As a current 35-year-old, I think that what older generations so often fail to understand is that there has *never* in our living memory been a national conservative figure we could revere - or even like.
In the US, the *only* Republican presidents I can remember are George W. Bush and Trump. I feel like that fact speaks for itself. For o…
As a current 35-year-old, I think that what older generations so often fail to understand is that there has *never* in our living memory been a national conservative figure we could revere - or even like.
In the US, the *only* Republican presidents I can remember are George W. Bush and Trump. I feel like that fact speaks for itself. For our generation, their presidencies encapsulate what the GOP is.
(Them, plus the deranged reaction many in the GOP - the future Trumpists - had to the first Black president, Barack Obama.)
In Britain, the earliest Conservative PM I really knew of was David Cameron. First of all, ick. Second of all, his departure paved way for the intra-party chaos that brought us Theresa May, Boris freaking Johnson, Liz “lettuce” Truss and now Rishi Sunak. I don’t yet have a strong opinion of Sunak, but my first impression of him is that of yet another out-of-touch elite, so my expectations are pretty low.
In Australia, I vaguely remember Tony Abbott and whatshisface Trumble. Ick.
In Canada, where I live, the Conservative figures I really know are Stephen Harper (ick) at the national level, and Doug and Rob Ford (ughhhhhhh) and Patrick Brown (who was MeToo’d but then got elected mayor of a Toronto suburb anyway, ugh) within Ontario.
(Admittedly there is also John Tory, mayor of Toronto, who I voted for and who is broadly popular in the city. But I and I think many other Torontonians consider him an outlier, a political unicorn. When he ran for the leadership of the Ontario Conservative Party he lost to Doug Ford, ughhhhh. He does not represent the dominant forces in the party.)
So really…
Considering this parade of right-leaning assholes and dunces which represent the essence of what Anglophone millennials have seen as representing conservatism…
How can there be *any* mystery about why we lean left?
As a current 35-year-old, I think that what older generations so often fail to understand is that there has *never* in our living memory been a national conservative figure we could revere - or even like.
In the US, the *only* Republican presidents I can remember are George W. Bush and Trump. I feel like that fact speaks for itself. For our generation, their presidencies encapsulate what the GOP is.
(Them, plus the deranged reaction many in the GOP - the future Trumpists - had to the first Black president, Barack Obama.)
In Britain, the earliest Conservative PM I really knew of was David Cameron. First of all, ick. Second of all, his departure paved way for the intra-party chaos that brought us Theresa May, Boris freaking Johnson, Liz “lettuce” Truss and now Rishi Sunak. I don’t yet have a strong opinion of Sunak, but my first impression of him is that of yet another out-of-touch elite, so my expectations are pretty low.
In Australia, I vaguely remember Tony Abbott and whatshisface Trumble. Ick.
In Canada, where I live, the Conservative figures I really know are Stephen Harper (ick) at the national level, and Doug and Rob Ford (ughhhhhhh) and Patrick Brown (who was MeToo’d but then got elected mayor of a Toronto suburb anyway, ugh) within Ontario.
(Admittedly there is also John Tory, mayor of Toronto, who I voted for and who is broadly popular in the city. But I and I think many other Torontonians consider him an outlier, a political unicorn. When he ran for the leadership of the Ontario Conservative Party he lost to Doug Ford, ughhhhh. He does not represent the dominant forces in the party.)
So really…
Considering this parade of right-leaning assholes and dunces which represent the essence of what Anglophone millennials have seen as representing conservatism…
How can there be *any* mystery about why we lean left?