comment: >
  
  This.
  I know a lot of boomers, and Gen-Xers that support LGBT causes and all of that, but vote R simply because they want to keep more of their money.
  Meanwhile, Conservatives rail against any legislation or executive action like Student Loan forgiveness that might help Millennials.
context: I grew up with Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and Reading Rainbow. I think that is why. >
  
  Unironically true. The radical message of "Other people exist and matter." 
  For me the most frustrating part is that you're allowed to be selfish here - which is different than greedy! 
  I like to say: Yeah I do want what's best for me, and it's best for me (yes personally, yes individually) when everyone around me is intelligent and healthy and happy. Because that means I get to benefit from all kinds of cool shit when everyone is prospering. 
  I'm not even talking about a communist/socialist utopia here. I'm just saying "hey can we please just look out for each other maybe?" >
  
  Also less likely to be a victim of crime.  Most blue-collar crimes are crimes of necessity.  When people around you are happier, healthier, and more intelligent, they tend to,  you know, also commit fewer crimes.
  Things like jackasses driving like jackasses on highways/local roads going 100+mph and destroying entire families in a crash?  They tend to mellow out and go with the flow more when properly educated to care about other people.
  As it turns out, when you care about others, you also care about yourself because you're reasserting the normal behavior of people actually giving a shit.
  The reason democracy is typically the best discovered form of government is explicitly because it's a government that, theoretically, is forced to actually help its people.  Which helps boost education and health, which stamps down on rampant greed, which boosts research and innovation.
  All of which cycles back into a very healthy government.  As we can see, America is very, very unhealthy. >
  
  Because as I get older it's increasingly clear the right wing is absolutely fucking insane. >
  
  War, housing shortage, more war, recession, more war, more recession, job shortages, more war a worldwide pandemic and another recession to look forward to and it's all encompassed in the greatest information age of humanity. The lifetime of ANY millennial is why millennials are less conservative. 
  For fucks sake, we're the first generation to actively avoid having children, multiple developed nations panicking over population growth, because there's no guarantee of what we're leaving for the next generation, let alone our own. >
  
  First generation since industrialization that's worse off than our parents, because our grandparents decided to be greedy. >
  
  For millennials it’s just our parents not grandparents. Most millennials grandparents were greatest generation and they left the world much better than they found it for their kids the boomers. >
  
  They also raised the boomers to be little shits though, so there's that. >
  
  They created the very things in their kids that they hate but refuse to acknowledge their being responsible for it.
  My dad likes to talk about how Boomers failed us kids but does it in such a  condescending way that it's still insulting Millennials 🙄 >
  
  Saying stuff like: "It's my fault. I should have spanked you more." >
  
  He likes to talk about how they didn't teach and guide us enough, heavily implying that we're currently failures and useless. I forget his exact words last time. Either way you can't help but feel bad when he's talking about his generation's mistakes.
  It's like some weird narcissism where it's still somehow not their fault the world is the way it is. >
  
  It’s a generation realizing their faults. My parents worked 1 job each, didn’t buy their home (inherited), didn’t go to college, got kicked out of inherited home and inherited another one that they barely did enough maintenance to do it was considered livable. My dad used to tell me we couldn’t afford things ever. I grew up and moved out, learned he was squirreling it all away into his retirement that was over 1M and the “payments” he was making to my uncle for his half of the house inheritance were actually paused until I went to college. What the fuck my parents were doing with the money, where they were going, what they were thinking, I have no fucking clue, but knowing what I know now, I know they were very selfish and self centered individuals who put their own comfort above all else. Both born in the early 70’s.
  I rarely call them for no reason (less than 4 times per year), I don’t invite them to family gatherings, and I don’t discuss money with them. My wife and I have worked very hard since we met (I was 17) to be in a better place. My parents did little to help (there was a period of time I refused to answer their calls on weekends because they always demanded money I didn’t have for some bullshit). Now, I make over twice as much as them, live in a different city, own my own home, and haven’t asked them for a thing in over 10 years. Now, they call all the time just to be buddy buddy. I wish I could believe them but if they treated me as badly as they did as a child, why would I trust them now as a man?
  Saddest part of it all is that I had one of the better home situations amongst my friends growing up. >
  
  As a millennial myself (one of the oldest, turning 41 this year), I became an adult and started paying attention to politics right as GW Bush was elected (with a minority of the popular vote). I watched 9/11 happen (I was in a chemistry lab in college and I remember that moment with perfect clarity). I watched an increasingly-extremist GOP tear the country apart, destroy essential social services, and demonize people I cared about who happened to be gay, or black, or latino, or muslim.
  I watched them vilify and denigrate the best President in my lifetime for eight years because of the color of his skin as much as his politics, and then I watched them elect the worst President in the history of the country (again, with a minority of the popular vote) and suck his testicles as he tore down the institutions that made my country something to be proud of.
  You're goddamn right I'm not getting more rightwing. The Republican Party is a party of domestic terrorists, grifters, liars, and thieves. They will never have my vote. Not in any election, at any level. Not ever. >
  
  This is the best comment on Reddit today. If I knew how to give an award 🥇 I would. >
  
  
  There are deeper issues at play. “The most likely explanation is a cohort effect – that millennials have developed different values to previous generations, shaped by experiences unique to them, and they do not feel conservatives share these,” wrote Burn-Murdoch. To put this in my own, blunter, terms: millennials have been royally screwed by an inequitable economic system and a runaway climate crisis. Only an idiot with loads of money would be happy with the way things are.
  
  Ding, ding, ding. And if you think we're radical, just wait til you chat with the generation coming up behind us.
  I genuinely am far more pissed off by fellow millennials that I run into from time to time, as opposed to boomers, who came of age when I did and found any answers for anything within the ideology of the Right. >
  
  “And if you think we're radical, just wait til you chat with the generation coming up behind us.”
  I am an uncle to both my brothers’ 9 year old sons and I spent two years as a taxi driver driving kids to and from school. I’ve encountered so many kids who genuinely viewed ‘money’ as the core of all our problems. Heart warming. >
  
  Gen Z is the only generation where I've met multiple people who openly say they are communists, and that capitalism is the root cause of most of our country's problems. 
  I think Republicans are right to worry about the communists, but unlike Republicans Gen Z can actually state what communism is and most are against capitalism as it is implemented today >
  
  A lot of older people hear communism and think Russia, China. Communism actually has a place in the world, but obviously anything under a fascist government never goes well. >
  
  It blows Boomers mind when they cite China as "communism bad" and I tell them that China's economy hasn't been communist since the 1980s and is now state-capitalist, just like Russia's is. 
  I think Cuba is probably the only remaining "communist" country and even that's been changing slowly in recent decades. >
  
  Lmao, I have to try this one with my father. He's part of the "there's a global elite trying to kill everyone!!!!" population. >
  
  I also just remembered Vietnam is still communist as well. So there's 2 countries. Cuba and Vietnam. >
  
  I don't think you can compare the two. Vietnam has Starbucks, KFC, Gucci, Chanel. People drive Mercedes there. There's so much new money, like Crazy Rich Asians style. It's not like Cuba at all. >
  
  Gen X here and I’ve got mine in terms of most things, and yet I find myself leaning farther and farther to the Left.  This is because I want this country to be what I was told it was: “the greatest country on earth.” We have a long way to go to make that happen, and it starts with Universal Healthcare, affordable education, and the return of pensions. >
  
  Fellow gen X
  
  I want this country to be what I was told it was
  
  Probably the biggest disappointment/ disillusionment of my life was discovering just how much fiction I was raised with.
  I want the next presidential election slogan to be "freedom and justice for all" and for that to mean accountability for rich people and an end to the drug war. And full pardons for all those people on jail due to marijuana possession. (Among other things. That slogan could go far...) >
  
  For whatever it’s worth, I tell my kid “america is built on some special ideals. That everyone is equal, they everyone deserves a chance to chase their own happiness, that people should be free to live their own lives how they choose. In so so many ways we’re falling short of those ideals, and always has. Every generation there are people who don’t care about those promises and only think of them as scams. But every generation keeps trying to live up to that idea, and every one gets a little closer. I hope my time beings you closer, and I hope your time will see us get there. If not, keep trying.” >
  
  Damn, good parenting. >
  
  Thank you. It’s tough, and I’m often an idiot, but I try my best. >
  
  Take some of my energy, good parent. ♥️ >
  
  Being conservative requires having something you wish to maintain and conserve.
  We have nothing.. no money, no houses, no careers.
  Figure it out. >
  
  I’m an extremely lucky Millenial in that I have those things. 
  Still vote Liberal. Their policies make it more likely more people can have what I have. >
  
  Me too, used to be Republican when I was younger before I really paid attention (my parents still are Republicans) and I'll never vote conservative for as long as I live. I have a pretty decent life and have a house and family and stuff, but there is NO reason why those types of things can't be had by everyone. >
  
  I also used to be. And it’s more we grew up brainwashed with their garbage and we’re smart enough to sort out fact from fiction. My family scared of their own shadow if tucker or hannity or now newsmax tells them to be.
  Being the outcast of the family is a bummer cuz I’d love for my kids to spend more time with their cousins…the grownups can’t go 3 minutes without some bullshit politics coming into the conversation >
  
  Elderly parents of a friend are always so scared ... recently were talking about the guns they'd purchased. And when I talk with them, it's a constant barrage of fear-mongering wackiness that they heard on Tucker and the like. Stuff you can't even contradict to them because they are so deep down that they can't see the light. >
  
  I've learned to just not engage. The trick folks have been using for the past several years is pulling out an obscure anecdote to prove their viewpoint. And since I'm not in the crazy news ecosystem they are, I hardly ever have heard of the event they base their terrible view on. Really insulating way of blocking criticism.  If I thought there would be a meaningful discussion I'd mourn the loss of that opportunity....but this tactic is just one more way to avoid an honest conversation. >
  
  
  I've learned to just not engage.
  
  This is a sad conundrum we're in now.  We can't so much as sit and have a rational discussion because everyone is so entrenched in their views, particularly Republicans, largely because of sunk-cost fallacy, but it's absolutely necessary or else we will never be united as humans recognizing that we all have the same basic needs.  It's tragic what right-wing politics and media has done to humanity through fear and hate mongering.  
  
  The trick folks have been using for the past several years is pulling out an obscure anecdote to prove their viewpoint.   
  
  This is called a corner or an edge case/issue, and it's been a staple of right-wing politics and media forever.  Find any shred of truth in an issue, cling to it and pound away at it as if that were the biggest or only issue, when in fact, it's a negligible or marginal issue, at best.  People will believe it since that shred of truth is there and they refuse to do the math demonstrating how obscure that part of it is. >
  
  
  it's absolutely necessary or else we will never be united as humans recognizing that we all have the same basic needs
  
  Conan Obrien needs a friend had Michelle Obama on again (Dec 18 2022 episode). She touched on this really clearly, talking about once she got into the room with people then the hate and vitriol doesn't dissolve, but mostly goes away. They talk about the pandemic and how far away we are from each other and we haven't been getting the doses of interaction our human bodies need. Sure remote work is here to stay....but losing the human interaction to video calls and screens full time isn't healthy if you don't otherwise have human contact outside your home.
  Breaking into those distanced, secluded people who have terrible right wing media in their brains is a maybe impossible challenge. Why leave the bubble when they can be hateful and fearful from the comfort of their home? Not that isolationism is exclusively a right wing problem. >
  
  An additional factor that isn't mentioned: The right wing is going farther to the right. It used to be possible to be a center-leaning Democrat (it still is), or a center-leaning Republican (not so much these days). 
  In other words, the divide between left and right has gotten too big. It used to be relatively easy for moderates to jump from one party to another without making giant ideological changes to their personal beliefs. Today that really isn't possible anymore.
  It is possible to move to the right while still staying on the "left". Those who fervently supported Bernie might decide in a few years to vote for Buttigieg, but I seriously doubt they'll suddenly support DeSantis just because they've become a homeowner. >
  
  Being 13 when the GWB error started is why I'll never be rightwing. But I'm willing to see what this person thinks. >
  
  
  the GWB error
  
  Did you mean error, or era? 
  I really hope you meant error, as it's more fitting. >
  
  I always use error as a play on era 😂 >
  
  I love it. It makes me think of the line from "The Pirates of Penzance"
  When you said “orphan”, did you mean “orphan” – a person who has lost his parents, or “often”, frequently? >
  
  "Aha beg pardon, I see what you mean: frequently".
  "You said 'orphan' frequently".
  "No! Only once".
  "Exactly.  You said 'orphan' frequently only once". >
  
  We've been fed this "everyone turns conservative as they get older" bullshit for decades. What's actually meant is that boomers turned more conservative as they got older, in history's greatest ever collective expression of "I got mine and the rest of you can fuck off." 
  I'm in my 50's. All of my Gen X friends started out left wing or liberal. They've all gotten married, had kids, had careers and businesses. Not a single one of them has "turned conservative." Not one. All that's happened is that maybe they've become slightly more "moderate," or at least slightly less militant. In my experience, the people of my generation who are now conservatives were always conservatives. >
  
  I think this has been proven in studies.  For the most part, it even applies to boomers. The hippie free-love types were always a minority. >
  
  
  The hippie free-love types were always a minority.
  
  less than 5% and some studies have them at less than 1% of that generation. They just had good marketing. >
  
  And great music >
  
  I won't be happy until me and my fellow millennials/zoomers implement Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. There is no negotiation to be made with old farts scared about the big red, just a war of attrition they will eventually lose. >
  
  I’m 55.  Tell me what I can do to bring your vision of the future into reality. >
  
  Join your community association and take as much local action as possible. Outspeak the boomer cranks, scare them out of city government community outreach with facts and knowledge about your neighbors who aren't attending.
  Never back down, yell at them, study their arguments and strategize with your friends. Bring the NIMBY/Status Quo superhighway to a screeching gridlock. There's power in the mundane, it just needs to be wielded appropriately and collectively. >
  
  I do some of it, but certainly could do better.  I'll take the challenge! >
  
  Generations tend to get conservative not because they age but because they have more money. This generation doesn’t have money