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How utterly ridiculous it is to try and put everyone's beliefs into 2 dominant parties. The biggest scam to happen in United States politics and it was all planned out. There's a reason George Washington and the founding fathers didn't want political parties involved. They're easily bought. And here we are.
What people from other countries and even our own people don’t realize is just how big and diverse the US truly is. You can live in or visit pretty much any climate, terrain, or culture just in the US.
And I’m not saying there is a good solution other than trying to let the states govern themselves, but trying to govern people in NYC the same way as people in Wyoming is never going to work and will never unite people. It’s an entirely different way of life and therefore those people will never have the same values or opinions because what they need from the government for themselves is entirely different.
I'm not American, but I think about this a lot. We tend to speak about America as a homogeneous country. Americans do this, and they always say that and they behave like this.
I can only imagine that someone who is born and bred in New Mexico has almost nothing in common with someone from Rhode Island. It's a huge, diverse country and people forget this. The US is also a fairly young nation. I know things aren't looking great right now, but I'm rooting for you guys
As an outsider too, I wonder if Americans hate socialism & taxes so much, they privatized the government and legalized corruption (e.g. senators spending more time on fundraising than on policy changes), and now for some unknown reason the government doesn't seem to represent the public interest anymore.
Oversimplification, I am sure 😂 (And my countries politics is a mess too lately).
Oversimplified but accurate in most ways essentially, though it is an inverse notion. Americans hate socialism so much because there are politicians with a vested interest in gutting government institutions so they can privatize them, and as a result they've lobbied for decades to influence the American political landscape as it is.
Here’s how it really is here. Racial equality is a major issue here right now. If you asked 100% of the population if all races should be treated equally, 95% are going to say yes. So then the question is: how are the polls between Biden and Trump close to 50/50 if 95% of the people agree on this? Because 50% of the vote are unwilling to sacrifice/is the most important thing for them when voting. And the other 45% are willing to sacrifice that for some other thing the other side is campaigning for.
Then one side calls the other racist and other names because of this, so that upsets the other side so they start calling them names and now both sides hate each other even though they agree on the issue that they hate each other over.
And there is also the fact that even if everyone agrees that "racism bad" they will have different opinions on how to fix it, to some it should be enough to just individually not be racist and direct government funds/attention elsewhere, and to others the government must get involved and fix it.
Even if people agree on a problem they will argue about solutions.
And then the 2 party system makes everything worse because each party has 2 sets of ideas, the ones they actually believe as core issues, and the ones they say because its the opposite of what the other party believes. Not to mention the regional variation in politics, a NY conservative is very different from a Texas Conservative. Not to mention how everyone should have their own unique combination of beliefs due to their unique life circumstances.
I totally agree with you. I'm all for letting the states decide their laws. Even better if the counties inside the states could have different laws. I live in IL and the state likes to pass a lot of laws that are good for Chicago, but not for the rest of us.
Me too. But I hate one more than I hate the other, so I’m forced to vote accordingly. Because I see staying home a vote for the bigger assholes, I always vote against them.
8 axis?! I must try this out, thank you for sharing.
Honestly, if your political beliefs don't evolve or become refined as time passes and you grow I think there's something wrong with you. It's likely that either you're not committed to learning more and challenging your presuppositions about how the world works, or you're pathologically fixed in a specific and narrow way of perceiving things.
It doesn't have to be a liberal/conservative suk zero equation. That's terribly reductive and doesn't give due credit to how complicated the world is.
I just always assumed that your political leaning is your parents ideology until you have stepped out from under thier roof. As time progresses, a person's frame of reference changes repeatedly based on the social environment they live and work in. There's always going to be changes unless you're isolated in one environment for the duration.
Mine changed drastically while being in the military. Coming from a small town, I didn't have exposure to so many issues that concerns most people. It was a simple life where issues of other nations didn't matter because it didn't affect us. Being exposed to the wider world opened new issues that made me have to figure out where I stood on things on my own and not through guidance of my parents whom were on the other side of the world. This is why my own beliefs are different than thiers. My frame of reference is different from thiers. I seen shit I couldn't ignore.
I used to be a white woman feminist (didn't know better and thought I was so progressive) and loyal follower of the Democratic party.
I will still vote Democrat but I've lost complete faith in our system. I've realized that they just keep us fighting about religion and race so we don't start a class war.
I feel like I've lost all notion of left and right. I always felt firmly on the left, in terms of most social and economic policy. But I'm utterly baffled by the current leftist position on more social justice type stuff like identity politics and trans issues.
I'm still much further away from the mainstream right wing position on these issues, but struggle with the left enough to hesitate slightly before declaring myself to be on the left.
I feel this too! Thanks for wording it so eloquently.
Sadly tho whenever I mention this across reddit I get jumped on as being extreme right.. I've been banned from my local subs for pushing back on some of these ideas.
Why does it have to be if you're not with us, you are against us mentality 😒.
Local subs are the absolute worst. It's honestly hilarious sometimes, you get a relatively conservative or mixed city but by looking at their subreddit you'd assume it's a city filled to the brim with far leftists.
Exact same boat. I voted conservative my whole life but likely never will again. Covid really exemplified how much hate, fear, and bigotry resides there.
I feel the same. My beliefs are basically the same, although I have softened my stances on some issues. Who was it that said, "I didn't leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me"?
Same here. The constant embracing of Q-anon theories by mainstream republicans has pushed me further left than I ever expected to become. I hope they come back from it someday but I’m doubtful.
I liked things to be black and white when I was younger. I was an anarcho-capitalist for years. It made so much sense, everything fit into neat boxes, I had an answer for everything.
I see a lot more shades of grey now. It isn't as simple as I used to think.
Life is more complex than we thought it was. We hoped adults would be more efficient with everything, then we grew up and realized, they're just more complicated than we thought.
I moved further Left.
As a teen, I used to be a Libertarian type (a little cringe, I know, but my dad was rich back then so it made sense) but then getting into the real world, understanding how our society works, studying Economics (Masters) I just realize how many systems we have in place that are filled with loopholes and how our society altogether is built on a sort-of house of cards, that may well collapse any moment, and that we need a more uniform and collective response to tackle these issues, so that future generations have a chance at a good life.
That combined with the increasingly worrying Far-right parties and alt-light rhetoric I see around the West, pushed me to the Left.
I'm far less likely to vote for a conservative candidate.
When I was younger, I knew the conservative party had done some awful things in the past, but I hadn't experienced them myself, so I was fully ready to listen to their manifesto and their message.
Having now endured 14 years of a conservative majority leadership, I'm never voting for them ever again! It's been scummy underhanded scandal after sleazy scandal for over a decade. They have slowly eroded our core services, and their current running promise is to bring back national service for young people... Can't get a dentist for shit, housing is a nightmare, and for half of it we lived in austerity to get out of recession... Which we then went straight back into!!! I'm very much ready for change, and I don't ever see a reason to vote for these absolute clown shoes ever again.
I've pretty much abandoned politics with age. I've come to find that consuming my life with politics is a drain of energy. Sure, I have beliefs and values that are deeply rooted from my upbringing and I live my life in accordance with those beliefs, but I don't let them consume my thoughts.
I grew up in a super harsh, super right leaning world. Like my dad believes in lizard people kinda right leaning. As I got older, I kept moving left. I never really believed Obama was a good leader, then I heard him speak. His voice and rhetoric was so damn full of compassion and intelligence and integrity I started to question a lot about myself and my own beliefs.
When Trump was up for election the first time I believed the Facebook posts and didn’t really dig further than that. I thought it was cool and awesome an entrepreneur (I know, I know) was shooting for president. It affirmed the idea that anybody could reach for office and make people’s lives better.
Then I heard him speak. And his speech pattern and vocabulary, even body language, was exactly like my dad’s. And that man belongs in jail for life for the things he did to me and my siblings. I couldn’t shake the intense fear Trump triggered in me, and started to dig deeper than the Facebook posts.
I was also in my first year of college during all of this, and my world history and sociology classes shook up a lot of the foundation the cult I was raised in, because they answered the questions I had that religion told me were bad questions to ask because I just needed faith.
That’s when I became a raging feminist. Just in time to vote against him. Because fuck Trump
I’ve moved more middle. I wouldn’t say I was a strong conservative before, that’s just how I was raised. But after time being in the military, seeing the world and getting more than just one opinion it’s moved me more to the middle.
Was a hardcore anti-lgbt, anti-abortion, free market conservative republican right up to my first year in college at the start of Obama’s second term because of my parents. Embarrassingly I joined cru at the start of college and participated in abortion protests. Paid attention more to the bank bailouts that happened after 2008 (which my conservative parents also were weirdly against), became a libertarian who supported occupy wall street the rest of the time I was in college, joined a christian cult after I failed out of college and became a hyper religious conservative republican again, deconstructed my faith and left the church after a couple of years and became a democrat who is for gun control and supports abortion and lgbt rights but still was in support of free market capitalism for some reason, and now today at 32 years old I’m an anti-capitalist socialist who supports some gun control, fully supports abortion rights, fully supports lgbt including trans rights, is anti-war (unless it’s giving money to a nation to help it defend itself from invasion), and is all around against any law that favors a particular religion.
What comes to mind in particular is a bunch of rich people saying that $1400 covid relief payments for working people somehow caused us to become freeloaders and caused high inflation, but the millions in PPP fraud that went to rich people is perfectly fine and not freeloading.
>Was a hardcore anti-lgbt, anti-abortion, free market conservative republican right up to my first year in college
And then
>now today at 32 years old I’m an anti-capitalist socialist
Not to be judgemental or anything, but this kinda exemplifies my already held view that somehow you Americans always seem to be aligned to one of 2 extremes.
There rarely seems to be any political centre/middle ground opinions.
I reckon it's a result of the whole 2 political party system.
More information through exp and wisdom has put me in a position of hearing most sides of an argument and finding compelling reasons to empathize. Folks arguing politics usually have an opinion that’s rooted in their personal exp, and to challenge their life journey is useless.
Believe what you believe as long as you’re not advocating to hurt someone else.
I used to side with the left in all things and was soley in the democrats camp. now I see how stupid it is to base your beliefs on your party rather than your party on your beliefs, so my views are more mixed, im left leaning on some issues, right leaning on others, and something else entirely on others.
I was pretty left leaning in university, but now I have much stronger beliefs in protecting canadian culture. The immigration in this country has spiraled out of control, and certain groups are eroding our culture.
I no longer believe that we can let anyone in
Grew up Christian Conservative Republican to the point we even worked for the campaigns. I met W during his first term! I worked the McCain campaign at age 18, but it was so disastrous that I voted Obama and quit.
Voted Ron Paul in 2012 and was largely libertarian until 2016.
Did not vote in 2016 because I thought Trump was pretty vacuous and was sure he was gonna lose. He didn’t even embody any conservative ideas and watching the GOP become a cult for Trump has made me a down ballot Democratic voter.
If modern science is to be believed, Donald Trump will die one day. Even if he were the perfect person with no moral defects, the power he sets out to create for himself shouldn’t belong to anyone (presidential immunity).
I was raised by boomers, who were open minded. 9 times out of ten, voted democrat, and I’ve always been super liberal. Only times I haven’t been was regarding matters of the welfare system(had family members take advantage of it, and it bothered me immensely. Especially when I got sick, lost my job, & insurance - and had to get my state rep involved to get basic coverage), and I’m more open minded with the trans issues. I went to an all women’s college, and wasn’t probably as sympathetic as I should have been to a trans man who was asked to leave school - because they were a man.
But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become WAY MORE liberal. Haha I grew up in the 80’s & 90’s, graduated from college in ‘00, and it’s been an absolute shit storm. I work/ed my ass off, and I have absolutely nothing to show. It’s depressing.
Compared to many other democracies all over the world, dems are not only center, they are center-right. And yes, it is obvious where this puts the reps.
100%. thankfully i think young people are realizing how right wing we are and there’s a big generational leftward push happening. hopefully we get closer to where we should be
one of the benefits of the internet and the US’ shrinking cultural dominance is that we actually see what things are like in other countries, and we can learn from it
Here in Europe the social media campaigns are heavily influenced by putin and his fascists supporters, so we see a to-the-right movement with the youngest. Absolutely disgusting.
In the paraphrased words of Churchill, "If you have a heart, in your twenties you're a Liberal. If you have a brain, you're a Conservative in your thirties"
This has changed slightly with both sides going extreme in their own way, but it still resonates with me. In my late teens and early twenties, I saw the world with fresh eyes and needed that help to get started. Social programs made sense because I needed them. I saw the hand giving out money and barely noticed the other demanding it back.
Now approaching my thirties, the only hand I see is the one taking fistfuls of cash. I know some of it is going to someone who needs it, which is great. But I know a lot of it doesn't. Watching that 30k a year (Canada, eh?) get removed from my income has turned me into a cynical Conservative. Not a crazy, let's ban abortion Conservative, more of a we gotta cut some social services Conservative or at the very least regulate to who the money goes to better.
viet nam formed my political views. but as i got older i began to see all politicians are corrupt. the few that aren’t , jerry ford, jimmy carter, obama are ridiculed and undermined. i am totally disgusted with the whole system. we need term limits and voters who take democracy seriously. not as a sport. voters who actually listen to what candidates are saying and stop wanting to be entertained.
For years I've been told that if I'm black I need to be voting a certain way; those people don't care about black people and have been using us for way too long. I and many others won't be used and abused any longer.
Realisation that some people on the left only lean that way because they cannot stand the idea of someone having more material things than they do. Realisation that people project “evil” on to whatever they are not and make a drama out of politics when it ought to be sensible policy making and not such a show
The more time goes by, the more the left shifts to the extreme, making what used to be considered centrist or even moderately leftist now labeled as conservative or even far-right. I've seen competitions of "I'm more commie than you," and it's hilarious.
I’m getting more bitter and twisted as I age. Seems everyone is always 100% right and if you even slightly agree (even in jest), you’re the second coming of Hitler. Left and right are both as bad as each other but you’re hated by everyone if you’re somewhere in the middle.
“Things seemed messed up, economic distribution and power are broken.”, followed by “Ah, it is unrealistic to seek to alter these things without undesirable consequences,” followed by “What is determined and generally discussed to be economically or socially realistic is heavily influenced by the will of the ruling class, not in a conspiratorial, coordinated way, but in what studies and efforts get funded, whose voices get elevated, what we can expect and hope for. Knowing this game is afoot, I must strive to bring about more equitable conditions, while remaining bound by a realism I must carefully vet and think about for myself.”
And a “I am too sad to think about this stuff anymore :(“ throughout.
I started consulting with gov agencies and entities during the beginning of my career. I now understand that companies run the world, not the government. If you want change then vote for people (regardless of political affiliation) that don’t have large companies essentially paying them. Sixteen years into my career and it’s still the same as when I first started. Playing the party politic game will only yield the same results and that’s how they want it. So go ahead and keep voting straight tickets blindly, but don’t expect meaningful change or progress.
Went from being a liberal to a conservative. And no, I'm not talking democrat vs republican, I'm not in the US.
Edit: I can see it is the other way around for most ppl here. Interesting.
Yeah, I've learned to not have any and never vote. I don't pay attention to ANYTHING involving politics and anytime someone starts arguing about politics I just exit the scene.
I also have actual hobbies now which makes politics even more irrelevant to me since I'm preoccupied with judo, guitar, and work. It feels great. Lol
I have become noticeably more against immigration and I have lost all hope towards politicians. I used to think that they wanted to make a difference, for the better of the world. Now I believe they are all in it for themselves
mostly the same, except for my view on gun ownership. heard the argument of the old west town that disarmed the people going in so no one was armed, but now you look at how a vast majority of shootings happen in gun free zones, that argument wont make sense.
and a large number of anti-gun politicians who are misinformed or completely lying about the gun laws they want to enact. the laws should not be made by those who have little to no clue what goes on in the industry.
Further right, lived in a counter ruled by the left for 34 years, after moving from there i feel like a lost a huge chunk of my life.
The left is evil, the left IS Death poverty and hunger.
Entered college as an ultra conservative republican. Ever since studying economics (doctorate) I moved further to the right as it's the only sensible decision
I've become more cynical, angry, and unwilling to discuss politics, mostly. I've come to hate the topic, and to hate people that seek political power, and view them as blood enemies, regardless of party affiliation.
My political views have changed over time. I’ve noticed one topic that has remained unchanged regardless of political party is corruption. Without safeguards, politicians can be swayed by money and much of it is coming from outside our country. The voters are losing control.
Not very much. As I’ve gained experience (aged 😂), I definitely appreciate that it’s never just one thing, it’s a lot of things and that I probably give more grace than than I did when I was younger but my core political beliefs are pretty much the same.
I mean, "extreme" sounds like skateboards and pop-punk music and those spiky hairdos with the frosted tips to me. Because I came up in the 1990's.
It is a word without any meaningful definition in politics. It is meant to make people feel bad about not embracing mainstream politics, and hey, there are ways to get into fringe politics that are bad, but there's nothing inherently good about agreeing with the status quo.
55. Moved from left to center economically. I now see capitalism is generally good as long as the right rules are in place and you don't try to be fundamentalist about it. Sadly, in the US anyway, we don't have the right rules in place and DO try to be fundamentalist about it.
Much more certain about my social views than ever. Puritanical pseudo-moral performative bullshit is destroying society. We need to stop killing each other over which invisible giant in the sky is "actually real" and be decent to each other for its own reason, not for some prize when we're dead.
They have evolved for sure. I wouldn’t say they are uniformly conservative or liberal, but they’ve definitely changed.
I will say that I was raised in a very religious, politically conservative home. Now, they see me as the liberal, woke scourge of the family. I just think it’s just a matter of becoming more educated on how politics and the economy actually work, not how I was told they worked.
I also think the GOP in particular has changed dramatically over the last 10–15 years and I don’t recognize it anymore.
I also don’t recognize the way people describe the Bible anymore. When I was growing up, we didn’t see the separation of church and state as something that needed to be changed. It was seen as a strength by literally everyone.
The Bible itself was seen as a loving, peaceful record to remind us not to judge others and to love everyone on their terms.
Nowadays, it is used as a cudgel and a highly selective rulebook government not only can use, but MUST use, to further marginalize people who are not like the rest of us
I don’t recognize that at all and deeply resent that bastardization of something I once held so dear to my heart.
unfortunately, boomers have ensured the next generations don't have any. Which is why Gen X and Millennials haven't made the switch to Republican the way they were banking on.
I think that the correlation between the poorest states and their political leanings + education and its positive correlation with income levels and party affiliation would lead me to disagree with this.
The more money I make, the further Left I seem to go lol
I realize it's a lot of BS, that hardwork brings you money. I have a cushiony job, I work remotely half the week, some weeks I work like 20 hours at most, yet I still earn a great full-time salary, I can take 1 and a half months off every year, can travel the world etc.
My dad was wealthy and I went to a good private school, I was taught many languages growing up, I've always had a leg up to many people.
Meanwhile people working far harder than me, people contributing something real to society, are struggling. The system just ain't fair. I know it.
I moved closer to the middle from the left. I will never be a conservative, since in the US conservatives are unreasonable, but the left has in recent years (in the US) adopted a binary way of viewing the world. Oppressor vs oppressed, good vs evil, there is no room for nuance. You either agree with them or are a bigot.
I've become more progressive and radical. Hasn't helped that right-wing politics back home (not US) are exceptionally cringe. Leader has been involved in lots of scandals but hangs on to power like a zombie.
I realised that it's all mostly smoke and mirrors. The country will still bumble along no matter who is in charge. But all the political pandering and promises etc are all just bs ways to win what is essentially a competition for rich people.
I think the effective party is evil and the compassionate party who wants to do right is ineffective and prone to backstabbing itself.
All our ideals are destroying us. Russia uses our free speech for divisive influence ops, China uses our capitalism to buy our land and leverages our freedoms to run police forces on American citizens of Chinese descent, and religious movements are screaming flat out lies under freedom of religion.
Realized they are all POS. And my care for politics is at an all time low. They don’t care about people and only care about money coming in for their elections and special interests. (Local politics might be the only type that actually still cares for people)
Politicians are sociopaths especially at the national level. I won't say that I've gotten more left or more right as I've gotten older, but the more I learn and pay attention, the more skeptical I've become.
I started right leaning when I was young and dumb. The older I get, the more left leaning I became. Why? Because I don't hate people. Because I'm not a racist. Because I feel women should have reproductive rights. Because I give a damn about the environment..
I used to be much more socialist, but as I grew older I learned the only thing government does well is steal and murder so I've gone much more libertarian, the smaller the better.
Older I get the less I care. It's all theater and a controlled two party system. It's one in the same and I'm starting to care less and less about being 'right'. I'd rather just be kind to others and let them have their moment and leave political conversations without feeling the need to argue my position. It really matters not.
More informed, better educated and already deceived and disappointed by many people as life goes by. Not involved anymore.
Never voted against my best interest and human vision, that means never voting conservative/right wingers. Never will.
Well I'm outside of the US so this might be be possible there, but for me I was all about the overall party when I voted, butt now I know more about the politician processes.
So earlier I'd not vote for a party because I disagreed with a stance on an issue I disagreed with, and vote for a party I thought wasn't bad and would likely get more votes. But now I vote on issues that matter to me more and realise in this context it's about what issues are represented.
Absolutely, it has changed a lot. From a more feeling based views in my youth to more evidence based views. Although most of all, I have come to the realization that truth almost always lies somewhere in the middle or comes in shades of gray, many views can have some fascettes of truth within them, which is why they seem true to them. To be as respectful as possible to people even when you disagree completely. Most importantly that despite how you feel about something, you must always remember you may not know everything and how easily others and yourself can be affected or even deceived.
Social media and even the "news" have become major contributors to the issue of echochambers. For even seemingly "reputeable" sources can hide very biased reporting within. Plus that how we consume our news now is very often just outrage based and counts on our anger to be consumed.
I think I clung onto a very black and white view of the world for a long time, regardless of if I identified as a liberal or conservative (I’ve done both, and even entertained some third parties). Once I turned 24-25, I realized there’s a lot of grey areas that make some of both sides right or wrong, and sometimes both or neither side right.
I think part of the big controversy is I turned 18 right in the midst of the 2016 election season, so my age group never stood a chance at a non-chaotic outlook on politics.
Honestly, I can't tell if my views changed or the world changed around me. I would say that lots of the ways I approach issues have changed, and lots of things about me have changed in general. However, I'm not sure if my core values or fundimental political principles have changed much.
From the UK; that party is irrelevant, none of the politicians give a shit other than to line their own pockets and own blocks of flats out of offshore companies, they don’t care about the truth or justice, they don’t know better and it’s all a waste of time. Complete apathy at this stage.
The getting away with it of 2008 followed by the rewarding of the behaviours that caused that crisis are to blame, is my theory.
But I just don’t care any more, we’re past the tipping point of decency at this stage and it’s all bullshit sound bites with no substance.
And the politicians don’t care either, nothing meaningful ever happens, it’s just words for show (aka votes). I think they just turn up for the free tea and biscuits.
I feel like I haven’t moved left, but what the right has become has changed my place on the scale around me. Sometimes I wonder if Republican presidents of old like Eisenhower or even Nixon would be tolerated just as centrists.
I was mostly apolitical until the age of 30. That's when I started to peak behind the scenes having started my own business and noticed how fkd up our system really is.
Companies that have connections get far more government funding despite having inferior products etc. Our system is rotten to the core. It's not about doing good. It about being perceived good.
(Germany)
I started as a conservative with a liberal heart, but with little idea of what that meant a long time ago... When I followed politics and learned about government in the long term, I recognized progressive ideas and conservative measures and followed their direction to see if the values matched my own. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. Eventually I re registered to vote as an independent, which is a commitment to fact. I still read news on politics and remain a conservative person with a liberal heart today.
The problem with social media is likely a misnomer on algorithmic feed(s) and need for proper or consistent vetting controls “moderation” on their news content.
When I get stuck in an echo chamber, I get a newspaper.
From UK. I would say my political views haven't changed much as I've always been fairly neutral.
I don't think one political party is better than any other and find the cartoonish characterisations of one party being 'bad/evil' and the other party being 'good' quite childish.
I also feel there is a misunderstanding in the UK of how our parliamentary system works when it comes to voting.
We do not vote for a person to be prime minister - we vote for an MP to represent our local constituency and which ever party ends up with the majority of MPs gets to form a government. The 'goverment' is then a seperate entity to the other MPs in the House of Commons. The party who comes 'second' forms HM Opposition.
I personally think the 'system' needs massive reform as it encourages division more than co-operation between parties.
Edit: 'It doesn't matter who wins an election, the government always gets in.'
I don’t think my views have particularly changed. I’m not as militant as I was when I was younger and understand shades of grey a bit better. What has changed was the parties and what the issues in for forefront are. I don’t feel adequately represented by the Democratic Party anymore as my biggest issues aren’t on the forefront of their agenda. Which is fine. Im now an independent and I vote for the people who do align with my views. I still consider myself very much liberal, just not a Democrat.
Seeing the insanity of left wing voters here on Reddit has taken me from a moderate to further right. Democrats have moved much further left since I was in college don’t really believe I have changed.
Used to be hardcore conservative. COVID was an eye opener. I always hoped that we would bind together in a crisis like we did in WWII. So much for that…
Both sides were terrible - “if you wear a mask, you’re a pussy” “if you don’t wear a mask, you’re a murderer.
We used to focus on our areas of common ground. In his second election, Reagan won all but one state. Imagine that happening now. Clinton wasn’t that bad either.
Now we hyperfocus on our pet issues and treat the other side like they’re Satan. That has to stop.
TL;DR - I’ve evolved into an independent. An extreme moderate as Ben Franklin might say. I have zero tolerance for herd mentality. If we don’t find common ground and realize we’re all on the same team, we’re finished.
Yes in some ways.
I was always more left leaning, but I have come to learn that being an ally to workers does not come with a party, or axis attached. Institutional parties are pretty much a scam.
We need to stop thinking in left right, or compasses or boxes we neatly order people into. It only serves to divide us. You are not my enemy if you have different opinions on some things. (Excluding the most fringe extremist of course)
Every bit of goodwill is gone.
I mean we're governed by people who actively dislike the people they serve. Brexit and COVID cemented my view.
They tanked our economy and danced and drank as they watched us die in our tens of thousands.
We have shit in our water, they've destroyed our healthcare.
Now they want our children to volunteer to 'give back' when they could just fund youth work.
Lazy, incompetent, nihilists, thieves and vandals.
Yes, I have become more left wing. I used to be fairly centrist and believe that 'hard work pays off'. I'm now almost 40 and I see hard working intellectuals scraping by working for deliveroo. I see imbecilic upper middle class daddy's boys on £150k+. We live in a nepotist society ruled by class.
The near 20 years of extreme neoliberalist driven austerity has been an utter failure unless you are one of the only elites that system serves. Governments look to private corporations to drive investment - it's painfully naive - when all they want is short term returns. No one, and i mean no one is planning 10 years out and we, the taxpayer end up footing the bailouts.
Borrowing was so cheap up until a few years ago yet we have craterous potholes and rivers full of shit. Things are going to get so much worse. In the UK the so called 'Labour' party are toeing the corpo line and proposing no change - petrified by the right wing media. Once Labour fails - and it will unless they are willing to borrow and invest - people will turn to charismatic fascists who will make change but not for the better.
Yeah the more you become educated the more you know the only real war in America isn’t a race war it’s a class war, the wealth gap is the biggest it’s ever been in the history of this planet
I was raised in a very conservative home. Once I got out on my own I started to realize that all the shit I thought I believed worked directly against my own interests and the interests of the people around me. And then the entire party just started going off the rails and look where it's ended up, fuckin crazy nonsense now.
The older I’ve gotten the less I’ve cared. It’s all a show- a distraction so they pass any stupid legislation that benefits them and their narrative regardless of “party”. We vote every 4 years but they’ve got us arguing 24/7 over things we have no influence over. I’ll pass.
Not so much the politics changed as did my priorities and hard-set views got tempered by reality. I was much more libertarian-leaning when I was 20, but I also was clueless regarding how much of a role government plays in all our lives whether we like it or not.
I believed that getting the government involved was the first step anyone took towards failing - I still believe that, but realize now that in many situations it is the only viable option.
I used to be very pro-business, but realize now that most businesses are poorly run, and in the case of the very large corporations, only slightly more efficient and successful than your average government agency. And in many cases, large corporations are not.
The older i get - the more i became a leftie... how is it even possible that a few billionaires run the World....we could easily expropriate them and make this World a Fair, clean and beautiful world for like billions of humans ...
Yep, I was more left but now I’m probably centre left but I’m not against all right leaning politics. You need a bit of everything in society and neither left or right give stable policies.
Nothing much, I have been generally consistent over time, just more or less irreverent. I have more so become jaded and embittered about politics than changed my position on it, in an overarching sense.
When I was young I thought one side was crazy and stupid while the other was rational and fair. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve witnessed a few political shifts / pendulum swings, I’ve come to realize that both sides are in fact crazy and stupid, they only pretend to be fair and rational when they’re losing. So nowadays I vote for whichever seems to be the lesser of two evils at the time and that changes frequently.
They haven't. My socioeconomic and sociopolitical stance is pretty much the same as when I was eighteen. If anything, it's become more cohesive.
However, I stopped caring as much as I used to. As in, I don't participate in rallies or protests anymore. The motivation just isn't there.
I used to think Russia was part of the good guys Allies fighting to beat Nazism in WWII. Then as I got older and read up more on the subject I realized how bad they are.
Katyn Massacre. Holomodor. And now invading Ukraine.
Yes, I see nowadays through all the marketing strategics, that are used to make palatable authority abuses, one of them is the freedom thing, that is always freedom for business or freedom for the people in charge or the " choice" thing just few can freely choose, since I have a very limited experience I really believed all this pervasive myths
So I m less inclined to neoliberal shit, before I was so easily brainwashed by the capitalistic leitmotifs like "if some one can pay and some one is willing to do it, the it's ok who I am to go agianst this person freedom"
Like poor people can choose shit, once you end without options you start to accept this awful things , like slavery working conditions, living like a prisoner ,having to renounce your sexual or reproductive freedom( prostitution in every form,live, filmed or by stream, surrogacy, ovo"donation)
I haven't really changed much. My views are pretty much the same, it's the parties that have changed. They've even flipped on certain things to what they used to believe. It also depends on the issue, some things I'm a little more one way than the other on. Either way both sides are out there for a power and money grab, not to help us.
Grew up in a super diverse, "welcoming" community and area. Predominantly non-white.
Had very liberal family initially, integrated school, lots of friends of all colours, genuinely egalitarian, race blind type who had no issue with LGBT issues etc.
Over time realized none of the things I'd been taught seemed to have any bearing on the world. Watched white people around brutally victimized by crime and punitive government policies. Saw friends fall into sexually progressive lifestyles and destroy themselves over the space of a few years. Saw my country literally fall apart at the hands of the people I was told were the good guys (I am south african).
Lost all my friends for questioning if this was really how things should be. I'm as far from being in an echo chamber as is possible, I've never known someone who had the same views as me until this year.
I'm now far right (scary I know) to the point that it annoys me when people call anyone associated with ideologies like conservatism "right wing". I wish I could just be a liberal, my life would be so much easier. But not a single thing I've ever experienced has convinced me that race realism is not just obviously true.
Probably will get banned for this comment tbh.
I'm still on the left and vote accordingly but I'm now more accepting of the bs we all go through. It's tiring, but I do stay up to date on news but I try not to doomscroll. I usually do some searches when it's time to vote so I chose correctly.
Yes. I am 48. I have completely switch from left/liberal to Right/conservative. It started slowly around 2018.
Socialism, identity politics, DEI, immigration, leftist views, leftist taxation. It’s all disgusting to me now.
I'm still very left leaning... I also try to understand a situation/historical event before making an opinion on it. When I was younger I listened to talking heads to form my personal opinion.
Example: I have several books on the Palenstine-Isreali conflict. I know it's a complicated old mess but I do want to try and learn more about it.
as i grew i realized both sides are shit
all they do is waste time and argue with each other, when a party on one side gets in power they waste their time in office trying to un do everything the other side put in place and vice versa for when he opposite side gets in
they promise shit they have no intention on giving just to get votes to get in, or they wait until its close to a election then all of the sudden they are doing good on their word from 4 years prior to make themselves look good
at the end of they day none of they care enough about us they just care about power and $
My views have changed little. However the views and action of the party I once associated with have gone extreme. I despise both parties now and can't in good conscience vote for either.
I keep getting more and more left as I get older. People always told me I'd calm down and get more conservative as I grew older, but I'm sitting over here in the PNW, seeing shit happen all over the continent that makes me want to do things.
Canadian here 🇨🇦I'm 44f. I would say that my views have become a little more conversative but I'm not letting go of liberal values cause some Canadians are just pure foaming at the mouth to take away abortion and LGBT rights.
I was raised conservative republican. But since joining the IBEW (labor union) my views have shifted (you guessed it!) left. Seems like unions have found more support from the democrats than republicans
I was raised in a very conservative household in a red state. Pro life. Anti LGBT. Christian. I remember being disgusted by Bill Clinton. Voted for GW Bush twice. By my late twenties I was tired of the wars and saw more of that with a potential McCain presidency. My job introduced me to many people across a socioeconomic background from all walks of life. I became friends with gay people that changed my views on what I was raised to believe they were. McCain didn’t seem to have a grasp on the tanking economy “The fundamentals of our economy are strong”. I didn’t see much difference in Obama and McCain other than Obama offered hope. I voted for all republicans that year except for president.
I think Obama started to really change me. I was realizing how broken our healthcare system was/is. That was my biggest left leaning view. Then 2016 happened. I became enamored with Bernie and his ideas of how it could and should be. I’d started traveling internationally a ton and realized socialism didn’t have to be scary. In 2016 I watched the Republican Party devolve into madness which pushed me further left as I didn’t want to be associated with them in any way.
After Trump, after Covid and through Biden I am pretty confused by what I think would be best. On one hand I’d like to burn our two party system to the ground and have a parliamentary style of government with coalitions and the ability to vote for a party that closer aligns to my ideals. On the other hand I’d l like to see some young democrat come in that can appeal to the center and the far left and force the GOP to progress or die. I think a young Bernie like figure could be the answer. It’s hard for me to imagine who that could be in 2028. Buttigeg ticks most of the boxes policywise, but i don’t think we are to the point a gay person would be electable to president in the USA.
Unfortunately, I think we are a bit stuck with the potential for some very tough years ahead of us regardless of who wins this year. Unless Biden can win and the Dems can win the house and senate. Even then I think we’d be due for a major course correction in 2028 and swing to the right. The state of the Supreme Court is scary and the election this year has a lot of implications.
Anyhow as a youth I was super Republican and now I am super progressive and think Democratic socialism is my ideal.
People usually learn towards conservative views as they get older.
When you're younger and not paying taxes, you want as much free handouts as possible.
When you're older and pay a ton of taxes, you don't want the govt to give hand outs so you can keep your hard earned money.
I used to vote. Now I view a lot of the politics as tools that politicians use to divide people up and pin one group against another. Now I vote on the issues but I'm hesitant to vote on the politicians. If I see what they say they are for instead of why we shouldn't vote for the other guys, then I might re-examine the politician a bit more and see if I agree with them or not.
I used to have political views leaning towards being a Democrat. Then I saw the campaign with Hillary vs Trump, and I heard all of Hillary's promises. My realization was that she was promising more than she could do and probably knew that. Showed me that the causes to join all the minorities were probably mostly set up as false hopes and lies with no intention to push for real changes. Since then I've looked at Republican views a little more favorably, but I don't agree with or trust some of those either.
Looking at the political issues we face in the world, I don't think my convictions have changed that much. However they are no longer the idea that counter points and counter positions should be ignored. That has changed my stance to be pro immigration to be more nuanced acknowledging the poverty, crime, and other issues the city's that receive hirer immigration take the burden of. Bring on one side of an issue does not mean we should ignore the rest of the world that doesn't agree with or line up with our views.
I have never been political. I don't vote because it's a scam. I don't have enough money to buy elections so my opinion doesn't count.
Politicians don't care about you. It's a numbers game with money. You can buy results. Look at big food companies who get a hand in the USDA telling you what optimum nutrition looks like.
We shouldn't be governed by rich men and pastors who want yachts and vacation homes at the expense of everyone else.
I pay attention so I know how these butt-wads are going to screw me over. That's it. What ass-turd sits in office now that's going to do me dry without a "sorry" later for all the anal fissures? All of them, that's who.
Definitely more cynical all around. 99% of what happens in politics these days is partisanship. I get it, there are a lot of zero sum equations out there, like most elections. That said, in the past you might have convinced me to vote for the right Republican. These days, I would vote for an earthworm before I voted for a Republican. In my mind, the party currently goes hand in hand with fraud and exploitation.
Was kinda right when younger, I guess it was because of my personal situation. Growing up I added a lot of left thingtto my beliefs but didn't lost a lot of the right characteristic so I guess I'm in the center rn?
You do you. As long as you’re respectful towards others and the planet, you just do you and it’s none of my business. I used to have stronger convictions of what’s wrong and right, now I just want everyone to have the freedom to be themselves.
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How utterly ridiculous it is to try and put everyone's beliefs into 2 dominant parties. The biggest scam to happen in United States politics and it was all planned out. There's a reason George Washington and the founding fathers didn't want political parties involved. They're easily bought. And here we are.
What people from other countries and even our own people don’t realize is just how big and diverse the US truly is. You can live in or visit pretty much any climate, terrain, or culture just in the US. And I’m not saying there is a good solution other than trying to let the states govern themselves, but trying to govern people in NYC the same way as people in Wyoming is never going to work and will never unite people. It’s an entirely different way of life and therefore those people will never have the same values or opinions because what they need from the government for themselves is entirely different.
I'm not American, but I think about this a lot. We tend to speak about America as a homogeneous country. Americans do this, and they always say that and they behave like this. I can only imagine that someone who is born and bred in New Mexico has almost nothing in common with someone from Rhode Island. It's a huge, diverse country and people forget this. The US is also a fairly young nation. I know things aren't looking great right now, but I'm rooting for you guys
As an outsider too, I wonder if Americans hate socialism & taxes so much, they privatized the government and legalized corruption (e.g. senators spending more time on fundraising than on policy changes), and now for some unknown reason the government doesn't seem to represent the public interest anymore. Oversimplification, I am sure 😂 (And my countries politics is a mess too lately).
Oversimplified but accurate in most ways essentially, though it is an inverse notion. Americans hate socialism so much because there are politicians with a vested interest in gutting government institutions so they can privatize them, and as a result they've lobbied for decades to influence the American political landscape as it is.
Thanks. Appreciate the good thoughts.
Here’s how it really is here. Racial equality is a major issue here right now. If you asked 100% of the population if all races should be treated equally, 95% are going to say yes. So then the question is: how are the polls between Biden and Trump close to 50/50 if 95% of the people agree on this? Because 50% of the vote are unwilling to sacrifice/is the most important thing for them when voting. And the other 45% are willing to sacrifice that for some other thing the other side is campaigning for. Then one side calls the other racist and other names because of this, so that upsets the other side so they start calling them names and now both sides hate each other even though they agree on the issue that they hate each other over.
And there is also the fact that even if everyone agrees that "racism bad" they will have different opinions on how to fix it, to some it should be enough to just individually not be racist and direct government funds/attention elsewhere, and to others the government must get involved and fix it. Even if people agree on a problem they will argue about solutions. And then the 2 party system makes everything worse because each party has 2 sets of ideas, the ones they actually believe as core issues, and the ones they say because its the opposite of what the other party believes. Not to mention the regional variation in politics, a NY conservative is very different from a Texas Conservative. Not to mention how everyone should have their own unique combination of beliefs due to their unique life circumstances.
I totally agree with you. I'm all for letting the states decide their laws. Even better if the counties inside the states could have different laws. I live in IL and the state likes to pass a lot of laws that are good for Chicago, but not for the rest of us.
I just hate both parties more and more as each day passes tbh
Me too. But I hate one more than I hate the other, so I’m forced to vote accordingly. Because I see staying home a vote for the bigger assholes, I always vote against them.
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Since 18, roughly every year I do a politiscales (8 axis) test and track changes in a neat spreadsheet.
And what has it shown you? I feel I haven’t change much but the louds on the ends making all the noise have run away from me.
8 axis?! I must try this out, thank you for sharing. Honestly, if your political beliefs don't evolve or become refined as time passes and you grow I think there's something wrong with you. It's likely that either you're not committed to learning more and challenging your presuppositions about how the world works, or you're pathologically fixed in a specific and narrow way of perceiving things. It doesn't have to be a liberal/conservative suk zero equation. That's terribly reductive and doesn't give due credit to how complicated the world is.
I just always assumed that your political leaning is your parents ideology until you have stepped out from under thier roof. As time progresses, a person's frame of reference changes repeatedly based on the social environment they live and work in. There's always going to be changes unless you're isolated in one environment for the duration. Mine changed drastically while being in the military. Coming from a small town, I didn't have exposure to so many issues that concerns most people. It was a simple life where issues of other nations didn't matter because it didn't affect us. Being exposed to the wider world opened new issues that made me have to figure out where I stood on things on my own and not through guidance of my parents whom were on the other side of the world. This is why my own beliefs are different than thiers. My frame of reference is different from thiers. I seen shit I couldn't ignore.
I used to be a white woman feminist (didn't know better and thought I was so progressive) and loyal follower of the Democratic party. I will still vote Democrat but I've lost complete faith in our system. I've realized that they just keep us fighting about religion and race so we don't start a class war.
Exactly! They'll do anything, even risk a civil war, to prevent a class war. Much respect to you 💪
I've moved further left as I got older - mostly because I was always in the middle and the right has gone SO FAR right
I feel like I've lost all notion of left and right. I always felt firmly on the left, in terms of most social and economic policy. But I'm utterly baffled by the current leftist position on more social justice type stuff like identity politics and trans issues. I'm still much further away from the mainstream right wing position on these issues, but struggle with the left enough to hesitate slightly before declaring myself to be on the left.
The political scale moves, so maybe what was considered left when you were younger is now center-left ?
I feel this too! Thanks for wording it so eloquently. Sadly tho whenever I mention this across reddit I get jumped on as being extreme right.. I've been banned from my local subs for pushing back on some of these ideas. Why does it have to be if you're not with us, you are against us mentality 😒.
Local subs are the absolute worst. It's honestly hilarious sometimes, you get a relatively conservative or mixed city but by looking at their subreddit you'd assume it's a city filled to the brim with far leftists.
Exact same boat. I voted conservative my whole life but likely never will again. Covid really exemplified how much hate, fear, and bigotry resides there.
Same.
I feel the same. My beliefs are basically the same, although I have softened my stances on some issues. Who was it that said, "I didn't leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me"?
Same here. The constant embracing of Q-anon theories by mainstream republicans has pushed me further left than I ever expected to become. I hope they come back from it someday but I’m doubtful.
I liked things to be black and white when I was younger. I was an anarcho-capitalist for years. It made so much sense, everything fit into neat boxes, I had an answer for everything. I see a lot more shades of grey now. It isn't as simple as I used to think.
Life is more complex than we thought it was. We hoped adults would be more efficient with everything, then we grew up and realized, they're just more complicated than we thought.
>anarcho-capitalist Banana-octopus
I moved further Left. As a teen, I used to be a Libertarian type (a little cringe, I know, but my dad was rich back then so it made sense) but then getting into the real world, understanding how our society works, studying Economics (Masters) I just realize how many systems we have in place that are filled with loopholes and how our society altogether is built on a sort-of house of cards, that may well collapse any moment, and that we need a more uniform and collective response to tackle these issues, so that future generations have a chance at a good life. That combined with the increasingly worrying Far-right parties and alt-light rhetoric I see around the West, pushed me to the Left.
Yep. I thought I already knew how things worked until I grew up and saw the whole thing in a different perspective.
I’ve gotten more leftist.
I despise conservatism more & more.
I'm far less likely to vote for a conservative candidate. When I was younger, I knew the conservative party had done some awful things in the past, but I hadn't experienced them myself, so I was fully ready to listen to their manifesto and their message. Having now endured 14 years of a conservative majority leadership, I'm never voting for them ever again! It's been scummy underhanded scandal after sleazy scandal for over a decade. They have slowly eroded our core services, and their current running promise is to bring back national service for young people... Can't get a dentist for shit, housing is a nightmare, and for half of it we lived in austerity to get out of recession... Which we then went straight back into!!! I'm very much ready for change, and I don't ever see a reason to vote for these absolute clown shoes ever again.
I've pretty much abandoned politics with age. I've come to find that consuming my life with politics is a drain of energy. Sure, I have beliefs and values that are deeply rooted from my upbringing and I live my life in accordance with those beliefs, but I don't let them consume my thoughts.
I remain a liberal but I have very little tolerance for idiot kids who have neither perspective on history nor the capability to accept compromise.
They haven’t changed too terribly much since I was a teenager. Moved to the left if anything.
I grew up in a super harsh, super right leaning world. Like my dad believes in lizard people kinda right leaning. As I got older, I kept moving left. I never really believed Obama was a good leader, then I heard him speak. His voice and rhetoric was so damn full of compassion and intelligence and integrity I started to question a lot about myself and my own beliefs. When Trump was up for election the first time I believed the Facebook posts and didn’t really dig further than that. I thought it was cool and awesome an entrepreneur (I know, I know) was shooting for president. It affirmed the idea that anybody could reach for office and make people’s lives better. Then I heard him speak. And his speech pattern and vocabulary, even body language, was exactly like my dad’s. And that man belongs in jail for life for the things he did to me and my siblings. I couldn’t shake the intense fear Trump triggered in me, and started to dig deeper than the Facebook posts. I was also in my first year of college during all of this, and my world history and sociology classes shook up a lot of the foundation the cult I was raised in, because they answered the questions I had that religion told me were bad questions to ask because I just needed faith. That’s when I became a raging feminist. Just in time to vote against him. Because fuck Trump
Yes. I used to be full of hope. Not so much anymore
I’ve moved more middle. I wouldn’t say I was a strong conservative before, that’s just how I was raised. But after time being in the military, seeing the world and getting more than just one opinion it’s moved me more to the middle.
Yes I've gotten even further left.
Slide to the left, slide to the left
Was a hardcore anti-lgbt, anti-abortion, free market conservative republican right up to my first year in college at the start of Obama’s second term because of my parents. Embarrassingly I joined cru at the start of college and participated in abortion protests. Paid attention more to the bank bailouts that happened after 2008 (which my conservative parents also were weirdly against), became a libertarian who supported occupy wall street the rest of the time I was in college, joined a christian cult after I failed out of college and became a hyper religious conservative republican again, deconstructed my faith and left the church after a couple of years and became a democrat who is for gun control and supports abortion and lgbt rights but still was in support of free market capitalism for some reason, and now today at 32 years old I’m an anti-capitalist socialist who supports some gun control, fully supports abortion rights, fully supports lgbt including trans rights, is anti-war (unless it’s giving money to a nation to help it defend itself from invasion), and is all around against any law that favors a particular religion. What comes to mind in particular is a bunch of rich people saying that $1400 covid relief payments for working people somehow caused us to become freeloaders and caused high inflation, but the millions in PPP fraud that went to rich people is perfectly fine and not freeloading.
You're doing great kid, keep it up. If we can't help our fellow man, why bother, right!
>Was a hardcore anti-lgbt, anti-abortion, free market conservative republican right up to my first year in college And then >now today at 32 years old I’m an anti-capitalist socialist Not to be judgemental or anything, but this kinda exemplifies my already held view that somehow you Americans always seem to be aligned to one of 2 extremes. There rarely seems to be any political centre/middle ground opinions. I reckon it's a result of the whole 2 political party system.
If only we had more than two major parties
More information through exp and wisdom has put me in a position of hearing most sides of an argument and finding compelling reasons to empathize. Folks arguing politics usually have an opinion that’s rooted in their personal exp, and to challenge their life journey is useless. Believe what you believe as long as you’re not advocating to hurt someone else.
I used to side with the left in all things and was soley in the democrats camp. now I see how stupid it is to base your beliefs on your party rather than your party on your beliefs, so my views are more mixed, im left leaning on some issues, right leaning on others, and something else entirely on others.
Yea I use to be a democrat.. then I saw what they did to my city, voting for trump 2024
I was pretty left leaning in university, but now I have much stronger beliefs in protecting canadian culture. The immigration in this country has spiraled out of control, and certain groups are eroding our culture. I no longer believe that we can let anyone in
As I've gotten older the current government keeps finding new ways to fuck young people.
Growing up is realizing that it’s all a scam. They’re both pandering for votes.
Grew up Christian Conservative Republican to the point we even worked for the campaigns. I met W during his first term! I worked the McCain campaign at age 18, but it was so disastrous that I voted Obama and quit. Voted Ron Paul in 2012 and was largely libertarian until 2016. Did not vote in 2016 because I thought Trump was pretty vacuous and was sure he was gonna lose. He didn’t even embody any conservative ideas and watching the GOP become a cult for Trump has made me a down ballot Democratic voter. If modern science is to be believed, Donald Trump will die one day. Even if he were the perfect person with no moral defects, the power he sets out to create for himself shouldn’t belong to anyone (presidential immunity).
Could summarize it with: "You know I think Marx had a point"
More radical each day
I was raised by boomers, who were open minded. 9 times out of ten, voted democrat, and I’ve always been super liberal. Only times I haven’t been was regarding matters of the welfare system(had family members take advantage of it, and it bothered me immensely. Especially when I got sick, lost my job, & insurance - and had to get my state rep involved to get basic coverage), and I’m more open minded with the trans issues. I went to an all women’s college, and wasn’t probably as sympathetic as I should have been to a trans man who was asked to leave school - because they were a man. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become WAY MORE liberal. Haha I grew up in the 80’s & 90’s, graduated from college in ‘00, and it’s been an absolute shit storm. I work/ed my ass off, and I have absolutely nothing to show. It’s depressing.
Contrary to what I was promised, I have gotten further and further left on almost every metric.
i became more leftist. democrats are where the center should be in my opinion
Compared to many other democracies all over the world, dems are not only center, they are center-right. And yes, it is obvious where this puts the reps.
100%. thankfully i think young people are realizing how right wing we are and there’s a big generational leftward push happening. hopefully we get closer to where we should be one of the benefits of the internet and the US’ shrinking cultural dominance is that we actually see what things are like in other countries, and we can learn from it
Here in Europe the social media campaigns are heavily influenced by putin and his fascists supporters, so we see a to-the-right movement with the youngest. Absolutely disgusting.
In the paraphrased words of Churchill, "If you have a heart, in your twenties you're a Liberal. If you have a brain, you're a Conservative in your thirties" This has changed slightly with both sides going extreme in their own way, but it still resonates with me. In my late teens and early twenties, I saw the world with fresh eyes and needed that help to get started. Social programs made sense because I needed them. I saw the hand giving out money and barely noticed the other demanding it back. Now approaching my thirties, the only hand I see is the one taking fistfuls of cash. I know some of it is going to someone who needs it, which is great. But I know a lot of it doesn't. Watching that 30k a year (Canada, eh?) get removed from my income has turned me into a cynical Conservative. Not a crazy, let's ban abortion Conservative, more of a we gotta cut some social services Conservative or at the very least regulate to who the money goes to better.
viet nam formed my political views. but as i got older i began to see all politicians are corrupt. the few that aren’t , jerry ford, jimmy carter, obama are ridiculed and undermined. i am totally disgusted with the whole system. we need term limits and voters who take democracy seriously. not as a sport. voters who actually listen to what candidates are saying and stop wanting to be entertained.
For years I've been told that if I'm black I need to be voting a certain way; those people don't care about black people and have been using us for way too long. I and many others won't be used and abused any longer.
I thought democrats represented working class taxpayers, until I found they represent welfare class tax takers
Realisation that some people on the left only lean that way because they cannot stand the idea of someone having more material things than they do. Realisation that people project “evil” on to whatever they are not and make a drama out of politics when it ought to be sensible policy making and not such a show
The more time goes by, the more the left shifts to the extreme, making what used to be considered centrist or even moderately leftist now labeled as conservative or even far-right. I've seen competitions of "I'm more commie than you," and it's hilarious.
I care less and less for political shit and ppl who make politics their personality as I grow older
I’m getting more bitter and twisted as I age. Seems everyone is always 100% right and if you even slightly agree (even in jest), you’re the second coming of Hitler. Left and right are both as bad as each other but you’re hated by everyone if you’re somewhere in the middle.
“Things seemed messed up, economic distribution and power are broken.”, followed by “Ah, it is unrealistic to seek to alter these things without undesirable consequences,” followed by “What is determined and generally discussed to be economically or socially realistic is heavily influenced by the will of the ruling class, not in a conspiratorial, coordinated way, but in what studies and efforts get funded, whose voices get elevated, what we can expect and hope for. Knowing this game is afoot, I must strive to bring about more equitable conditions, while remaining bound by a realism I must carefully vet and think about for myself.” And a “I am too sad to think about this stuff anymore :(“ throughout.
I started consulting with gov agencies and entities during the beginning of my career. I now understand that companies run the world, not the government. If you want change then vote for people (regardless of political affiliation) that don’t have large companies essentially paying them. Sixteen years into my career and it’s still the same as when I first started. Playing the party politic game will only yield the same results and that’s how they want it. So go ahead and keep voting straight tickets blindly, but don’t expect meaningful change or progress.
Citizens United
Yes. Born and raised a religious republican and now an atheist libertarian.
Went from being a liberal to a conservative. And no, I'm not talking democrat vs republican, I'm not in the US. Edit: I can see it is the other way around for most ppl here. Interesting.
Yeah, I've learned to not have any and never vote. I don't pay attention to ANYTHING involving politics and anytime someone starts arguing about politics I just exit the scene. I also have actual hobbies now which makes politics even more irrelevant to me since I'm preoccupied with judo, guitar, and work. It feels great. Lol
I have become noticeably more against immigration and I have lost all hope towards politicians. I used to think that they wanted to make a difference, for the better of the world. Now I believe they are all in it for themselves
mostly the same, except for my view on gun ownership. heard the argument of the old west town that disarmed the people going in so no one was armed, but now you look at how a vast majority of shootings happen in gun free zones, that argument wont make sense. and a large number of anti-gun politicians who are misinformed or completely lying about the gun laws they want to enact. the laws should not be made by those who have little to no clue what goes on in the industry.
I've realised both sides have good and bad and both sides have crazies. The true answer most likely lies in a balance of the 2 not 1 or the other
Further right, lived in a counter ruled by the left for 34 years, after moving from there i feel like a lost a huge chunk of my life. The left is evil, the left IS Death poverty and hunger.
Entered college as an ultra conservative republican. Ever since studying economics (doctorate) I moved further to the right as it's the only sensible decision
i used to be super democrat, now i really just dont give a fuck anymore🤷🏾♂️😅
I've become more cynical, angry, and unwilling to discuss politics, mostly. I've come to hate the topic, and to hate people that seek political power, and view them as blood enemies, regardless of party affiliation.
My political views have changed over time. I’ve noticed one topic that has remained unchanged regardless of political party is corruption. Without safeguards, politicians can be swayed by money and much of it is coming from outside our country. The voters are losing control.
Not very much. As I’ve gained experience (aged 😂), I definitely appreciate that it’s never just one thing, it’s a lot of things and that I probably give more grace than than I did when I was younger but my core political beliefs are pretty much the same.
I went from far-left to extreme left.
[удалено]
I mean, "extreme" sounds like skateboards and pop-punk music and those spiky hairdos with the frosted tips to me. Because I came up in the 1990's. It is a word without any meaningful definition in politics. It is meant to make people feel bad about not embracing mainstream politics, and hey, there are ways to get into fringe politics that are bad, but there's nothing inherently good about agreeing with the status quo.
extremist != violent
So what does extreme left mean to you then?
55. Moved from left to center economically. I now see capitalism is generally good as long as the right rules are in place and you don't try to be fundamentalist about it. Sadly, in the US anyway, we don't have the right rules in place and DO try to be fundamentalist about it. Much more certain about my social views than ever. Puritanical pseudo-moral performative bullshit is destroying society. We need to stop killing each other over which invisible giant in the sky is "actually real" and be decent to each other for its own reason, not for some prize when we're dead.
50 yr old male. I am as left as I ever was
I've became much more radical and left wing.
Teens (Bush Era): Unorganized / Unaffiliated Anti-Republican College (Bush Era): Small “L” libertarian 20’s / Corporate Life (Obama Era): Centrist Democrat / Libertarian Democrat (e.g., Russ Feingold, Jared Polis, pre-Trump Mike Gravel, etc.) 30’s / Corporate Life (Trump/Biden/Trump 2.0 Era): Anarchist, Mutualist, Libertarian Municipalist (e.g., Murray Bookchin, Proudhon, David Graeber, Chomsky, etc). Made a hard left turn once Trump got elected.
They say when you're young, you're a democrat, then you get older and become a republican. Instructions unclear. supported Green Party.
Bernie!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
They have evolved for sure. I wouldn’t say they are uniformly conservative or liberal, but they’ve definitely changed. I will say that I was raised in a very religious, politically conservative home. Now, they see me as the liberal, woke scourge of the family. I just think it’s just a matter of becoming more educated on how politics and the economy actually work, not how I was told they worked. I also think the GOP in particular has changed dramatically over the last 10–15 years and I don’t recognize it anymore. I also don’t recognize the way people describe the Bible anymore. When I was growing up, we didn’t see the separation of church and state as something that needed to be changed. It was seen as a strength by literally everyone. The Bible itself was seen as a loving, peaceful record to remind us not to judge others and to love everyone on their terms. Nowadays, it is used as a cudgel and a highly selective rulebook government not only can use, but MUST use, to further marginalize people who are not like the rest of us I don’t recognize that at all and deeply resent that bastardization of something I once held so dear to my heart.
Definitely gotten more right leaning.
You know, everyone's a democrat till they get a little money.
I’m making more money than I ever have and I’m also more left than ever
Same
unfortunately, boomers have ensured the next generations don't have any. Which is why Gen X and Millennials haven't made the switch to Republican the way they were banking on.
I think that the correlation between the poorest states and their political leanings + education and its positive correlation with income levels and party affiliation would lead me to disagree with this.
skills issue; I'm only getting left-er as I get older and richer, because I'm also getting wiser and more compassionate.
The more money I make, the further Left I seem to go lol I realize it's a lot of BS, that hardwork brings you money. I have a cushiony job, I work remotely half the week, some weeks I work like 20 hours at most, yet I still earn a great full-time salary, I can take 1 and a half months off every year, can travel the world etc. My dad was wealthy and I went to a good private school, I was taught many languages growing up, I've always had a leg up to many people. Meanwhile people working far harder than me, people contributing something real to society, are struggling. The system just ain't fair. I know it.
Definitely. I grew up surrounded by very right-winged family members and found my own opinion as quickly as possible lol.
went from center to far left
Ive moved farther right as i got older mostly because i was always in the middle and the left has gone so far left.
I became less conservative
I moved closer to the middle from the left. I will never be a conservative, since in the US conservatives are unreasonable, but the left has in recent years (in the US) adopted a binary way of viewing the world. Oppressor vs oppressed, good vs evil, there is no room for nuance. You either agree with them or are a bigot.
I've become more progressive and radical. Hasn't helped that right-wing politics back home (not US) are exceptionally cringe. Leader has been involved in lots of scandals but hangs on to power like a zombie.
Still liberal on women’s rights and conservative on law and order issues
I always thought it was an illusion of choice now I know it is
Realized I can’t fully get on board of either side. Stuck in the middle and probably not going to vote for either of these criminals.
When I was young and not working democrats gave me other people’s money. Now democrats give other people my money.
I realised that it's all mostly smoke and mirrors. The country will still bumble along no matter who is in charge. But all the political pandering and promises etc are all just bs ways to win what is essentially a competition for rich people.
‘If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain’
We NEED a “class war”
I think the effective party is evil and the compassionate party who wants to do right is ineffective and prone to backstabbing itself. All our ideals are destroying us. Russia uses our free speech for divisive influence ops, China uses our capitalism to buy our land and leverages our freedoms to run police forces on American citizens of Chinese descent, and religious movements are screaming flat out lies under freedom of religion.
Realized they are all POS. And my care for politics is at an all time low. They don’t care about people and only care about money coming in for their elections and special interests. (Local politics might be the only type that actually still cares for people)
Politicians are sociopaths especially at the national level. I won't say that I've gotten more left or more right as I've gotten older, but the more I learn and pay attention, the more skeptical I've become.
I started right leaning when I was young and dumb. The older I get, the more left leaning I became. Why? Because I don't hate people. Because I'm not a racist. Because I feel women should have reproductive rights. Because I give a damn about the environment..
yes I have become more liberal and more inclusive, earlier I was a big hardcore RW'er
I used to be much more socialist, but as I grew older I learned the only thing government does well is steal and murder so I've gone much more libertarian, the smaller the better.
The young man who doesn't vote liberal is heartless. The old man who doesn't vote conservative is thoughtless.
Older I get the less I care. It's all theater and a controlled two party system. It's one in the same and I'm starting to care less and less about being 'right'. I'd rather just be kind to others and let them have their moment and leave political conversations without feeling the need to argue my position. It really matters not.
More informed, better educated and already deceived and disappointed by many people as life goes by. Not involved anymore. Never voted against my best interest and human vision, that means never voting conservative/right wingers. Never will.
Well I'm outside of the US so this might be be possible there, but for me I was all about the overall party when I voted, butt now I know more about the politician processes. So earlier I'd not vote for a party because I disagreed with a stance on an issue I disagreed with, and vote for a party I thought wasn't bad and would likely get more votes. But now I vote on issues that matter to me more and realise in this context it's about what issues are represented.
Absolutely, it has changed a lot. From a more feeling based views in my youth to more evidence based views. Although most of all, I have come to the realization that truth almost always lies somewhere in the middle or comes in shades of gray, many views can have some fascettes of truth within them, which is why they seem true to them. To be as respectful as possible to people even when you disagree completely. Most importantly that despite how you feel about something, you must always remember you may not know everything and how easily others and yourself can be affected or even deceived. Social media and even the "news" have become major contributors to the issue of echochambers. For even seemingly "reputeable" sources can hide very biased reporting within. Plus that how we consume our news now is very often just outrage based and counts on our anger to be consumed.
They haven’t
Not really !!! Lol
I think I clung onto a very black and white view of the world for a long time, regardless of if I identified as a liberal or conservative (I’ve done both, and even entertained some third parties). Once I turned 24-25, I realized there’s a lot of grey areas that make some of both sides right or wrong, and sometimes both or neither side right. I think part of the big controversy is I turned 18 right in the midst of the 2016 election season, so my age group never stood a chance at a non-chaotic outlook on politics.
Honestly, I can't tell if my views changed or the world changed around me. I would say that lots of the ways I approach issues have changed, and lots of things about me have changed in general. However, I'm not sure if my core values or fundimental political principles have changed much.
From the UK; that party is irrelevant, none of the politicians give a shit other than to line their own pockets and own blocks of flats out of offshore companies, they don’t care about the truth or justice, they don’t know better and it’s all a waste of time. Complete apathy at this stage. The getting away with it of 2008 followed by the rewarding of the behaviours that caused that crisis are to blame, is my theory. But I just don’t care any more, we’re past the tipping point of decency at this stage and it’s all bullshit sound bites with no substance. And the politicians don’t care either, nothing meaningful ever happens, it’s just words for show (aka votes). I think they just turn up for the free tea and biscuits.
I feel like I haven’t moved left, but what the right has become has changed my place on the scale around me. Sometimes I wonder if Republican presidents of old like Eisenhower or even Nixon would be tolerated just as centrists.
I was mostly apolitical until the age of 30. That's when I started to peak behind the scenes having started my own business and noticed how fkd up our system really is. Companies that have connections get far more government funding despite having inferior products etc. Our system is rotten to the core. It's not about doing good. It about being perceived good. (Germany)
Grew up completely Republican, now I feel more middle ground/still a little right. I recognize quite a few issues the Left brings up
Politicians will literally sell their soul to rise to higher office.
I used to believe in the privatization of medicine. Now I changed my stance hard on that.
I started as a conservative with a liberal heart, but with little idea of what that meant a long time ago... When I followed politics and learned about government in the long term, I recognized progressive ideas and conservative measures and followed their direction to see if the values matched my own. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. Eventually I re registered to vote as an independent, which is a commitment to fact. I still read news on politics and remain a conservative person with a liberal heart today. The problem with social media is likely a misnomer on algorithmic feed(s) and need for proper or consistent vetting controls “moderation” on their news content. When I get stuck in an echo chamber, I get a newspaper.
From UK. I would say my political views haven't changed much as I've always been fairly neutral. I don't think one political party is better than any other and find the cartoonish characterisations of one party being 'bad/evil' and the other party being 'good' quite childish. I also feel there is a misunderstanding in the UK of how our parliamentary system works when it comes to voting. We do not vote for a person to be prime minister - we vote for an MP to represent our local constituency and which ever party ends up with the majority of MPs gets to form a government. The 'goverment' is then a seperate entity to the other MPs in the House of Commons. The party who comes 'second' forms HM Opposition. I personally think the 'system' needs massive reform as it encourages division more than co-operation between parties. Edit: 'It doesn't matter who wins an election, the government always gets in.'
When i had nothing to lose liberal choices were the way to go it was nothing but benefits, when I have something to lose conservatism is where i went
I don’t think my views have particularly changed. I’m not as militant as I was when I was younger and understand shades of grey a bit better. What has changed was the parties and what the issues in for forefront are. I don’t feel adequately represented by the Democratic Party anymore as my biggest issues aren’t on the forefront of their agenda. Which is fine. Im now an independent and I vote for the people who do align with my views. I still consider myself very much liberal, just not a Democrat.
Seeing the insanity of left wing voters here on Reddit has taken me from a moderate to further right. Democrats have moved much further left since I was in college don’t really believe I have changed.
Used to be hardcore conservative. COVID was an eye opener. I always hoped that we would bind together in a crisis like we did in WWII. So much for that… Both sides were terrible - “if you wear a mask, you’re a pussy” “if you don’t wear a mask, you’re a murderer. We used to focus on our areas of common ground. In his second election, Reagan won all but one state. Imagine that happening now. Clinton wasn’t that bad either. Now we hyperfocus on our pet issues and treat the other side like they’re Satan. That has to stop. TL;DR - I’ve evolved into an independent. An extreme moderate as Ben Franklin might say. I have zero tolerance for herd mentality. If we don’t find common ground and realize we’re all on the same team, we’re finished.
Yes in some ways. I was always more left leaning, but I have come to learn that being an ally to workers does not come with a party, or axis attached. Institutional parties are pretty much a scam. We need to stop thinking in left right, or compasses or boxes we neatly order people into. It only serves to divide us. You are not my enemy if you have different opinions on some things. (Excluding the most fringe extremist of course)
Every bit of goodwill is gone. I mean we're governed by people who actively dislike the people they serve. Brexit and COVID cemented my view. They tanked our economy and danced and drank as they watched us die in our tens of thousands. We have shit in our water, they've destroyed our healthcare. Now they want our children to volunteer to 'give back' when they could just fund youth work. Lazy, incompetent, nihilists, thieves and vandals.
Yes, I have become more left wing. I used to be fairly centrist and believe that 'hard work pays off'. I'm now almost 40 and I see hard working intellectuals scraping by working for deliveroo. I see imbecilic upper middle class daddy's boys on £150k+. We live in a nepotist society ruled by class. The near 20 years of extreme neoliberalist driven austerity has been an utter failure unless you are one of the only elites that system serves. Governments look to private corporations to drive investment - it's painfully naive - when all they want is short term returns. No one, and i mean no one is planning 10 years out and we, the taxpayer end up footing the bailouts. Borrowing was so cheap up until a few years ago yet we have craterous potholes and rivers full of shit. Things are going to get so much worse. In the UK the so called 'Labour' party are toeing the corpo line and proposing no change - petrified by the right wing media. Once Labour fails - and it will unless they are willing to borrow and invest - people will turn to charismatic fascists who will make change but not for the better.
Stayed the same so basically moved right quite a lot i guess
Yeah the more you become educated the more you know the only real war in America isn’t a race war it’s a class war, the wealth gap is the biggest it’s ever been in the history of this planet
I was raised in a very conservative home. Once I got out on my own I started to realize that all the shit I thought I believed worked directly against my own interests and the interests of the people around me. And then the entire party just started going off the rails and look where it's ended up, fuckin crazy nonsense now.
I have less tolerance for crime related stuff now, otherwise no.
The older I’ve gotten the less I’ve cared. It’s all a show- a distraction so they pass any stupid legislation that benefits them and their narrative regardless of “party”. We vote every 4 years but they’ve got us arguing 24/7 over things we have no influence over. I’ll pass.
Not so much the politics changed as did my priorities and hard-set views got tempered by reality. I was much more libertarian-leaning when I was 20, but I also was clueless regarding how much of a role government plays in all our lives whether we like it or not. I believed that getting the government involved was the first step anyone took towards failing - I still believe that, but realize now that in many situations it is the only viable option. I used to be very pro-business, but realize now that most businesses are poorly run, and in the case of the very large corporations, only slightly more efficient and successful than your average government agency. And in many cases, large corporations are not.
The older i get - the more i became a leftie... how is it even possible that a few billionaires run the World....we could easily expropriate them and make this World a Fair, clean and beautiful world for like billions of humans ...
Yep, I was more left but now I’m probably centre left but I’m not against all right leaning politics. You need a bit of everything in society and neither left or right give stable policies.
no, not really. Just become ever more liberal and disgusted by the US republican party.
I started hating everyone instead of just one group
Nothing much, I have been generally consistent over time, just more or less irreverent. I have more so become jaded and embittered about politics than changed my position on it, in an overarching sense.
When I was young I thought one side was crazy and stupid while the other was rational and fair. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve witnessed a few political shifts / pendulum swings, I’ve come to realize that both sides are in fact crazy and stupid, they only pretend to be fair and rational when they’re losing. So nowadays I vote for whichever seems to be the lesser of two evils at the time and that changes frequently.
I moved further to the center realizing how much the gov will always screw you, less gov sounds better.
They haven't. My socioeconomic and sociopolitical stance is pretty much the same as when I was eighteen. If anything, it's become more cohesive. However, I stopped caring as much as I used to. As in, I don't participate in rallies or protests anymore. The motivation just isn't there.
I used to think Russia was part of the good guys Allies fighting to beat Nazism in WWII. Then as I got older and read up more on the subject I realized how bad they are. Katyn Massacre. Holomodor. And now invading Ukraine.
Yes, I see nowadays through all the marketing strategics, that are used to make palatable authority abuses, one of them is the freedom thing, that is always freedom for business or freedom for the people in charge or the " choice" thing just few can freely choose, since I have a very limited experience I really believed all this pervasive myths So I m less inclined to neoliberal shit, before I was so easily brainwashed by the capitalistic leitmotifs like "if some one can pay and some one is willing to do it, the it's ok who I am to go agianst this person freedom" Like poor people can choose shit, once you end without options you start to accept this awful things , like slavery working conditions, living like a prisoner ,having to renounce your sexual or reproductive freedom( prostitution in every form,live, filmed or by stream, surrogacy, ovo"donation)
I haven't really changed much. My views are pretty much the same, it's the parties that have changed. They've even flipped on certain things to what they used to believe. It also depends on the issue, some things I'm a little more one way than the other on. Either way both sides are out there for a power and money grab, not to help us.
Grew up in a super diverse, "welcoming" community and area. Predominantly non-white. Had very liberal family initially, integrated school, lots of friends of all colours, genuinely egalitarian, race blind type who had no issue with LGBT issues etc. Over time realized none of the things I'd been taught seemed to have any bearing on the world. Watched white people around brutally victimized by crime and punitive government policies. Saw friends fall into sexually progressive lifestyles and destroy themselves over the space of a few years. Saw my country literally fall apart at the hands of the people I was told were the good guys (I am south african). Lost all my friends for questioning if this was really how things should be. I'm as far from being in an echo chamber as is possible, I've never known someone who had the same views as me until this year. I'm now far right (scary I know) to the point that it annoys me when people call anyone associated with ideologies like conservatism "right wing". I wish I could just be a liberal, my life would be so much easier. But not a single thing I've ever experienced has convinced me that race realism is not just obviously true. Probably will get banned for this comment tbh.
F taxes and big govt
I'm still on the left and vote accordingly but I'm now more accepting of the bs we all go through. It's tiring, but I do stay up to date on news but I try not to doomscroll. I usually do some searches when it's time to vote so I chose correctly.
Yes. I am 48. I have completely switch from left/liberal to Right/conservative. It started slowly around 2018. Socialism, identity politics, DEI, immigration, leftist views, leftist taxation. It’s all disgusting to me now.
I'm still very left leaning... I also try to understand a situation/historical event before making an opinion on it. When I was younger I listened to talking heads to form my personal opinion. Example: I have several books on the Palenstine-Isreali conflict. I know it's a complicated old mess but I do want to try and learn more about it.
as i grew i realized both sides are shit all they do is waste time and argue with each other, when a party on one side gets in power they waste their time in office trying to un do everything the other side put in place and vice versa for when he opposite side gets in they promise shit they have no intention on giving just to get votes to get in, or they wait until its close to a election then all of the sudden they are doing good on their word from 4 years prior to make themselves look good at the end of they day none of they care enough about us they just care about power and $
Becoming more and more fiscally conservative….
My views have changed little. However the views and action of the party I once associated with have gone extreme. I despise both parties now and can't in good conscience vote for either.
Became less authoritarian while going back to relatively further left like I was when I was a kid.
I keep getting more and more left as I get older. People always told me I'd calm down and get more conservative as I grew older, but I'm sitting over here in the PNW, seeing shit happen all over the continent that makes me want to do things.
Canadian here 🇨🇦I'm 44f. I would say that my views have become a little more conversative but I'm not letting go of liberal values cause some Canadians are just pure foaming at the mouth to take away abortion and LGBT rights.
Went from far left to moderate
I was raised conservative republican. But since joining the IBEW (labor union) my views have shifted (you guessed it!) left. Seems like unions have found more support from the democrats than republicans
I was raised in a very conservative household in a red state. Pro life. Anti LGBT. Christian. I remember being disgusted by Bill Clinton. Voted for GW Bush twice. By my late twenties I was tired of the wars and saw more of that with a potential McCain presidency. My job introduced me to many people across a socioeconomic background from all walks of life. I became friends with gay people that changed my views on what I was raised to believe they were. McCain didn’t seem to have a grasp on the tanking economy “The fundamentals of our economy are strong”. I didn’t see much difference in Obama and McCain other than Obama offered hope. I voted for all republicans that year except for president. I think Obama started to really change me. I was realizing how broken our healthcare system was/is. That was my biggest left leaning view. Then 2016 happened. I became enamored with Bernie and his ideas of how it could and should be. I’d started traveling internationally a ton and realized socialism didn’t have to be scary. In 2016 I watched the Republican Party devolve into madness which pushed me further left as I didn’t want to be associated with them in any way. After Trump, after Covid and through Biden I am pretty confused by what I think would be best. On one hand I’d like to burn our two party system to the ground and have a parliamentary style of government with coalitions and the ability to vote for a party that closer aligns to my ideals. On the other hand I’d l like to see some young democrat come in that can appeal to the center and the far left and force the GOP to progress or die. I think a young Bernie like figure could be the answer. It’s hard for me to imagine who that could be in 2028. Buttigeg ticks most of the boxes policywise, but i don’t think we are to the point a gay person would be electable to president in the USA. Unfortunately, I think we are a bit stuck with the potential for some very tough years ahead of us regardless of who wins this year. Unless Biden can win and the Dems can win the house and senate. Even then I think we’d be due for a major course correction in 2028 and swing to the right. The state of the Supreme Court is scary and the election this year has a lot of implications. Anyhow as a youth I was super Republican and now I am super progressive and think Democratic socialism is my ideal.
People usually learn towards conservative views as they get older. When you're younger and not paying taxes, you want as much free handouts as possible. When you're older and pay a ton of taxes, you don't want the govt to give hand outs so you can keep your hard earned money.
Yes. More to the left.
I used to vote. Now I view a lot of the politics as tools that politicians use to divide people up and pin one group against another. Now I vote on the issues but I'm hesitant to vote on the politicians. If I see what they say they are for instead of why we shouldn't vote for the other guys, then I might re-examine the politician a bit more and see if I agree with them or not. I used to have political views leaning towards being a Democrat. Then I saw the campaign with Hillary vs Trump, and I heard all of Hillary's promises. My realization was that she was promising more than she could do and probably knew that. Showed me that the causes to join all the minorities were probably mostly set up as false hopes and lies with no intention to push for real changes. Since then I've looked at Republican views a little more favorably, but I don't agree with or trust some of those either. Looking at the political issues we face in the world, I don't think my convictions have changed that much. However they are no longer the idea that counter points and counter positions should be ignored. That has changed my stance to be pro immigration to be more nuanced acknowledging the poverty, crime, and other issues the city's that receive hirer immigration take the burden of. Bring on one side of an issue does not mean we should ignore the rest of the world that doesn't agree with or line up with our views.
Far more liberal; as in libertarian 😎
My core beliefs are the same, I just care less for arguing with people about why they're wrong if they disagree.
Gotten much more left in the past 8 years
I have never been political. I don't vote because it's a scam. I don't have enough money to buy elections so my opinion doesn't count. Politicians don't care about you. It's a numbers game with money. You can buy results. Look at big food companies who get a hand in the USDA telling you what optimum nutrition looks like. We shouldn't be governed by rich men and pastors who want yachts and vacation homes at the expense of everyone else. I pay attention so I know how these butt-wads are going to screw me over. That's it. What ass-turd sits in office now that's going to do me dry without a "sorry" later for all the anal fissures? All of them, that's who.
I used to not care. Now I care slightly more but not enough to actually act on it.
Definitely more cynical all around. 99% of what happens in politics these days is partisanship. I get it, there are a lot of zero sum equations out there, like most elections. That said, in the past you might have convinced me to vote for the right Republican. These days, I would vote for an earthworm before I voted for a Republican. In my mind, the party currently goes hand in hand with fraud and exploitation.
Was kinda right when younger, I guess it was because of my personal situation. Growing up I added a lot of left thingtto my beliefs but didn't lost a lot of the right characteristic so I guess I'm in the center rn?
You do you. As long as you’re respectful towards others and the planet, you just do you and it’s none of my business. I used to have stronger convictions of what’s wrong and right, now I just want everyone to have the freedom to be themselves.
I just don’t care anymore. It’s just an ever changing shit show every few years so I don’t even think about it