I always found it funny when college students, who skew very liberal, make comments along the lines of, "I just don't understand conservatives," or, "How can someone possibly vote for the Republican Party?"
It's easy to judge the country when your world is the size of a quad. Being 18-22 years old and at a university means your brain has never been more malleable yet your environment has never been smaller. This makes it very easy to look at the country that exists outside the confines of campus and see the value in change. After all, you're living in a bubble city for four years without a real stake in the game as a working adult. You're not threatened by change because you have nothing to lose.
But all the liberal thinking of college students goes away the minute administration starts making controversial changes to campus life. The students start soft riots and ask, "Why are we trying to solve a problem that didn't exist in the first place?" They complain about how administration is ruining what makes the college great. They cling to this dream of always keeping things the way they have always been. I know because I was that angsty student only a few years ago.
Both college liberals and adult conservatives don't want to see any changes in their worlds. It's just that your world as a college student is only the size of your campus, while your world as a working adult is the size of your country. So I don't really want to hear it when 19-year-olds say they "don't understand Republicans." You don't have to be one, but you can at least see where they're coming from. It's a dirty little secret, but deep down, college students are pretty conservative too.
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