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Maybe as a group ? but I am cis white Gen X and started out as middling conservative in my eary 20s, now green environmentalist and anarcho-socalist at 58.
How anyone can age, look around at the enviormental devestation, including climate change enhanced catastrophes that are going to get much much worse along with vast inequality and think this is good lets keep doing this, is bemusing beyond my ability to understand.
We're in the post-truth era. People have been taught that scientific consensus is equal in weight to their feelings on an issue. Climate change can be dismissed as fake news even though there is abundant evidence, it's a disturbing thought so it can just be thrown out.
Greed
It me. I have always considered my self “left” in the American sense, but high school me would have scoffed at my adult self adopting the socialist label.
This. I was a... "centrist" until I got a job. Now I hate capitalism as a system. Full stop.
Definitely true for me. Wish I could say the same of my siblings and their partners :(
Spending several decades of my life hearing right-wing politicians and voters tell me that my "lifestyle choice" is bad, that I'm a degenerate who is ruining the country, that I don't deserve equal rights, that I deserve to be executed, and so so many other repulsive things like that definitely pushed me towards the other direction, politically.
Truthfully though, even if I weren't a part of the LGBT+ population, all the other ridiculous stuff would have been more than enough on its own to turn me off to right-wing politics.
Realistically, I think it's the authoritarian core of it mixed with the anti-intellectual principles that I always found off-putting. Although I never would have guessed we'd end up where we are in the USA back when I was a kid, this all honestly makes sense.
I’ve yet to personally meet a GenX republican.
They’re out there. Go check out comedians.
“Uhhh, you can’t say anything anymore. PC police will come cancel you.”
No. You suck. Your misogynistic and racist jokes aren’t funny. No one owes you their money.
If those same comedians woke up in the 1980s or 1960s they would still be booed out of venues. They aren't funny. Just not fucking funny at all. Hell even if they went back in time to the 1920s when blackface was 'normal' they would still not be popular since all they would do is make racist jokes for the sake of racism and audiences would not be amused. Not because they wouldn't be racist, but because the jokes just suck.
Gen X I've only gotten more liberal as I've aged
Less uptight, more open-minded in general.
Really? Because they are the generation most likely to vote republican
I'm just following my grandparents' lead
Same, my grandmother never voted for a conservative in her life. I miss her, but I’m sure that if she had lived to see this day, it would have just made her golden years more stressful than they already were. I at least have the knowledge that even if my parents disagree with me, she would’ve supported the things I stand for.
I remember a health care video interviewing someone that got cancer. They said "we did everything right and we're bankrupt." Everything right meaning getting a degree, good job, etc and they got fucked.
I've been swinging all over my entire life. First quite far right due to being on 4chan. Then overcorrected to the far left when Trump got elected because of podcasts and Reddit, and now I've been settling somewhere right of centre, though my views are such a mixed bag that I wouldn't really even attempt to place myself anywhere on the political spectrum. I'm not exactly one of those people who, when you know their view on one or two issues, you can reliably guess their view on multiple other completely unrelated ones as well.
It's however been interesting to see how much my personal views have been shaped by the people I hang with online. I see it in other people as well: one of my best friends still hangs on 4chan and he's just as right-wing and racist as you would imagine. Ironically though, hanging here on Lemmy doesn't exactly pull me more towards the left but rather the opposite - I feel like being pushed away.
It’s however been interesting to see how much my personal views have been shaped by the people I hang with
one of my best friends still hangs on 4chan and he’s just as right-wing and racist as you would imagine.
You acknowledge that the company you keep influences your views, and you continue to keep company with a racist?
I used to have views like that too - then I changed. I'm not really worried about changing back. That kind of racism is completely incompatible with the way I see the world and other people.
I think that having opposing views just makes our conversations more interesting. He's far more capable of politely debating than the vast majority of people I engage with online.
As long as you’re thinking, you’re doing better than the vast majority
one of my best friends still hangs on 4chan and he's just as right-wing and racist as you would imagine.
...you should get better friends. I completely cut off my best friend of 15 years for this exact sort of behavior.
I don't see what good that would achieve. I doubt that he has anyone else challenging his beliefs.
Where does the millennial generation stand comparatively in higher education percentages?
I hypothesize a correlation.
Our parents took every advantage and then shut the door behind them. How could we trust the system they put in place to keep themselves wealthy at the expense of everybody else? The only choice is a new paradigm that eschews unchecked capitalism and bolsters workers rights.
And given the direction Gen Z is going, we're the only generation to do this.
Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, shows similar voting patterns to millennials, with lower support for the Coalition and higher support for Labor and the Greens.