I was always told that as people get older, they get more conservative. What happened to me?

[Feeling the Bern]

I just turned 38 three weeks ago and I am looking at myself.

I think I am more liberal now than I was 20 years ago. Now that I am becoming a successful screenwriter and producer, I should be getting more and more conservative. In a few weeks time, I will become a millionaire on the sale of three screenplays and have a back end deal for 5% of the movie at the box office.

I am becoming exactly what a Republican wants and a conservative is. What happened? I am even more liberal now with an even bigger social conscience.

Now that I will have the means to do what I can, I can't bring myself to hoard. I will put away for my family and my children, but I have so many projects planned (building school libraries, funding arts and humanities departments, my wife is planning to work at World Hunger Year and my pet charity, the Innocence Project).

Aren't I supposed to not care anymore because I got mine? If so, why can't I do it in good conscience?

[ladjf]

1. As people get older, and if they are in good health, many begin to

understand the cause and effect process better than when they were younger. They see the connections.

[onecaliberal]

2. Because you have a compassionate heart that cares about humanity.

To make a long story short you're not a republican.

[Wounded Bear]

3. You are getting more conservative...

just not more Republican.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

4. I've always wondered the same thing

Who says? Why do they say it?

I have always leaned liberal/progressive. I am much more adamant about it now, at 52, than I was 30 years ago.

I'm right there with ya, man.

[Pakid]

5. I am 62

and more liberal now than I was at 18

[Frank Cannon]

36. At 18, I was a proud Reagan Democrat.

Some years later, I read a couple of books by Noam Chomsky and Norman Solomon, and that was the end of that. What the hell was I thinking.

[B Calm]

6. 65 and I'm becoming more liberal.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Shit man, I'm 54 soon to be 55 and I am as socialist as the world will let me.

Fuck the right. Fuck the me generation. Fuck them all. Fuck Churchill who supposedly said if we didn't vote conservative at our age we didn't have a brain.

[Feeling the Bern]

9. Fuck Churchill for the Iron Curtain Speech in Fulton, MO which all but made the Cold War

unavoidable.

[Orrex]

43. Not to mention his warm-n-fuzzy fondness for genocide

Fuck him indeed.

[Zorra]

66. Churchill was one of the most heinous racist imperialist oligarch creeps that ever lived.

"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place."
Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937

Dude was totally twisted.

[bklyncowgirl]

8. Congratulations on your success. My mom always said, as the arteries harden so do the views.

Unless you have a life changing experience you'll probably keep the same basic views your entire life and become increasingly resistant to new information as you grow old.

If you were basically a conservative in your formative years you'll probably get more and more conservative in your senior years until you are wingnut batty old fool arguing that Reagan was the greatest president ever in the assisted living home lounge.

If you were a liberal your 20s & 30s you'll likely remain a liberal. I'm planning on being that old lefty woman, marching with my walker to fight the good fight and driving the wingnuts in the nursing home to distraction.

[Feeling the Bern]

11. I'm what Hollywood doesn't need more of. A Moonbat

But I'm a moonbat because it's who I am, not because it will give me good pub.

Christ, I'm a writer. I can walk down the street and no one will know me. Good thing about working behind the scenes.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

48. LOL! Moonbat! Do you listen to Howie Carr?

I swear "moonbat" is that man's favorite word. I never heard of the word until I heard his show. He says it over and over. I hate his show too. He's basically Rush Limbaugh of New England. I'm sure he's buds with the incompetent, asshole governor from my state.

[Hortensis]

39. I plan to be a funny old bag living

in an old cottage hidden in a jungle of overgrown plants -- just a bus ride from where people like to go make noise. I can see it now. My bossy daughter and daughter-in-law will descend on me now and then to haul away old political signs and make sure a path is still clear from the sidewalk to the front door.

Good for you, Feeling the Bern. It's like Bklyn says. I was born strong liberal and will die strong liberal. When you were a child, people like the Kochs were already investing vast sums convincing an entire nation that good people were strongly conservative and that liberalism was a pernicious, dysfunctional aberration. I'm guessing your life is now relatively independent of those influences, strong as they very much are for those who are drawn to them.

[disillusioned73]

10. Feeling the same way..

But not nearly as successful you my friend

[CurtEastPoint]

12. Same here, nearly 66. I think I'm becoming more 'thoughtful' and aware of...

the interconnections we all have.

[Feeling the Bern]

14. Maybe living in other countries did it too for me.

I've seen poverty and the end result of hunger. I've seen people struggling in a system designed to only benefit the top.

Go to any hole in western China and see crippling poverty and starvation. I went out to Ningxia once and pretty much spent about $1000 dollars (which is a king's ransom in Ningxia) on feeding the village's children for the time I was there.

Changed my life forever. I had never seen people more thankful for a few pieces of meat, bean sprouts, rice and a simple can of coke.

[CurtEastPoint]

15. Wonderful. This is why (seriously) I would love to have shitloads of money.

To help someone out.

[Feeling the Bern]

16. You saw the work I will do.

And that's just the beginning.

Harry Chapin is one of the biggest influences in my life. I want to be a Hollywood person like he was.

God bless Harry, taken from us way too soon.

[SheilaT]

13. That nonsense has been around since sometime in the 19th century.

It's possible it was true then, but I don't think it's a very good general rule any more. If it ever was.

I'm 67, and I become vastly more liberal the older I get.

[LiberalArkie]

17. You are just not following the "New Money" trend.

The "New Money" find that they want more and more any any cost.

However, the people raised in multi-generation wealth are indeed more liberal than those before them. Think Rockefeller and Vanderbilt etc. They generally want to do something for others, think of it as a legacy. A lot of them do not want to be millionaire living in a poor society. The New Money folks feel that they can build big enough fences and hire enough guards to protect them.

I recommend "Daemon" and Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez. I think he has a lot of this nailed down.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

18. Well, if you were the standard to be measured by...

Good grief..,

[Nitram]

19. I've moved leftward my entire life.

Thanks to growing up with right wing parents.

[jen63]

35. ^^^ This ^^^

My first vote was Reagan's second term. Ugh, I didn't see the attraction. I voted blue! I started reading anything I could about politics and have gotten more liberal as I age. My parents are brainwashed fox news junkies and it's very sad. I can't reach them. I'm 52.

[KG]

20. screaming and kicking toward 60 yo. and the more I learn, the more radical leftist I become...

[JanMichael]

49. absolutely. i have gone hyper left and consider Bernie a capitalist pet or

leftist dog or cat whistler. ie get us going full on left then bait and switch back to plain ole vanilla middle once winning.

back to mltoday....

[Nitram]

21. Actually the "get more conservative as you get older" is a conservative meme.

Based on a favorite conservative saying, "If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain". Only a conservative doesn't think you can have both.

[jeff47]

22. It's not that an individual gets more conservative. Society gets more liberal.

Just like the sun rising is actually the Earth rotating, the place where you observe the system is important.

People tend to develop their political views by about 30-ish, and then they more-or-less remain in the same place. (Obviously, individual cases may vary). In the past, society kept getting more liberal. What was scandalous in the 1920s was not at all scandalous in the 1960s.

If you measure from the perspective of a person passing through those 40 years, they "became more conservative". But what really happened was society became more liberal.

The conservative renaissance over the last 40 years stalled the "society gets more liberal" trend.

[kacekwl]

23. I'm 59 and a flaming liberal.

I believe I'm just smarter than everyone else.

[kimbutgar]

24. I think that if consider life a life long learning experience you remain liberal

But if are the type that thinks I already learned enough and become close minded you become a conservative. A typical fox right winger thinks in black and white and a progressive liberal thinks gray.

To this day I try to look at both sides before making a decision. And I have no problem changing my positions if presented with facts.

[k8conant]

57. Mostly true, but...

there are always more than two sides and a progressive liberal thinks rainbow.

[nichomachus]

25. That saying arose in a different time and place

It came about in the upper classes in Britain. When members of the privileged class were young, they could be idealistic. As they got older and became lord of the manor or were placed in parliament or rose in the military or government service, their role was to keep the lower classes down, and to practically enslave people in the colonies. So they became more conservative. It was a necessity. It wouldn't do to let the lower classes gain an upper hand. If they did, it would diminish their privilege.

It really doesn't apply to us here today. As others have said, the more you see about how government and The System works in the US -- if you're paying attention -- you can't help but become more "liberal."

It comes from realizing -- as George Carlin famously pointed out -- "It's all a big club, and you're not in it."

[treestar]

26. Seems unfortunately true for most people

Not happening to me either.

But I thought the baby boomers who were so liberal and change making when young would make this country far more liberal over time - but no, baby boomers are now as old as 70 and over 65 is still conservative by most polls. I think there may be some truth in the concept most baby boomers were not hippies, radicals or activists and the 80s certainly are an argument that generation went for making money and now having saved some of it are making it true that you become conservative the more you have to conserve.

[TexasProgresive]

27. As I got older I became more conservative in my personal choices.

I am very conservative in what I eat and drink.
I don't smoke even though I would like to.
I refrain from impulse buying.
I try to do things that improve my health.
I try to not do things that are detrimental to my health.
I am so conservative that I want to reign in large corporations back to reasonable levels.
I am so conservative that I think insurance companies running health care is a waste of money.
This list goes on and on.

[valerief]

28. Clearly, you haven't been properly socialized to exist in the bubble. That

makes you a failure, in 1%er terms.

[Eleanors38]

29. You got the same disease I got.

[OriginalGeek]

30. I'm 52 and WAY more liberal than I was at 18

but you can most likely attribute that to my deconversion from religious fundamentalism.

When I realized I was an atheist I still had a lot of the conservative values I had been indoctrinated with even though some of them were the reasons I started questioning religion and god.

It took a while to work a lot of those issues out.

Still working even.


But yeah, I look at my liberal 94 y/o grandpa and thank stardust I escaped my mother and stepfather's cult and now have a pretty awesome guide for life.

[Matrosov]

31. What happened? You grew older

People like to cite that disputed Churchill quote, but in reality, many normal human beings become more left-leaning with age.

The older you become, the more injustices you've seen. The more the cancerous consequences of conservatism you've seen. It makes sense then, if you are a caring person with empathy for others, that you actually become more liberal.

[haele]

32. That only happens to people who, as they get older, live in an ever contracting world.

A world that consists of primarily their job, family, friends, social sphere, and/or neighborhood. Their world revolves around their interests, not the other way around. Because they don't see what isn't in front of them or what they've experienced...it's as if there isn't a whole larger rest of the world that might affect what they see around them. So they feel they can be big "c" Conservative; they simply don't feel they have to consider dealing with anything that doesn't affect job, family, neighborhood etc...

Like a turtle or a cat, they believe it won't hurt them if they don't care about anything they can't see, hear, touch, or otherwise experience. Anything outside their immediate concerns or imagined future has no importance to them.

They don't understand - or want to understand - that the world as a series of links and cogs; that they're only a small part of a greater whole that's only as strong as its weakest link.

Haele

[raccoon]

37. Well said! nt

[Festivito]

33. Yesteryear's conservative is today's liberal. Yesteryear's liberal spent much more than today's.

For example, the current Dem platform is like the Republican platform from 1956.

Also, take Roosevelt, spend on people holding shovels. Make government jobs.

Taking such chances with the economy scares older people who see themselves with not enough time to recover from the whims of big government big spenders. Large projects such as Hoover dam, rural electrification, national highway system, a space race (unless we are challenged by outside forces), ... are new ideas that might not pan out and might hurt the future of an older persons security.

So, these chancy ideas scare the head and callous the heart. Thus, he who is not a Democrat when young has no heart, and not a Republican when old has no head. But, things have gone so far to the right that this old adage no longer rings true.

[J_J_]

34. As a screenwriter and producer, you are in the perfect position to affect change with your work

Most media sucks these days, we would do well if someone started writing better messages in our movies and tv shows.

For instance, have you seen 'Deeds' with Adam Sandler where he comes in to a bit of wealth and starts giving it away?

Most of our media has brainwashed people into self centeredness, as if life is a competition to get the most money/toys and screw everyone else.

I have been wishing someone would write a screenplay or a tv reality show which illustrates a super rich guy unhappy with just having money, who finds more joy in giving his money away than hoarding it.

The show could follow a rich person who instead of buying something for themselves, buys a home for a homeless guy, puts a poor kid through college,buys an African country a well driller, pays off a struggling family's bills, fills up the food bank with food etc.

The show could illustrate the joy in other people this person creates by the giving, and the joy that the rich person receives in return, far greater than anything they ever experienced before when buying a boat or drinking an expensive bottle of wine.

This show of giving could help wake up the other hoarders into realizing that we are all connected, and that real joy and love comes from working together, helping eachother, lifting other's spirits.

Just like we have been brainwashed with greed by the media, we could keep this show on until everyone is reprogrammed into understanding that humanity is more important than wealth.

[dmosh42]

38. Like my father, I started as an Eisenhower Republican, but after my US Navy hitch, I leaned left....

as a lifetime union member(CWA). Now at 74, I'm in same age bracket as Bernie and understand and support his campaign completely!

[Vinca]

40. I'm convinced it's a brain thing.

The GOP mind seems programmed to be mean, self-centered, greedy and dismissive of those in need. I've always been a lefty, but every year I seem to become "leftier."

[jillan]

41. Don't ever change! I'm 60 and more liberal than I was at age 20.

[Le Taz Hot]

42. I've always been liberal, but, at 60,

I've gone WAAAAAY further left.

[Odin2005]

44. It's a myth, people usually stay roughly the same ideologically all their lives.

It's social change that causes people to seem more conservative as they get older, the Depression/WW2 Generation is a good example of this.

This myth came from the 50s, and the elderly generation of the time, the so-called "Lost Generation", leaned very conservative economically and sociologists wrongly generalized that to all old people.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

45. I'm just about your age.

I will be 37 in a couple months. I think am about the same as I was in high school in terms of politics.

[HuckleB]

46. I've only become more liberal/progressive/open to the realities of all others, as I age.

I think that was a cliche pushed by a few closed-minded fools who thought being liberal when young meant getting drunk and high, and having sex. It didn't. And it doesn't.

[dog_lovin_dem]

56. I believe you

hit the nail on the head, HuckleB. I will be 58 this year and have gradually become more liberal over time, though in retrospect, I was never anything but liberal.

[HuckleB]

58. It's a trend I see with people I've known all my life.

Even cons are less so, as they grow older, IME.

[phylny]

47. I'll be 58 this year and I'm

a bleeding-heart liberal. I'm also a Christian, and my brand of Christianity makes me responsible for feeding the poor and hungry, housing the homeless, and educating the kids who will probably be my doctors if I'm lucky enough to live that long.

[malaise]

50. I could be your mother

and I'm still a Democratic Socialist

[randys1]

51. Men yes, Women no. I heard a quote from Gloria Steinem along the lines

that the longer Women live the more they learn how fucked up and misogynist America is so the more liberal they become.

[NaturalHigh]

68. Really? I would like to see a link to that.

[arcane1]

52. I'm 48 and I am DEFINITELY not more conservative! n/t

[noretreatnosurrender]

53. Maybe it's because...

It was conservatives telling you that. lol I started liberal and I'm still liberal. Looks like you are too. There are a lot of us like that. lol

[fun n serious]

54. We're just well read..

If you continue to read and educate yourself you're likely to stay liberal all your life. We have internet so long gone are the days we got old and lost touch.

[Kalidurga]

55. I am going the other way too.

Right now I am far to the left of Bernie. In a couple of years who knows.

[jaysunb]

59. At 73, I'm more conservative about how much I drink

eat and hangout. Otherwise, I'm still a bleeding heart liberal.

[CanonRay]

60. Same for me.

[REP]

61. When you become truly old, you may find yourself radically liberal

My family has always been leftish; I believe my grandmother was the only vote for FDR in her precinct. She was counter-picketing at clinics (on the pro-choice side) into her 80s.

My mother had gone from being a Sunday school teacher with some rather provincial ideas to an atheist convinced that gender and sexuality is a spectrum by the end of her life.

I'm 51 now. I can't think what I could be more liberal about but I'm sure I'll be about something as I get older.

[ladyVet]

62. I was born liberal. No idea why, but I guess the FDR Democrat I had for a grandfather helped.

Funny thing, my daddy's people seem to be moderate Republicans, but they don't act really weird for the most part.

I suspect, the way I'm going, I'll die an anarchist, but I'm hoping the Democratic Socialist will hold from now on.

[rufus dog]

63. You aren't because the meme is bullshit

I would have to search but there are studies on the subject. Turns out both conservatives and liberals become MORE entrenched in their beliefs. As noted anecdotally by all the posts upthread.

[moondust]

64. Maybe just pertains to money and investing.

The older you get the more you may want to be careful/conservative with your money because it only gets harder to start over and build up some savings.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

65. My parents were liberal when they were old too.

They were yellow dog Democrats their whole lives. Dad voted Socialist in 1932 for Norman Thomas and mellowed into a liberal Ted Kennedy Democrat by 1980. Mom stayed liberal too. Neither of them ever voted for a republican. Mom bitched about "That Bastard Richard Nixon" and Dad angrily said "Reagan ruined this country" and told me he was so disgusted he'd spit when he saw a Republican on TV.

When I was little, we had three pictures of John F. Kennedy on the wall.

They both died in their 80s about the time George W. Bush was selected by the SCROTUS.

My parents were already against the Vietnam War so I didn't have to rebel very much. Saved a lot of energy.

I've never voted for a Republican politician. I've voted for a few Republican judges, back when there were some sensible ones.

My folks would be appalled but not surprised at how wacky the Republicans have gotten.

[Feeling the Bern]

67. My great grandmother was socialist during the Palmer Raids. Well, she was also

a flapper, smoked and drank in public and casually dated in the 1920s.

My mother and I are pretty much to the left of Bernie Sanders.

My brother is finally coming back around to the correct side of the spectrum on everything except Muslims and guns (but he is a combat vet so he has a different view on those two things). My conservative brother is behind Bernie Sanders.

Counting my extended family, Bernie has at least six votes.