Political categorizations like any categorization has to meet certain criteria. The criteria are: completeness (that the whole domain under discussion should be covered by the n number of categories chosen), mutual exclusivity (each object or entity should unambiguously belong to only one category, i.e. categories should have no intersection), proportionality (categories should be of similar size and have objects of similar granularity), relevance (objects should be of the same type), and parsimony (the lowest number of categories that can meet the other criteria should be used.)
The categorization of the landscape of political positions, ideologies, ideals, policies and values into a single axis left-right spectrum obviously doesn't meet any of the criteria mentioned. It is not complete as it is only one-dimensional. The objects of the domain (ideals, policies, values) are not well-defined which means they cannot be mutually exclusive. They are also not proportional (many right-wing values and ideals are mostly default reactions of humans to certain phenomena [the debate is how much we can stray from the path our evolutionary past has carved for us towards objective rationality without breaking things so a compromise is needed between traditional more simple right-wing values mostly a result of human reactions, and left values which result from theory-crafting and defying nature; the baseline human condition has been to lean into the more immediate reactions until the past 300 years, and the theory-crafting has alsoe seen itself be vulnerable from straying for the path towards rationality], making them contain a larger array of objects). Relevance is the weakest point of this categorization as the ideals, values and policies the categories lump together mostly have no rhyme or reason in what components they share, let alone the fact that the ideals and policy-positions change based on spatial and temporal context. I will not enumerate the other ways the categories don't meet the criteria for brevity, but you get the point.
Now one might object that a categorization that perfectly meets all the criteria is not possible. That's true, and most natural language categorizations are done for their utility in communication more than for objective categorization. So does this categorization have utility? Yes but with a gaping caveat: it has made itself useful as the categorization itself has shaped perceptions about political alignments historically in its own image through adoption by parties, factions, etc. Hence the utility is contingent, the same way the categorization of late romans into green and blue based on the color of charioteer teams they supported was contingently useful.
The historical roots of the utility of this categorization makes it a point of team-sports for those who adopt it to the point of seeing themselves as sharing the disparate ideals and policy-positions associated with these categories and having a common cause and history with the groups, parties and political factions who have adopted the monikers, hence making this a point of pride and identity, further enhancing grouping cohesion, adding to the practical utility of seeing political actors in the light of this originally pretty bad categorization.
Now say these things to any right-winger or left-winger and most scoff at you and say to you: "What the fuck are you on about, it's not that serious". Now I'm say that to show my main point: both left and right will share in that response because culture is a tsunami wave that hauls everything on its way together. The left and right share much more than they think they do. If culture moves in ways that I think is wrong, both the left and the right will inherit it irrespective of their positions. I think certain aspects of culture have been moving in wrong directions (in other aspects the trend towards better directions has been proven inevitable; will touch on this later). Anti-intellectualism, thinking in preconceived notions and molds, ready-made answers, aversion to suspension of judgement, intolerance of intellectual curiosity, an obsession with identity and an insistence on metaphysical reality of these fictitious identities; these are all things the left and the right share. I don't like this general cultural trend, and the fact that the left-right categorization has no way of taking these values and my dislike of them into account is the ultimate point I'm making here. What am I if I don't like left and right in this way?
Some will say you are at the center. Others will say that the right do oppose these cultural trends. In the case of the latter, there's a tangible increase in chatter about these things from the right (and they seem to have taken the mantel of blabbing about things like "freedom of speech" and "values of civilization" from the left which historically has been the side that tries to claim some of these values), but wherever there's a lot of blabber about something, there's a decided lack of the same thing also (which is exactly why there's a need to emphasize it a lot) and this is extra true for many right-wingers who seem to be the most incurious, ready-made answer having, least tolerant, judgment-suspending critters on earth. But there are right-wingers who are the opposite of this as well (Peter Hitchens comes to mind) but we have to lump them together unfortunately as the result of this historically adopted categorization.
About the former position of people like me being center because we're against left or right because of their practical (irrespective of lip-service) aversion to the ideals mentioned, I have to disagree. Center is about stability, and protection of status-quo. There was before the 1970s and esp. 1990s after the fall of soviets a real sense of insecurity on both sides about their truths as there was an opposing camp out there that could not be silenced. With the fall of soviets, the liberal and conservative side (the right-wing) lost this insecurity (cf. Huntington, Fukuyama) and this has been mirrored in culture and political discourse moving the Overton window to the right. So the old center-right (liberals) has become center in many parts of Europe (and in U.S. and some other places they are even considered center-left because of perceptions of progressiveness in social policy; or even by some they are considered far left, which is a joke as there's nothing far or subversive about liberals; conservatives are liberals themselves, they just don't know it and think just because they disagree with the socially liberal liberals on a couple of cultural issues that they, the socially conservative liberals are drastically different).
Before this upwelling of liberal confidence which dragged the center towards it, the center-right was pro-market liberals (Neo-classical Marshallians, Jevonians, Walrasians in a sense), the center-left was pro-mixed economy social democrats (Keynesians, Pigouvians, Kahnians if you will) and the center was much more opaque. Now what people call center is just a pale shade of right and the attitudes of ready-made answers (talking heads with talking points) is as prevalent among them as it is with cultural vogue leftists or those who worship at the altar of Marx (or Adam Smith, same difference).
I said I will touch on those aspects of culture which I think are going in the right direction and these are the things which seem to be long trends which depend on modern institutions and modes of life rather than spontaneous changes of mentality. This will pertain to your point more directly. Until a couple decades ago in many underdeveloped parts of the world (and even to this day in some places), and until 70, 80 years ago in many western cultures, torturing animals and laughing at freaks in circuses was the favorite pastime of the populace. But through what Norbert Elias calls the civilizing process, these acts of violence and other mentalities of cruelty and lack of compassion and tolerance are in a general downtrend in the world and this trend is continuing, albeit maybe with some local and temporal breaks in the trend here and there.
This is not however paralleled in personal attitudes following a similar trend when biases and intellectual honesty, curiosity and pro-intellectualism are in question. The civilizing process, hence is more a result of deeper societal factors like the monopoly of state on violence, urbanization, a minimum level of education for all, food security due to chemical fertilizers and pesticides etc. and it will continue independent of other less appealing cultural trends that I talked about previously. What many see as a conspiracy and a left-wing shift in culture is a byproduct of this process. I'm talking about the topic of culture wars in the west, lgbt rights, abortion, multiculturalism, social justice, etc. What many perceive as attempts at propagandizing them about these issues, is just a function of high concentration of abnormal and marginal groups in big urban centers and the further fact of these big urban centers being also centers of entertainment industry coupled with the fact that everyone writes themselves and their environment into their fiction.
Other part of this civilizing process that is seen as a promotion of left-wing values is its effect on women, age of marriage, their income and the level of control they have over their relations. Incidentally there was a debate about the age of Aisha when she married the prophet in our country a week or so ago. Funnily enough this was first used by mainly British orientalists like Sir William Muir and David Margoliouth to attack Islam, when debutante balls in Britain paraded 12 year old girls to their prospect suitors in their 30s up until like 1920s. A change in socio-economic conditions (transition from agricultural production, and also that agricultural production being guaranteed to surpass subsistence levels due to technological advances, making the obtaining of numerous male children as early as possible not as necessary is the main reason getting rid of useless daughters as early as possible for parents, and getting married as soon as possible to girls as soon as they hit puberty to guarantee maximum amount of sons, waned as a practice, coupled with the fact that with the new opportunities of education and employment, girls were not seen necessary as a burden by their parents, and they also didn't see their best prospects as exclusively marrying to the highest bidder and becoming a comfortable housewife.) necessitates changes in culture henceforth. These trends will continue. The frustrations with the change of trend to those born to a different world, or to parents with values from a different world has only lead to the defeat of those resisting in the past couple of centuries.
Now what this means for younger voters, and their preferences isn't straight-forward; esp. regarding anything other than cultural strife. For cultural strife, though, my prediction is that the civilizing trend will continue although local over-extensions (for instance what some see as propagandizing of lgbt groups in entertainment or excessive power of females in deciding for their relationships and their bodies leading to antagonism towards and caricaturization of portraitures of feminism and women's rights, the excesses themselves a byproduct of newfound confidence borne out of new socioeconomic realities) may lead to correction intervals (where the reaction succeeds for a decade or so to reverse the effect). As I said, since the civilizing effect is seen as correlated with left-wing cultural ideals, the continuation of the trend will mean a more "left-wing" trend in those areas, if you will. But such cultural ideals are tied at the hip with other ideals of multiculturalism (which also means a more tolerant attitude toward migrants, refugees, etc.) since they all have their roots in the hodgepodge of big urban center life. The contrasts in these areas can be more stark (esp. in the west as it can turn into the easily tangible contrast between white vs brown, or western vs Muslim) and the adoption of those ideals might not have the same socio-economic force behind it that the other aforementioned stuff does. In fact the opposite might be true, and you might get people who are "left" on lgbt, abortion and feminism issues, but right-wing on immigration and multiculturalism. I'm not sure about this, I haven't really thought about it that deeply.
In terms of the economic side of things, my prediction depends on the assumption that left economics is kind of dead. But since the decades ahead will be times of turmoil whatever the status quo is will lose power. The status quo by an Austrian will be perceived to be Keynesian and what alternative they will demand will be (surprise!) libertarianism, but the status quo that the Marxist sees will be neoliberalism and the alternative they demand will be (surprise!) Marxism, and some liberals will agree with the Austrian, some with the Marxist and some will think the status quo is liberal and good actually (absolute minority). I think since I proclaimed that left economics is dead, then we have to conclude that in this scenario the Austrian will prevail in persuading larger swathes of people and a period of central bank abolishment and privatization of all will ensue; the nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw period (I see it happening around 2040) will not be pretty; the pendulum swing will probably revive some sort of violent reaction to the other side and Marxism may be on the scene again, as historical alternatives have staying power as they form political traditions. But if conditions go haywire due to climate change more than it's predicted and our institutions collapse and we revert to a less-educated populace the absolute primacy of previously mentioned immediate reactions might take over again. It's all vain speculation anyway. Other than the continuation of the civilizing process in the long run (with local setbacks here and there due to weakening of socioeconomic factors making it possible), I have not much else substantial to say.
