ESSAY

Middle Aged Radical

We don’t all end up getting conservative as we age. Some of us go the other way.

Self-Portrait of the author.

The conventional wisdom is that we grow more conservative as we age. Presumably, we become less willing to take risks, more comfortable with the status quo, more fearful of change, less likely to try new things. My experience has been exactly the opposite.

For most of my adult life, I was concentrating on my career and raising a family. I didn’t think too deeply about politics. I was a registered Republican because I never bothered to change my party affiliation, which had been pre-formed, if you will, by my parents. I had long since switched party allegiances, but that’s how little it meant to me. I never bothered to change my official designation. I voted in the big elections and typically for the Democrat, but not loyally so. I even used to use that lame, old trope I’d heard: Socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I didn’t even really know what that meant, but it sounded enlightened yet reasonable.

I began to give a shit when Obama came on the scene. I felt fully, emotionally invested in his campaign, but I don’t think I donated money and I didn’t campaign for him. I was still looking on, not participating. But I watched the election results and cheered and made a fuss when he won…