Like surely you must have acquired a clue by now.

Indoctrinated parents indoctrinate kids.
See also: religion.
- I'm just perplexed how kids are still religious in 2024 with vast amount of free information out there. I thought this cult bullshit was about to end with my generation when we got free, unrestricted information exchange invented.
  I guess you can't fix irrationality with rationality huh
  
  From my perspective its because people won't change their beliefs unless they stop benefiting the believer. For people who live in a religious community, there church's sunday social event is enjoyable, there friends are all religious, there denomination provides a entire moral framework and worldview they don't even need to think about. Confirmation bias plays a major role in preventing alternate thought to block out other worldviews.
  Only when someone does not gain much benefit from there religion or has a important part of there religion proven wrong, can they process alternative ideologies and either switch to a more useful denomination or stop believing entirely.
  
  A lot of them need to be actively exposed to other views and opinions to break free. So usually when they go to college.
  
  That's taking it too far, in my opinion. I realize it's supremely unpopular to be a person of faith nowadays, especially online, but you can't say that anyone with faith is stupid and it's all bullshit as a blanket statement. You don't know what happens after we die, and neither do I. I can't prove that God definitely exists and I'll probably never convince you of it, but by the same token, you can't prove that God doesn't exist.
  Where we diverge is I think it's okay that you believe that. And yes, of course you can point out the shitty people that use religion to persecute and restrict others' rights, to punish, and worse. Many people do this, but they are still the vocal minority we hear about. And it's not like there haven't been terrible atheists/agnostics who have done awful things not motivated by religion...
  Me, personally, I also won't attend any church that tries to be political or tell its members how to vote. I am a Christian, but I try to model my religious activity on the Sikhs: quiet, respectful, loving outreach to improve the world. So I can acknowledge the problems, but no, I don't think all religion is bad nor every person of faith stupid...
  Edit: spelling
  
  Most people are not actually people, they are people-like imposter automatons and they are dumb as hell and can be manipulated like clay.
  
  By bro still believes because they get you so early. I basically tell him he’s an idiot for being a christian, also fucking his kids up, but jesus says it’s cool. So that is how it happens.
  
  Inoculating believers against rational counter-arguments is a powerful tool. Do it right, and the vast amount of information at their fingertips might seem like the whole secular world is conspiring against them.
  
  I'm a Zoomer, and one of my best friends is very religious precisely because of the internet. He reads the Bible online a lot, and is in a bunch of Christian Discord servers, and often reads up theology. To be fair, he is very progressive on pretty much all issues except birth control, he isn't a blind authority-obeyer, and is totally fine with me being agnostic.
  
  free
  Uh...?
  
  Religion is not always a cult. All religions are not like Christianity.
  See Hinduism, Buddhism, confussionism
- Exactly. My nephews seem to complain about the shit their dad told them to vote for. It's rather hilarious.
  
  The fuck happened to the rebelliousness of youth?
  Should kids be doing exactly not whatever their parents tell them to?
  Kids these days.. GET ON MY LAWN!!
- Stupid comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. 🤪
- Yep. They were taught to hate people and that "Trumps" voting to improve things, or bring down costs...
  
  The hate and negativity is such a big part of it. It’s kind of the foundation, really. It sounds simple, but it is the main thing I had to train out of my brain while figuring out wtf I want out of life and how to enjoy the journey.
  If I’m hanging out with family still stuck in that mindset and discussing an acquaintance? You bet I’m going to hear what race they are (if not white, which is the default human in their minds), how big of a house they have, how much money they make, and of course how stupid they are. Nothing of substance.
  All that negativity, paranoia, and anger makes it much easier to get the conservative base to not spend time thinking about the suffering of others, and instead think about how much stuff they’ve acquired and how the “other” people want to steal it.
  It’s a strange position for me to be in, personally. I can see how somebody would stay immersed in that shitty mindset for life without exposure to the wider world, because I know the feeling of living in that mindset (let’s call it high school). However, I also have eyes and ears and access to the internet, and I think all available information should be considered even if reality has a liberal bias.
- How do you indoctrinate the curiosity out of people? 😬
  
  Well, if you question it, you are a bad person and going to hell. It's not that God doesn't love you, but you are forcing God to send you to hell because you are choosing to question.
  
  Really? Have you not been paying attention?
- See also: reactionary movements.
  I sometimes really want to show those reactionary gamers a trial version of the authoritarian society they stive for...
  
  So send them a documentary on what happened in NAZI Germany.
  But don’t be surprised when they tell you that’s exactly what they want because they’re white men and it puts them at the top of the heirarchy.

Being born into a conservative household can be a hard hurdle to clear. I grew up with the unquestioning belief that the left was straight-up evil (shocker: that was projection) but then moved around a ton and worked alongside a huge diversity of people after highschool cuz I joined the military and didn't have a choice: that exposure was a real shock, but since our brains don't like being wrong, I resisted it for a good while before finally acknowledging that I was acting like a moron and started thinking more critically about politics and what political decisions meant for my community.
Not everyone gets that healthy slap-to-their-senses. Doesn't excuse shit, but that's the 'why'.
 
It'd be interesting to see some actual political metrics on other service members. The military is always seen as being SOLID red, and while yes it does lean that way, the tiny bubble of the military that was my personal field of view seemed maybe a 60-40 split; and I personally went in red, and separated borderline radical blue. I know at least a handful of others who did the same... no idea if it's always been that way, or if this is a developing trend. Or if I happened to be stationed in an uncharacteristically blue slice of military. /shrug.
- This is my exact story to a "t". I grew up in a heavily conservative household, joined the military as a conservative, and 15 years later I'm pretty fucking blue.
  I think it's a combination of a few things that does it to us more often than not:
  1 - Exposure to people from all walks of life/escaping your "bubble" 2 - Access to tax payer funded social programs that the rest of America desperately fucking needs and going "Why can't taxes do this for EVERYONE!?" 3 - If you've been deployed to certain sections of the world, you see first-hand what unfettered religious extremism can potentially do to a country.
  I'm happy to say, that at least for the Air Force, I've run into far, far more Active Duty Dems/Libs than I have any Repubs. Now, when the retired veteran GS employees come in, it's a completely different story. My whole circle save one is fairly left-leaning, and the one who isnt is...fucking weird/all over the place on his stances.
- Every single person I know who has gotten out of the military has come out blue. With one (medically discharged) exception.
- In my experience 20 years ago, it was mostly split between people who didn't care or at least didn't talk politics (the majority) and people who were very loud in thinking a Democrat would reduce the pay of enlisted service members.
- I'm sure conservatives would love this, but we should be using the military in this way as a de-radicalizing force. We should be leaning into it.
- what was the red/blue percent (in your opinion) if you only included officers and above?
  
  No clue. I was enlisted - talking politics at all was taboo, but rules like that are only ever followed while in management's field of view.
  I'd assume officers behaved similarly - tending to keep certain topics locked up around enlisted, but talking more openly when it's just them.
- 30% of your time being red. 30% of your time coming to your senses. 40% of your time trending towards borderline radical blue.
  There is your 60/40 split.
  Anecdotally, this was somewhat my experience as well, except my parents didn’t talk politics much and they certainly didn’t show the extreme hate towards the left that fox and rush have since incited. I went more from voting on surface level attributes (speaking ability, apparent warmth, etc) and social pressure, to actually [eventually] looking at policy. I was a registered independent when I joined, but I didn’t know enough about actual politics to understand the details of what I was voting for. I.e., I was going with the flow. It has the same effect at the ballot box though.
- Well put.
  I think a lot of your political beliefs start with your parents and people around you, but then are shaped by what happens to you. If you get hit with the hard reality of life in some way (debt, health, etc) it tends to push you to be more progressive/empathetic toward others because you see just how truly cold and cruel the bottom of our society gets treated. If you have coasted through life and have parents and friends supporting you financially and we're lucky enough to get a good job and have relatively good health and such then you may not know the horrors of what can happen if you hit a few rough patches.
  Similarly in military service, if you get injured and now have to go to the VA and fight to receive the most basic of medical care you were promised and denied it tends to push you left/progressive because you want things to be better. If you are still in the service or left it relatively undamaged then you could easily still see things from a conservative and right leaning perspective.
  When you or people close to you get (denied medical care, denied housing, denied work, pushed into poverty and/or homelessness, used by the system and then discarded like trash) you tend to see things more progressive and want to provide some basic levels of support and humanity and empathy toward others as opposed to exploiting them for profit.

It's embarrassing for everyone gen x and after. It's especially disappointing to see in gen z
- Could have ended the comment after 4 words.

For men, a lot of it has to do with personal frustration and several "sources" or "influencers" pointing to communism, cultural marxism, feminism, etc, as the culprits of everything bad going on. Attacking a scapegoat you've been led to believe is "the reason" you can't get a job or a girlfriend is easy and emotionally satisfying.
Thinking, rationalizing and realizing how and why shit's fucked up, down, left and right doesn't fill you with good vibes.
- If you want an honest answer, it's that young boys are feeling left behind, and in many ways they are right. This is a longer video (~30min) but it seems in line with much of what I've been seeing, that the boys are not alright.
  Essentially, as any system begins to give equality to all, it will appear as a loss for those who used to solely benefit from it. That said this is still something to take seriously.
  The gender gap is reversed in several areas: in education girls do better than boys. There are more women in university than men. Real wealth of women has been rising while in many demographics (especially poor young men of color) wealth has been decreasing. This is not a 0 sum game, so these are real concerns. 75% of suicides are men, and in their notes it is common to see words like "useless" "unwanted" and "worthless". They feel that the world is leaving them behind.
  This trend is not happening to those in the elite class- that is still very much male dominated, however for many poor men without college degrees, their lives are no longer looking like what they were raised to expect. That same demographic is who you are more likely to see at a trump rally.
  This is fertile ground for people like Tucker Carlson and Andrew Tate to bring these young men into their world view that women are taking away their futures.
  This is where I would say men who are in places of being role models (teachers, mentors, fathers, coaches, pastors, etc...) need to come in and show that there is a new reality for men and that it's not only okay, it's better. Being a stay at home dad can be freeing as you may be able to pursue other interests. Showing what leadership is is important, but also showing how to work as a team and under the leadership of a woman is important too and can be fulfilling.
  I'm an educator, and one thing I think about is that I want to teach the girls that men are not to be feared, and to teach the boys not to be men to be afraid of. There is a better future ahead, but only if we take action and support the next generation of boys as well as girls. Without this support, we are handing a large portion of disaffected youth to a toxic mindset that will have horrible consequences.
  Oddly enough, I could see one of these boys looking at this post and thinking "the left doesn't care about me, so why would I care about them?"
  
  I really needed to read this this is the best comment I've read on this platform and it hits right home. I fell within those circles of alt-right the only thing that saved me was my willingness to accept being wrong and my pragmatism.
  
  Thank you for putting to words something that’s hard to explain. You’ve given me some talking points I can use towards a friend that tries not to act like he’s alt-right leaning but seems willing to listen.
  
  I’m an educator, and one thing I think about is that I want to teach the girls that men are not to be feared, and to teach the boys not to be men to be afraid of.
  Thank you. I'm sick of seeing "white men need to step back". "Oh god, another white man trying to force his opinions on us." This stuff would be horribly racist if you replace white with black. (except for the black people can't be racist meme...)
- cultural marxism
  As someone who lost a friend to that rabbit hole, I really think we should put that far right conspiracy theory between quotation marks when named alongside things that actually exist. Communism and feminism are real (even if they are perceived as demonic by these people, they still at least exist). "Cultural marxism" doesn't even have entity, it's just bullshit entirely made up by the usual grifters
  
  It's a Nazi dogwhistle.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Bolshevism
- But you don't need a scapegoat. The problem is literally the billionaires. You only need a scapegoat to justify white supremacist hierarchy building.
  
  But you don’t need a scapegoat. The problem is literally the billionaires.
  Talk about whiplash. You really think the SOLE cause of the problems are down to tens of individuals?
  
  Or are the billionaires the scapegoat caused by a system we helped create? They lobby and use greed to get where they have gotten but we enable all of it. If we believe capitalism is beneficial to society we have to accept regulations to keep the money flowing back down. EVERY person that votes against such should be afraid for their lives at every moment period. If they are not it is our failure, not theirs. The lives of the majority are suffering not because Elon Musk is a douche, but because we created a system a douche could take advantage of.
- For me it has to do with having evaluated various political philosophies according to my personal experience and chosen the one that best matches what I think is right.
- Did... did you just copy their comment word for word and posted it as a reply‽
  Why? (And now don't anyone suggest a bot, because that's stupid programming for a bot so unlikely, hopefully)

To be fair if you’re anything past Boomer, at this point you should be too embarrassed to vote for any GOP candidate. When the party decided to support Trump—a guy with proven sexual assault charges, pending fraud charges, pending classified document charges, a penchant for insurrection that he happily acknowledges, and more and more video surfacing of him unable to be coherent, hopefully most everyone with any connection to reality has realized it’s time to kick him and the GOP to the curb.
- The Boomers should be mortified. Their parents were the one who sacrificed their young adulthood to eliminate the Nazis 80 years ago. They're spitting on their parents' graves by supporting Trump.
  
  The problem is, boomers are the most selfish generation. The other name for their generation is the Me Generation, because after the war, after the depression, their parents had done all the hard work, been through all the hard times, and started to get money and financial security and so they gave their children everything they wanted creating the absolute selfishness we see today. They don't care a lick about their parents sacrifices because they had everything they ever wanted and for them it's all about "me, me , me!"
  
  You're absolutely right on that one! Hadn't thought of it from that perspective, but hell yes.

A lot of our current brand of conservatism appeals to people's notion of unfairness. People taking things from them. They have been told over and over that liberals are lazy and want to take things from them.
Remember that these are young people who don't have a lot of experiences in adult life, but have experienced basic, uncomplicated unfairness. Fighting against that simple, unnuanced unfairness appeals to them.
- Conservatives tell you a whole list of people who are supposedly stealing from you to distract from the fact that they're currently picking your pocket.
- If your values can only be justified by shock news and lies then you're going to want more of that type of news.

It's tough being young. Jobs don't pay what they used to. Rent costs too much. Even the food is a struggle.
You know who is the blame for this?
Brown people.
This message is brought to you by the conservative party of your country. They're all the fucking same.
- Absolutely. All those Mexican undocumented immigrants doing the jobs for under minimum wage that nobody else wants are ruining everything right?

Indoctrination, propaganda, alt-right playbook recruitment through targeting the disaffected... these aren't young people who've turned to conservatism, they've been actively targeted by right wing factions in order to bolster their position.
Edit: Oh, and also Reagan era neo-liberals are the fucking worst and when they shit on progressives and their ideas, they basically push away people who would otherwise be politically left leaning.

I dunno but for some reason they're on this platform too (dunno why all things considered). Go ask them.
- It's either a belief things can only get worse or hate in their heart.
  
  Like, if you get dunked on everywhere on the internet you go maybe take the hint your beliefs are generally frowned upon and may not be correct.

If they're wealthy they usually vote Tory, that's one reason for sure.
We'll get the conservatives out of government soon, but I don't think Labour are much better, just two sides of the same coin, unfortunately.
- We’ll get the conservatives out of government soon
  You'll still be stuck with Keir "I agree with my friends across the aisle but wish they'd go further" Starmer. Labor was completely hollowed out after Corbyn. It's just careerist flaks and corporate shills, with anyone who defies the leadership getting punted off the ticket.
  
  Who could have guessed that if the party systematically annihilates anyone and anything who dislikes the status quo you'd be left with Tories with red paint.
  
  Corbyn was the worst thing that could've happened to Labour. The man just did not understand the role of Party Leader and could not prioritise party or country over his own nostaligia-tinged ideological pet causes
- If you're in the U.S or a lot of places, both sides of the government are conservative. There is literally no left option. Not sure what Labour is like in the UK.
  
  The current leader has been whipping his MPs to vote with conservative policy and is generally in agreement with them. They've been some of the weakest opposition I've ever seen. The Scottish national party (SNP) has been the only genuine left wing party with any significant presence in Westminster. The Labour party leader recently threatened the speaker (who is labour but is supposed to be impartial) to stop a SNP debate day when they wanted to pass a recognition of genocide in Gaza.
  They're selling point is they are more competent and less cruel than the conservatives. The keep on dropping their more progressive policies. Recently they've dropped their reform of the house of lords, an unelected chamber that currently places religious leaders and Russians with KGB ties in unaccountable legislative roles for life.
  
  That's the thing with a republic - those who vote Democrat in NYC or LA have to compromise with those who vote Democrat in other places like Virginia and Oregon, for the type of median representation they get in federal government.
  Democrats used to have the South they could count on, and eventually the nation got FDR for four consecutive terms and the New Deal.
  Then the LBJ administration - from Texas, of all places - and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and Democrats lost that electoral advantage they had in the South.
  All the ingrained racist simpletons in society shifted towards the other side - "That republican fellow might screw me over, but at least he's one of ours, a good patriotic christian (read: white) American that talks to me in MY (racist dog whistle) language!"
  What so many people don't seem to ever get is that permanent changes in Washington work through inertia and take voting in every election, because the safer any party can feel in office, the bolder they can afford to be in that slow-moving, change-resistant place.
  Democrats did it before because they had the South they could rely on, including Texas. Now Democrats don't have the South.
- This is a really big part of the problem, I think. Politicians on the "left" tend to be actually just more moderate right wingers, or unable to accomplish much of anything meaningful.
  It's much the same in Canada too, our Liberal party is supposed to be the mainstream "left" option but they're just doing moderate right politics with pride flags.
  Then there's the NDP which actually has some leftist elements, and I'm grateful to have a meaningful 3rd party, but they've still never formed government at the federal level.
  And we've ingested so much cold war propaganda that if you just say "socialist" people start getting freaked out.

As progressive values become more mainstream being an edgy conservative becomes a form of counter culture.
This shows in those god awful conservative memes people make that say shit like "Im not like other girls, I dress modestly, dont drink or do drugs and the only man I get on my knees for is JEsus" type shit. or the male equivalent where they talk about how theyre the only real man left in a world where people drink soy lattes and dont beat their kids.
- As progressive values become more mainstream being an edgy conservative becomes a form of counter culture.
  This. There's this idea that 'the counterculture' is inherently progressive. It ain't.
- And the trad Cath thing where they will keep women barefoot and constantly pregnant, yeah. Those are super creepy.
- See also: fucking embarrassing.
  Destroying your own economic interests and quality of life to own the libs.

i'm 24 and a proud conservative: i want to replace all highways with railways and interurban tramways, return to having small dense cities surrounded by lively rurality, dissolve large corporations and replace them with small local businesses, and bring back that thing where we went "hey the slightly insane guy who never works is living in a shack that barely qualifies as shelter, let's build him a new cottage so he has a proper place to live, because everyone has a fundamental right to housing no matter what."
- Conservative literally means to conserve. To not change the way things are.
  You wanting change means you are progressive.
  
  The poster would like to revert to a time of more progressive economic policies and conserve it. 😏😆 In the US, it’s a funny dichotomy that the progressives are fighting for things which were lost.
  The US had everything the poster points out at one time. It’s just been dismantled over the years in the name of progress.
  
  Consecutive may also mean change such that you can just carry on with your life as normal. But that's not what conservatives do nowadays.
  
  You know there are opinions on a thousand topics which you are trying to sum up into a binary system like that is sufficient.
- I don't understand how those world views can identify and (you didn't say this, so hopefully not) vote conservative in US these days
  
  He's making light of how twisted the US understanding of the word "conservative" has become.
  
  Maybe they hate women and women's rights, loves Jesus and thinks priests raping little boys is OK
  Also cowboy boots and Stetson yeehaw
- Lmao my mans rode the political merry-go-round and came out the opposite side full on Marxist. Welcome to the club brother, we got dope ass flags and mad pamphlets.
  
  i'd call myself anarchist syndicalist :P, this was a joke about how conservatives aren't actually conservative, just filled with hatred and xenophobia.
- what you just said means you are not a conservative...
  a conservative would want to keep the highway system the way it is, take more money away from its maintenance bugdet if anything. a conservative would never want to dissolve large businesses. a conservative would not give a crap about what you're using as shelter, and certainly wouldn't believe that access to housing is a basic human right.
  You're a lot more left than you realize. you might even be socialist. do you believe that the workers of a company should be given the profit that company enjoys, or should it all go to the shirts at the top? Do you believe that the working class should never be disarmed, and any attempt to disarm the working class should be disrupted?
  
  yes, very aware of that, as i am in fact an anarchist syndicalist.
  the point is to make fun of how modern conservatives have nothing they want to conserve other than their racial purity and personal wealth.
  i would very much like to reclaim the term conservative for opinions that are ACTUALLY conservative, such as ending the suburban experiment and the neoliberal pursuit of wealth above actual happiness and social stability.
- You just described all the things that conservatives have worked hard to stop from happening every time they've been in power. The only political ideology that actively wants to house the homeless, build robust public transport, moves to small towns and boycotts large corporations to support small business are deep to far left.
  
  The Japanese conservatives built one of the world's best public transport systems, constructed entire towns for workers and are now pushing people to move to small towns. (They're still owned by the corporations, though.)
- Your motivation in thinking these changes are the right ones is not conservative, I imagine. You probably think about the future, how things could be better, not based on some traditional values or because you remember how things were vaguely "better" in the past.
  Sorry to break it to you, you are progressive.
  
  it's almost amazing how many people had the point sail over their heads, i'm very much progressive :)
  i look at the past, see it was in many ways pretty good, look at the present, see it's pretty fucking miserable in those same ways, and then the obvious conclusion is that maybe people in the past did some stuff right, such as enjoying the sociopolitical benefits of public transport and workers' rights.
  then i see people call themselves conservative and just advocate making things WORSE, and i'm filled with an intense desire to wallop them with wet day-old fish.
- Sir or madam, you are absolutely nailing a closeted progressive affection.
- Nothing about that is conservative.
  
  https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thats-the-joke
- You said you are a proud conservative and then proceeded to list off things that are completely antithetical to it. I am so confused. Everything you said is progressive, socialist, leftist, not at all conservative. Conservatives want things to stay as they are, to not progress, to not change. I.E. This system is working (for me) so let's keep it. Progressives say things aren't working (for everyone) so we should attempt to make it better for us all instead of a few people having everything and most people having little.
  I mean this in the kindest most supportive way possible. You may want to do some introspection and comparisons with what you want to happen and what the political parties are pushing for. You may find you are anything but conservative or you may find you actually are conservative and you really don't want those things you said.
  
  it's a half-joke on how conservatism has become a parody of itself these days, and isn't actually really conservative in any real way.
  
  Maybe they hate the gays and don't want women to vote 🤷‍♂️
- and bring back that thing where we went “hey the slightly insane guy who never works is living in a shack that barely qualifies as shelter, let’s build him a new cottage so he has a proper place to live, because everyone has a fundamental right to housing no matter what.”
  This never existed. Not since capitalism at least.
  
  that was specifically a modified example from nearby me, where the local parish decided to build a new house for a person who was struggling to get by.
- That's liberal. Far left liberal in fact.
  
  Liberals would be against "government interventionism" such as getting rid of large corporations or taxing to then spend that money on public transportion.
  Modern liberalism is not at all aligned with the Left on the Economic space, only on the non-Economic, personal freedoms, one.
  Granted, big picture thinking would eventually end up concluding that differentiated treatment depending on wealth together with wealth inequality in overall reduces individual freedom (a few are freer to do what they want but the many are less free) which would end up aligning at least some liberals with leftwing thinking, but sadly that's not what liberalism is nowadays.
  
  Is it? I like some links to back up either position.
- The joke really flew over a lot of people's head huh.
  
  seems so, though to be fair it's only a half-joke as i do feel people could totally reclaim the conservative moniker for something actually good and actually conservative.
- None of the positions you listed are conservative. Do you hate immigrants or something?
  
  do read the rest of the replies

Biggest reason I see is religious indoctrination.
- 80s millennial here; I grew up with heavy religious indoctrinate and that's a lame excuse. I went from extreme conservative to woke leftist in my 20s, because that's when I started caring about being informed and began reading the news. Anyone who uses social news websites should have a natural inclination towards the left once they start to pay attention to what's going on in the world. (For me it started with browsing digg, and then reddit.)
  If you can't see how blatantly evil conservatives are after spending many years on the internet then you're willfully choosing to ignore what you don't want to see. I know I did for most of my teens. I would "blame the liberal media" and then go in with my day.
  
  That's not entirely true. Social media now (and for a long while) shows people what they want to see. If you're right wing then it will show posts that reinforce those beliefs. Social media isn't picking sides, it's trying to maximize view time and if that requires distributing misinformation then so be it.
- Try to see them in yourself. That's the most accurate analysis. Because they're people.

I can remember when being conservative meant you believed we had a calling to be stewards of creation
LOL good times
- Honestly, I can't keep track of the constantly changing definition for what a conservative represents.
  Right now, I just equate conservative with capitalist and move on.
  
  It always makes me laugh how conservatism - the idea that we need to conserve and not change, radically changes more than other ideologies.
  
  Add nationalism and that sums it up well enough
  
  Just don't forget that neoliberal is also capitalist.
  
  Everyone in the civilized nations of the global West is basically a capitalist in effect. If you participate in the economy at all, you have engaged in the basic functions of capitalism.
  IMO you are only not a capitalist if you lead an alternative lifestyle, like commune hippies or other groups of non-property-owning collectives. Or maybe you could perform a chant of "My personhood disavows the morality and validity of this structure requiring this transaction" whenever life needs you to buy something.
- The number of people I knew in my church whose reason for denying climate change boiled down to "Humans don't have the power to change God's creation like that, anyway even if we did God's gonna call us up to heaven before anything really bad can happen" was not small, and I can't imagine it getting smaller in the intervening decades. If anything I expect there's a vocal "gotta use up all that oil before the Rapture!" contingent these days.
  
  I heard similar notions, with an added “and if it get too bad god will fix it for us”.
  Oh, yeah. You are terrifying.
  
  Had a friend pose the argument that using oil for energy does lend rapid advancement to society at the cost of climate impact. He seemed to downplay the degree of climate impact, postulating that would be resolved faster by finding very effective solutions beyond the incremental green energy we have today. Not that we shouldn't invest in green energy, but rather utilizing abundant available fossil fuels where advantageous to get things going. I.e., modernize African nations rapidly to bring a wider society to contribute towards greater real solutions sooner rather than later.
  Definitely left a bunch of the risk of such a gamble not paying off out of his consideration.

Do not underestimate the power of algorithms. I feel like instagram or YouTube are constantly trying to pull me back into the far right rabbit hole.
- You watch some videos on YouTube and the suggestions are terrifying. Anything vaguely political and I'm swamped with conspiracy theories and other alt right nonsense.
- This is a very good point. I am a member of a far left political party, but I make it a point to listen to what ppl who disagree with me are saying. Watching one video like that on YT completely changes your suggestions feed.
- You mean red-pill content, right?

Grifting is pretty profitable these days
- You are right

It's easier to be reactionary, and being reactionary leads to conservatism.
- I like to define the modern Conservatives(tm) with a capital C. It's a brand, but as you point out, they are reactionaries. Modern conservatives are Democrats trying to keep all the progress made over the last 70 years. I've had to explain this to some boomers who used to be progressive, but don't seem to understand that they are no longer on the progressive side of politics.

Because so many prefer a comfortable lie to an unpleasant truth. They want the world to be what they want it to be
To hell with reality
- Thank goodness we're above that.

I'm a 80s conservative. Which makes me a 2024 ANTIFA.
- The 80s was the Reagan administration 🙄
  
  It's hard to describe personal politics prior to 2000. It was easy to be a sane conservative in the 80s. There was obviously shady shit going on behind the scenes. But outwardly the conservative movement mostly espoused mainstream thought at the time.

I am always surprised at how little credit is given to the relentless onslaught of radical fascist propaganda over airwaves, in MSM, and online...all of which do their damnedest to reach young people, teens, and even primary school kids. Very few people have any idea how powerful AM radio and Salem Media Group are. These are all the result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Because they’re either rich or idiots.

Cuz they can't get bitches

Politics of spite is a hell of a drug.
Some incel got rejected for prom and now NATO itself is on the fucking line.

I do not have a clue. What's the reason besides being a vile comic book villain?
- Indoctrination is one hell of a drug.
  Also stupid.

Affluent upbringings without ever having to worry about anything probably
- Affluent but constantly worrying about keeping the status
  Its why the petite bourgeoisie tend to be more reactionary because their affluence is precarious so changes to the social order can effect them more.

a few things seem to motivate young idiots into conservative thought:
MRA their daddy their rural background edgelord BS

We are censoring conservative now? Or is that a bit of tongue in cheek joke?
- Its more of a joke, it implies that being conservative is like being "sh1t" or other such words.
  
  Which doesn't need to be censored either, unless you're using the shittiest app known to mankind.
- Someone once told me it was often to mitigate trolls searching specific terms for people to pick fights with.
  
  Ah that makes a lot of sense, especially on Twitter. Thank you!
- In my friend circles we do refer to the as "cuntservatives", but I'm guessing this person is worried about going viral in the wrong circles from conservatives searching for content with that key term, or maybe they're worried about algorithmic suppression based on key words.

If Bush didn't deter them nothing will
- Bush wasn't evil, he was an idiot. Dude is a nice guy. Dick Cheney on the other hand...

Wash the brain with soap every day, just like their parents & all the "cool" communities they are exposed to. The main goal in life is to protect the few individuals that already have everything from the fate of havening everything but at a bit slower rate. Its like sports, your team is best, the other needs to go to jail.
/s

Decades of "the ends justify the means" gritty antihero's, doing what "needs" to be done.
Honestly its surprising how many people have beliefs they think are evil but just they alone can bear the moral cost to support it. Its why it doesn't matter to some about Trumps crimes against democracy or rapes, they are just making "enlightened" real politic game theory decisions in there heads instead of understanding the value of ethical and honarable institutions.
At least that's part of it. An over value of "accepting a little sin" to get what they want instead of accepting the nuance and boring reality of what it actually takes to build a better world.

This is a pretty good data-driven article - "Millennials Will Not Age Into voting Like Boomers"
It mostly lumps Gen Z with them and the Silent generation with Boomers.
- I don't believe this. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't.
  Trust me, I never thought my parents, or many others from the boomer and gen X generations would end up this conservative. Knowing that a lot of it's from fear mongering and misinformation, I can't say I have faith that millennials won't change later on for the same reasons. We're not immune to either of those, we're just better adjusted to handling how it's currently spread.
  If I'm wrong in a few decades I'll be grateful though.
  
  Democratic party might just get more conservative to match, since a lot of the effect is anti Republican, not necessarily that millennials are somehow magically going to stay progressive unlike every generation ever.

- They are so gross and nasty people. Never seen anyone meaner.
- That would be the final solution.
  
  Holy fuck dude.
  My leftist values tell me that anyone talking about "final solutions" is a fascist at best, Nazi at worst.

I mean... She's not wrong, but that was really hard to read. Learn to write with words damnit!

all that matters is that we get rid of them.

Yeah watching what happens every time the liberal party gets in charge in Canada will cure that left turn most take from 20 to 30.
- It is only really in the states where 'liberal' means left wing. Nearly everywhere else liberalism is centre or centre-left.
  
  Yeah, the Liberal party is left centerish, least in rhetoric, much like the Democrats. The problem is they're also fucking shysters that don't really beleive in anything but control.
- The Liberal party isn't liberal though, which is why.
  
  In Australia our Liberal Party is the right wing party. It makes no sense at all.
- They're what we have for a left party so whatever.

Been an asshole since I was born. If I can offend you by eating my KitKat the wrong way I’ll fucking do it.
- Are you trying to suggest Conservatives' basis for their belief system is just wanting to be offensive?
  
  You words hold my wisdom, oh relative of Thomas the Tank-Engine

If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.
not Winston churchill
- There is no reason to become conservative with age. All the things that conservatism claims to improve in life never does, and in fact creates the exact opposite of the claimed effect. This is why we have more gulags than USSR ever did, and more homeless than under any authoritarian regime.
  
  Sprinting left since my late forties here...
  
  My alt right colleague would claim that it's because authoritarian regimes would kill the homeless and wouldn't need gulags.
- In today's environment (and as I learn more about history - really for most of US history) - I would go with "If you are a conservative, you have no heart."
- Different parties. Different times. Different meanings of the same word.

- Yes it is. But could also be all right wing political parties. The Canadian right are actually called Conservative. I honestly can’t understand why anyone would be conservative leaning politically unless they were rich.
  
  As someone who holds both left and right views depending on the issue, I understand wanting to lean conservative. Social programs, better infrastructure, and higher taxes make sense when you can trust your government to spend your money wisely. The problem is they don't and people in government are incentivised to not do their job efficiently because then they would lose funding or their job entirely. And lately, the right has no concern over lowering taxes for the average citizen or increasing government efficiency despite that being one of core fundamentals of the party.
- Conservativism - "Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology, which seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values." - Wikipedia
  There is nothing wrong with wanting to preserve some traditions, institutions or values. The issue many have with it is when the things wanted to be preserved are racist or harmful to many people, etc. There are some things we need to move past, like slavery, and then there are some people that will loudly proclaim themselves conservative and say we should go back to slavery.
  And yes, a lot of that does seem to be the USA's/Canada's current conservative parties.
  But wanting to "keep things as they are/were" isn't a horrible thing in and of itself, but it's often the specific things that they want to go back to.
  
  It's only ever those specific things, because if society actually LIKED or WANTED those things anymore they'd be doing them and it wouldn't need to be "conserved".
  Oh, you want to keep your traditional folk dance or scarf or goat-herding technique? Great! Those damned melting pot liberals love that stuff. They eat it up. They want more cultures to explore. What they don't want is to be told they're going to hell for who they love, or that child labor is good or any of the other insane things "conservatives" want to conserve.
- What does this part of conservativism that you subscribe to seek to conserve? How is it not in line with American conservativism?
- Literally everything. Homophobic, racist, uneducated, greedy, uncaring. Everything bad. They're all shits.

We're not in the era of blocky flip phones anymore, please don't ever write like this woman.
- Stop yelling at clouds.
- True, but the character limitations on tiktok are starting to bring back some features of the T9 lexicon.
  
  Stop using the pile of shit that is tiktok, then
- Eh, sometimes you might want to vent about conservatives, without the kind of person who searches for the word 'conservative' to troll anyone criticising conservatives finding your post.
- She's not writing an essay, it's stylistic or for ease of typing, terseness, I read it like someone speaking without thinking and I had to go back to see what you were talking about
  
  Which is a horrible choice that instead communicates lack of intelligence.
- No u
- Nice ad hominem. And now something about the actual topic of her message. You can do it.
  
  I'm a communist, you slug - of course I agree that conservatism is a cancer. The problem is that it's written like she just learned what letters are.

Well... GenZ doesn't like gaslight as well 😉

Clowns arguing about politics like they're both not only slightly different pieces of shit
- conformists gotta conform. But i must say that culture is a big part of actual quality of life. I say that dutch culture has definetly played a part in our "prosperity". That you do you man vibe, combined with a general backtone of don't be flexin because last time 70 people died from a flood caused by negligence. But it is also a culture that can be taken advantage of easily. It is easier to believe it can't be that bad and they all have good intentions than, your life you will only contribute to the hellscape should you try to sustain yourself. If you are a beggar, where is your revolution? If you are ceo, why are there all these beggars? If you are phd student, when are you turning 30? Have you got the balls to change the world? You a pensioner? Is the world your grandkids are born in satisfactory? In prison servin life4real? Mad respect for finding this, but even you can find honour in your life still. Jesus forgives is fucking true, i don't go that way technically cuz christianity is kinda gay. but how you feel about your life is how you will live it. After you dead there may-be nothing, but here there are the constant thoughts in your own head, and one should think about them sometimes, besides, you probably think you are smarter than joe rogan. Tilting to you coment: "i think that most people think that"-me 'i dont matter BUT the fact that we all vote, does change the world a littlebit, "atleast it is not guy x". During this forgetting they are literally the world. In 2 ways even, everything is fake, you are your thoughts,and you are the voters, together we are America.
  Sad as it is culture is the problem. Look all these qoutes are sorta teue and sorta not true. The answer lay in yourself. Be the change you wanna see, sometimes to help oneself, one must help another, worry only about what you can change yourself. They are sometimes contradicting, that is because they mean nothing, you assign meaning. In assigning of meaning we should start thinking about meaning. podcasts make it feel like you thought about something, but you didn't, if the video made you lie awake, good job, you probably did think about it, one video down. I don't discredit, you can actually learn very much info in short span, but the meaning of this info is not yet assigned, embeddings much? so yes everyone should only worry about what they can change. Yes you can change the world. No you can't do everything. Yes you can do anything. If everyone helped each other to help themselves i wouldn't be having this ted talk.be the change you wanna see. The answer lay in yourself but also just be in the moment, shoutout to my neigbour lol. To conclude nothing has ever had true meaning, we are just pretending to have all the answers all along. homie you are my world. roadhouse.

- You're just mad because yours doesn't get hard

I'm disappointed every time I see a potentially good argument ruined with kid-pidgin like 'u' and 'r'. At that point, I feel as if it were written in crayon.
The medium matters.
- Small minds nitpick over unimportant details. This is how ppl talk over text on the Internet since forever.
  
  Not even just the internet. This kind of shorthand must have become extremely popular once texting became widespread.

I think they might just have different ideas and things that have shaped their thinking, values, all that stuff.

Add to that being black or LGBT.
- Adding more qualifiers like this just muddies the point

Lmao, lesser evil trap

This is so catastrophically problematic on so many levels. "Conservative" or "right" are valid and legitimate political orientations, just like "left" is. Posts like this that suggest that a political view is wrong are just so closed-minded and fundementally intolerant. These always seem to disregard that there is a disagreement because of ideology and always suggest that "the conservatives'" opinion is of any less value than their own. What the heck?
- I mean, while I sort of agree with you on one hand, on the other hand I saw conservatives try to overthrow democracy and successfully overturn roe v wade recently so....
  
  Yeah but extremes on either side of the spectrum try to overthrow democracy. We have to fight the extremes but not the whole political orientation.
  I just looked up Roe V Wade (I'm not from the US) and it appears that it was recently overturned by a federal court. A court does not make the laws, so overturning an older case means, as fas as I know, correcting the decision on laws that they have to follow, no matter if they like it or not. If you want a law on abortion, you should get the parliament to pass such a law IMO.
  Generally, if someone's methdology is unacceptable, that doesn't invalidate their political views and certainly not the whole political orientation.
- "I want a fiscally conservative tax policy" is a valid political opinion.
  "I think trans people are grooming kids" "I think the election was rigged" "I think women shouldn't have total control over their bodies"
  Those are not. Those are bigoted bullshit beliefs hiding as political opinions.
  Your entire comment actually boils down to "you are bad for not tolerating the intolerant!" ...and you can fuck all of the way off with that.
  
  Agreed. This is a terrible take. Is basically implying "both sides are the same", a staple in the ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM group but they're not. Blue side wants to maintain the status quo and maybe, very slightly, make light progressive changes (but again very small changes) while red side is trying to destroy social safety nets (cutting socials security), women's autonomy (roe vs wade and more) and democracy itself (Jan 6). That's not to mention that Republicans for the most part built their ideology based off hate. Their drive comes from reactionary outrage.
  
  Thank you for saying it.
  
  "think trans people are grooming kids"
  Thats just an insult, not an actual belief.
  "I think the election was rigged"
  How is this not an opinion? Do you think the elections in russia are unquestionably fair?
  "I think women shouldn't have total control over their bodies"
  Nobody has total control, that was never up for debate, it's just a question of where you draw the line. You can't consume heroin, for example. If you're holding a baby in your arms, you dont have the "total freedom" to drop it. Similarly, it's a valid ethical debate if and when an embrio is concidered another living being. You might say "control over their body", someone else might say "it's not their body, it's that of another human".
  Your entire comment assumes that "the others" are intolerant and you are the tolerant saint. The truth is, what is tolerant depends on your morals and is thus subjective. Tolerating other's opinions is a fundemental requirement for a democracy, with the exception of opinions that are anti-democratic. Not tolerating a whole political view, however, has nothing to do with that. That would just means being an intolerant asshole and claiming that one's own political beliefs are the only ones that are correct.
- I regret to inform you that conservatism got hijacked and hasn't been a valid political orientation since Teddy Roosevelt left office.

Generational tribalism makes me fucking cringe. Take your dumbass nomenclature and get to fuck.
Edit: Yeah, you're right, let's divide up as much as we can because we know how useful that is!

If being a liberal means having that atrocious spelling and grammar then consider me a conservative
- "If being a Liberal means accepting other humans for what they are, I'd rather be a selfish prick and vote for a Racist, sexist, exploitative, environmentally destructive, rights-restricting, oppressive party."
  
  I like stereotyping too