Do do you think that contemporary right wing politics will die out with the older generation? Or ...

[Search and Destroy]

will the next generation just take its place? Younger generations always seem to be more liberal, so presumably as the older, more conservative generation dies out, the younger liberal generation will take its place, resulting in a more liberal overall electorate.

But on the other hand, this particular strain of right wing douchebaggery seems to be much more subversive than in the past. Even members of my generation (I'm 23) who would identify themselves as liberal (socially, at least) seem to have a very snobbish attitude towards taxes and the poor ("why should MY tax dollars go towards people who don't feel like working?). My fear is that right wing politics will continue to entice the innate selfishness within each new generation, and trap them in as voters.

[Possumpoint]

1. Remember The Old Joke

Funny how the broad minds and narrow waists of youth change places with age.

That doesn't hold true with everyone but there is enough truth in it.

[Jakes Progress]

2. Nope.

The young often land on the liberal side on issues of personal expression and freedom, but having watched several "young" generations since my own (think the sixties) I see them no less immune to greed and selfishness than the generation that preceded them. There are wonderful young people who stay wonderful and wonderful young people who grow into shitheads.

I wish were so, but the tax and immigration issues foster greed and fear which is just as pervasive an influence in each generation. From my generation of the civil rights marches, I remember classmates who cheered the riot police and as we marched, the crowd throwing bricks at us had as many young as were in the march. There are husks without souls of all ages.

[pipoman]

3. As I stated in another recent thread..

Conservatism and liberalism have always and always will be the elements of political and economic ideology. They are the yin and yang, neither exists without the other.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Let me put it to you this way: for 30+ years I've been waiting for the pendulum to swing back left.

I'm still waiting.

[JHB]

6. Don't wait. Find ways to push it, or better yet push the the point it swings from...

[JHB]

5. How many people in your age group have only heard RW criticisms of taxes and the poor?

Almost all of them.

How many have had any sort of deliberate education on what liberal ideals and policies are, and what they do. What the real numbers say, and not just what the opposition says?

Versus how many who have picked up their liberalism "by osmosis", and really can't tell where their local peeves and prejudices (of class, location, etc.) leave off and where liberalism begins?

I think one of the things we need most are "Sunday schools" for liberalism, to at least provide some foundation on the basics.

[robcon]

7. As older people die off, other people will take their place.

We'll always have a right wing.

[RevStPatrick]

8. I'm 48 and I'm shocked at how conservative my generation...

...has become.
Seriously, I'm a member of a generation of douche-bags, and I find it rather embarrassing.
I spend a lot of time with people in their 20's and early 30's, and I like that generation.
Maybe your generation won't fall into the same douche-traps...

[no_hypocrisy]

12. I know what you mean. "Kids" of my generation traded Woodstock for Reagan in a flash.

A decade before 1980 they were in the streets marching against "the Establishment" which was left of Reagan and the next thing you knew, they cut their hair, voted conservative, and kept voting conservative. Reagan tapped into their penchant for a new addiction: money.

[LiberalLoner]

20. I turn 50 tomorrow and I echo your sentiments. It's embarassing. Depressing, too. n/t

[Le Taz Hot]

26. Really?

And the activists I worked with back then are still activists and are more liberal now than they were in the 1960's. I'm 56. I find the people in their 20's and 30's are, for the most part, not at all interested in anything having to do with government or politics -- "it's boring" is the response I get.

The "Reagan Democrats" were never the activists in the first place. Remember, we only constituted about 10% of our generation so 90% were never active. IT WAS THE 10% OF US THAT AFFECTED CHANGE.

[WinkyDink]

9. Bwahahahah!! I know PLENTY of Young Republicans! They were my Honors students in HS!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. The "older generation" might be associated with Nixon

Adherents to the new conservative philosophy are still being born. Greed and Judeo-Christian fairytales probably aren't going away.

[me b zola]

11. Fascism/rwerist always lurk in the shadows

It will always be with us. Always.

[eShirl]

13. it comes and goes in waves

I'm hoping this wave has crested

[C_U_L8R]

14. Serious education problem

we are raising generations of narrow-minded idiots...
their brains strangled by poor education, an
inability to reason and totally screwed-up ethics.

[drpepper67]

15. What's the answer?

When people say;

"why should MY tax dollars go towards people who don't feel like working?

How do you respond?

[6000eliot]

18. That your tax dollars don't.

This is simplistic thinking, and it's part of the reason we live in such a conservative era. A lot of people, including the people asking this question, suckle off the public tit in many many ways. These same people want to cut spending, but not on any program that actually benefits THEM.

[livetohike]

16. I find the "younger generation" more conservative and it's

appalling. I'm 59. I see many Alex Keaton's running around.

[reformist2]

17. It's a good question. Many variables to think about.

[mmonk]

19. Religions seldom just die out because they are unprovable.

[tsuki]

21. I know "common" wisdom says that you get more conservative as

you grow older, but that is contradicted by studies that say you are more likely to return to your "roots".

[OHdem10]

22. It is younger Republicans who are Tea Party. Unless we get a

real Democratic party, the Republicans will have
reached their goal--50 years of Conservative Control.

They are serious about this and Democrats do not seem
to be concerned.

[Hoyt]

23. Having met some "young Republicans," I think things will get worse.

[pitohui]

24. no young people are more conservative

where do you get "younger generations always seem to be more liberal," that is rarely the case, except for sexual activity

my generations and younger generations are less liberal than baby boomers and older generations, because we come from a time of decreasing opportunity and scarcity, it's easy to be liberal and welcoming of civil rights, etc. in the 50s and 60s and even into the 70s where if you get an education there is pretty much a job for everyone and an opportunity for everyone...but move into the 80s where opportunity for the average person came to a screeching halt and now you start to hear the drumbeat of hate because we are no longer on the same team, we are all struggling and fighting each other for the very limited chances to have that two car, homeowner's life that most all of our parents had

plus it doesn't help that weak minds full of hate and anger get constant reinforcement from the conservative owned media, radio pumps out a straight diet of hate and television pretends to be "balanced" but just sells the racism and hate in a more "tasteful" format

wingnuttery is on the rise, not on the fall, among young people -- they can't blame themselves for not having a decent job or the ability to earn enough to move out of mom's basement so they blame the black man or the mexican woman etc.

[HereSince1628]

25. Conservatism is a patterned approach to problem solving it ain't going away

At its core, conservatism is a problem solving method that is motivated by anxiety associated with uncertainty and threats of loss. People will always be faced with such fears so conservatism as a pattern of approach to problem solving that reduces uncertainty and threats will always be around.

Recent psycho-social research (http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf) has shown conservative behavior is significantly associated various observable traits:

dogmatism
lack of openness to experience
intolerance of uncertainty
needs for order, structure and closure
aversion to integrating complexity
low self-esteem

Of course no person expresses these traits in exactly the same way or applies them equally to all problems they encounter. Moreover there are trends in time to how solutions are viewed, both in the lives of individuals and in the history of governments. Governments once took responsibility for critical infrastructure such as water and sewage, and food and drug safety in order to reduce anxieties associated with real epidemic levels of disease. The security these systems produced have reduced anxiety to the point that they are taken for granted. Currently government seeks to absolve itself of responsibility for these things even though their health justification is as strong as ever.