Do You Ever Wonder If Our Politics Are Still Fighting Over The 60's...

[jeff47]

25. Actually, they didn't.

Or at least the vast majority of people keep the same political leanings from 25 on.

Two things happened.
First, is there actually was something to the "silent majority" bullshit. Polls of baby boomers showed them to be about 30% "hippies", 30% moderate, 40% "Nixon Youth". Younger boomers are much more conservative older boomers.

The Vietnam war caused a lot of moderates and conservatives to support anti-war causes, thus making it appear that there were more liberals in the 60s. But outside the war they were not liberal.

The other thing making it appear that people grew more conservative is our society moved to the left in the intervening years. A conservative in the 1950s believed in segregation, teaching creationism, and executing gay people. A conservative in 2014 believes "those people" are a little worse than whites, teaching creationism, and trying to marginalize gay people.

That 2014 conservative hasn't changed his views, society changed what the 'right-most' end of acceptable opinion is. He went from "right" to "far right" without changing any opinions.