The media (and academia) is populated with sixties rebels, who considered it a superior path to evil business, or, God forbid, the military.
They're overgrown adolescents with authority complexes. It's not rational. It's all about the emotions. Republicans, capitalists, heterosexuals, men... they're all father figures. Socialism is just a handy rationale, in my opinion, and it hardly matters that it's an obvious failure.
Can they not look forward and see there is no future for them?
You hit the nail on the head. I noticed this when I was still a liberal. The Boomer generation never grew up. I blame the drugs.