Conservatism is a dying philosophy among millennials.
I want to explain exactly what I mean: Not that conservative ideas themselves don’t resonate with millennials, but that traditional conservative philosophy doesn’t. To start, the ideology’s foundation is strong family values usually derived from religious morality. Millennials are not immoral, despite what some older generations believe. We just don’t solely derive our morals from religion. You can be an atheist and still be a good person.
We do not place as much emphasis on religion, a key concept in most conservative platforms. There has only been a modest rise overall in people who are non-religious, and among them they have grown more secular. Meaning not only are there more people who aren’t religious, but those people have become more opposed to religion’s role in society. That segues to my second point.
Millennials also do not place as much emphasis on the “traditional family structure.” Our generation is more individualistic in our day-to-day lives. We are much more career-oriented than previous generations — a major part being that women are able to take on many more opportunities. Also, we as a generation are more likely to pursue higher education, although most of us do it because it has become a necessity in our generation in order to have a decent job.
While certain ideas of traditional conservatism philosophy resonate well with millennials, others are fundamentally different than our ideology. The idea of small government, or at least less government interference in our lives, resonates well. We seem to have a general — and, in my opinion, healthy — distrust of the government.
However other aspects don’t resonate as well. Millennials resoundingly don’t support the war on drugs or at least the criminalization of marijuana. As a generation, we overwhelmingly support gay rights, which contradicts “traditional conservative family values.”
I believe the ideas of traditional social conservatism are ultimately going to die out in our generation. The polarization of the nation and the two main political ideologies will allow for a new political foundation. When stuck between the Nazi-esque alt-right and the ironically fascist antifa, I believe we will take some step towards new ideas and hopefully new platforms.