Stop thinking about "Liberal/Conservative" as political concepts, and instead frame this in terms of "I've got mine, screw you":
The Boomer Generation is the last generation to have retirement plans paid for by the companies where they worked, everyone after that might have a measly 401k, at best. The Boomer Generation will have their Social Security and Medicare intact, everyone after them will see large cuts. If you were in the military, your retirement/benefits deal is substantially better than anyone that came after you. If you went to college, your cost of college was a fraction of those that came after, letting you build wealth during your earning years instead of struggling to pay back the loans. If you ran a business or were an executive as a Boomer, you might have outsourced jobs overseas in the name of short term profits, so that everyone who comes after you struggles to find an actual middle-class job like you had.
Pay attention to folks in Congress with "deficit panic." Every cut they discuss to make these social programs "sustainable" will only affect those AFTER the Boomer generation, they would never touch that cohort, because they vote in such large numbers.
So, you're sitting there as a Boomer about to retire or in retirement, you've got at least one retirement check coming in, perhaps double dipping, looking at your Social Security about to start, and comfortable that just about everything is taken care of, and that you "deserve" all those goodies coming your way, and the next thing you think is "screw everyone else." Screw everyone that comes after me, because they don't deserve it, or we can't afford it as a country, or they must not have worked as hard as me, etc.. Something, anything to rationalize it.
There's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance necessary, but it works. Getting a retirement check from the city for being a firefighter for 25 years? - No problem saying that we can't afford retirement benefits for anyone that comes AFTER you, because the city "can't afford it". It's like a school district trying to get a bond measure through. If you're a parent with kids, you might vote for it, but after the kids are grown up? Screw all those people, we can't afford all this money for schools - so the schools decay for everyone trying to raise a kid after you. People translate all this BS into "conservative" politics, but it's not conservative at all - it's as simple as "I've got mine, screw you".
The press should talk less about income equality/class warfare and more about the coming "war" between the Boomers and everyone that comes after. Turn on the cable shows and you'll see Boomers saying how lazy all those kids coming out of college are, because they are not working, etc, in a broken, bankrupt system that they created and left to them. Better get working everyone! You'll need to work long hours in all those sub-middle-class jobs to pay for the programs the Boomers are sucking dry - which you yourself won't benefit from.
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
