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
yeah it’s a shame that libertarian basically means closeted republican these days
is there a better term?
I’d consider myself pretty libertarian-minded in the whole ‘you live your life and I live mine’ style, but not in the ‘let corporations do whatever they want to workers and the environment’ style
And honestly, ‘conservative’ shouldn’t be a bad word either. But it’s been morphed into this fascist hate machine, and it’s hard to see what you’ve become when you’re on the inside.
It’s not like Democrats are screaming to tear down the Walmarts and Dollar Generals, and bring back local businesses and repairable products. Neither side is all that great, it’s just that one is teetering on genocidal. I’m not saying don’t vote democrat, because you absolutely have to if you want to head off what’s coming. But we need to start looking at this problem more holistically, if we don’t just want to perpetuate it in future generations.
The term “fundamentalist” was coined because “conservative” was a bad word, and that was over a century ago. Conservative hate is nothing new.
I often go with Anti-Authoritarian when describing my beliefs. I’ve played around with the Anarchist label as well, though it seems to have the same affect on Communists who want an edgier label (which is ironic, considering both groups have clashed with each other throughout history)
I like many concepts of Anarchy, but until we have Star Trek levels of free unlimited power and food, I don’t think it would work.
There have been examples of anarchy working. Unfortunately, most of the ones I know of were around during World War 2 and got crushed between 2 larger opponents, or backstabbed by one of them.
Anarchists - and other socialists in Catalonia - during the Spanish Civil War, were stuck between the fascists and the republicans (Soviets), sided with the Soviets and ended up being betrayed. Homage to Catalonia by Orwell is a good book about the civil war and the anarchists.
Korean People’s Association in Manchuria were destroyed by Japan a few years before WW2 during a war between China and Japan IIRC, and apparently some of its leaders were also killed by “Korean communists” (the same ones that ended up forming North Korea).
The Black Army of Ukraine fought the Red and White armies at separate times; one time they joined the Red Army against the White Army, and were betrayed.
You might have noticed a pattern there, which is also why a lot of anarchists are not found of Marxist-Leninists or Stalinists.
Do you believe in a democratic government undertaking tasks of social benefit? Like building roads and rails
as long as the money isn’t being wasted or contracts being handed out to companies owned by politician’s friends, yeah
That’s called being a Democrat
A “Democrat” is a member of the “Democratic Party” of the USA, it is not a political ideology in itself. Democrats are usually economic Liberals and don’t care that much about workers or the environment, but some are Social Democrats (Bernie Sanders). They are also usually socially progressive.
The Republican Party is also composed mainly of economic liberals; however, they are typically socially conservative.
Democrat isn’t really an ideology though as much as it’s a coalition of voters. They can be anyone from Communists and socialists to conservatives who don’t align with the Republican party. The majority of politicians within the party tend to be free market liberals akin to Clinton, with a few European style Social Democrats akin to Bernie Sanders and AOC. As someone who supports gun ownership and rejects the existence of corporate welfare and monopolies, I might not identify with many of the politicians within the Democratic party. Likewise I take issue with the Republican’s stances towards human rights, the establishment of religion, and putting the legitimacy of elections into question. I might be more comfortable with voting Democrat, but the party’s platform would not be how I would describe my ideology.