High School Boys Are Trending Conservative

[BFritz21]

I was really starting to get worried that our country was heading in the wrong direction with the woke culture growing so much, teachers teaching kids that they're the opposite sex, and just so many other examples of impressionable kids being taught that all that is normal, but high school boys are trending conservative!

Quote:A popular narrative suggests young people are liberal and getting more liberal. Thus, social media buzzed when a chart surfaced in spring that seemed to suggest 12th-grade boys had become overwhelmingly conservative.

As with many Reddit posts and viral tweets, the truth was more complicated. But the numbers do say this: Twelfth-grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative versus liberal, according to a respected federal survey of American youth.

Why are we just hearing about this if the chart came out in the spring?

Quote:In annual surveys over the last three years, roughly one-quarter of high school seniors self-identified as conservative or “very conservative” on the Monitoring the Future survey, a scholarly endeavor that dates to the 1970s. Only 13 percent of boys identified as liberal or very liberal in those years.

Maybe they're seeing that everything pushed to them by liberal teachers was bullshit?

It's a long article and high school girls are becoming more liberal, which every female I've ever talked to only votes Democrat because of abortion, but maybe there's another reason.

Pat, you seeing any signs of this?

[KillerGoose]

(07-31-2023, 07:49 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: I was really starting to get worried that our country was heading in the wrong direction with the woke culture growing so much, teachers teaching kids that they're the opposite sex, and just so many other examples of impressionable kids being taught that all that is normal, but high school boys are trending conservative!

Why are we just hearing about this if the chart came out in the spring?




Maybe they're seeing that everything pushed to them by liberal teachers was bullshit?

It's a long article and high school girls are becoming more liberal, which every female I've ever talked to only votes Democrat because of abortion, but maybe there's another reason.

Pat, you seeing any signs of this?

I think this is interesting, thanks for posting Brad. This is the biggest gap for young men, it looks like, that we have had in a while. However, women are trending overwhelmingly liberal, enough so that Gen Z is still deeply liberal (48% Dem to 33% Rep according to this article). What surprised me is that 10 years ago, young adults were split 50-50 on this topic, so it has swung heavily in the liberal direction. I had always heard that young voters were strongly liberal but I wasn't aware how the split was. 

[Belsnickel]

(07-31-2023, 08:06 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: I think this is interesting, thanks for posting Brad. This is the biggest gap for young men, it looks like, that we have had in a while. However, women are trending overwhelmingly liberal, enough so that Gen Z is still deeply liberal (48% Dem to 33% Rep according to this article). What surprised me is that 10 years ago, young adults were split 50-50 on this topic, so it has swung heavily in the liberal direction. I had always heard that young voters were strongly liberal but I wasn't aware how the split was. 

It really is an interesting topic to look at. I sometimes wonder if this is an effect from people like Joe Rogan and other faux intellectuals that push their brand of masculinity and how it is often tied to the current GOP POV. Male teens aren't known for being the most astute and it can be quite easy to play on those insecurities. Given that the messaging from right-wing media tends to lean that way it isn't at all surprising that they can sway them in such a way.

[KillerGoose]

(07-31-2023, 08:43 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It really is an interesting topic to look at. I sometimes wonder if this is an effect from people like Joe Rogan and other faux intellectuals that push their brand of masculinity and how it is often tied to the current GOP POV. Male teens aren't known for being the most astute and it can be quite easy to play on those insecurities. Given that the messaging from right-wing media tends to lean that way it isn't at all surprising that they can sway them in such a way.

I had a very similar thought when I was writing that response. I wasn't thinking of Rogan, but someone like Andrew Tate. I would be very interested to see fleshed out reasons for young voters party affiliations. Why they identify one particular way to see what factors are in play. 

[Belsnickel]

(07-31-2023, 08:53 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: I had a very similar thought when I was writing that response. I wasn't thinking of Rogan, but someone like Andrew Tate. I would be very interested to see fleshed out reasons for young voters party affiliations. Why they identify one particular way to see what factors are in play. 

My problem is that because I don't pay attention to those sorts of idiots my knowledge of them really stops at Joe Rogan since he is probably the most well-known of them.

[*Nately120*]

Don't conservatives like to point out that kids are dumbasses, though?

Side note, when I was in high school I was conservative as hell.

(07-31-2023, 07:49 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: It's a long article and high school girls are becoming more liberal, which every female I've ever talked to only votes Democrat because of abortion, but maybe there's another reason.

You've never had a woman give you a single reason to vote democrat other than abortion?  If that's true you either know a lot of the type of women I haven't met, or they're just trying to get a rise out of you or avoid talking to you.

[GMDino]

(07-31-2023, 08:56 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: My problem is that because I don't pay attention to those sorts of idiots my knowledge of them really stops at Joe Rogan since he is probably the most well-known of them.

Looking at the chart since 1980 they've been mostly conservative except for 2000-2002 and then again in 2009.

I'm not too surprised though.  Teen boys will tend to fall into the machismo/alpha male talk and there's more and more sources for that now. 

Also the trend seems to be heading the other way now.

Quote:The political leanings of young men have changed little over the past two decades, according to an analysis by the Survey Center on American Life. Last year, 43 percent of young men identified as moderate, 31 percent as conservative and 24 percent as liberal. Twenty years earlier, the numbers were more or less the same. 


But the leftward drift of young women alone has sufficed to move the needle on young adults as a whole. Generation Z favors liberalism over conservatism by a 48-to-33 margin, according to NBC News polling from 2022. Ten years earlier, young adults split evenly between the two political camps.  

The rightward drift of high school boys is comparatively subtle. Indeed, when it comes to politics, most boys seem reluctant to pick a side. In the 2022 Monitoring the Future survey, the largest group of senior boys, more than two-fifths, claimed no politics at all, answering the liberal-conservative question with “none of the above” or “I don’t know.” Nearly one-fifth identified as moderate. Only 36 percent selected liberal or conservative as an ideology, and only there did the trend emerge. 


Jean Twenge, an author and professor of psychology at San Diego State University, presented the data in her new book, “Generations.” To spotlight the growing gender gap, she couched the numbers in a chart that split boys and girls along ideological lines, omitting moderates and the undecided.  



“Among liberals, the future is female,” she wrote. “And among conservatives, the future is male.” 

The question for the future is do the respective parties go after the younger voters or try to firm up the ones they already have?

Especially when most are really moderate.

Quote:In April, someone posted Twenge’s chart to Reddit. The image also circulated widely on Twitter, the platform since rebranded as X. Other researchers took note.

The chart gave the impression, at least on first glance, that two-thirds of 12th-grade boys were now conservative. In the small print beneath, Twenge noted that she had omitted moderates.

The full story is messier and murkier. High school seniors, boys and girls alike, are more likely to claim no political identity than to throw in with either liberals or conservatives.

[Belsnickel]

(07-31-2023, 09:16 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Side note, when I was in high school I was conservative as hell.

Same. Then I did the whole "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" thing. Now, I'm center-left on the geo-political spectrum.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-31-2023, 08:43 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: It really is an interesting topic to look at. I sometimes wonder if this is an effect from people like Joe Rogan and other faux intellectuals that push their brand of masculinity and how it is often tied to the current GOP POV. Male teens aren't known for being the most astute and it can be quite easy to play on those insecurities. Given that the messaging from right-wing media tends to lean that way it isn't at all surprising that they can sway them in such a way.

(07-31-2023, 08:53 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: I had a very similar thought when I was writing that response. I wasn't thinking of Rogan, but someone like Andrew Tate. I would be very interested to see fleshed out reasons for young voters party affiliations. Why they identify one particular way to see what factors are in play. 

You both are missing the actual key point.  That being that teenagers, especially boys, will rebel against what is considered the "establishment" when they are growing up.  Right now that is the left and their ideology.  Much like the children of the Reagan years, myself included, rejected the yuppie conservative values and the yuppies and that generation rejected the hippie protest culture.  And before that the hippie era was rejecting the post war Leave it to Beaver conservatism of the 50's.  It's not that hard to discern once you look for it.  Rogan and Tate are not causes, they are anchors for what would already be happening.  They aren't popular because they caused a movement, they're popular because the current movement gravitated towards them.

This is why I always laugh at "X" party is dead arguments, because this cycle consistently repeats itself.

[*Nately120*]

(07-31-2023, 09:35 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Same. Then I did the whole "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" thing. Now, I'm center-left on the geo-political spectrum.

I went to a catholic school and I can tell you when we learned about WWII all the boys, myself included, were pretty damn starry-eyed over Hitler.  The whole "strong leader whipping the masses into shape" narrative of the ultra right is just catnip for immature males.  I'm not saying liberals are emotional geniuses, but I'm man enough to admit that I would have been obsessed with Andew Tate as a teen and I legit in real life gushed to my parents over just going into the Trump tower when I was 15 years old on a school trip.  Even as late as grad school I was voting democrat but still giving presentations about why affirmative action was unfair to white males who are only advantaged in an illusory context.

Get in a time machine and look up Nately120 circa 1995-2004 and soak it in.

[NATI BENGALS]

I started watching Bill O riley while I was in high school. And started to buy in. Until I realized I was being brain washed.

[*Nately120*]

(07-31-2023, 11:01 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I started watching Bill O riley while I was in high school. And started to buy in. Until I realized I was being brain washed.

I never really associated my immature admiration of "power" with a political party, though.  As a teen I'd say I had the same "Nice guys don't make good presidents" mindset about Clinton that people tell me about Trump today.  I mean, I was a dumbass teen who thought the first step to getting a girl was finding one who said "no" and then harassing her until she "saw the light" too.

Not so fun times.  Oof.

[BFritz21]

(07-31-2023, 09:16 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Don't conservatives like to point out that kids are dumbasses, though?

If by dumbasses, you think not mature or intelligent enough to know if they want to have their bodies irreversibly mutilated to appear as the opposite sex or mature enough to make a decision on letting a child growing inside of them live, then, yes, kids are dumbasses.

(07-31-2023, 09:16 PM)Nately120 Wrote: You've never had a woman give you a single reason to vote democrat other than abortion?  If that's true you either know a lot of the type of women I haven't met, or they're just trying to get a rise out of you or avoid talking to you.

They also tend to not have as much money as men, so they say that taxes, the wage gap, etc., are issues, but it's typically the abortion reason.

(07-31-2023, 09:42 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I went to a catholic school and I can tell you when we learned about WWII all the boys, myself included, were pretty damn starry-eyed over Hitler.  The whole "strong leader whipping the masses into shape" narrative of the ultra right is just catnip for immature males.  I'm not saying liberals are emotional geniuses, but I'm man enough to admit that I would have been obsessed with Andew Tate as a teen and I legit in real life gushed to my parents over just going into the Trump tower when I was 15 years old on a school trip.  Even as late as grad school I was voting democrat but still giving presentations about why affirmative action was unfair to white males who are only advantaged in an illusory context.

Get in a time machine and look up Nately120 circa 1995-2004 and soak it in.

I went to a Catholic school all my life, was obsessed with WWII, and never heard anyone be obsessed with Hitler.

Yeah, I agree that he was a genius in how he turned the Germans (and a lot of the world) against the Jews because of the way he blamed them for the Great Depression, but I still always thought he was one of the most evil humans to ever live.

[*Nately120*]

(07-31-2023, 11:24 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: They also tend to not have as much money as men, so they say that taxes, the wage gap, etc., are issues, but it's typically the abortion reason.

Ok, so you are admitting you misrepresented the women you speak to about voting democrat.

[BFritz21]

(07-31-2023, 11:36 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Ok, so you are admitting you misrepresented the women you speak to about voting democrat.

No. There might be other reasons but the main one is abortion. 

If the parties were opposite on abortion, they'd vote Republican.

[*Nately120*]

(07-31-2023, 11:43 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: No. There might be other reasons but the main one is abortion. 

If the parties were opposite on abortion, they'd vote Republican.

I recall you saying that women told you they only vote democrat because of abortion during the Roe v Wade overturning stuff.  It just seems a bit smarmy for you, a republican man, to stretch things in order to make women who don't share your political views seem so singularly focused and weak in their convictions. 

In all fairness, I'm sure a lot of liberal women assume all republican men just vote that way because of guns or being racist.  I guess it's symmetrical.  I just thought you relaying why democrat women tell you they vote democrat seemed a little too perfect for your point to believe 100%.


Edit-  I think I just meant disingenuous more than smarmy.  Smarmy?  Not sure why I dug that one up.

[*pally*]

(07-31-2023, 11:43 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: No. There might be other reasons but the main one is abortion. 

If the parties were opposite on abortion, they'd vote Republican.

Just goes to show you know nothing about women. Women can and do care about more than the abortion question.

Healthcare
Education
Guns
Wage gap
Social safety net
Domestic violence
Equal right amendment
Equal opportunity
Climate change
Body autonomy-more than abortion
Crime
Taxes
Federal spending
Hate/division/racism/extremism
Justice system

[CJD]

With big social media personalities like Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate and the "manosphere," in general, this doesn't surprise me at all. There are a lot of issues with young men in our society today, especially regarding loneliness and social isolation and those guys address them superficially in a way that I could see appealing to young men who are frustrated with their life at the time.

The Alt Right Pipeline is a phenomenon that was observed almost 10 years ago and it seems like it's still going strong today. I don't even watch those channels, but my social media feeds still occasionally pop up with clips from the Fresh and Fit podcast, Andrew Tate or Just Pearly Things. I don't know what is up with the algorithm that those show up in my feed or whether it is intentional or just a glitch in the system, but if they show up for me, they're almost certainly showing up for young men, regardless of who they're subscribed to.

Social Media may end up being our undoing haha.

[CKwi88]

(08-01-2023, 12:36 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Social Media may end up being our undoing haha.

I'll risk sounding 50 years older than I am, but I am a firm believer of this. Social media and "reality" TV are eating away at society. 

[CJD]

(08-01-2023, 12:50 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: I'll risk sounding 50 years older than I am, but I am a firm believer of this. Social media and "reality" TV are eating away at society. 

Social Media is the one thing that I am "old" about haha. I generally view technology and advancements like this to be universally beneficial because of the added avenues of communication and creativity that they allow for...

...but holy shit are they also an incredibly effective means of distributing propaganda haha.

I think we, as a society, will adjust over time, especially as parents gain more understanding about the risks, but this current generation seems to be the guinea pig that may be scarred by it in the process.