Has your political outlook changed as you grew older?

Over the past 10-15 years I have become more compassionate and sympathetic to other peoples issues and concerns. When I was younger, I was selfish and really only cared about how things affected me, but now I look to see how it will affect everyone. When I was younger I thought I was supposed to be a Republican because my dad was, but over time and life experiences, I moved to the middle and consider myself independent and I have voted for both sides of the aisle based on the candidate's stances. FastForward to 2024 and I don't even recognize the gop and would never vote for a maga style candidate, but I would consider someone moderate, I have said often I liked Christi, I had hopes for Haley but that's down the drain now, I thought Viv might have something but that was QUICKLY shown to be just a dude sucking up to maga. I hate to paint the gop with the wide brush of maga as they are a fringe, but they seem to grow daily and there rhetoric gets to the point where I won't even listen to them.

 

Hard to answer because it depends on the intent of the question: political party & voting versus core beliefs.

I'm more likely to vote Democratic than ever before (and used to vote for a few Republicans in my 20's), but at the same time, in terms of just my core beliefs, I'm probably slightly more conservative.

 

I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, so there was really only one direction to grow toward.

 

As I have grown older, I gotten to be less tolerant of casual racism and misogyny. I guess that makes be "liberal".

I will also add that I consider myself a left leaning moderate. The right though has over the last 30 years or so has become more conservative and moved the political middle to the right, making me look like a card carrying liberal.

 

Of course it has changed. I'd be a little disturbed if I never changed my ideas over the course of 10-30 years or whatever.

But I wouldn't say they have gotten more liberal or conservative, necessarily. I'm all over and am probably a little hypocritical here and there if someone were to pry, but I think that's more normal than not.

 

When I was in my late teens I had a lot more liberal views by the time I was a senior in college I was a lot more moderate and have largely remained there.

One of the interesting things about a school like CAL is that is that it makes you a question a lot of things. Ironically that made me question Leftists views particularly ones that pushed revolution whether economic or social. I started to feel that there were many on the Left who had as shallow views as those on the right but were just attracted to a talkative appeal of revolutionist rhetoric.

 

I'm far less hostile to the LGBTQ community than I used to be but own several semi automatic firearms. I am pro-choice as it isn't my body bearing the child, good God given free will and all that though don't morally agree with it. I believe that the wealthy can afford higher taxes to subsidize the middle/poor for the greater good especially when it comes to healthcare and education. Guess I'm some type of roll of the dice called a real life actual independent, not the trolling kind you so often see in the wild here.

 

The conservatives just keep getting dumber

 

I got more conservative because my life became more worth conserving.

Meanwhile half of my generation is living in their mother's basement driving for GrubHub with absolutely no light visible on the horizon.

This isn't their fault. The ladder was pulled up behind the baby boomers.

Broken money, captured government. The link between effort and reward severed and the feedback mechanisms of society gone offline.

No ****ing wonder people are wearing their dumb Che Guevara shirts into their 30s now. I'd fall in love with authoritarians and communism too if it looked like I would literally never be able to afford a home.

 

I said more liberal, but really I've gone both ways as I better understand the dynamics of the world. I think I've gotten more independent in my views.

But here I'm talking political spectrum 'liberal.' in the literal meanings of the words, I've always been conservative in the sense of limiting risk and avoiding change, and I get moreso as I get older. But political 'conservatives' nowadays are radicals, and it's the liberals who protect our political traditions, so go figure.

 

@basso
Rocky 4 and all the 80s movies said the Russians are the enemy

but I know Russians, they absolutely love America unlike the woke lazy fat lunatics here

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About the same but I'm trying to challenge myself to have a greater understanding of the nuances within problems and disagreements. I hope that I'm smarter/wiser politically than a decade ago, but not sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

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Pass.

 

Neither party monopolizes either of their respective ideologies.

I value fairness, grit, decency, courage, second chances, self responsibility, a culture of honor and excellence, tolerance in diversity, empathy, compassion, etc...

None of these values can be quantified but they can be grounded up, breaded, and deep fried from a pink slime into polling numbers.

Having more physical stuff like house, cars and family make a difference, but mental baggage and experience over time matters just as much. It's definitely easier to be outraged over something political, but I think your outlook also shifts when you remember what people were outraged about a few years or decades earlier.

Or you could just cast off your individuality and feed from whatever slop the algo determines what you best like. Q Anoners found great meaning through that...

 

I agreed with with all of this. The blue hair liberal people turn me off though

 

We’ve seen the Right even as they proclaim their love of the Constitution undermine it with a President and now leading candidates openly disdainful of the Constitution. The modern American Conservative movement is largely no longer “conservative” and are pushing policies and candidates who were what the Founders warned about.

 

One of the things they shaped my political views was frequent protests turn into rioting and looting in Berkeley. Much of the rhetoric around the radical Left struck me as disjointed, unrealistic and more interested in causing chaos and shirking civic responsibility. In the 30 years since then those views have only been confirmed especially by what happened in Minneapolis following the George Floyd protests. That many on the Left felt unable to criticize the violence and looting or openly supported showed how self destructive such movements could be.

As someone who also has a big interest in philosophy and history I’ve also been heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophers which the Consitution is based off of. They greatly distrusted demagogues and populists and recent history has shown that they were largely right. As such I feel that populism both on the left and the right is the biggest political danger we face.