Liberals need to get hip to young conservatives

TownHall.com ^ | May 30, 2003 | Jonah Goldberg

[rattrap]

I see this all the time, I dress like a young person (I am a relatively young person) and people automatically assume(often) that I'm all about their hippie politics. It's fun though, I often get to give them an earful.

[Constitution Day]

Ping

[Mr. Mojo]

I'm a blues musician, and when people who hang in those circles find out I'm a conservative it blows their mind.

[Future Snake Eater]

"Today, most campus conservatives who hope to be effective won't dress like George Bush or Dick Cheney. The idea is to dress like a young person."

"Because everyone knows they're not actually human! Merely facsimiles!"

Gawd, I hate commies! They're so f-in' stupid!

[Billthedrill]

What is happening I predicted years ago - the self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing left, always correct, always hip, always rebellious and romantic, has evolved, over time, into the boring, lockstep, conformist establishment that they used to mock. Youth has a natural affinity for outsiders, and they quite correctly judge (despite vociferous denials on the part of the rapidly ossifying left) that the outsiders are, at the present, politically conservative. Some, I'm sure, are only doing it to irritate their Greenpeace-bumper-sticker-bearing parents. For others it's a more permanent thing. Politics is a pendulum.

[rattrap]

Yeah i play in an "extreme" (hate that word) metal band, i really get it a lot.

[jjm2111]

People would have a hard time telling my politics by the way I dress. I hardly ever wear a tie at work, much less at play. (Though I can do the full Brooks Brothers thing if I have to.)

Some of my snowboarder friends are total hippy libs and it's fun arguing politics with them. They think Noam Chomsky is the best philospher since, like, you know.

[Huck]

They think Noam Chomsky is the best philospher since, like, you know

duuuuuuuude.

[Drew68]

It's fun though, I often get to give them an earful.

How true! I'm 34 and can count the occasions I've worn a suit on one hand.

I remember the College Republicans at CSU twelve years ago. They all thought they had to dress like Alex P. Keaton --everyday, all the time.

[Drew68]

Some of my snowboarder friends are total hippy libs and it's fun arguing politics with them.

Last weekend, I was arguing with a 22 year-old college student and dedicated democrat. He asked me to name one thing that JFK did that was bad for the country. I replied that JFK sent the first troops to Vietnam.

He bellowed back, "JFK DID NOT SEND TROOPS TO VIETNAM!!!"

He looked at me like I was wearing tinfoil on my head for even suggesting that JFK had anything to do with America's involvement in Vietnam.

At this point, I had an idea of the mindset that I would be arguing with. Arguing with libs is often like this.

Please pardon my off-topic rant.

[jjm2111]

The original article is fascinating. It written with the typical left-wing bias but what it DOESN't say is almost as interesting as what it does.

I'm 26 and I was apolitical until after college. I have to say is that many, many liberals my age are very, very ignorant.

Some of the stuff that the original article said is very true about people my age and younger. I think some of the stuff about the clothes rings with the fact that many young people do not associate freaky clothes (and piercings) with evil or immoral behavior. Someone could be a wonderful person and have a nose ring and wear leather. Also conservatives in their twenties (at least in the Northeast) are far less concerned about gays. That part of the article was spot on. They might not approve on a personal level, but do not thing it's the government's business telling people what they can or can not do in their bedroom.


I was at a Young Republican's meeting where this thirty-something loser was giving all the youngins' a hard time for not wearing ties. All the young people were laughing at him.

[tdadams]

I'm 34 and can count the occasions I've worn a suit on one hand.

I'm 32 and can count it on one finger.

[bc2]

I, too, am a young musician (and I am in an "extreme death metal" band as well). People see tattoos and automatically think "liberal". When I tell them that I am more conservative than Republicans, or start talking about gun control, the drug war, social security, income tax, etc... it totally blows them away!

I usually have to explain to them that freedom loving people who are not "Alex Keaton" type guys are usually called "libertarians" and that being a Young Republican doesn't mean you swill champagne at the yacht club or some crap like that.

Personally, the best is watching their heads nearly implode during a rational debate. Something most liberals can not deal with!

bc2 says metal forever!

[Chi-townChief]

You should have been around in the 60s and 70s. When you came up with some conservatism, the hippies would get extremely pissed. I guess they had figured that long hair and bell bottoms automatically meant that you were a lefty.

[jjm2111]

I'm 32 and can count it on one finger.

Lucky bastard.

[rattrap]

28 and i can say the same

[RogueIsland]

Liberals need to get hip to young conservatives

Yeah, stop being such total Clydes and Harveys, ya' squares.

[CollegeRepublican]

Surfer here. I have actually run into some Conservative surfers in the water. Actually met a few in the water on 9/11/01, but overall surfers are way liberal and hate GWB.

At Swarthmore College I was know as THE Republican. People expected gays to be locked up in my fraternity basement or something. You could really blow some minds by showing some intelligence and using rational thinking. Of course the Professors were a lost cause.

[ScottinSacto]

This article is about the stupidest thing I've seen all week, besides the reporters on tv talking about Scott Petersens makeover again.

It is not what you do or what you wear, it is what you think. Why is it the libs are so pissed of about profiling, yet they pass judgement based on stereotypical things such as jeans and a haircut?

I have a serious tie collection and wear suits that make women drool. I have the coolest sunglasses on the planet, and my hair ranges from buzz to surfer. I could be as hip or sloppy as I want to be, and it won't change that I think Gore was an idiot and that Bush is the man.

All that aside, I am ranging towards the surfer haircut and it is driving me crazy in the heat. My barber, the only person who has EVER cut my hair, had a serious stroke last month and isn't cutting hair right now or anymore I fear. So if anyone in the Sacto regional area has a good one, please FReepmail me with contact info...or if you are a barber even better!

[Pyro7480]

I know what you mean! I just graduated from college, and I was the head of the local Young Americans for Freedom chapter. The only time I wore suits in any club function was when we brought speakers in or when I went to CPAC. Most of the time, I wore t-shirts, cargo pants or semi-baggy jeans, and "skater" sneakers, and when it got cooler, and threw on a hooded sweatjacket. This was what many of friends in garage bands (most of the liberal) wore. I must have gotten on some people's nerves, for the must have seen it me being a "poseur" or something, when it was nothing of the sort. I went to Catholic schools in grade and high school, and I had to wear dress shirts, ties, and dress pants all the time. I was glad to take a break from that in colllege. Now that I'm working full-time, it's back to suits again. But I still like wearing casual clothes like that.

Besides clothes, I listen to punk, emo, emocore, mainstream rock, "alternative," and Jimi Hendrix/Led Zeppelin/other rock classics. I like to watch anime. Most of my friends have leftist viewpoints. So I guess I'm a "Hip-Publican," or rather, a "hip conservative."