I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.
Presumably meaning the percentage. Not all GenX went right, but I will admit I’ve been disappointed in seeing how many around my age did lose any semblance of critical thinking. And some of them very early, so it may not be age at all that’s a factor, but something else that affects people. Maybe millennials have managed to avoid whatever that is.
As a 50 year white guy old who has never voted for a conservative, and always tries to support the most progressive candidate, let me assure you, we exist, and we are tremendously disappointed in our demographic peers.
Tiktok and the like. Millenials grew up at the perfect time, where the internet was at its peak, then it all became consolidated into large echochambers which are more easily manipulated. Generations after millenials don’t remember the internet outside of tiktok, instagram, snapchat etc. they don’t what they missed out on.
That article was about Australia and even then the headline didn’t support the claims. Millennials have always been like 14 points more liberal than Gen X before them, but they haven’t moved more liberal over time.
elder milennials(too much baggage from thier boomer or Xer family members) turned right more than left, the younger ones tend to be left wings, barring some poc, and lgbtq+ are already on the left.
people move to the right when they buy homes and have kids. elder millenials are already there. younger ones haven’t started yet.
all of my friends who have bought a home and had kids have been way more conservative. both political and personally, they want to conserve things and not change things and see development/progress as a threat to themselves, their family, and their finances.
It’s also survivorship bias. Wealthy people live longer, and wealthy people are more conservative. As a cohort ages, the poor liberals die off and the wealthy assholes remain.
It’s also being annoyed and fed up with people harassing the shit out of you for being ‘rich and privileged’ when you live a pretty basic life. I paid for my own undergrad and graduate educations, lived cheap and saved up for 15 years, and finally got a house and some stability in my life.
I can’t tell you how many ‘leftists’ love ot mouth off at me now that I’m some rich privledged asshole. to them i might as well be a billionaire because if i ‘really cared about other people’ i’d let homeless drug addicts live in my spare bedroom or sell my home and give all the money to some women’s shelter. I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years, meanwhile they are living off mom and dad and trust funds and traveling abroad 3x a year and screaming about how ‘underprivledged’ they are and how anyone who has a nominally better life than them is bad/wrong and they are some heroic struggling figure because they are ‘above’ traditional employment that might actually give them a better income.
It’s the hypocracy and the irony that I can’t stand anymore. When I grew up the left was more about equality and bringing people up, now it’s about tearing everyone else down to boost whomever is the most ‘oppressed’ at the moment.
ironically when leftists focus on economics, and not identity politics social justice bullshit… they get tons of support and votes from men of all ages.
The Boomers designed (and then aggressively defunded) the education system that these kids are being raised in, so it’s not really a huge surprise that they aren’t learning critical thinking.
Then combine that with the social media/advertising landscape that they’re constantly exposed to, and it’s really a losing battle.
One reason why so many are turning bigots, you expressed it yourself: your refusal to consider them on your same level, as intelligent and critical thinkers as you. Somehow everyone is stupid but you (and I don’t mean “you” specifically, rather everyone who approaches discourse in the same way).
I have a graduate degree, been left/progressive my entire life. Only in the past few years have I been told, to my face, that I’m a bigoted ignorance stupid piece of shit. It’s almost as if the left has gone off the rails and basically thinks anyone who won’t vote for them should f off. And they wonder why they don’t get votes or population.
I used to be proud to be a Democrat. Ever since Clinton I’ve been ashamed and all the party has done is double down on their stupid sexist bullshit.
I remember talking about how clinton was a bad candidate and was going to lose in 2016. all i ever got in reply was ‘you’re a sexist piece of shit’. yeah, god forbid i be critical of clinton’s shity campaign, and her crappy policies that alienated huge swaths of america.
Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.
If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.
If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn’t usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.
Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.
The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.
Social media is an incredibly strong tool. It started off pretty nice, so we thought once the boomers died out we would be better off and for a while it was looking good, but it has quickly turned into algorithmic slop which can easily feed people propaganda without them even realising it.
I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.
Millennials are apparently the first generation to move “left” as they grow older, instead of right.
There are changes. Some positive.
Presumably meaning the percentage. Not all GenX went right, but I will admit I’ve been disappointed in seeing how many around my age did lose any semblance of critical thinking. And some of them very early, so it may not be age at all that’s a factor, but something else that affects people. Maybe millennials have managed to avoid whatever that is.
As a 50 year white guy old who has never voted for a conservative, and always tries to support the most progressive candidate, let me assure you, we exist, and we are tremendously disappointed in our demographic peers.
I think there is something to the “millennial’s refuse to grow up” mantra that boomers and genx accuse us of.
Like, if growing up is adopting a “fuck you i got mine” mentality… nah.
Tiktok and the like. Millenials grew up at the perfect time, where the internet was at its peak, then it all became consolidated into large echochambers which are more easily manipulated. Generations after millenials don’t remember the internet outside of tiktok, instagram, snapchat etc. they don’t what they missed out on.
That article was about Australia and even then the headline didn’t support the claims. Millennials have always been like 14 points more liberal than Gen X before them, but they haven’t moved more liberal over time.
elder milennials(too much baggage from thier boomer or Xer family members) turned right more than left, the younger ones tend to be left wings, barring some poc, and lgbtq+ are already on the left.
people move to the right when they buy homes and have kids. elder millenials are already there. younger ones haven’t started yet.
all of my friends who have bought a home and had kids have been way more conservative. both political and personally, they want to conserve things and not change things and see development/progress as a threat to themselves, their family, and their finances.
This is the story.
It’s also survivorship bias. Wealthy people live longer, and wealthy people are more conservative. As a cohort ages, the poor liberals die off and the wealthy assholes remain.
It’s also being annoyed and fed up with people harassing the shit out of you for being ‘rich and privileged’ when you live a pretty basic life. I paid for my own undergrad and graduate educations, lived cheap and saved up for 15 years, and finally got a house and some stability in my life.
I can’t tell you how many ‘leftists’ love ot mouth off at me now that I’m some rich privledged asshole. to them i might as well be a billionaire because if i ‘really cared about other people’ i’d let homeless drug addicts live in my spare bedroom or sell my home and give all the money to some women’s shelter. I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years, meanwhile they are living off mom and dad and trust funds and traveling abroad 3x a year and screaming about how ‘underprivledged’ they are and how anyone who has a nominally better life than them is bad/wrong and they are some heroic struggling figure because they are ‘above’ traditional employment that might actually give them a better income.
It’s the hypocracy and the irony that I can’t stand anymore. When I grew up the left was more about equality and bringing people up, now it’s about tearing everyone else down to boost whomever is the most ‘oppressed’ at the moment.
ironically when leftists focus on economics, and not identity politics social justice bullshit… they get tons of support and votes from men of all ages.
Statements like these require the burden of proof. Voting habits show otherwise.
The Boomers designed (and then aggressively defunded) the education system that these kids are being raised in, so it’s not really a huge surprise that they aren’t learning critical thinking.
Then combine that with the social media/advertising landscape that they’re constantly exposed to, and it’s really a losing battle.
One reason why so many are turning bigots, you expressed it yourself: your refusal to consider them on your same level, as intelligent and critical thinkers as you. Somehow everyone is stupid but you (and I don’t mean “you” specifically, rather everyone who approaches discourse in the same way).
Yep.
I have a graduate degree, been left/progressive my entire life. Only in the past few years have I been told, to my face, that I’m a bigoted ignorance stupid piece of shit. It’s almost as if the left has gone off the rails and basically thinks anyone who won’t vote for them should f off. And they wonder why they don’t get votes or population.
I used to be proud to be a Democrat. Ever since Clinton I’ve been ashamed and all the party has done is double down on their stupid sexist bullshit.
I remember talking about how clinton was a bad candidate and was going to lose in 2016. all i ever got in reply was ‘you’re a sexist piece of shit’. yeah, god forbid i be critical of clinton’s shity campaign, and her crappy policies that alienated huge swaths of america.
Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.
If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.
If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn’t usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.
Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.
The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.
This bias is real. Everyone thinks they’re the smart one. There also do exist huge differences in intelligence.
Social media is an incredibly strong tool. It started off pretty nice, so we thought once the boomers died out we would be better off and for a while it was looking good, but it has quickly turned into algorithmic slop which can easily feed people propaganda without them even realising it.