I was never a supporter of GamerGate (as I never thought games journalism ever actually EXISTED) but I thought they sort of had their place as critics of games "journalism" and I dunno how to phrase it...publicly visible "eye rolling" at the petulant manchild side of the -indie- scene (I.E. Phil Fish. Sorry Bob, I know people who've worked with him and he's a prick who needs serious mental help, through and through). I was willing (and still think to a degree) that the worst shit blamed on them is coming from a group of dedicated trolls who have delighted in both having a plethora of outspoken victims to abuse and an identity/group to scapegoat the hell out of that is too dumb to deal with it.

I checked out when the faux-libertarian right showed up, salivating at the realization that there's a decent chunk of the young millennial and GenY crowd that are irritated/repulsed by the easily-triggered, hyperbolic, and loud tumblr-ite side of the far left.

The scary part is; they aren't entirely wrong thinking these can pick these kids off.

Bob, my job basically has me (a guy who just turned 30) in the thick of kids 18-26 or so in the heart of Liberal academia. These kids by all definition are "the enemy" as far as the far-right is normally concerned. But after 4 years of conversations and basically living with this group of kids, I've come to a conclusion.

Take a deep breath to staunch the existential horror this will fill you with as it did me:

These kids are not leftists. They're libertarians.

Their political idols aren't Rush, Santorum, Romney, Christie, Jindal, O'Reilly, Hannity, Walker, etc.

They're also not Obama, Hillary, Coumo, any Kennedy, Warren, or Maddow.

It's still Ron fucking Paul, Colbert, Stewart, Alex Jones, etc.

Yes, Cobert/Stewart are more left of center. But the thing these kids see that matters is that they do "skewer both sides".

These kids are about -choice-, not -justice-.

They support gay marriage because "It's a legal contract and there's no reason to deny them access", "The government never should've have been in the business anyway", "It's also double plus certain churches have no business telling people they can't either", "Doesn't hurt me."

Same with drug legalization.

They don't want the government intervening in foreign affairs, they don't want the government spying on them, they distrust the police.

They also don't want the government telling them what to do with their property or money, and don't want the government policing speech of seemingly any type.

That's the scary thing. And if the left (and the Democratic party, which I am a fully-admitted regular voter for) goes into future political battles assuming the youth is leftist and automatically on their side, they're going to hand a whole generation of kids over to the faux-libertarian wing of the right.

That's the bigger issue to me that I've noticed.