armory,
Don't be too dismayed. I am right in the middle of the "Generation X" age bracket and just outside your 18-30 demographic. I have been so surprised and encouraged by the people our age I've been running into--very bright, educated, charismatic people--everywhere I go who I just assumed must be liberal, but I discover after talking to them for just a few minutes, that they are almost all conservatives, usually with libertarian tendencies, and they're all well-informed and articulate ones at that.
I'll give you an example. A good friend of mine recently introduced me to the guys of a very up-and-coming local rock band here named "Eyes Around". I've since seen a number of their shows and had a number of opportunites to hang out with them. The subject of politics never came up simply because all of us were musicians so we usually talked about songwriting, the music industry and our favorite horror stories of being on the road.
Anyway, their drummer is also a killer hair stylist at the best and most-difficult-to-get-an-appointment-with salon in our small city, who cuts hair for all his bandmates as well as our mutual friend. I needed a cut so I went to him today. Now before I go on I want to bring your attention to the fact that this guy is a HAIR STYLIST (and a good one to boot), AND a DRUMMER in a ROCK BAND!!! Hope I don't offent anyone by saying this, but based on current trends, that's two huge strikes against him being anything but a liberal or a socialist--but I am redundant.
So, 2-3 minutes into our conversation I brought up the election and soon discovered he had voted for Bush and was a die-hard conservative! He later told me that all his bandmates are as well!
To be fair, I did see just the other day a scruffy old white man in a lifted 4x4 with huge mudders and a bedload of hay so I assume he's a farmer, but his bumper sticker said something about kicking Bush out so clearly he's against Bush, but he had no stickers that were actually pro-Kerry, so he might be just a disillusioned traditional conservative who feels betrayed by something Bush has done...who knows. Anyway, I see a lot more of the former than the latter.
There is great hope, armory. But by all means, be as much of an influence as you can, because this battle of ideology never ends, it only sways one way then the other, and persuasion is the only real weapon.
