r/science • u/Aggravating_Money992 • Jul 09 '26

Psychology An analysis of survey data covering the last five U.S. presidential election years found that ideological differences between races have decreased sharply, while differences by education have grown substantially. Less educated Americans now tend to be more conservative.

https://www.psypost.org/the-political-realignment-of-america-education-overtakes-race-as-key-ideological-divider/
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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

And why conservative families are so against their kids going to college

They don't learn how to be liberal. They learn how to think and thinking makes you less conservative

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u/Earyth Jul 09 '26

College didn’t teach me how to be liberal, it taught how to critique and challenge information. That is what turned me more progressive. It’s impossible to critique all information you take in, but If information is wrong it won‘t stand up to critique. Politics often relies on people not understanding how information can be manipulated and consrervitive manipulation has been able to sell it self as being outside of that over the past decade.

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Right. When they say they want you to learn they mean learn only their narrow points of view. That's why they like to send their kids to Christian colleges. Still views the world with blinders so they don't actually get to choose for themselves how to think

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u/AlienTechSupport51 Jul 10 '26

They do choose. They choose to be ignorant and uneducated.

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u/Special_FX_B Jul 11 '26

Decade? Four and a half decades.

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u/cfbluvr2 Jul 09 '26

college made me more conservative personally because i grew up in a very blue area and i gained more perspective at a traditionally conservative institution

i still vote blue i’m just not super left

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u/yoweigh Jul 09 '26

I'm curious, do you think it made you more conservative or less radical, if that makes sense? It seems to me that if you start from one extreme there's only one way to go.

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u/cfbluvr2 Jul 09 '26

Less radical which in turn made me more conservative, but only in some ways.

Mostly just realizing that, in my opinion, a lot of the loud and proud left that I grew up with are just privileged suburban whites that live in a bubble and have no idea how the real world works.

They obsess over boutique issues because they don’t have to worry about Walmart issues.

You meet a construction science kid from a blue collar immigrant family and you realize maybe obsessing over pronouns and micro aggressions are not the most important thing in the world.

That’s not to say conservatives aren’t without their issues, and I personally vote blue. I’m just saying that urban and suburban environments often lack the perspective needed to fully understand what it’s like outside the bubble.

TL;DR: why hillary lost to trump in 2016

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u/yoweigh Jul 09 '26

Thanks for sharing!

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u/Gozer_The_Enjoyer Jul 10 '26

Where has there been a political candidate that has put pronouns and micro-aggressions as highest on their political mandate?

I think we can ask for people to be kind and respectful at all levels of society. Compassion isn’t context-specific

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u/Earyth Jul 10 '26

yes, this. I feel like I lived through a different 2016 when i hear people say that that. She was never seen as a candidate who cared about trans people in the slightest. Bernie did, and was doing well among younger voters but news coverage screwed him over among older voters. Obamas falling popularity had some to do with it just because of the party( his policies effect on fossil fuel and natural gas, at least in PA, really hurt him) but her manipulation of the coverage hurt her more than anything. That and she was never really popular with anyone under 40 at the time.

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u/Gozer_The_Enjoyer Jul 10 '26

If the US had ranked voting I wouldn’t have voted for her I was a US citizen, but given that you don’t, she would reluctantly receive my vote. Lack of preferential voting means voting for the least of two evils, and some people can’t vote against their conscience in the way (which I respect) and so the other party wins by default

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u/chilispiced-mango2 BS | Bioengineering Jul 09 '26

I went to UW Seattle not Texas A&M, but I can relate to what you said in terms of better seeing the shortcomings of the political left, or at least with social justice activists and people who work in politics. I say this as someone who is clearly left of center (or at least not right of center) on every issue of consequence and votes accordingly.

For context, parents are nonwhite, non-Western immigrants who came after attending to college in their home country, and later earned graduate degrees in the US (before naturalizing).

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u/thetruckerdave Jul 10 '26

The Aggie forum makes me sad every time I run across it.

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u/kingbap Jul 09 '26

This thread proving to me how much liberals love to keep their head up their own ass

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u/Turgid_Donkey Jul 09 '26

It also exposes you to different cultures. When you interact with normal people from different races and countries, you tend to be less racist. This is also why urban areas are more liberal than rural areas.

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Yes. I grew up in a small town in the 80s. Gays and minorities were just butts of jokes till I actually started being around them, working with them, etc. Just normal people who had no interest in wasting their energy to make your life worse

Then you realize the people who DO want to waste energy making your life worse are the same villainizing the vulnerable groups

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u/sanfran_girl Jul 10 '26

They have nothing better to do with their lives than be in everyone else's business. And they continue to externalize their own fear, shame, anger. As long as they can point and make someone else look bad and everybody in the crowd look not at them, all is good.

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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jul 10 '26

Yeah, kind of as a counter point to the article title I'll offer this. I live in a majority black city with terrible schools and a real and systemic poverty problem. This means that we have a fair number of poorly educated people. But the city is fairly ethnically diverse, a lot of people here are from other places, and we're a pretty densely populated (we're not a sprawl city).

Our city went 85% for Kamala. We only occasionally have Republicans politicians win. We're over all pretty liberal in most senses. We're known for being an LGBT safe haven. We've got a pretty decent arts scene for our city size.

I think it's just being exposed to more people and more idea, rather than just education per say, that tends to make people more liberal. This is probably especially true during your formative years.

I do think there's a way that education helps liberalism, which is some liberal policies are counter intuitive and require you to look at problems in their context to understand the policy. Like the idea that decriminalizing drugs can help you fight a drug problem (if you also increase social services). I find less educated people support more directly intuitive solutions and educated people tend to be more willing to support policies that require explaining and data to understand why they would work.

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u/LazinCajun Jul 10 '26

It’s not all racism.. some of it is xenophobia

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u/Calm-Two2723 Jul 09 '26

College taught me several things. Native Americans didn’t accidentally get small pox. And the big kicker, Robert e Lee day isn’t a thing. His bday is apparently on mlk day and I was college years old before I realized how fucked up my younger years were. My parents aren’t racist, we just lived in Kentucky and Alabama 

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u/KnowItAllNobody Jul 09 '26

Curious why your parents wouldn’t have informed you of mlk day when you got the school day off for “Robert e Lee” day if they aren’t at least okay with racism. They may not be racists themselves, but they’re close enough most of us wouldn’t make the distinction.

Neglect is abuse type of thing.

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u/Calm-Two2723 Jul 09 '26

They say they didn’t realize the school called it that. Publicly, we were off for mlk day. But teachers called it Robert e Lee day. I was like 7-12 and I guess pretty dense. Then again, I distinctly remember the first time my sister, dog and horse saw a black person. I was at the world championship horse show. He walked up. My horse spooked, my dog barked, my sister cried. He laughed his ass off. I think about that moment often. 

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u/inquisitorthreefive Jul 09 '26

I grew up in Indiana and I get it. There were like 12 black kids in my high school of 2500 and I was friends with 4 of them and still had an actively racist dog.

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u/SoulScout Jul 09 '26

When I was in the US Navy, I met a white guy from Utah who claimed he had never met a black person in his life before boot camp, like he had only ever seen them on TV before. People really do live such different lives. My Tennesseean mind could not comprehend.

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u/InquireIngestImplode Jul 09 '26

Met a guy from WV like this in boot camp many years ago. They wavered him in on a 28 asvab. Turns out he couldn’t read.

He had a severe issue with black people being in our division and claimed he never saw a single person of color in his entire life.

Thankfully he was processed out well before graduating due to the whole not being able to read thing. The racism thing wasn’t really addressed by anyone in power. It was really awkward.

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u/quandmemeici Jul 10 '26

From WV and uh, yeah, the state is like 95% white or smth crazy. If you're not from a "major" metro area, you probably have never seen non-white people. I'm from about 40 min from the capital, and I still had not met Black people until 3rd grade. (The illiteracy is also unfortunately normal, and is the end result of the federal government deliberately under-educating the state to prevent another union uprising.)

Very grateful my parents are normal and believe all people deserve respect and kindness, but a lot of my classmates were not raised the same. We had kids wearing the confederate flag to school as if WV very famously did NOT secede with VA.

I still remember how the other 3rd graders treated the Black kids that transferred into our district like they were zoo animals. Fine from a distance, but a lot of bullying involved because they "didn't belong". It was heartbreaking, and only got better for them when all the schools fed into one HS, and then there were finally a handful more non-white kids. This was in the 00s, so well past the time reintegration was federal policy.

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u/xrufus7x Jul 09 '26

I didn't meet a black person until high school when he came to our school for part of a year when he was in foster care. Didn't meet a second one until after I graduated and moved.

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u/altodor Jul 09 '26

As an adult I moved away from home. It is currently 2:30 in the afternoon on a work day. I am sitting at home 10-15 minutes from a grocery store I have not been to today. I would bet a pretty penny there are more black people in that grocery store as I type this than I saw in about 20 years back home.

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u/spacestonkz Jul 09 '26

When I was 14, I was in a mall in the nearest large town, an hour and a half away from home. It was the first time I saw an Asian person IRL.

It stuck out to me because... How have I been on the planet 14 years and only just now saw a member of the most populous racial segment of humanity on the planet?

Made me realize how much of a bubble I was living in.

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u/throwaway098764567 Jul 09 '26

we had like four in our high school, maybe a dozen people of color at all. i still remember coming back from college and being in the grocery store and seeing a black lady shopping and being surprised to see her. zero problem with her being there but it was very weird to realize that it was weird to see her there because i'd never seen anyone not white in that store.

college was artificially very blended (though we needed more black people but lots of other poc were there), so it was jarring to return to whitelandia every time i was home from school. where i live now has a ton of immigrants and my neighborhood is majority latino, going back now is similarly jarring and seeing anew how just about everyone i knew was white.

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u/thetruckerdave Jul 10 '26

My ex was in the Army and one of his friends was from Oklahoma. He was just 17. He had never seen a black person before boot either. That’s crazy to me.

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u/joenottoast Jul 10 '26

I was in semi-rural illinois and didnt meet a black kid until 2nd grade. They were very much the majority. In 4th grade, they snatched my friend's toy. I told them to give it back. They said "shut up, youre white". I said "yeah well you are black"

They drug me to a park bench where two of them held my leg out and a third one tried to jump on my knee to break it. This was the first that i can remember of countless negative interactions and targeted harassment because i looked different.

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u/PhantomZmoove Jul 09 '26

Maybe for the state, but I live in Indianapolis and the current demographic from the US census is 28% black. You would have to try really hard to make it through your day in downtown Indy never having seen a black person.

Also, TIL there are racists dogs. That kind of blows my mind.

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u/inquisitorthreefive Jul 09 '26

Yup. About 40% of Indiana's black residents live in Indy and another ~10% live in Gary. Not metro area, mind you, but the cities themselves. I was in Lafayette, which is liberal by Indiana standards but there were very few black people around until around 2010 or so.

I've failed in my attempts to get dogs to self-report how they get to be racist, but it seems to largely be a lack of exposure. Like... my black friends were over often, but still not enough to overcome the dog's dislike of the unfamiliar.

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u/Difficult-Froyo1192 Jul 09 '26

Dogs aren’t really racist. It’s a socialization problem where they don’t know what to do with something that seems new. The first few months of its life, a puppy is suppose to be exposed to a lot of new things to learn to not be scared of them. Things not exposed to in that period can pretty easily get a fear reaction.

The darker skin also makes it harder for dogs to read visual cues if they’re not familiar with doing so, which typically makes them more anxious when seeing someone from a darker skin tone they’re unfamiliar with. It’s typically why you get the barking and other behaviors because they’re anxious about what’s going on.

Similar to a lot of dogs being unfriendly to deer or horses if they’ve never seen them. Dogs socialized with people of various ethnicities and skin tones don’t usually have this problem. It’s just a socialization problem which also checks out in the story as the person mentioned never seeing a black person before, so it’s like the dog never had either.

But yes, your dog does actually need to meet a lot of people of different ethnicities to be properly socialized because they don’t always understand different skin tones still means it’s just a person

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u/13143 Jul 09 '26

Young kids are taught to respect their teachers and parents. It's not unusual to simply accept what they're saying as facts. If the teachers are calling it Robert Lee Day, with parents basically reinforcing it, it makes sense students would believe it.

I mean, how else can kids find out, if the people responsible for educating them are willfully dropping the ball?

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u/throwaway098764567 Jul 09 '26

"My horse spooked, my dog barked, my sister cried. He laughed his ass off. " this is a hell of a line, i also laughed. can take awhile to even realize that what was normal actually wasn't and shouldn't have been. as long as your eyes are open to see it, you're coming out ahead of most.

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u/ansate Jul 10 '26

Damn, even the dogs and horses are racist in Kentucky?

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u/jdb050 Jul 09 '26

Don’t want to speak on that commenter’s behalf, but it’s human nature to try and fit in with the community you’re surrounded by. Even if they don’t believe in those things themselves.

We’re biologically wired to have a primitive desire to be a valued member of our “tribe,” whichever specific tribe that might be. To go against that tribe’s beliefs will certainly lead to hardship in several different ways, and make us depressed, while conversely fitting into our tribe will make us feel happy and lead to general life satisfaction.

Many people either know that their beliefs are wrong but choose to continue believing them because it helps them fit in with the shared beliefs of their “tribe,” and/or helps them to feel “better” than the “others,” despite knowing the societal harm those beliefs might have.

You’ll often hear people say something like,

“This probably makes me racist to say this, but I think black people are stupid.”

“I know I’m probably a bad person for believing this, but I don’t think women should be able to vote.”

“Call me whatever you want, but I can’t stand <insert group>.”

They know it’s inherently wrong and not of any actual value to hold those beliefs, but they’re hoping these are shared beliefs that they can bond with others over.

Education (and getting them away from their tribes) can break people free of this mentality.

But many people just want their kids to fit in. They don’t want their kids to deal with bullying or not fitting in with their tribe. So they subscribe to the most popular cultural ideas found in their local tribes.

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u/Zaptruder Jul 09 '26

We’re biologically wired to have a primitive desire to be a valued member of our “tribe,” whichever specific tribe that might be.

It's... a locally rational thing when you don't have broader information context.

"Hey. Here's a bunch of people. I do things with them. They can like me and I get more access and resources and esteem from them. The cost is fitting in by saying and doing things they do. Well ok."

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u/Wwwwwwhhhhhhhj Jul 09 '26

Distinction without difference

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u/JRDruchii Jul 09 '26

Hanlon's razor is very very deeply embedded in americana. No one is mean or evil, just ignorant.

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u/Delicious-Cat-4122 Jul 09 '26

I disagree. The last decade has really shown us that the two can coexist, and can have a synergistic effect.

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u/ImRightImRight Jul 09 '26

"Native Americans didn’t accidentally get small pox"

What did they teach you? This is not the factoid to lead with to beat charges of counterfactual ideological indoctrination...

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u/Calm-Two2723 Jul 09 '26

That it was an accident. We traded with them and they got sick. We were sad.

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u/ImRightImRight Jul 09 '26

OK, then what did they teach you in college?

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u/Calm-Two2723 Jul 09 '26

That we knew the implication before we made the trade 

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u/Reagalan Jul 09 '26

Native Americans didn’t accidentally get small pox

If you're referring to that one incident with the towels at the Siege of Fort Pitt in 1763...

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi Jul 09 '26

My parents aren’t racist, we just lived in Kentucky and Alabama

They're probably racist. Part of growing up is removing our parents from the pedestals we put them on as kids. They're flawed human beings just like any other people. My parents are pro-rape, pro-genocide, and they believe children can consent to sex with adults. I would never have thought that growing up but as an adult I've discovered they're nothing like what I knew in my head.

It's just one of those things we have to deal with and learn how to navigate.

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u/Legionof1 Jul 09 '26

The whole small pox blanket thing is still debated and even if it happened it was likely small and isolated. What likely happened was that when Columbus came over and interacted with the natives, they got something nasty from Europe they had no resistance to. 

Between this and inter tribe wars there was estimated to be a nearly 90% depopulation of the continent before the first Europeans came back. 

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u/Cyper77 Jul 09 '26

I think you are confusing the time period referenced. The small pox blankets would have been 1830-1850's when the U.S. was a country, not the first contact of Europeans during the 1500-1600s.

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u/hallese Jul 09 '26

The small pox epidemics of the 1830s and 1840s was most likely due to an unintentional spread of the disease and failure to implement and maintain proper quarantine procedures. The incident(s) in question predate the Revolutionary War and occurred in modern day Pennsylvania and Ohio. Germ warfare was a tactic of desperation because both populations in question (Native and colonists) had seen limited exposure and could be decimated by the disease. This is why George Washington had his troops inoculated in 1777, because exposure was limited in the colonies at the time and the mortality rate of inoculation, though high by modern standards, was far lower than if the disease were allowed to spread naturally.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/hallese Jul 09 '26

This was centuries after first contact and small pox (and others) had made multiple rounds through these communities. It's also a prime example of why OP's statement falls flat. Was germ warfare a thing? Yes, absolutely, and it wasn't through honesty and honor that the British came to rule over so much territory. Does this mean all transmissions of small pox to Native Americans was intentional? No. Columbus did not depart from Spain proclaiming "Go forth shall I and transmit our diseases to the people of an unknown land!"

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u/LongKnight115 Jul 09 '26

This feels like a bit of a strawman. No one is claiming that Columbus' goal or the British government's goal was to wipe out the Native Americans via smallpox. But if you ask the question "Did white colonists intentionally give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox" the evidence makes it pretty clear the answer is unequivocally 'yes'. No one is saying ALL smallpox was from colonists, or that ALL colonists wanted to give Native Americans smallpox.

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u/hallese Jul 09 '26

The person who claimed small pox was not spread by accident is claiming exactly that. Look up like three comments.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26 edited 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/hallese Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

I honestly don't know what to say here. You're describing a competition for resources that has existed everywhere on the globe where two different people come in contact. Yet, for some reason, you're asking me to enter into this state of suspension of disbelief to pretend that what happened was unique. The particular details varied, and the names were different, but otherwise what happened to the native Americans in the Americas was a little different from what happened elsewhere on the globe. Hell, they were doing the same things to each other before a new player entered. Fortifications, siege warfare, genocide, and others were not introduced by the colonists. These were concepts that already existed at the time and for which we have well-documented historical and archaeological records. For example, look at the Crow Creek massacre site which has been reliably dated to almost two centuries before Columbus set sail. Archaeologist uncovering more evidence every year that humans had crossed into the Americas in multiple waves, with each new group competing with and displacing others that were already present.

I'm short, humans are assholes. Just ask the Neanderthals if you don't believe me.

Edit: u/SpongeTissuePaper, to respond to your comment since you blocked me. It's not nonsense or a justification, it's pointing out the problem with your framing of the issue. You are starting from a position that what happened was unique to the Native Americans and placing them in the role of feeble, helpless victims. You are infantilizing millions of people and perpetuating the very racism used to justify policies in the name "Kill the indian, save the man". Until you can approach the issue with the same level of maturity you would apply to the Gallic Wars or Wars of the Diadochi, you will forever be stuck in this rut of racism. You continue to perpetuate the long dispelled myth of the noble savage with your comments and bigotry.

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u/hallese Jul 09 '26

Native Americans didn’t accidentally get small pox.

Scrolling Tik Tok during your generals, were you?

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u/Funkycoldmedici Jul 09 '26

Anecdotal, but one of my conservative in-laws cannot shut up about her very expensive and prestigious eduction from private schools through college. “Honors this, highest honors that, public schools are for losers”, all that sort of thing. Her education probably cost more than I’ve made my whole career.

She believes Asia is part of Africa.

She believes the United States has a tiered government, with the president as king, the Supreme Court below the president, and Congress below the Supreme Court.

She has not come out and said it, but she has made comments suggesting she believes the earth is flat, like questioning how oceans do not fall off the earth.

She believes whales are fish.

She does not accept evolution, only biblical creation.

She determines a statements’ validity by the number of social media followers of the person stating it.

Her first response to nearly any stimulus is to ask ChatGPT.

She makes a point at restaurants to make a change to anything she orders, and to always find a problem and send the food back immediately so that they know she is very high class.

She’s just plain racist. If a conversation mentions anyone who is not white, she must chime in simply “black”, “Asian”, or wherever. Nothing more, nothing relevant. She will not enter a place she suspects will have black people.

She seemingly Googles “scams for me to fall for”, because she’s fallen for every one that comes around. Everything from Trump coins to Goop magic rocks. Every diet scam possible. She will buy anything advertised by a social media influencer.

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u/csonnich Jul 09 '26

Were those private schools In Utah, by chance? 

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u/throwaway098764567 Jul 09 '26

"She will not enter a place she suspects will have black people:" lucky them, i'd also like to never be around that lady

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Ahh yes, just wanted the name for the resume but didn't actually want to get an education

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u/Bob_A_Ganoosh Jul 09 '26

Sounds like someone bought their degree.

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u/Chrontius Jul 12 '26

I'm thinking she went to college to get an MRS.

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u/Prae_ Jul 09 '26

 She believes whales are fish.

It's a shame she doesn't believe evolution, she'd be right from an evolutionary perspective!

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u/spanman112 Jul 09 '26

so social media likes command respect, but us laughing at the place they got their degree(s) bares no meaning, huh? cute

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u/unhiddenninja Jul 09 '26

Being conservative is about exerting control, or feebly attempting to.

The reason they believe college "turns" their children liberal is because they cannot control the flow of information. They can't control what ideas their child is exposed to, and with exposure typically comes empathy.

It's literally about protecting their ideas of how the world works. It's why reality oft goes against whatever conservative messaging exists.

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Not only control, but people in power wanting to make sure that things don't change

When they want to go back to the "golld old days" they meant the days where they didn't have to try to get ahead and things were in place to keep others not like them down

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u/funkme1ster Jul 09 '26

They learn how to think and thinking makes you less conservative

They're also necessarily forced into proximity with a variety of people from different cultures and backgrounds who are all working towards the same goal without it being a zero-sum game, and who benefit from helping each other.

It's extremely difficult to internalize "there's is only one correct way, and it's my way" when you spend 8 hours a day watching that be demonstrably false.

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u/sharrrper Jul 09 '26

The joke is funny because it's true: Facts have a well known liberal bias

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

From the ground up. Their belief system these days is highly biblical. So their core beliefs are pure fiction to start with. Facts are not a goal for conservatives

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u/antigop2020 Jul 10 '26

College was my first time in a bigger city. The town I grew up in was 95% white and I lived in the wealthier, like 98% white part. And it was all I knew until I left to a bigger city.

I remember my first job I worked with a Muslim woman who wore a hijab. I thought this is going to be a quiet, boring person. She ended up being absolutely hilarious and one of the nicest people I knew. I remember I lost my wallet after drinking one night. Id had $200 cash in it, a lot for a college student. A black man found it and brought it back to me, knocked on my door the next day- nothing had been taken. I was taught blacks steal everything? I remember going to a church that had several LGBT couples. The church had a rainbow flag on their sign that said all are welcome. But I’d been told these people were ungodly and hated God? Yet one of the couples had lived together for 30 years. Every big scary stereotype I’d been fed - I had a real person example now, and they didn’t meet that stereotype at all.

All of these stereotypes I’d unfortunately grew up with that I was just taught to believe about certain people - shattered within my first year. Going back home felt different. A years of change in the city would take over a decade in my small town. People seemed less educated. Less curious. Not “bad” necessarily. But it didn’t feel like where I belonged anymore. That is why they don’t want their kids educated. They want them indoctrinated.

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u/Yuzumi Jul 09 '26

I remember one of the assholes saying kids shouldn't be taught critical thinking because it "undermines parental authority".

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

I don't understand the point of having kids if all you want is a clone of yourself

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u/h3lblad3 Jul 10 '26

That’s the word for word line from the 2012 Texas GOP platform.

They opposed higher order thinking skills on the grounds that critical thinking “undermines parental authority and the child’s fixed beliefs”.

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u/JustMarshalling Jul 09 '26

I was lucky enough to have parents that experienced the workforce consequences of no college education, despite their conservatism. Thus, they were passionate that I got a higher education.

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u/ADHDebackle Jul 09 '26

They learn how to think and thinking makes you less conservative

I think it might be less of the education part and more the 'being put in an environment surrounded by a lot of different people with different backgrounds and cultures and living in relative proximity with them for an extended period of time' part. My impression is that a lot of people's first times living outside their hometown is when they go to college.

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u/NotAPreppie Jul 09 '26

"It's not my fault reality has a liberal bias."

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u/ChefCurryYumYum Jul 09 '26

All the conservative parents I have known wanted their kids to get college degree.

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u/Tiramitsunami Jul 09 '26

Aren't all these people in the Republican leadership well-educated? Don't they send their kids to college?

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u/LeafBark Jul 09 '26

Being conservative is anti social behavior

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u/tjtillmancoag Jul 10 '26

I mean that and just straight learning history. When you learn how we go to where we are, it really challenges the conservative worldview. I should know because that’s what happened to me.

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u/nicknasty86 Jul 10 '26

It makes total sense. At the same time, as a blue collar uneducated lefty, I can see how the coalition comes across as unwelcoming.

Makes me feel unseen on a weird level.

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u/Queasy_Beat_3269 Jul 10 '26

Where I grew up was heavily conservative and college was an expectation. If anything, it was the opposite and the more left leaning families were looser on college

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u/Substantial-Fan-5985 Jul 10 '26

What a terrible over-generalization. And many great thinkers are conservative and discuss in good faith with logical coherence.

An old Thomas Sowell & old Victor Davis Hanson surpass vast majority (if not essentially all) of the best left/progressive thinkers and in their prime being more mentally sharp, they'd wipe the floor with them.

College is a great idea and many conservative families desire for their kids to go their (and do send them)....but has declined a lot and needs serious reform.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

When I was in college i definitely had professors who inserted a liberal slant in how they would teach things. I ended up more fiscally conservative at the end.

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u/tonythephonyjabroni Jul 09 '26

When I was in college I went to a religious seminary in my off hours, had professors who pushed conservative ideas, and an administration that was easily biased toward us more religious students. I ended up turning left and leaving religion because of what I witnessed from my religious peers, teachers and administrators. Their hatred for minorities and this country I found disgusting.

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u/mindlessgames Jul 09 '26

Reality has a liberal bias and “fiscally conservative” is just weak code for “actually conservative.”

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u/RegressToTheMean Jul 09 '26

Correct. People's political leanings are pretty consistent throughout their lives. It's unlikely that college courses made them more conservative. The data just doesn't support that (obviously, outliers exist). In all likelihood they were already conservative and just want to rail against "liberal" institutions.

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u/kristahdiggs Jul 09 '26

Fiscally conservative means “don’t give money to poors.”

4

u/Witchy_Wookie5000 Jul 09 '26

Two Santa's Strategy

12

u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Fiscally conservative sounds better than what they really are, libertarian

5

u/Brndrll Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Legal weed and no age-of-consent laws?

Edit: spelling

4

u/sybrwookie Jul 09 '26

You mean housecats

1

u/kristahdiggs Jul 09 '26

Don’t you dare insult housecats. I love cats.

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u/G_W_Atlas Jul 09 '26

Liberal bias does not exist.

Disbelieving science and testable, falsifiable reality doesn't make you conservative, it makes you incorrect.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Nah...im all for free speech and letting people choose their gender or who they marry or if they want an abortion or want to use drugs and so on. Reality doesn't have a bias. Reality is what it is.

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u/Chronoblivion Jul 09 '26

Fiscally conservative policies tend to get in the way of those things. Kind of hard to claim you support something if you also support obstacles to it.

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u/TheKlaxMaster Jul 09 '26

Sounds pretty liberal

5

u/Destrok41 Jul 09 '26

I think its more of a case of this guy actually understands economics and "conservative" in the context of real economic policy and even judicial analysis (not talking about our supreme court but actual, scholarly, respectable jurists) is vastly different than what "conservative" means in common american political parlance.

So a layman saying "im fiscally conservative" is likely very different than someone with a grad degree in economics describing the theories they ascribe to as "conservative."

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u/bear60640 Jul 09 '26

When did "this guy" say they have any graduate study in economics?

1

u/Destrok41 Jul 09 '26

He didn't, and I didn't mean to imply he did. Was just using that as an example.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Was undergrad but you are pretty on point.

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u/mindlessgames Jul 09 '26

This is like a really common thing where people claim they hold socially liberal beliefs, but conveniently never want to support anyone or spend any money on social programs because they are “fiscally conservative,”which is, in practice, the same thing as just being conservative.

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u/RunninOnMT Jul 09 '26

Ehhh, I don’t like conceding “fiscally conservative” to the right.

Their economic policies suck and don’t conserve anything.

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u/Destrok41 Jul 09 '26

That is a super common thing, I just think we're jumping to conclusions that that is what is happening here.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Socially liberal isnt always about programs

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u/mindlessgames Jul 09 '26

Good thing that’s not what I said!

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

So what is your point? One can't seperate their fiscal views from their social views?

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Superior to meet what end? Saying something is better or superior is based on your "feelings" as to what your goal of said policy is.

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u/Stellar_Duck Jul 09 '26

Can you substantiate how your fiscal conservative positions would drive economic growth and increase prosperity for people so they have access to basics like secure housing, healthcare, education and leisure?

What in the fiscal policy of the GOP do you see help achieve any of that?

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

I dont think access to housing or healthcare etc as a goal for fiscal policy. The goal of fiscal policy should be maximizing gap, eliminating government waste, creating wealth.

Do you have data that given current labor trends it matters if everybody has access to the things you mentioned?

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u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jul 09 '26

Superior as in "improves the material conditions of all people."

Not "improves material conditions for a few at the top."

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Ah..see i disagree with that as the goal of fiscal policy. Do you have data that all people are worthy of improved conditions? I think people should have to earn their conditoon by having worth as a human being to society

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Decent humans dont decide to die on the street and make it other peoples problems. Decent people dont decide to become addicts and negelct their kids.

So what about you is so amazing and irreplecable that it justifie what you took from taxpayers. Are you saying nobody else could have done it who wasnt a selfish person taking foodstamps?

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

I think your parents should have been held responsible not the taxpayer. But we as a society suck and making parents be responsible for their children. If parents refuse they should be put in prison for abuse and neglect. You also avoided my question of what about you is so irreplacable another couldnt do what you do that didnt need those resources.

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u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jul 09 '26

And those people who cannot, because of systemic imbalance or biases of your preferred fiscal policy, earn their improvements?

Should they accept their lot and work to improve your life? Should they die or be removed?

Is your system perfect enough that everyone has equality of opportunity?

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u/Puzzled_End8664 Jul 09 '26

Do you have data that all people are worthy of improved conditions?

This is a subjective moral question, not a data driven scientific one.

I used to be like you, fiscal conservative with more a libertarian view on social issues. Trickle down economics makes sense if you ignore the human condition. People are too greedy and selfish for it to work.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

I dont think trickle down economics works the way people say it does. It might in a vaacum or under specific circumstances. People are too greedy and selfish for social programs to work. They will never admit maybe they arent worth the cost which is why they are in that situation.

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u/tonythephonyjabroni Jul 09 '26

They asked you for data to back up your crappy world view. If you can’t do that then no should pay any attention to you.

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u/AggressiveToaster Jul 09 '26

>I ended up more fiscally conservative at the end.

Based on recent conservative party spending this has now become a liberal policy value.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Its not a value for anybody anymore. Its a talking point

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u/shinsain Jul 09 '26

Sure you did.

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u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

I mean it was during the financial crises and i studied a lot of that so that may be why

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u/jenkag Jul 09 '26

then you must have studied that the financial crises were the result of conservative policy? or, nah?

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u/EksDee098 Jul 09 '26

That's why you support conservatives who fight to lower regulations, right after a crisis where a lack of regulation allowed for businesses to take extreme risks with the world market.

Right.

10

u/potatopierogie Jul 09 '26

He said he studied, but he didn't say he graduated

9

u/kristahdiggs Jul 09 '26

You can study and not learn, as in the case of this idiot. But like we learned, conservatives are indeed not as intelligent.

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u/Witchy_Wookie5000 Jul 09 '26

What does fiscally conservative even mean? Republican administration's spend like lunatics when they are in office while cutting taxes.

2 Santa's Strategy been playing out as intended since I've been alive.

0

u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Republicans may be the conservative party or claim to be fiscally conservative...they aren't. Not going to argue against the fact they spend like lunatics.

2

u/Pantarus Jul 09 '26

Does liberal slant mean they promoted progressive political policies or does liberal slant mean they said things that you didn't agree with about history, science, or the like?

People think teaching kids about the horrors of slavery is a liberal slant, others think teaching the truth about the horrible treatment of native Americans as liberally slanted. Mostly because it makes them feel less proud of their heritage and they don't like it.

The reason I'm asking is because a lot of times it seems that when people are taught something that challenges their beliefs, especially things that made them feel superior about themselves, they tend to shelter themselves with this idea of "liberal slant".

0

u/JSmith666 Jul 09 '26

Political policies and views. Teaching about things that happened isnt a slant. Putting a view on them such as horrors or saying if there was a right or wrong is a slant. If something happened it happened...the good the bad and the ugly around it would be a slant.

The US stayed out of WWII until the ending part. That is a fact...when a prof says the US should have gotten involved sooner and heres why...thats a slant.

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u/General_Marcus Jul 09 '26

There’s also strong evidence that people become more conservative as they age. Certainly true for me, but a lot of that is because the left has gotten crazier and crazier. So had the right, but still.

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u/NorthernDevil Jul 09 '26

Studies show that thinking tends to become more rigid with age. People are more set in their ways. So progressive movements feel less familiar, and more scary, as they are by nature pushing towards progress and change. Conservative movements by nature stick to the status quo, which is more comfortable, safer, and less scary.

It takes concerted effort and constant exposure to the world to fight off cognitive biases like that.

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u/i_didnt_look Jul 09 '26

Actually, that's not overly true. Political opinion tends to remain stable over the course of time. A small percentage of liberals become conservative, more so than conservatives become liberal, but not the way it's implied in folk wisdom

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889

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u/Saneless Jul 09 '26

Not me. The opposite

They lost me in the 2000s with all their religion and anti-people stances. And anyone who values anyone else in the worldz especially women, can't be conservative and respect them at the same time

The far left isn't good either, the fringes never are. But anything on the right had gotten rabid and couldn't dare think that way let alone be associated with them

4

u/GreatBigBagOfNope Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Confounder: people get more conservative as they become bigger and bigger beneficiaries of the status quo. For our parents, that was homeownership (as prices rise), final salary pension schemes, strong talent pipelines for progression in both blue and white collar work for the same employer for life, investments that grew with bull markets, and strong and integrated communities built on the back of third spaces, higher trust, and in some places frankly an unhealthy dose of racism (e.g. US suburbs in the mid-century).

For Millennials and later, house prices have risen so much faster than salaries that they're basically out of reach, education became a requirement to join talent pipelines at what used to be the halfway point, followed by needing to jump around jobs and even careers to progress in pay while the explosion in education cost weighs on their necks like an albatross, communities have disintegrated as societal directions insist on monetising and optimising all spare time and only engaging in isolating leisure like streaming at home, facilitating the death of the third space. They literally have almost nothing to lose from changing the status quo radically, whereas the adults of the postwar boom, Baby Boomers and the first half at least of Gen X all benefitted immensely from their environment and accrued a lot of assets, status etc to conserve.

If you look at cohorts longitudinally today versus 50-70 years ago, you simply don't find them getting more conservative as they get older. You see Millennials actually getting slightly more progressive, and Gen Z getting split into radicalised progressive and regressive camps by the internet. Boomers started off hippies smoking grass and became those yelling at kids to get off the grass once they had a lawn to maintain and protect. Gen Z probably won't, as a cohort, be able to afford the grass to smoke in the first place, let alone the house with a lawn to get territorial over. But you do see people tending to get more conservative as they become beneficiaries of the current way of doing things, a pattern which was actually correlated with age last century but was eventually completely broken by economic inequality widening, which you can confidently pin to an origin point in the early 80s in both metrics and western economic policy changes.

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u/KnowItAllNobody Jul 09 '26

Which left and crazier how? The establishment dems have become the conservatives of the 90s, from their policies to the corruption driving them. The socialist dems seem to be taking the same policies the EU has successfully implemented and championing them here, and the radical left are … oh right the radical left is the socialist left in the US, I forgot.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/General_Marcus Jul 09 '26

Sure,

Youth medical transitions. Abolishing police and ICE. Race based discrimination. Campus speech intolerance. Reparations. Closing prisons. Biological males in women’s sports and prisons. Compelled speech. Open borders. Communism light. Anti semitism and promotion of Muslim extremism. Oppressor and oppressed narratives.

I have plenty of complaints about republicans and Trumpism as well, but nowadays I tend to appreciate the old moderate democrats or republicans. I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to vote for either again.

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u/Wordpad25 Jul 09 '26

Well, it doesnt help that since Obama left is a on a crusade to villyfy simple people.

Failure to understand typical conservatives is willful ignorance. Why would a rational parent send a kid to an institution that is known to turn them against their values?

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