Why Are Older People More Conservative/Right-Wing?
I remember watching some short clips from The Simpsons on YouTube a while back, and when I stumbled upon this one particular clip, this quote from Abe Simpson stuck to me for some reason.
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
It makes sense for Abe Simpson to say something like that because he’s an old fart, but that thought got me thinking about something else. Usually, the older someone gets, the less they’re in touch with what’s current, especially when it comes to politics. I mean, let’s face it. Older people are more likely to vote for conservative/right-wing politicians in elections while younger people are more likely to vote for liberal/left-wing politicians. What is up with that? Why are older people more likely to vote for conservative/right-wing politics? Why are older people more conservative/right-wing?
A lot of can say, and have said, that economics have an influence on this because poorer people often don’t live long enough to become senior citizens. That can be a likely explanation, but I think Abe Simpson’s quote may have more weight in this conversation. After all, nostalgia is a huge thing right now and has been huge for the past several years. The 1990s and early 2000s have especially been widely popular as a means of nostalgia for millennials and Gen. Z members just like how the 1970s and 1980s are popular for people around my mother’s age and how the 1950s and 1960s are popular with baby boomers. “But what does nostalgia have to do with politics?” you might ask.
My theory is that when it comes to nostalgia, you’re most connected to the pop culture and politics because that’s when your brain was the most impressionable and was going through the most development. Your brain’s like a sponge, absorbing everything around you. The pop culture and politics you’ve absorbed has become a part of your normal- something you don’t even question because it would be too silly to question. Why would you question something that’s a part of everyday life?
But then somebody does start questioning your definition of normal. Worse than that, they start changing what you’ve considered normal the entire time. Now, you have to get used to something else entirely, and you don’t even know where to start. You start yearning for the old days, for things to get back to normal- your normal. But those days are over. You’re gonna have to get used to a completely new world.
And when you have to get used to something entirely new, you have to learn all the new topics and etiquettes in the new society. “Wait a minute, I’ve already gone to school! Why do I have to learn all over again?” you might ask. Well, you never really stop learning just because you’re out of high school, but I do understand where you’re coming from. Learning can be very stressful, especially as you get older. And now that you’re older, you’ve got more important things to do like go to work and pay your bills. So why would you waste your time to learn something new considering the fact that you’re not going to be alive much longer?
Want me to show some examples? Let’s talk about the LGBT community. Oh, wait… my apologies. Let’s talk about the LGBTQ+ community. We have the basic sexualities- straight (a man and a woman), gay (a man and a man or a woman and a woman), and bisexual (a man and a woman/man or a woman and a man/woman). That makes sense, doesn’t it? Now, let’s mix in transgender. That’s when you don’t identify as the gender you were born as/assigned as. “So, like a man turning into a woman and a woman turning into a man?” Yeah, pretty much. But, there’s a twist to all of this! Some people say that you don’t need gender dysphoria to be trans, but you can have something called “gender euphoria”. What that means is that a trans person could be a lot more comfortable identifying as a different gender rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. Confused now? Here’s more! There are more than two genders- genderfluid (where you can fluctuate from one gender to another), bigender (being two genders at one time), and agender (not being any gender) are all genders!
But that’s not the only confusing part about the LGBTQ+ community to you. There are also many other sexualities as well! We have asexual (lack of sexual attraction), pansexual (sexual attraction regardless of gender), and demisexual (only experiencing sexual attraction after a strong emotional connection with a person). “But, wait a minute!” you might say, “Everybody experiences sexual attraction after a strong emotional connection with a person regardless of sexuality. What makes demisexuality different?” Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s understandable to be confused about demisexuality (as I am, too), but hear me out on this one. For most people, people who aren’t demisexual, a lot of them experience sexual attraction when they see some random hot person or someone they’ve only known for a short time. I mean, how many of you thought a celebrity or an acquaintance or a porn star was hot? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Demisexual people don’t really experience that to my knowledge.
Now, why don’t we talk about race? Don’t be scared. We should talk about race. White people, black people, Hispanic/Latino people, Asian people, Native American people, mixed people- let’s talk about it all. It’s no secret to know about black people being slaves, Japanese-Americans being interred in camps during World War II, and Native Americans forcefully being kicked off their land; it’s also not an unpopular opinion to say that these acts were atrocious. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about microaggressions. White people have always had an advantage over people of color; it’s been obvious for the past hundreds of years. “But we have racial equality now!” you might say, “We’ve had it since at least the 1970s, so what microaggressions are you talking about?”
Well, you’re more less likely to get a job with an “ethnic” or “black-sounding” name than with a “white” one. For example, let’s compare Jose and Joe. A few years back, Jose Zamora was searching for a job, but he wasn’t getting very many results. So, he decided to alter his name to “Joe” to see if he would get better results. Unfortunately, the results were better. I’m happy this guy got more job offers, but it’s sad to see our world still being so white-centric when it comes to employment.
Women don’t seem to fair as well as the white men, either. Yes, women make up the majority of the workforce (or, did before the whole lockdown thing was a thing, and you can check my post on why I’m against lockdowns), but they face a ton of issues in employment. I’m sure you’re aware about the childcare situation because, well, children are hard to care for. But did you know that many low-paying jobs in the service sector are predominately held by women? Why is that? Are women naturally more catered to serving other people as it is with their children? I know service jobs are generally less valued than white-collared jobs, but do they really deserve the low wages? We all need nurses, grocers, teachers, food servers, and mothers. These are the people who pretty much replenish our world with almost all the necessities we need.
That’s a lot of change to get used to, and I know that not every conservative/right-winger is opposed to every change. Not all of them are against the LGBT/LGBTQ+ community, racism, or sexism (and I’ve already made some posts about disability rights); a good amount of them are actually parts of these minority groups. But things change, and they sometimes have to change. Otherwise, the world would become a boring place to live in. You don’t have to agree with these changes, and you don’t have to understand immediately. It’s your right to express that, after all. But change is change. What is “it” now isn’t going to be “it” forever, and what could become “it” in the future might seem scary and not make any sense. People of all political spectrums, this applies to you! You might fit in now, but sooner or later, you’ll be seen as old-fashioned and right-wing. It’s happened to plenty of people, and it’ll happen to you and me as well. All we have to do is either try to understand these changes or accept this possibility.
