Why does the future always have to be liberal?

[pbrower2a]

I mean, I can't imagine someone in 1955 saying "Thirty years from now will be conservative" or someone in 2009 saying "Just wait, the conservative populist revolt is coming".

Why does the future always "automatically" have to be liberal?

Conservatism is at best a fallback in the event of the failure of innovation and reform. Educational conservatism would involve the rejection of the look-say method in reading and the "New Math" after those got bad results.  Social conservatism would require that loosey-goosey styles of child-raising be abandoned when they get bad results. Cultural conservatism might involve a rediscovery of the merits of 'old dead males' whose merit is obvious (Vermeer, Bach, Tolstoy) in the wake of garbage expressing the unsavory desires of its creators as 'art'. Don't get me wrong: people outside the realm of 'dead white males' can now be supremely worthy of attention. The sicko who celebrates his pedophilia or the incompetent dabbler who shows his lack of knowledge of artistic conventions likely deserves to be ignored, of course.  Economic conservatism could mean that governments reject radical measures to create economic equality that has no compelling cause for such.

Against a reactionary demagogue like Donald Trump, liberalism is the fallback position.

Social progress has tended to be toward liberal humanism. Alternatives such as feudalism (a return to which would be unconscionable), Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism, the Taliban, and ISIS are not only antithetical to liberalism but easily refuted by liberal humanism.

  

[pbrower2a]

Most of the country is actually quite conservative, so I don't know why the future has to be liberal.

...but when conservatism fails, liberalism is far better than extremist alternatives.

[pbrower2a]

Conservatism is simply a fallback position when liberal measures prove ineffective or counterproductive. Right-wing dynamism typically has a reactionary bent, a desire to bring back old ways of social organization that accept modern technology and modern means of propaganda.

Fascism is Bolshevik terror and techniques of propaganda in the service of a reactionary dream.

[pbrower2a]

Because society naturally progresses over time, public opinion naturally sh**ts leftward due to younger people and older people dying off.

Not true


Silent Generation and Boomers were a lot more conservative than the GI generation

The elderly get more politically conservative as a group because poor elderly people who have less stake in a system of class privilege are more likely to die off. Being old isn't so bad so  long as one has one's health -- and the means with which to thoroughly enjoy life. Stay in shape, and so long as you have the funds you can go on walking tours of fascinating places,

On the other hand, life is grim, dreary, joyless, and precarious for the poor in America -- especially for the poor who happen to be old. The poor are more likely to get bad medical care, eat crappy food, and neglect dental care. The poor are less physically fit, and more likely to be alcoholic, obese, and hoked on cancerweed. '70 is the new 50' if one is middle-class or rich in America. '70' is an 'old 70' if one is broke.

People with less stake in the economic order are more likely to be liberals on economics.