/r/conservative is a gated community only for people they agree with. Reddit perfectly allows them to exist in their own created hypocritical bubble, along with lots of other subreddits.
You can find about a post a week in /r/WatchRedditDie of someone who posted an anti-Trump response to another person in a Donald Trump-friendly subreddit and they end up banned from other subreddits like /r/OffMyChest... for the crime of disagreeing with a Trump supporter, in a Trump subreddit. The very act of even associating, even in an antagonistic way, with a Trump supporter is ban worthy?
Every moderator whose ever done that should be immediately stripped of all power and banned at the IP level.
If Reddit admins weren't absolute cowards now, they would do it, but the site is sufficiently corporatized now.
Is advocating for e.g. defunding the police, medicare for all, and free college comparable to saying immigrants should be shot on the border, that the holocaust simultaneously didn't happen and wasn't effective enough, and that racial minorities should be hanged?
Even if you vehemently disagree with the three examples of left-leaning policies I used as an example, and any other examples I could've used, surely you can recognize that they are fundamentally different to the stuff that permeated every crevice of Voat? Saying Reddit and Voat both have a tinge completely ignores any context and nuance.
EDIT:
There's an example I'd like to bring. It's from a thread on the frontpage called "Voat, I could use a little life advice". It's from a person that is having trouble paying their bills, and can't do much doordash driving because they refuse to wear a mask. The most upvoted response is this:
> "Was a really good programmer for years". Good, not many people are and it's a skill that's good for decades. n* * * * * * can't fake coding skills like they do everything else
Another upvoted response from the thread says this:
> Why don’t we create funds for fellow nationalists like the n* * * * * * and the ki* * *? Somewhere to pool resources to lift white brothers in need.
Mind you, this is from the front page of both the AskReddit-equivalent and the global front page. And this is on a question that wasn't about anyone but the original poster and their money trouble.
My hypothesis is that when they are young and underdeveloped, they have incomplete understanding of the world, are prone to believing in unrealistic utopian ideas, and hence are easy to manipulate. No wonder, the leftists want the voting age to be lowered even further.
As they grow older and wiser, they see it for what it is.
The younger conservatives are explained by the fact that some kids who grow up in conservative households don't fall for the same manipulation and older liberals are explained by the fact that some people are more reluctant to change, mostly because they weave their personalities around their identities in early adulthood. Some is of course explained by influence of peers (i.e. people adopt a political view to fit in) and hence location... but I think this covers it all.
I know I will get downvoted for this which is fine but I'd like to know your hypothesis for the same population leaning conservative as they age is... if it's not too much trouble.
Please compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidentia...
Observe: The 1984 youth voted conservative. The 2004 youth voted liberal. And, oh, the 2020 youth voted even more liberal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
I don't think that because Boomers and (a lot of ?)GenX tended to grow more conservative as they got older proves it's 'the natural order'.. Millennials are approaching 40 now and the liberal ones I know are still very liberal..
I'd argue that Truman getting elected in 1948 meant that there were a lot 'progressive' older folks back then. Especially since there was a more conservative "Dixiecrat" on the ballot as well.
So growing old and becoming conservative may not necessarily go hand in hand...
I've also read it cyclic, with the pendulum swinging from very conservative to very liberal every couple of generations ?
And if, hypothetically, a generation were to grow up and find themselves unable to afford a home of their own, unable to afford a family, and unable to land a career, they will find themselves with very little to lose and very little incentive to preserve the status quo, regardless of their age.
To give some more solid data than people in my circle of friends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidentia... This is the demographics for the 1984 election, the one where Reagan wiped Mondale out. Among 18-24 year voters, 39% voted for Mondale (liberal/D); 61% voted for Reagan (conservative/R).
Now, let’s fast forward to 2004, which is the first election where young people were more liberal than older generations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_presidentia... Here, among 19-29 year old voters, it was 54% Kerry (D), 45% Bush (R). It was also the last election where a Republican won the national popular vote.
This year, with 18-24 year old voters, it was 65% Biden, 31% Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia...
Point being, our youth and our society are a good deal more liberal than they were 15 or 25 years ago.
And the generational thing is what I brought up originally. Boomers and some GenX don't necessarily 'point the way' that every generation will age.
Age here is a proxy for wealth, of course.
front page as in "/r/all", or your front page? At least on /r/all there isn't much "right wing content", aside from some posts from /r/greentext and /r/PoliticalCompassMemes.
Feel free to provide evidence to the contrary. As of right now all the posts on /r/all not right leaning.
That's a pretty funny way to say "all but one or two posts out of 25 are not related to politics at all". Unless you consider things like wearing masks political.
That's not wrong, but it also has nothing to do with my previous comments, which were only talking political lean, not the presence/absence of politics.