Young people have more platforms to engage in current issues than we did 20/30/40-something years ago. Thirty years ago all I had were local newspaper articles, local news programming, and some national level news and published print but we mostly relied on the adults and peers around us to "fit in." Most local reporting were probably slanted to the regional sentiment. The internet, social media, and cable/satellite has elevated awareness and encouraged action, positively and negatively. I most likely would never have accepted Republican principles in my teens into my twenties with all this knowledge and information readily available the past decade as it went grossly against my core beliefs and views on humanity. Higher education and escaping my own thinking - getting past my own cognitive dissonance - took me on a different path in my thirties.