Umm… you don’t have to vote for him you know, there was a successful business man with a lifetime history of getting people to work… right?

You mean that evil rich guy who bought all those companies, fired all the workers and even killed a woman?! That guy??

I often wonder why the young vote the way they do-I am not even sure it is necessarily for them about “free stuff” so much as it is they buy into the whole idea that the GOP are a bunch of hateful meanies who want to set the country backwards. Half the teenagers I know have no idea how government works, they just think the GOP are the mean people and you shouldn’t vote for them.

I think you’re on to something there…certainly popular culture doesn’t give a positive portrayal of conservatives or Republicans, and the biggest consumers of popular culture are the 13-24 age demographic. They are the ones who tout the “Mean People Suck” mantra and Mean People are basically those who make me (or my parents) pay higher insurance rates simply because I was texting while driving and got into an accident, or tell me I shouldn’t do drugs, or that are always picking on Teh Gheys.

It only gets worse if and when they get into college. The last phase of teenage rebellion is reinforced by academics and other students who live in their own echo chamber and foster the notion that if it feels good, why shouldn’t you do it just because someone else says ‘no’?

In generations past, there were wars or other hardships to enable some quick growing-up. But for the past several, nothing has filled in the gap to enable that development. Short of the fiscal apocalypse, there may not be any similar “teachable moments” for the current or the next generation, either.