disengagement more dangerous than ideology

from Dave Pollard's Why Both Conservatives and Progressives Are Out of Touch With Mainstream Americans, interpreting Michael Adams' American Backlash:

liberals and conservatives are closer in values to each other than either group is to non-voting Americans

"It's not the values of the politically ascendant conservatives or the values of politically challenged progressives that are growing most rapidly -- but the values of the 50% of America that is politically disengaged -- risk-taking, thrill-seeking, fatalism, survival-of-the-fittest false Darwinism, exclusion, ostentatious consumption, and status-seeking... The values of the politically disengaged lack any sign of idealism: These Americans seem to reject both the Republican (traditional religion and values, father-led home, obedience to authority) and Democratic (gender equality, inclusion, tolerance, and personal spirituality) visions of the good life and the ideal community."

Youth disengagement has, on many occasions in human history, been a precursor to especially brutal exhibitions of civil and international violence. America may well be, as Adams says, "perpetually exceptional", but when what makes it exceptional is intellectual, psychological, and emotional withdrawal on a massive scale, that sounds to me like cause for alarm.