High school boys are trending conservative

trashhalo@beehaw.org to Politics@beehaw.org – 226 points –
High school boys are trending conservative
thehill.com

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

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You also have issues where high-school educated men have not seen any major benefits to any typical liberal or conservative ideology within the past generation.

On the conservative end, the jobs that the men would have gone into have seen wages and benefits stagnate or drop.

On the liberal end, the status of white men in society has dropped to a more level playing field with class status or wealth being a more defining factor, something which they don't have.

Alt-right conservatives are addressing the economic issues by restricting the work force (anti-immigration) and increasing the jobs in resource extraction (trashing all environmental laws). On social issues, the alt-right head of family is the man.

Leftists could address these issues better by supporting unions more.

I'm wearing a tshirt that I bought to support a union drive now, actually. Over the weekend, I spotted a table with volunteers supporting the UPS drivers and walked up and asked how I could show support. I poster went in my window. I was wearing a sticker supporting Amazon workers trying to unionize at the time, which they noticed.

It's a very unique time during my lifetime where union activity seems to be on the rise. A local Trader Joe's recently formed a union so I went there and individually approached workers and congratulated them. I had a strong sense of who voted yes vs no based on their responses. The ones that were please were really appreciative of the support.

Push hard for unions. Show support for unions in other industries. This is a moment where we might be able to show regular people that we can have collective power.

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