LogFAQs > #967229388

LightningStrikes posted...

That saying about getting more right-wing as you get older clearly no longer applies as people are no longer accumulating wealth as they age.

I think the statistics don't really bear that saying out anyway.

I don't believe there's been a true longitudinal study of the effects of aging on political beliefs but I think the best theory/explanation is basically "the events/president in power when you turn 18 is the strongest sign." Basically that it's a generational thing, but more finely tuned than that where you can see that people who turned 18 during Obama are less liberal than those who turned 18 just a few years before. Or the subsection of Boomers who turned 18 under Nixon are more likely to vote Democratic than the rest of that generation. Or that the Greatest Generation/those who turned 18 under FDR voted more democratic than the national average all the way through the Bush 43 years (at which point small sample sizes took them out of the data.)

But again, I don't think aging specifically has been really studied so it's hard to say with any authority.