While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a “matriarchy.” However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss
I understand that self identification is more convenient than a list of policy questions, but I kind of wonder how many of them count as conservative by the standards of twenty years ago, or even by the standards of people twenty years older than themselves
Do these conservative teenagers believe that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry? That a war against Islam is a good idea? That wives should submit to their husbands?
I had a young woman, maybe 17 last semester, turn in a paper --it was a 12 page research/argumentative paper about why gender complementarianism (ie woman and men have different, distinct roles with men at the top). She’s a good student, a good writer, but literally she’s heard this set of morals from the pulpit her whole life… So like… Yeah. I read another young man’s paper where his takeaway from 12 Years a Slave was “wow, not all slave owners were abusive monsters–some were pretty kind and treated their slaves like family.” The kids are as alright as the rest of us are.
The conservative platform in the US doesn’t exist. At this point, conservative is a bucket term for, “not progressive.” Most conservatives are on the right, but not all. Most conservatives are Republican leaning, but not all. Most conservatives are opposed to socially progressive change (e.g. expanded LGBT rights) but not all.
Basically any policy position you could point to will fail to capture a significant number of modern conservatives.