Once upon a time, being a progressive meant you were challenging society. Supporting liberal politics, causes, and ideas was an act of rebellion. In the late-60’s and 1970’s, fighting for progress involved confronting long-held beliefs about American culture, values, and ways of life.
While some of it was good, as in the case of ending segregation and government-backed racial discrimination, much of counter-culture amounted to noise. Which is why it appealed to young people so much.
There is a quirk in the development of a person where sometimes, they feel the need to rebel against their elders. It wasn’t always the case; long ago children grew up to respect their parents. They actually wanted to be like them. Terrifying I know. And while most of us will grow up to be like our parents, many people—perhaps most—go through a period in the late teens and early twenties when they try to be so, so different.
Perhaps this was because, in the 1960’s and onward, the structure of the American family life fell apart. All those post-World War II kids had trouble connecting with their parents. Partly because their parents were slowly recovering from the horrors of the war and thus were emotionally distant. But also partly because of how radically different post-WWII children’s lifestyles were compared to their folks’. Modern innovations made life more convenient and enjoyable, a stark contrast to the hard life of those growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s (i.e.: The Great Depression).
Bad parenting leads to bad children. And even a slight gap in the generations can produce radical rebellion and disenfranchisement.
For a generation or two, the liberal party enjoyed a kind of boost, thanks to the image that they were for progress, countering “outdated” traditions. Democrats rode that wave for decades, even long after it was no longer true.
By the 80’s and 90’s, what was once called the New Left was pretty much the norm. While there were plenty of conservatives, younger generations opted to support liberals because, well, they thought they were better.
Liberals positioned themselves as the forward-thinking group that challenged the status quo. But by the time of President Bill Clinton, they were the status quo. They were no longer a group of shaggy-haired liberals questioning the Man. They were the Man, man.
Ideas once considered ‘outsider’ have been commonplace since before I was born. Policies meant to balance out discrimination or to give minorities a boost are the standard. Affirmative action carries incredible weight in colleges and workplaces. You can bitch about white privilege or the patriarchy all you want, we don’t have laws giving us preferential treatment. Laws, by the way, that have been on the books for over fifty years.
Of course, there are many more examples of liberal policies and programs shaping our society. Such as Social Security, Welfare, food stamps, and other forms of Socialism.
My generation (Millennials) and many before us were told, though, that we must be liberal in order to challenge a corrupt system that looks to denigrate women, gays, and minorities. Yet today, liberals are the system. They’ve been calling the shots since the 60’s. And even with occasional respites like the Reagan Administration, liberal progressivism was like that bolder of Sisyphus; no matter what, it kept dragging us down.
(And by the way, you can’t call the Bush administrations true conservatives, considering their globalist bent.)
That’s all before we factor in the continued liberal angle in our media, which has been working to brainwash generations into believing what they have to say. Or an Obama administration that all but validated the most violent and hateful forms of social justice.
Today we are living in a society that, while still possessing diversity of thought among actual people, forces liberal dogma on us through our established pop culture.
But will that last forever? Will each new generation embrace the programming that is liberal socialism? Can you really build a lasting kingdom on a broken foundation? Surely the liberal fad will run its course. Or as a person once said, you either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain.
(If you think I’m done quoting The Dark Knight to illustrate my points, you're sorely mistaken)
The fact of the matter is that a long time ago, a movement started that was aimed at correcting the real or perceived injustices in our society. And in certain ways, this movement helped fix a few things. But it went too far. Today modern liberals feel it is their duty to rewrite everything about our society: who we are, what we’re about, even the structure of government and our genders.
Liberals have lived long enough to become the great villains of our culture, politics, and freedoms.
It’s sad to consider most of the acts of terrorism in our country this year have come, not from radical Islam, but liberals.
But it’s not surprising. The liberal dogma that guides Democrats has long outstayed it’s welcome. And while they’ve managed to bamboozle a few generations into thinking they’re the party of progress, it won’t be like that forever.
A new study by political scientist Jeff Brauer finds that the generation after Millennials, Generation Z, is expected to lean Republican.
Sometimes referred to as the iGeneration, Gen Z’s were born between 1996 and 2010. They grew up amidst 9-11, global terrorism, school shootings, the 2008 Financial Crisis, and high unemployment numbers, with smartphones, technology, and social media already at their tiny fingertips re-wiring them into marketing machines. Having grown up in unstable society, Gen Z’s distrust government and consolidated power. They will also be the last majority-white generation in America…
“Politically, Generation Z is liberal-moderate with social issues, like support for marriage equality and civil rights, and moderate-conservative with fiscal and security issues.”
“While many are not connected to the two major parties and lean independent, Gen Z’s inclinations generally fit moderate Republicans…”
He goes on to explain that from 2012 until 2016, Democratic candidates lost 5 percent of the youth vote nationally, with greater drops in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin…
“Generation Z voters were likely attracted to Trump because of his strong stances on national security and economic recovery — the main concerns of that generation,” said Brauer. (Daily Caller)
Also, because Trump does stuff like this:
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017
Lol, do you really think this was just a random tweet by a man who wrote the book on the art of the deal? Trump knows what’s going on. And he is very good at reach the people he needs to reach.
As the old guard sputters and fumes over hilarious tweets like this, waving their canes in the air between bowls of pudding, people like Donald Trump are reaching the next generation.
Then you have figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, an openly gay, pro-Trump, provocateur. Yeah, most liberals and gays thirty and older hate the guy. But the majority of his fans? They’re in their teens. He is winning the minds of college and high school students, when older figures can’t even relate to them.
Gen Z, or whatever name catches on, is the most irreverent group of people to burst from the womb. Even I, an aging 30-something, has trouble accepting their gall. This is a generation who laughs at Hitler in ways not even Mel Brooks would.
It is a generation that doesn’t care about titles, or prestige, or even political parties. They don’t care about what your party stands for. They are not going to believe something, just because it was plastered across CNN or the New York Times.
In fact, they don’t bother with either of those.
We already know how much the Internet has transformed our society and politics. Obviously, you know that, you’re reading this. In just a few short years, the Internet has completely dismantled institutions that lasted generations. In some cases, centuries.
The music industry, publishing, movies, television, and news were upended thanks to the freedom of the Internet. And that happened quickly, even among those of us who were born before it’s existence. Imagine the effect the Internet is having on people who were born after it’s preeminence.
This is a generation who will never know who Walter Cronkite or Johnny Carson were. They don’t buy into something, just because someone authoritative-looking tells them so. They believe in the hive-mind, the general consensus of their peers. And if their peers are wrong, they’ll be quick to call them out on it.
This is a generation who will put stock in Scientifically-provable evidence more than anything else. That spells certain doom for us people of faith, but it also means that Gen Z won’t vote Democrat, if all the evidence suggest their policies are terrible.
The only crutch liberals have had over the last fifty years was in their attacks against conservatives. Their advantage (if you want to call it that) was in blaming Republicans for all the problems in our society. They can’t point to any of the many policies they’ve put into effect to prove that they know what they’re doing. Because their programs fail. All they know how to do is blame the other guys.
Gen Z won’t buy into that, just because you tell them it’s so. The blame game—otherwise known as identity politics—won’t work, because you can’t prove with real evidence that liberal policies produce good results. Just a bloated government and millions of people on handouts.
Social justice warriors are in for it too. As that study says, in a generation or two, white people won’t be the majority. Can’t keep blaming us for all your problems when there’s not enough of us to go around. A society of largely mixed-race people will be the norm, so all this segregating of people based on skin color just won’t work.
Gen Z will be looking at facts and logic to determine their decisions. And yes, they’ll make mistakes; there will be plenty of liberals among them. But the majority will understand that America must be founded on certain principles. Principles like limited government, personal liberties, and free market competition.
Sounds a lot of conservativism, if you ask me.
The nature of modern young people is to rebel against their elders. This quirk has become the norm. When we hit our teens and early twenties, we begin to question our society and traditions. We try to look at life from new perspectives and come to the conclusion that perhaps change is needed.
But in a society that is largely liberal, what kind of change can we expect?
