Young Americans lean left
Not so shocking poll results: Young people are liberal. Eh, give them time:
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the favored presidential candidates of younger Americans, according to a poll conducted by CBS News, The New York Times and MTV.
Eighteen percent say they’re enthusiastic about Obama and 17 percent are enthusiastic about Clinton – far more than say the same about Republicans Rudy Giuliani (4 percent), Mitt Romney (2 percent) and potential candidate Fred Thompson (2 percent).
Even 8 percent of GOP primary voters are excited about Obama – more than Thompson (7 percent) and John McCain (2 percent). Thirteen percent of Republicans say they’re enthusiastic about Giuliani.
What are you doing to inoculate your kids?
Maybe showing them a photo of what Rosie O’Donnell did to her daughter to drum up publicity in the name of peace and political awareness will scare some sense into them.
Crikey.
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The good news is that most of them don’t vote any way. It isn’t until they have learned more and experience the real world that they start to cast votes. By then a lot of them start to shed their liberal ways. Especially when they realize that someone (the government) is trying to take their money.
In other news, water is wet.
Young people always lean left. I know I did. Then I got smart.
It’s just a phase. Remember in the late 1990’s, early 2000’s when it was “cool” to be gay? This is the same thing, its “cool” to be a
Liberalmoron.Oh that rascally liberalism, forever fashionable.
I bet the same percentage of young people think Che Guevara is “cool”, too.
If the question is “What are you doing to inoculate your kids?” the answer is:
- taking every opportunity to teach them to love their country.
- explaining our great nation’s history to them.
- taking them to mass every Sunday.
- enrolling them in religious education.
- teaching them personal responsibility.
A great tool is the book “How to Raise an American.” Check it out.
RO is just sick to dress her child like this. A sane father would have stopped this. OOPS, my bad.
I think the young will continue to lean left. The good news is that they don’t tend to vote until they get older.
I’ll use poverty for an example. The young are still idealistic and naive enough to think that if we just have a rock concert, celebrities, and bigger government we can take people out of poverity.
The young then end up in the real world and find out by observation and experience that you can’t legislate and enforce personal fiscal responsibility on others. That giving too much to too many only makes the problem worse for everyone.
BTW, it’s quite funny to see it referred to as a bullet belt. If I don’t know what the proper terminology for something is, I find out what the proper terminology is. These journalists and other various and sundry liberal whack-o’s who think that they have cornered the market on “gravitas,” “hubris,” and “nuance” need to become familiar with the terms “bandolier” and “cartridge belt.” A “bullet” is just the projectile that is fired from the weapon, not the entire round.
I don’t expect everyone to know this. Not everyone knows everything about everything, but if you’re going to write about something shouldn’t you know the basics - like what the English word for the item is?
What’s wrong with teaching your kid that bullets are cool and make an excellent fashion accessory?
As long as she teaches firearms safety, I don’t see the problem. I had toy guns when I was four.
As for exhibiting your child on the internet like a little paramilitary Jon Benet Ramsey, well, we knew Rosie had problems.
God help the young Americans who lean left, they of the hip-gyrating, crotch-griding MTV generation. I suppose with the liberals’ anything goes attitude ranging from decriminalizing criminals to freeing up definitions on sex and marriage, why wouldn’t a young person lean left? Heck, every facets of the liberals platform has to do with hormones and nothing to do with rational thought and consequence.
PS I tell my kids that liberals secrete deadly poison and they must never touch one.
It’s true in a manner of speaking…
Young people lean left because they are brought up in a socialist organization, the family, which runs on the Marxist principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” They don’t understand that such a principle does not scale up. That leads to the old saying, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”
I was a liberal when I was a teenager and didn’t know anything. Then I joined the military and became a defense conservative when I got the intel reports of the threats arrayed against us. Then I got my MBA and became a social conservative after I realized that government programs don’t produce the goods.
Kevin from Ohio in Virginia, beautifully said you hit it right on the head. My opinion is that Rosie is a very poor example for a mother. A real mother would not subject their child to their own political views. She is exploiting her child’s childhood, to further her own hate for her country.
Hey schratboy,
Check out Hot Air:
Science: Dems lose elections because they’re too darned rational.
Guess that blows you out of the water - LOL
/sarc off
I think a lot of people are missing the point about the Rosie pic. Mama Rosie obviously wants to make darn sure that her kids are free from the traditional gender barriers to self-expression and “empowerment”, i.e. boys like to play with guns, trucks, girls dolls, etc. With that in mind, I’d bet DOLLARS TO DOUGHNUTS there’s a pic of her little boy (if she has one) dolled up and dressing up Barbie!
Rosie is against you owning a gun of course.
Max,
That IS NOT her point.
But of course. They go to school, where the only thing taught is political correctness nowadays.
I’m happy to say that my 9 year old daughter is embracing conservatism!
I was a raving conservative at 14. By 17, I was calling my peers hippies, socialists, and liberal sheep.
PS: I’m the Y generation. There is hope!
PPS: I went to a private school. Maybe my parents being the ones to teach me Godly values had something to do with it.
These are the same people that think drugs are cool, and getting drunk underage is cool. I fall in the age group polled, and I can say that most people my age(24) or younger, wont even vote. So does this poll even matter?
I think I saw this same study in 1983…
It’s a crock. Others have said the same thing. Give these kids a job, responsibility, maybe a couple of kids of their own and if they’re emotionally mature, they become Republicans.
Didn’t the report say that 54% of young people lean left? What about the other 46%? Seems pretty even to me.
I’ve always voted Republican - in the beginning it was because I didn’t know the differences between the parties, and then later when I got to know the difference I still stayed Republican.
When I went to go register to vote for the first time at 18, my dad took me to City Hall. I’ll never forget his words of wisdom: “I don’t want you registering as a Republican because I’m a Republican. You do it because the Democrats are idiots.”
I’ve always been a Republican, even in high school. And I’m rasing my childrent be conservatives, too. This is one reason why I am pulling them out of school to homeschool them (ages 14 and 11.) I don’t want some PC, liberal teacher to mess w/ my kids.
Oops, should be children to be, not childrent be.
Need to preview!
Viv is going to join those Hamas kids. She saw them on that Palestinian Mickey Mouse show.
By the way, those bullets look REAL.
It seems like the question itself is biased to get a bigger response from liberal-leaning kids than conservative-leaning ones.
“Are you enthusiastic about X candidate?”
I’m not that old (just turned 26) and have always leaned conservative. I have also never been enthusiastic about a candidate. In my experience, the vast majority of conservatives (including the young ones) weigh a host of issues and choose the candidate that is the best overall package. They are very rarely excited about that candidate.
However, my liberal friends (and yes, I had plenty of them as I went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts) always felt that this candidate or the other was THE ANSWER to all of the ills of this country and the world. They were extremely excited at the Gore/Lieberman ticket (yes, the same Lieberman they were later completely opposed to when they enthusiastically supported Lamont).
Asking emotional questions about political issues is almost always going to skew the numbers in favor of liberals.
Is why you gotta be 35 to be Prez. Those crazy white boys were onto something back in the day.
This is a real problem. What did I do? I dedicated four years of my life and a significant part of my savings to writing a book - a letter to my children, if you will - that teaches them the proper lessons of life, how to be good Americans, and arms them with information to resist the siren call of the left.
Our schools, the motion picture industry, and the media are partly to blame for this problem. I was appalled at how some teachers presented American history to my own children. My son and daughter learned that Thomas Jefferson had slaves - before they learned that he wrote the document articulating our rights and duties as free people. European settlers killed Native Americans with blankets infected with smallpox, they found out. That allegation upstaged the stories of courage, perseverance, and curiosity that defined the pioneers. While folding paper cranes in the classroom, my children were told that a hundred thousand people died when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan - but they were not made to understand the moral context of World War II in which the atomic bomb story fit. My children were instructed to equate illegal aliens with legal immigrants, devaluing the story of their own ancestors who came to America through Ellis Island. And, classroom discussions always seemed to cast businessmen as villains, instead of as people to be emulated.
We must re-dedicate ourselves to teaching our children about good and evil, right and wrong, war and peace, what it means to be an American, honor and discipline, success and achievement, courage and destiny, marriage and family, God and purpose.
The way it used to be.
This is a beautiful little girl, you know there is a warning that goes with the use of the internet and posting stuff up, it is there forever..people capture these photos and links. I don’t think this is wise. I mean there must be more creative ways, that don’t include using your child to make a point… what if you change your mind later about what you “felt” at the time - again it is out there on the net forever. The rest of it, is just to get attention and get hits on the owner’s web blog.
as a “young” person of this generation, and a die-hard conservative in a liberal university at that, i know why my rather stupid counterparts are the way they are. everyone is afraid of being labeled as a “racist” or “sexist” or “intolerant”. we are taught (sadly) that “diversity” is the most important thing in the world! if you have (racial) diversity, all is well! it is the ultimate goal in life. we are supposed to be anti-war, “spiritual” but not religious, open to “alternative” lifestyles, and androgynous. it has always been hard for kids to stand up to peer pressure, and this is just another form of peer pressure. it is much easier to just fall into line with the obedient liberals and say that you can’t wait to see a woman or a black man take the white house than it is to actually stand up for a political viewpoint and have to defend it. most people my age have no idea what these people stand for or what their vision is for the future of our country. they do not see hillary clinton, they see a “woman”, and they do not see barak obama, they see a “black guy”. its sad but true, and i always just tell myself that the minute they graduate and have work a full time job and pay their own rent they will automatically become republicans
Well said!
Even I voted for Bill Clinton, the first time. I was 18. Really had no idea what I was doing or any understanding. Bush Sr. reneging on his no new taxes pledge was all I really knew about. Years of college life and the hatred spewing from the Left there taught me all I needed to know afterwards.
I apologize for my generation. I am 22 years old and have voted in every election Since I was legal. I feel that many people died for my right to do so so at the very least I can particpate. I was brought up in the correct fashion with an emphasis on personal responsibility and Self reliance. One reason many people my age lean left is because they are in such a low tax bracket in thier mcjob that they pay very little in taxes. Or some not at all because live off Daddys Amex. Most of them grew up with both parents working to make up for Daddy not being home all the time they spoil and continue to through adulthood. Guess What? GET OVER IT! You are not special, you need to go to work when you are hungover or better yet don’t drink to excess on work nights. I am really worried about our great country when some of my peers are handed the regins.
It’s not just the youth. Don’t just tell me I’m wrong, do a little research, show me I’m wrong.
Having been a teenager during the Carter years, I have never been a liberal. However, I’ve had plenty of friends who were but once they got out of college, started working for a living, seeing all their hard earned cash go to taxes for people sitting on their hands all day, well they soon changed their minds. Even during the 80’s it was tough to be a conservative on campus.
As for Rosie O’Dufus, she is a poor excuse for a mother. She’s teaching her kids to hate this country and all it stands for. I quit being a fan of hers when she started giving Tom Selleck the business about his belonging to the NRA when he was there to talk about his movie “In & Out”. Then a few days later it came out that she had “armed guards”. Funny, I have a conceal permit but Rosie doesn’t want me to have a gun but wants her goons to carry. Typical of the liberal mantra “do as we say, not as we do”.
Forgot to add, thanks Kevin from Ohio in the Commonwealth for the heads up on the book. I will get it to start reading to my 3 year old now.
Not to be nit-picky, but I believe the actual quote (from Churchill I think?) was:
If you’re under 30 and you’re not a socialist, you have no heart.
If you’re over 30 and you still are, you have no head.
Of course young people lean left. They are operating from the Utopian mindset of youth, with little reasonable judgment yet. Young people also believe: they can drink and drive because accidents happen to other people; they can “do it” once without protection and not get pregnant; all a marriage needs to survive is “love”; and bad people can be talked into being good people.
I remember once as a young child asking my dad why the whole world couldn’t just share its resources, you know, from each what they can give, to each what they need. I can still see the smile on my dad’s face as he reflected on my naivete, and then the gentle lesson he gave me on incentive and worker productivity. “How hard do you think you would work,” he asked me, “if you knew the person next door to you was going to get the same things as you for doing no work at all?” Pretty soon, he added, no one’s working and there’s nothing for anyone.
I’ve been a conservative — and a capitalist — ever since.
Oh yeah, and as to the photo of Rosie’s kid. There’s a haunting sadness in those eyes that makes my skin crawl. I hope Child Protective Services makes a home visit.
Hey, not all of us younger people are vapid braindead morons. I’m an evil right winger! And I like being heartless!
Indeed, Child Protective Services should visit Rosie’s home. And if those are real high powered rounds strapped to this child’s body, her daughter should be removed from the home and placed in foster care, and Rosie incarcerated.
Sorry, but I can’t get permission from my brother to post the video of my five-year-old niece opening up her new PINK .22 rifle. She made that little-girl squeal that I’ve seen bring sentimental dew to the tears of battle-hardened veterans. The difference? Rosie was exploiting her little girl like a common Jihadist does to their own. She’s really unfit to be a Mom. (Yeah, I capitalize Mom).
Teach your kids by example, and tell them why you do it.
I’m young, hard right conservative, and in love with Michelle Malkin. Why wasn’t I polled?
You were counted as part of the statistical error.
Segregation used to be a perfectly accepted social value just in the past century, but we grew out of it. So it actually makes some sense that every new generation refines and makes progress on the errors of the previous one. Of course people become more conservative as they age: the values they embrace today will change tomorrow, and we don’t like that kind of change.
There’s also a factor that today’s young people have a lot more communication with the rest of the world, albeit not always personal. It’s easy, for example, to call gays “practitioners of a deviant destructive lifestyle”, that is if you don’t know anyone who’s gay. Once you do, you have a personal investment in the idea, and it’s no longer that clear-cut. Because of Internet, AIM and Facebook, today’s younger people are much more likely to “know” someone they wouldn’t have otherwise come into contact with.
An interesting side question: some people here have said that young people’s liberalism is the sign of naivete and lack of real-world experience. Why is it then that such a disproportionate number of academics - and I mean real academics (not bullshit ethnocultowhatever studies like Ward Churchill, but physicists and mathematicians and economists) are liberal, or at the very least moderate? It would be disingenous to say they are lacking intelligence or that they are somehow naive — they obviously have clear enough minds to parse very complex problems — so why then?
About those rounds on Rosie’s child: they are plastic and available for 6.99 on buycostumes.com. Looks like her kids were having a dress-up party, and this is blown way out of proportion. I had a plastic AK-47 when I was a kid, and I have plenty of pictures with it. What’s the big deal?
As an addendum to what I just said, a personal investment in a particular idea is also what makes people more conservative about certain things. I think it was said here that “once you get a house and kids”, you realize that it would be awfully nice if taxes were lower and if you could keep a gun in your safe to protect from intruders. But by the same line of thinking, if your child tells you that he’s gay, you are likely to change your thoughts on that subject (take our VP’s stance on gay marriage, for example). So, to make a long story short (too late!), something being a personal issue is a big deal.
I’m a 24 yr old Conservative who defected from the Dems. What does that make me?
And at least young Conservatives like myself and Lincoln VOTE, liberal youth don’t :-p
You know, it’s because of the fact that young folks lean Left that I’m going to be relaunching my site to focus on this very thing. I’m a 17 year old Conservative, living in a house full of Democrats. I’ve been blogging for about a year and a half now, and had some great times (got on Rush Limbaugh, a few Instalanches, and Michelle’s generously linked some things, including my GOE coverage). I’m relaunching the site on July 4th to focus on raising a new generation of Conservatives.
Can I really call these people my peers? I know that people my age tend to be liberal, but I always figured that I had to share more with people than simply age to be called a peer.
Figures, I’m always on the outside looking in.
Get used to it. Thankfully, you have a bigger voice now than at any time in the past, thanks in large part to places like this and the “loud people” of radio. Enjoy the cameraderie and stay true to your beliefs, you should be fine.
You can innoculate until you turn blue, preach at home, home school, do whatever you want, but the problem is the media media media. I know. I work in it. Until devistatingly effective creative ways of derailing the constant liberal brainwashing are figured and applied, the best you can do is be your kids best friend. But that isn’t enough because your kid goes to school with too many kids who are themselves brainwashed and will grow up to vote predictably.
Food for thought for those who whine about needing a fairness act. Sure, I’d split talk radio right down the middle if the gov could regulate everything else accordingly from television news to movies to talk shows to cartoons (yes, there is alot of liberal brainwashing happening in cartoons, too - and it isn’t accidental. Trust me.)
re the picture of Rosie’s daughter - that’s one of the most deplorable examples of child abuse I have ever seen.
On the plus side, she is a very cute looking kid. Looks just like her mother…. I mean her father…. I mean her mother…. I mean….
I blogged on a similar article already, link:
http://kennedysmusings.townhall.com/g/b90f5caa-c1c8-4e4b-bc37-f532a1a450a3
We can’t all be young conservatives, I suppose.
I do believe more young people are liberals. I believe we have been since Free Love, Flower Power and Haight-Ashbury… if not before.. but I can’t testify to before that
However, MOST people grow up eventually. Remove the rose colored glasses and realize that what John Lennon could Imagine on drugs is a dream not a reality.
Teachers want the ideal society. So they educate to that ideal. Not to reality. And professors are even worse. They don’t even know what reality is.
I have a rabid little 12 yo Republican myself. I didn’t plan it that way. I just couldn’t let the teachers opinions, which they present as fact, to go unchallenged. He is now legendary in our school. Apparently he doesn’t have any problem challenging the teachers anymore
My youngest however thinks the Green party would be the best choice. She is an animal lover. Thankfully I’ve got 9 more years to work on her.
Although I do think it is normal of the young to lean liberal in the ‘Let’s all make the world a better place don’t worry about the details’ sense, I think that the public school systems tend to offer 12+ years of anti-conservative innuendo, which takes a while for them to shake off as well.
I was liberal when I was very young, , too. It’s easy to be a liberal, you don’t really need to do anything or think for yourself. The gov’t will do it for you! But then I grew up, started paying taxes and worked hard (with my husband) to make a good life for our family. That’s when I realized what being a conservative is really about…along with what it means to be a liberal.
My husband and I are raising our 4 children (ages 17, 15, 10 and 3) in a home that values God, family, country, education, and personal responsibility. We teach them to be kind and help others, to be individuals who can make a difference in this world for the right reasons.
It seems to be working so far. Our 17 and 15 year olds are pretty well versed in the conservative perspective- they ask questions and have debated their friends and classmates on many of the issues.
Talk radio (specifically Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) has been a tremendous place for topics of discussion. The many hours we spend in the van going from activity to activity gives us time to talk about this stuff.
The most important things we do are live by example, actively support causes we believe in and defend what we believe to those who disagree with us- without anger or vitriol so prevelant in our opposition.
Sorry for the rant. But it is a great topic for discussion.
As a former liberal living in the San Francisco Bay Area, very little that the left does suprises me but this came close. It is so far beyond the pale! It is both disgusting and tragic at the same time. Clearly Rosie has gone insane somewhere along the way.
How to keep your kid from turning liberal? There’s no sure way. But when our daughter went away to college, she kept up her relationship with her boyfriend, who went to the Naval Academy. They married after they graduated. She not only married an officer, but now has a retired Marine colonel for a father-in-law, one brother-in-law as a new USNA grad, and another brother-in-law as a USNA midshipman.
Can’t get too far off the reservation marrying into the military. And she is proud of it!
TMoney you made this statement about Rosie earlier. My question about Rosie is is she really the Mom in this relationship or is she really the Dad. Kind of hard to tell.
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
-Unknown
I’m surprised no one has pointed out the similarity between RO’s pic of her daughter and
The pic of the haunted looking Vivi fits alongside the pics of the children raising their guns in celebration during anti-us/anti-israel rallies.
It only goes to prove what I’ve known for years. RO has lost her mind.
ok.. new to this.. messed up the link. Hopefully you can make sense of it since I apparently can’t edit it.
How do I inoculate my two sons against rabid unthinking leftism?
I read voraciously in order to anticipate the exact nature of indoctrination the government schools will try to foist on them, and then explain to them ahead of time what’s wrong with the schools’ narrative.
I explain the Bible and the foundations of Christianity to them so they know from where their rights truly come from.
I show love, dedication, and commitment to my wife and my boys so they will know that duty isn’t drudgery to be handed off to others (e.g., power-mad politicians).
Finally, I get them to talk with my parents so they know things haven’t always been the way they are now, and things will not always be the way they are now. Because that’s one of the main perpetuaters of leftist thought: living forever in the Now; the Past and Future being whatever your masters tell you they are.
Just another case of Rosie being Rosie.
Just chiming in here, but has anyone seen that global warming commercial with the kids saying “tick”?
Well there’s this little blonde girl in the commercial that looks just like Rosie’s bandolier wearing cherub.
I wonder if she’s the girl in the commercial? It may be hard to tell, because all of the kids in the commercial have that wide-eyed doe look and pink, pouty lips. (I hate watching the thing because it’s both annoying and the kids are too pretty in an inappropriate Lolita sort of way. It creeps me out)
…and then they grow up.
But seriously, if that’s true, then who is joining the military? Who is volunteering in Iraq? The elderly? I’m just not buying it.
Rational Thought,
You’re right, it was Churchill.
As for my youth (long ago), I was very easily influenced by a pretty face. I was fortunate that my childhood sweetheart had a lot of common sense and kept me on track until I matured into the conservative I am today!
The young people, of course. Your premise that all Soldiers, Sailors and Marines are Conservative is false. I have served alongside plenty of vocal Libs in the military. In their case, I at least respect the fact that they honor their service oaths without letting their ideology get in the way of the mission. People like Watada are a disgrace, however.
I wonder if I’m the only one that sees a problem with the look of RO’s daughter, beyond the camoflage and ammo? I’ve only seen those kind of eyes and body language in children of war.
That child looks anemic, not to mention neglected.
Such a sad face.
Course if I had to look at my MANMOM everyday, I’d feel likewise.
Well, duh!!! When I was in my early 20’s, I leaned left myself. However, as soon as I left the influence of liberal professors at my very liberal arts college, my senses started to return. I have rarely ever voted for a Dem unless they were more conservative than the Republican in the same election.
This survey is not really earth-shattering. These kids (and that’s what they are) are of the new something for nothing generation. They’d rather get everything from their free health care to housing from Big Government Daddy. I’m sure they’d be swell with that but the American taxpayer won’t stand for it.
Most of these kids (especially right out of college) have no self-awareness of anything other than how to get drunk and hook up. The same was said of my generation (I’m 32) which was know as Generation X. I think we’ve proven the critics wrong.
When these kids take on more responsibilities like retirement funds, house payments, kids, they’ll soon wake the hell up. Right now they’re living in la la land if they think that Dems will be their salvation (as if any politician can be one’s salvation). One other thing, most these kids sound like snot-nosed brats with one even saying that their group is being heavily focused upon for their votes. Newsflash: nobody gives a crap what you think when you don’t even go out and vote. When all you do is spout mindless slogans for the Dems instead of thinking for yourselves, it’s a sure sign that adulthood has not set in yet.
I agree, only the danger is that enough of them just might vote (along with those quarters seduced to socialized medicine, day care and massive welfare) to saddle us forever with what they want. If our “tolerating” and accommodating a constant influx of millions of illegal aliens weren’t bad enough.
I regret to say that I’ll see a thoroughly socialized America before I die. At least I can’t be taxed in the grave.
James Greenidge
Queens NY
For 18 years we’re children, hopefully for at least 60 years we’re adults.
Let children be children, they become adults soon enough.
We should never involve our young kids in political or other adult angst creating things, let them be 2-5-10 or 16 don’t ever force them to grow up too soon.
Agnostic on nuclear power? Who the @#%#% comes up with this stuff?
yep, a category on her own.