The older we get, the more conservative we become?

[EddyF]

Just wondering if people believe this. I’m in my thirties and although I have always had real socialist views and I have always voted Labour, I am struggling with some of my current viewpoints which lean more to the conservative way. I think I have lost a bit of societal empathy and seeing things as a ‘dog eat dog world; everyone out for themselves’.

There are so many issues I see locally (London) that I just think not everyone can be saved. The services are stretched; high streets are depressing and people have too many needs and often those needs are not isolated and are multiple. I feel less empathetic and more “can’t you just help yourself”. There doesn’t appear to be a safety net or one that is efficient enough, which to my surprise, has harden me a bit. Maybe it is age😆

The left and right have changed a lot of their policy directions and also demographic of their voters though.

The Tories used to be considered the part of the elite, with Labour being the workers.

The center of balance is now quite different for Labour, they are the party of the professional middle classes and what at one time might have been called the bourgeoisie. So maybe it is not surprising that the middle classes with assets would tend to remain attached to Labour.

I think age makes people more socially conservative but becoming more economically right wing is often a matter of socioeconomic status.

Those elements certainly don't seem to be particularly linked.

But it's interesting to me the number of people saying that older people become economically right in order to protect their own assets. When we see a lot of older middle class people with money are remaining on the left while wc people tend to stay on the right.

I'm the opposite. Definitely more left as I've got older!

Nope. I’ve moved further left and am totally anti-monarchy. It’s helped that I now live in France and they’re doing just fine as a republic.

@Oriunda are you concerned about the rise of the right in France?

I don't think this is a left or right thing anymore. Fiscal policy aside I mean.

The left in the UK have tried to shift the Overton window, which has left many of us traditionalist left women in the same position (class analysis) whilst the LP and Lib Dems have moved towards identity politics.

So have we become more conservative? Or have the left moved the goalposts?

I think that the left have certainly changed.

The quote I remember is

"If you vote right wing then you have no heart and if you vote left wing you have no brain "

As you get older you tend to think more logically rather than emotionally. Or hopefully should do!

The voting demographic in July doesn’t support that.

I think the best way to protect my (now adult) kid is to have a functioning society as laid out by left wing ideas. I don’t want endless material goods. The emotional stuff isn’t the job of the government.
I’m in no way unusual in holding the above opinions. You haven’t made a case for people going right as they get older at all.

Nonsense. It’s the right that has shifted the Overton window miles over to the right. What is considered centrist now was Conservative policy not long ago. Corbyn was painted as far left when his policies would have been unremarkable in any European social democratic state.

That quote is utter nonsense though, on both counts, so maybe don’t use it as a basis for your own ideas.
But actually, using logic, austerity and right wing politics clearly don’t work. As a logical thinker you should be abandoning them. Assuming you are one.

I agree it’s the right that’s pulled the Overton Window right.

However, for me one of the biggest issues with Corbyn was not that he was ‘far left’ (I agree, he wasn’t) but that he seemed to want us to go back to the 1970s. And people don’t see the 1970s as an aspirational decade!

What do you mean by ‘go back to the 1970s’? In what way?

I was a loyal Labour voter for years, then it only takes one thing to disagree on, for me it’s been their lack of support for women’s rights and spaces, and suddenly it’s like it cracked like an facade, I can see it’s all bollocks. I don’t want to vote Conservative either, neither seem to have a long term plan, the Tories fucked up housing, now labour are going to fuck up our food supply in the future. Meanwhile the social care crisis is being ignored. It’s far easier and cheaper for Labour to put up a pride flag and talk about diversity than actually implement any policies to help vulnerable communities. They’d rather punish them by stealth.

None of that makes sense. It’s clearly not ‘all bollocks’. (The Tories are actually worse on the issue you don’t like because they pretend to agree with you while doing the opposite anyway). The social care crisis isn’t being ignored. Our food supply is not being fucked up. They have lots of policies for vulnerable communities and nobody is being punished.

How are vulnerable communities being punished by stealth?

@38thparallel Pas vraiment.

Who's supporting communism here?

Pinochet's Chile- a right wing dictatorship- also used to "disappear" political dissidents and have their children adopted.

Trump's America did something very similar on its southern borders, and presumably will do so again when he returns to power.

Ok? I'm not sure that was really the point of the post you quoted, but fine.

I don't understand your post though, are you trying to say that because some people like yourself don't become more conservative, it can't be true in the general case?

Because that seems odd. It's nothing to do with you personally whether it's true or not.

God some of the arguments I had in the Corbyn era along the lines of "far left, if only - he's just a mild social democrat who doesn't hate immigrants".

But then the tabloids somehow managed to label Ed fucking Miliband as "Red Ed".

Who's supporting communism here?

@crackofdoom

A couple of quotes from this thread:

I'm 58 still a proud commie troublemaker always will be!

Same here. I was right wing as an ignorant 20 year old. The older I get the further left I go. I’m developing more and more communist ideals as I get older

The youngest group had lower votes for Labour, and higher for Reform, than the next two higher age groups. So I don't know that I would agree with you entirely. And that's in the face of an incumbent Conservative party that was in too long and badly in need of renewal.

Bigger picture, outside of the UK seems to see a pattern in the direction of young people voting for more conservative parties, and it's an arguable interpretation that the UK is on the tail of that, so it might carry on. It will be interesting to see whether the next lot of new voters continues the trend.

I’m saying doing it ‘to protect your kids’ is nonsensical.