the 🍒
18-29 “kids”
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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"You'll agree more with republicans as you age" was always something I heard from right wing nut jobs when I became voting age. In fact, the opposite has happened.
I often heard something similar, in spirit. Roughly translated: "if you aren't a commie when you're 20, then you're heartless; but if you're still a commie when you're 40, then you're brainless."
I'm 40 this year. Still a communist. I guess that makes me brainless?
I’ve heard it as “if you’re still a communist when you’re 40, then you’re poor.”
You can also substitute communist with socialist or liberal.
Also I’ve heard another version where 20 is democrat, 30 is Republican, and 40 is libertarian.
It’s all “my team” kind of bullshit.
I originally heard this as:
If you're a Republican at 20, then you're heartless. If you're a Democrat at 40, then you're broke.
You get more and more immersed in right wing propaganda as you get older. You get exposed to more reactionary institutions, you find yourself increasingly segregated from people of different races and income scales, you suffer the psychological torments of the capitalist rat race more nakedly, and it all adds up.
Lots of people I grew up with in high school are Trump Republicans now. They weren't MAGA shitheads in school, mostly because they were blank slates. They were warm to ideas like "Free College" when they were in college and cooled on it once they graduated (or flunked out). They were "moderate" when they had friends who were coming out of the closet and dealing with racial abuse and coming home in body bags during the Iraq War. But they grew increasingly right-wing when the law firm and the O&G offices and techbro money orgies demanded it of them.
Even before AI started straight up poisoning people's brains, they were getting into Facebook groups and Discord channels that rotted them. Nevermind the endless barrage of NYT / WaPo "Why These Trump Voters Need To Be Listened To" articles and CBS / ABC "Transgender Athletes: A Threat To Your Kid's Scholarship?" TV slop that drives so many liberals insane. Nevermind the Zionists, those nice sweet liberal folks whose faces melt right off the moment you suggest butchering millions of brown people might be bad Middle East policy.
Fucking sucks, but time really does turn people rightward when you live in a fascist hellhole.
that's not being a blank slate though, that's being so devoid of empathy that you can't even imagine what it's like being yourself a few years ago.
that’s not being a blank slate though
It's people who don't have a strong opinion because they haven't been bombarded with a particular flavor of social media yet.
A twenty-year-old is going to have a different view of alternative ethnic groups than a forty-year-old, simply by way of psychological attrition. You can only get so many "Black Man With Sour Face In Orange Jumpsuit" local news jump-scare stories before the racism is bludgeoned into your gray matter.
sure but that's all predicated on growing up in an individualist culture.
People also become more isolated from “others” as they age, at least those with stable jobs. They are surrounded by people of the same financial ability, and their job keeps them in an area, and their income matches to a house.
It’s not until they get laid off or they have a medical event that they start to think about it again. As long as the life compared to their peers is ok and their bellies are full, they don’t complain about trillionaires.
Even past this, I think we undersell the socializing value of public schools. This is particularly true of the big state universities, where you're going to be bumping shoulders with people from the opposite side of the state (even the other side of the country). But even public high schools have a way of co-mingling people from the other side of the tracks for one reason or another.
They are surrounded by people of the same financial ability, and their job keeps them in an area, and their income matches to a house.
Absolutely this. Bigger cities can kinda-sorta avoid this. But the people you know best are going to be your coworkers and your neighbors, strictly by virtue of proximity. One of the perks of social institutions like churches and gyms is that you butt up against people who aren't perfectly parallel with you in terms of socio-economic status.
It happens, I'm sure. Constant exposure to propaganda and an increase in money can do that to you. But it didn't happen to my parents (who are seniors now) and it didn't happen to me, yet.
My point is, it won't happen to everyone like I was told by people in the town I grew up and first voted in. I grew up in a conservative hellhole, one that may or may not have one of the most corrupt and theocratic governments of any state, if that gives you any hints.
My point is, it won’t happen to everyone
Sure. Nothing happens to everyone (except the one big thing).
But it happens to enough people such that it shapes general public perceptions and vibes.
I grew up in a conservative hellhole, one that may or may not have one of the most corrupt and theocratic governments of any state, if that gives you any hints.
But I agree, it cuts both ways. I wasn't a raging leftist in high school. I flirted with Republicans, because they were in the majority. I flirted with Libertarianism, because it seemed like they agreed me on a few things at least. I flirted with the local liberal establishments, because it at least looked like a runway towards progressive policies.
You can only see so much corruption, insincerity, and complicity before it drives you to the fringes. If I wasn't a fire-breathing leftist tankie wumao third-worlder Bookchin afficianado, I guess I would have ended up doing QAnon shit from the strain of it all.
Ha, I thought theocratic government would narrow it down. It's Utah.
I'm from Texas. From my experience, it could apply to anyone over here or east straight on to Florida. Nevermind the nightmare politics of the upper midwest or the fascist fuckwit colony of Idaho.
Getting older includes losing your field of fucks to give. If you've spent your life bullying and celebrating your ignorance like them, you'll become more conservative. If your views and your morals have stayed somewhat consistent and you've been generous, courteous and compassionate, those values will persist your lack of fucks to give, often pushing you further left rather than right.
Maybe you just never grew up and allowing you to vote was a mistake. Have you considered seeing a doctor about this?
Same here. Turns out reality has a liberal bias unless you go out of your way to ignore it.
Turns out reality has a liberal bias
Really? Reality is biased towards oligarchy?
I looked at this and assume the person who authored the survey had worded it:
Which Do You Prefer?
-
Socialism
-
Communism
-
No Opinion
Specifically to create a troll graphic for FOX.
Btw, Cato Institute is a fucking Libertarian hothouse of business psychos and CSAM consumers. Take everything they put out with a grain of salt, even it's a surface level "Oh, that's good for us".
Exactly. Cato Institute = Koch Brothers. Two of the most despicable libertarian oil pushing fuck nuts that spawned from hell here on earth.
Two of the most despicable libertarian oil pushing fuck nuts
Technically only one fucknut left from the original four. They Ayn Rand'd themselves sequentially and now the organization they run is mostly burning cash on vanity shit for libertarian baby-brains. But at its height, they were a terror.
Word.
Those sharing bastards