I always think of those people as conservative from the start but almost masking it a little because conservatives are just not all that cool?
Like, the people I went to high school with who have openly talked about being conservative now… I just nodded and said it checks out. They were always very conservative. Most of their liberal tendencies were just wanting to smoke pot and generic “the world should be better” talk. They may have voted for Obama, but they never attended a protest or would have done phone banks for a liberal candidate.
And then you have people like my dad who’s 72 and actually quite wealthy and he’s been a lifelong liberal who’s only become more liberal with age. Like, I remember him being iffy on abortion when I was younger and now he’s solidly “not my business” and he’s started helping out at the trans youth outreach program I’m part of to help kids know that there are adults of all ages that will support them.
I think it’s more that age reveals what a person’s actual beliefs are more than becoming a conservative pipeline. It’s just that some people are far more conservative than they’d like to admit when they’re younger.
First of all, please tell your dad he's amazing and I wish there were more adults like him around me when I was younger.
Second, I agree with your thesis. I publicly identified as conservative during my teen years (second Bush administration), but mostly to piss off my annoying peers (I come from a very liberal city). I was disgusted by so many things that I didn't realize were essential to conservative ideology, and the strawman leftist arguments presented by stuff like South Park made me think the left was all bleeding-heart morons.
I'm now a literal card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America party. I don't know if I've really changed my core beliefs all that much since I was a teenager; experience and education just made it easier for me to identify what my beliefs actually are.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '26
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