I think this cycle is more like half a generation above you than a whole generation. My fav bands in my teen prime were in their early 30’s, while my parents were closer to early 50s at the time.

Primary elections aren’t democratic either (see party delegates). I feel like people who say this are rarely politically engaged in their communities. Same with the people who say to get involved in local city politics to make change.

Ultimately you’re supporting a facist system that is historically atrocious and currently financially supporting a genocide almost singlehandedly but go ahead and keep telling people that the best way to maintain some semblance of moral character is to vote in this sham.

For sure, and with even a teensy bit of reflection I think most people would agree that people are generally quite shit at expressing themselves with words. We say things we don’t mean or imply things we didn’t intend to all the time. A well written book or article takes hundreds of hours of re-writing and getting feedback and re-writing again just to try to communicate the author’s idea effectively. Snap judgments based on social media posts alone are pretty baseless.

Yes, best to assume you’re always misunderstanding, or at least not understanding completely, a conversational comment until you have a holistic understanding of where they’re coming from (ie you become familiar with them and how they think and what they value).