Ever since the election, there seems to be a torrent of polling that shows Americans in their late teens and early twenties are fairly reactionary (young men overwhelmingly so). I’m old so I don’t know anyone IRL in that age bracket. But something about what the media has been claiming for months now doesn’t seem to sound right. Idk maybe it’s 100% true but it’s something I have a hard time taking the media’s word for. I know we have quite a few users here in that age bracket. What are your real-life experiences (i.e. not online) with this? Do you think this age demographic is actually trending reactionary?
(I do remember digging into the details of one poll, and while it seemed there was more affiliation with Republicans than previous, it also seemed like there were an also very large segment that were openly showing to be further left than the democrats? So maybe more reactionary sentiment but also more genuinely leftish sentiment?)
I think there has been less need for the general population of the US to be explicitly racist as neoliberal policies do the dirty work for them-- you don’t need lynch mobs when they can subject marginalized populations to extreme austerity through opaque financial mechanisms. I think this has created an environment where more people can say “Hey racism is bad!” while still enjoying the benefits of the racism with plausible deniability. I think the Christian orthodoxy around “being a good person” comes into play here too, but that’s a conversation for another time.
That’s not to say it’s that cut and dry. I think more people than before genuinely realize how sick and twisted this system is and no longer want to take part, also creating cynicism and nihilism that can be a vector for reactionary thought. Because the system needs to reinforce itself, it is simply adapting to these conditions and finding new ways to create new reactionaries.