Hinds grew up in an ideologically split family in southern Illinois. His father’s side was made up of blue-collar, conservative Democrats and his mother’s side traditional Republicans.

But Hinds, 18, came into his own political identity during high school, when President Bush announced a troop surge in Iraq in early 2007. Hinds supported the surge, but his peers thought he was clinging to a lost cause and employing the same thought processes their grandparents employed in the Vietnam era.

“I felt like a voice crying in the wilderness,” Hinds said. “They might still talk to you about something else like sports,” he said, “but when it got around to politics, you tended to be laughed at, ignored. Nobody really wants to talk to you.”

It’s an experience shared by many young conservatives living in an era of rapid political and social change; growing up in the state that spawned the Democratic machine, “Chicago-style politics” and President Barack Obama.

How permanently Democratic the Land of Lincoln really is may be fun fodder for pundits and politicos, but it doesn’t change the situation on the ground: Illinois is perceived to be solidly blue territory. For young people on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, growing up here can mean feeling isolated and ostracized just at the age when everyone craves acceptance by their peer group.

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