You must log in or register to comment.
Downvote away but I’m still a fan of free markets. But that’s not really an option in my country, because our Libertarian party are actually neo-feudalists who think landowners deserve free rent. So my only real voting choice is for whichever anti-FPTP candidate is most popular. The party “closer” to my beliefs is actively working against them too.
Market socialism and worker’s self-management. Heard of it?
Yep! Let’s repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and give it a fair chance.
You usually become more fiscally conservative though because you have decades of savings, home, car, etc that you’ve worked for.
Sure but like… I want higher taxes to fund transit, school and basic income for everyone.
Taxes are fine as long as they aren’t regressive (sales) and the spending is monitored/audited and the taxes are reevaluated occasionally to see if they still make sense.
Of course
And I want lower taxes because they’re just used to fund wars and corporate bailouts.
I was told the same thing. 20-ish years later, and the average US Democratic nominee makes me think, “you fucking fascist.”
That only works when people are able to successfully find a comfortable place in the system, then the urge to say “fuck you, got mine” grows more and more, making conservatism increasingly likely. But when the system breaks and multiple entire generations stop getting theirs, FUGM stops being a possible option— you ain’t got any to say got mine about.
Accumulated lead poisoning over decades also helps contribute to an increase in likelihood of conservatism as a person ages. Perhaps even more substantially than what I said before.
I wonder what the accumulated microplastics will do to us instead.
I have a pretty comfortable spot in the existing system and I’m even more left now than I was 20 years ago in college.
I grew up in a conservative Catholic middle class family. Got a job at a conservative aerospace company right out of college. Worked there for 40 years. Retired last year as a senior manager. I’ve consistently become more liberal over those years; a lot of that in reaction to the grotesque form of conservatism that’s grown in America. In my 20s, it felt like a reasonable difference of opinion. Now, in my 60s, it feels like a level of cruelty that can’t be tolerated.
I’m personally fine financially (e.g., “I got mine”), but the system is wrong and needs to be changed. The wealth inequality makes me nauseous. Everyone should have a right to healthcare and a living wage.
My story is far from unique. Yes, there are the “I got mine” conservatives, but the ones I know were never very liberal. Lots of boomers like me both benefited from the system and consistently voted for more progressive policies because we could see it becoming more and more unfair.
Well, you probably lack the lead exposure.
I’m definitely less liberal. Now I’m an anarchist, leftist, socialist. They were right!
Them: “No, not like that!”
I grew up hearing, “a person should be liberal in their youth, otherwise they have no passion; and conservative as an adult, otherwise they have no sense.”
I’m in my late forties and still think it’s as much bullshit as I thought it was as a teen.
The reason people assumed this was the case was that statistically the more money or influence you have you have the more conservative you become, and for most generations you were able to build savings or property or status slowly as you got older. This stopped being true with milenials.
Somewhay related observation: gen-Z entering the work force right now are highly radical because even while actively working multiple jobs theyre actually losing wealth and are percieved as entirely disposable by employers no matter how long or hard they work.
Gen Z dude who has largely been pushed from the labor market but is lucky enough to have kin willing to support me. I fucken hate corporations so much, just let me work in the back room I’ll get everything done proper your hiring offices vibe check is worthless.
As a child I went to this man’s Halloween show at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA where he was a professor of chemistry. Amazing show! Love seeing this meme.
The PNW continues to be the coolest fucking place in the US.
I remember when my ex-sister-in-law told me this verbatim. I was enraged.
She’s backed off of that sentiment ten years later now that she’s seen what her votes have gained. But I won’t forget.
Some people do. Also long term constant propaganda machines wear people down. It isn’t hard to find people who pointed out Vietnam was bad but then supported Iraq or such. The number of people who supported the idea of setting up a universal healthcare system when voting for Obamas campaign, then also voted for Trump in 2024 is non zero.
Thankfully it isn’t everyone, otherwise I think our suicide rates would grow even larger with people realizing they don’t want to live in a world where they don’t give a fuck about anyone but theirself.
Uh huh. And you old people picking up your social security, index linked pensions, subsidized healthcare are just so anti-socialism.
You’re supposed to become more conservative as you gain a larger nest egg to conserve. When even a nest is out of range of affordability for most, these is no nest egg to be conservative about.
I remember hearing that I’d become more conservative as I got older. 15 year old me thought “sure, communism and anarchism are great IN THEORY but they could never work in the real world!” and 48 year old me thinks “anarchism-syndicalism is the ideal, we just need to smash the state so they don’t crush the movement in its infancy!”
I think it helps that now we’re in the real world and see capitalism not working.
Inb4 “it’s working perfectly” pedants
it only “worked” because it was capitalism at home and imperialism abroad
I became more conservative in my thirties. By the time my forties rolled around I had already shaken off that virus. Even then, I was only fiscally conservative.
I too feel I was if anything more conservative when younger although I was never conservative enough to be called conservative. im in that middle where right wing calls me a crazy super ultra communist X alpha turbo edition and ultra left says im crazy super ultra capitalist X alpha turbo edition.
The boomers who told us that were living in the time of affordable housing and cars, listening to the conservative frontrunners claiming it was all because of their policies.
When the economy failed to deliver such wonders to the next generations, they just told the boomers to blame the kids.
