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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.
I’m definitely less liberal. Now I’m an anarchist, leftist, socialist. They were right!
Them: “No, not like that!”
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 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 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 wonder what the accumulated microplastics will do to us instead.
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.
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 was always told I would become more conservative as I got older.
Joke’s on them. Actually understanding capitalism and conservatism and how politics are corrupted by money has bodily yeeted me so far left that I am two good shakes away from being an anachro-communist.
The real irony being that idealized “pure” democracy - fully participatory democracy where the people vote directly on policy, and politicians and most of the political apparatus no longer exists - is essentially political communism. All that remains are bureaucrats whose only job is to implement and coordinate the policies that the people vote for.
I haven’t become more conservative, i have become more dedicated to the values of my youth that weren’t misinformed. I have become a lot less blue-eyed about the world and people in general, while still thinking conservatives are all full of shit while constantly being on the brink of becoming full-blown nazis.
This is something I was always told, my family members that would say that were all boomers. Which is just another example of how they fucked us.
Good music and drugs, cheap education, sex in the 70’s along with cheap housing and job security. They voted it all away and said we didn’t deserve it and to pull the bootstraps.
Can’t wait for that generation to go away.
50s here. I’ve only gotten more to the left than ever. At this rate, I’ll be an anarcho-communist by the mid terms!
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 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.
Only if you’ve never known the benefits of positive social experiences.
I can see people who’ve been hurt by groups, repeatedly, come to believe their safety and welfare lies in more individual power and less group power. I can understand becoming selfish if you’ve experienced the freedom of significant individual power.
I do not understand how someone can know billions of us exists and that we have to function as groups, suggest individual power, and less group power, is better for the future of everyone.
They’re just selfish pricks, plain and simple. Some people are just born without the same ability to empathize and never work on it or are put in situations to improve their ability.
The reason people assumed this was the case was that statistically the more money or influence 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.
Somewhat 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.
I was told the same thing. 20-ish years later, and the average US Democratic nominee makes me think, “you fucking fascist.”
