Pretty close to the same story here. Grew up under mostly awake parents, never had to really get awakened, just a little more educated.

They were awakened by a lot of things. Both originally leaned democrat; then the democrats went full on pro-abortion crusade, and they flipped, disgusted.

My great grandfather came to this country ~1900. He had come from sleeping on straw mats to a country where he did not know the language or just about anyone in it. What did he do? he worked his ass off, learned the language, and started his own businesses. He owned a grocery store, rental properties, and I think some other stuff. That grocery store became their life; my dad remembers growing up in and around it fondly. One day, big boy government decided "yeah, no, that's ours now", took it, kicked 'em out, bulldozed it, and built a school on it. That school has since closed and re-opened probably a dozen times; it is largely a failure.

From there on out, each generation of my family has taken up entrepreneurial ventures, to great success; success that has been thoroughly snuffed out by what is best described as direct and deliberate government action.

Fuck the government.

I don't think voting age increases would help anything, by the way. If anything, a lot of these problems stem from the boomers that withdrew into their own little bubbles of consumerism. They withdrew from politics because they would rather immerse themselves in their own lives; their jobs, their cars, their next materialist sensation. To be sure, that isn't all boomers; and boomers today seem to be fighting for what's right the most. The problem is, it's a bit of a case of "too little too late" on that front. They blindly built the foundations of the world of today; now, we're all reaping the effects.

Realistically, what we need going forward is for the idea that someone can just withdraw to themselves and ignore the world around them to die. Evil never rests; if we do not maintain our society, it will not hesitate to take over for us.