While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss
I was a “Fox News”-viewing turd in high school, too.
Conservativism mirrored what my parents viewed at the time. Seemed edgy. And offered simple solutions to all of life’s problems.
Then I grew up. Five years later, I was voting for Barack Obama and terrified of Sarah Palin.
No one just “grows up”. You had a set of experiences that allowed you to think beyond the confines of what your parents taught you.
Most never do.
It’s not a natural process.
And this is why Republicans are so opposed to higher education. My dad grew up in a conservative household - like, so conservative that my grandad would respond to the question of who he was going to vote for with “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee,” and it wasn’t until he went to college and met people with life experiences that were different from his that my dad began to question the things he was told about the world when he was growing up.
It’s a lot easier to convince you that your life sucks because
Jewishbrown immigrants are taking all the jobs and women won’t date you because, actually, they’re the sexist ones (and it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that you treat them like sex toys) if you’ve never been beyond 40 miles of where you were born and have never been outside of a town where everybody looks like you.That is actually an easy trap to fall into because that was the environment you were raised in. I am glad you got out of that trap when many do not.
In turn, my parents are gradually escaping.
My dad was a Never Trumper who we gently led out. And Jan 6th made him an “independent” (he votes for Democrats now). My mom is a loyal Republican (somehow)… but agrees Trump is an arrogant piece of garbage and not the horse to bet on.