Reply #75: Age is a factor, I think. Not a deciding one but noteworthy.

[TheKentuckian]

I'm blessed/cursed with a bit of a precocious political memory. My mother was a bit on the activist side when I was growing up and I always found politics interesting so I starting becoming aware and formulating a worldview probably about the same time as many 8-12 years older, figuring the average person probably doesn't start following issues until say 16-22.

So, I'm a pre-Reagan thinker and was able to see through the old fucker at 8. My heart has never been broken like when Carter was giving that concession speech except maybe Harvey Slone giving his in a loss to McTurtle, loved me some Harvey.

Anyway, many have literally know nothing else but Reaganisim and the Turd Way and batshit crazy and have been feed a fuckload of propaganda and have had little or no Civics to generate the curiosity to read and debate.
I also fear these age groups mostly cannot wrap their heads around things being different or of hoping for reaching for the stars or that anyone with less than seven heads would call themselves something other than a "fiscal conservative" because a "fiscal liberal" could only believe in spending like a drunken sailor on nothing.

I dunno, some akin to not being allowed to have big, over-arching dreams as a people and mostly visceral stuff as individuals, almost like the sky has closed and the stars blotted out or something. Great kids and smart but cynical yet with high levels of deference to authority.

I think the schools are jacked and they had too much early structure with the "play dates", no trick or treating, and all of the nannyisim.