The “people get more conservative as they get older” idea is somewhat of a myth. My family and family friends who were free love hippies in the 1960s and 1970s are Trump haters on Facebook today.
To give some more solid data than people in my circle of friends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia... This is the demographics for the 1984 election, the one where Reagan wiped Mondale out. Among 18-24 year voters, 39% voted for Mondale (liberal/D); 61% voted for Reagan (conservative/R).
Now, let’s fast forward to 2004, which is the first election where young people were more liberal than older generations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidentia... Here, among 19-29 year old voters, it was 54% Kerry (D), 45% Bush (R). It was also the last election where a Republican won the national popular vote.
All that shows to me is youth is liberal, which no one was denying? I'd be happy for enough for the general population to be more liberal leaning, but I can't say I'm seeing evidence of it outside of urban areas ?
The youth in the 1984 Reagan-Mondale election was not liberal (nor were they liberal in 1988, nor that much liberal than voters in general in 1992, etc.), so youth being liberal is not a function of one’s age as much as it’s a function of the generation one has been born in to.
first you talk about "our youth and our society are a good deal more liberal than they were 15 or 25 years ago.". Which you show as having gone from 54% D to 65% D ?? Which I would guess is fairly liberal. Then you go back roughly 40 years to say "The youth in the 1984 Reagan-Mondale election was not liberal".
And the generational thing is what I brought up originally. Boomers and some GenX don't necessarily 'point the way' that every generation will age.
To give some more solid data than people in my circle of friends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia... This is the demographics for the 1984 election, the one where Reagan wiped Mondale out. Among 18-24 year voters, 39% voted for Mondale (liberal/D); 61% voted for Reagan (conservative/R).
Now, let’s fast forward to 2004, which is the first election where young people were more liberal than older generations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidentia... Here, among 19-29 year old voters, it was 54% Kerry (D), 45% Bush (R). It was also the last election where a Republican won the national popular vote.
This year, with 18-24 year old voters, it was 65% Biden, 31% Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
Point being, our youth and our society are a good deal more liberal than they were 15 or 25 years ago.