WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Any man who is under 25, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.” 

The origins of this quotation are uncertain. Numerous variations of it have been around for nearly 150 years and have been attributed to a variety of authors, most notably Winston Churchill. The earliest known variation of this axiom is credited to the French jurist Anselme Batbie in 1875. 

“But,” asks Dan Weber, president of the senior advocacy organization, AMAC, “is this quotation true or just an old saw? The intensity of the progressive movement among millennials in recent years certainly suggests the first part of the adage is fact. But only time will tell whether the political bent of these youthful citizens will make a right turn as they grow older and wiser.”

AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens, was established by Weber to provide conservative senior citizens a forum that reflects their traditional American beliefs. He says that youthful voters are better educated today than they were in years past. “And that hopefully gives them the capacity to see through impossible political promises and reject progressive notions of governance.”

According to the Pew Research organization, only 9% of elderly women in their 70s and 80s had a college education when they were 21 to 36 years old; these days 36% of women between 21 and 36 have at least a bachelor’s degree. Similarly, just 15% of elderly men had college educations when they were 21 to 36 years old and today 29% men between the ages of 21 to 36 have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Weber cites a recent National Review article entitled “How Might Republicans Win Young Voters?” describing how the liberal proclivity of youthful voters can be overcome. “It will require a concerted effort on the part of conservative candidates, but I am convinced it is do-able,” he says. 

The author of the National Review report, Nate Hochman, concluded: “Progressivism, of course, has its own set of potentially crippling strategic problems. It has adopted a set of priorities that, while popular among young voters, alienates large swathes of the electorate. The recent Democratic presidential-primary debates were a case study in this ludicrosity: Abolition of private health insurance, de facto open borders, and a Green New Deal all received enthusiastic support from top-tier candidates. But rather than scoff at the absurdity of it all, Republicans need to offer a sensible and aspirational alternative.”

Weber believes Hochman’s suggestions “make sense if there are enough rationale voters out there who believe that the prudent choices in coming elections are candidates who offer a realistic approach to our nation’s future. We’ve seen research indicating that more and more young voters are becoming disillusioned with the progressive movement. Will they opt for irrational solutions to the challenges America faces or dare cast their ballots for candidates who can continue to energize the country’s future? At the end of the day, if they don’t, the outcome will be chaos and a bankrupt economy.”

Weber says, the politics of youth is neither liberal nor conservative.  “Voters in their late teens and between 20 and 30 years of age make up what is called the counter-culture. They want to be different. And, for quite some time now the left has dominated American politics, throughout the Obama years. And, despite the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, the left has dominated the media and the attitudes of collegians, enough so that conservatism is now seen as “edgy” and “cool” because it is different, as political commentator Lauren Reiff put it.”