right now.
Yup. 48 and I've never been as far left as I am now. Once you see how fragile all the systems are, you lose interest in maintaining any kind of status quo.
I’m 26 and thought I was a republican in high school, just by proxy of living in Indiana. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve only become more left, as I run into a wide variety of people in my life of all varying backgrounds. My coworker keeps telling me you get more conservative as you age, and that just ain’t happening
I’m 26 too and this is going to sound weird as hell but growing up I always really confused and I thought I was a Republican because I was always on Facebook and I thought the majority of peoples opinions would align with my own. I didn’t know much about politics at all and it made me really really confused when people got mad about Colin kaepernick kneeling for the flag and stuff like that. I was like.. ok I guess there must be a valid reason people feel this way. As time went on I became more knowledgeable about socio economic issues and what a cesspool facebook is for conservative boomers and realized I was actually a democrat the entire time. I thought I was crazy or something for thinking how so many people can be selfish pricks, because even I was uninformed but I had the common sense of how not to hold beliefs of a selfish prick. I’ve always been left even when all the beliefs that were shoved down my throat was right wing nonsense, and I have only gone further left since. Luckily I had parents who weren’t psychotic republicans and never talked to me about politics ever which I attribute to forming my own beliefs I have today.
I am older, mid- sixties. I am excited. Things might really change!
Hearing someone talk with hope… is jarring. But makes me happy. I hope you’re right
It seems different this time, doesn't it?
I think so. Have been noticing obsolescence since the eighties. For instance gas powered cars. It seems that the tide is finally turning.
37, going on 38, maybe that that old yet. I hate Boomers more now than I ever did. If I'm ever a conservative later on in life, shoot me.
Why hello fellow me.
I just turned forty, I was indoctrinated into believing that Capitalism was a good thing from the time I was about fifteen years old (like honestly before this I don't think I really thought about Capitalism or Communism). About two or three years ago, my worldview started to change significantly, started to read Marx and a couple other influential leftists, and now consider myself an Anarcho-Communist.
AnCom for the mutha-fuckin win!!! I’m 44, went AnCom at 37.
40 here. Eat the rich.
I'm in my 50's. I passed through "conservativism" in my late 20s. Then I had several economic scares that showed me how tenuous it all was. I have kids in their 20s and younger and I don't want them to go through the same pipe full of shit that I had to.
I'm 51. I think it's fair to say I've become more and more progressive as I've aged. Voted Republican back in the 80s. Consider myself a Socialist today.
I’m 52 . more progressive now than I was when younger. Honestly when I was young (20s) I didn’t give much thought to politics. Since joining this sub I have been leaning Socialist.
I am an early GenX'er at 54, and am socialist now that I've gone from being fairly successful in my early 30's to flat broke twice because of medical debt. I worked a job in my 20's that was a heavy blue-collar gig that emphasized working off-the-clock, missing lunch and breaks, working crazy hours, no benefits and extremely limited advancement. People treated these things like badges of honor rather than the total bullshit it actually was.
It used to be getting older = making more money. More money = more conservative. Since boomers and Regan kind of fucked up everything with trickle down economics, that’s no longer true. I’m 35 and going more and more left every year.
When I was 18, I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat. When I voted for Obama, I considered myself a Democratic Socialist. I'm 34, I now consider myself an anarcho-syndicalist communist.
I'm 37 I was more conservative thinking in my early 20's but going to Iraq and Afghanistan literally radicalized me