The Not-So-Woke Generation Z
The Not-So-Woke Generation Z
The same young people once derided as liberal snowflakes are moving to the right.
Summary
Gen Z’s reputation as a reliably progressive generation has been challenged by recent U.S. election results, showing a noticeable shift toward conservative voting, particularly among young men.
Many young people struggle with financial security, psychological safety, and optimism about the future. Trump tapped into their anxieties of a frightening world that’s worsening.
Issues like inflation, financial stability, and safety now rank higher than traditional progressive causes for many young people.
Additionally, conservative influences from figures like Joe Rogan and family ties to Gen X parents may have nudged Gen Z rightward, reflecting their complex and evolving priorities.
I think the two most salient points here are:
- Podcasts
TV and radio are dead, social media is a wasteland. Podcasts are reaching young folks, especially men.
Which brings me to…
- Young men are in freefall
They’re doing worse than previous generations did at their age, across every metric you can imagine, and they’re also doing worse than young women.
That’s not to say we should stifle women’s success!
But if all you have to offer young men is a lecture on their unearned privilege, I think it’s not surprising that they take their business elsewhere.
Importantly: This doesn’t make them right.
But if we don’t figure this out, we’re fucked. We have to have a positive message for men who are struggling and desperate. If we don’t offer a plan, guess who will?
Trump tapped into their anxieties of a frightening world that’s worsening
No reflection on how Trump exponentially makes that worse?
So they’re stupider than we thought. Nice.
Edit: at least the ones that vote
We are now seeing the results of Bush's No Child Left Behind.
Edit: also:
For years, Gen Z has been either derided or praised for supposedly being “woke.” Its members have been called snowflakes, mocked for performative “slacktivism” and embracing trigger warnings, and described (favorably and unfavorably) as climate warriors and gun-control activists.
Pretty sure that was us Millennials. That stuff started in the late 2000s when all the Occupy shit popped off, when Gen-Z were just kids. Meanwhile we were handing them tablets and phones to keep them quiet and giving them unrestricted access to the Internet, beginning their radicalization right under our noses. Surprise, now leftist mom/dad have a Nazi son/daughter.
For years, Gen Z has been either derided or praised for supposedly being “woke.” Its members have been called snowflakes, mocked for performative “slacktivism” and embracing trigger warnings, and described (favorably and unfavorably) as climate warriors and gun-control activists.
Change a few labels, and this sounds like the same stuff aimed at Gen X - called slackers and the "political correctness" hysteria really started to take off when we hit early adulthood, etc.
The more things change....
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld:
You don't run for president with the voters you want, you run for president with the voters you have.
Stupid or not, these are the voters we have, and Democrats need to learn how to reach at least some of them if they ever want to win another election.
Not voting has the same consequences, so those aren't too smart either.
Gen Z are entitled like boomers, but with almost no economic prospects outside their parents.
Which makes sense, since loads of Gen Z were priced out of a future before they could even start earning, so there's no point in giving effort
At least Trump will guarantee Gen Z nearly unlimited well paying work if they're interested in bounty hunting immigrants and tracking fertility
GenZ is the generation raised by helicopter parents, whose late-Boomer-to-early-GenX parents went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they never faced any challenges. Of course they'd have some odd ideas about how the world ought to work, after spending their entire childhood and early adulthood with Mom and Dad working strenuously to shield them from personal struggles, emotional distress, and the consequences of their actions. What remains to be seen is how those attitudes shift as the rubber hits the road and their parents lose the ability to protect them from the increasingly dire state of the world. I suspect it'll be an even three-way split between blithe entitlement, despair and withdrawal, and an impulse to step up and do something about it.
No Child Left Behind
Only a small portion of GenZ was incentivized to show up this election. Interpreting the fact that only right wing GenZ showed up shouldn't be treated as a condemnation of a generation. White women didn't show up for Harris either. Would we make the same condemnation?
It all comes down to the fact that Democrats offered little and less in the four years where they could have accomplished something, and when called out for that, those critical were told to shut the fuck up.
What the Democrats offered was right wing politics: their base won't vote for it. Which isn't to say that groups like GenZ or women won't show up if you actually offer them something they want to vote for.
This loss can be dropped squarely on the shoulders of the deeply toxic "Blue No Matter Who/ Blue MAGA/ You can't be critical of Democrats because you only have two choices" philosophy. It was seriously at work here on Lemmy, and moderation and prominent posters here (and across the internet) did real damage filtering down forums like c/Politics, r/Poltiics, etc to select for a narrow and now very proven wrong approach to electoralism.
... or marketing, plain old marketing, advertising and public relations.
You can blast the airwaves with the same message over and over again eventually people just believe it ... either because they are lazy, don't care, it doesn't immediately matter to them or they just don't want to be bothered learning the details. It's the same process of convincing people to either like Coke or Pepsi.
Goebbels and the Nazi party easily mastered it in the 30s .... tell a lie, repeat it often enough and eventually it will be come true ... if you tell a lie, tell a big lie, the biggest lie you can make and everyone will believe it.
It all boils down to money and marketing ... whoever dumps the money into one party, politician, political movement will get the votes eventually and convince everyone of whatever reality they want them to believe.
Well yeah, social justice warriors threw traditional masculinity in the trash without a replacement plan. Just stand over there and take our abuse over privileges you've never experienced, oh and also vote for us. No shit they voted for anything else.
Complex and evolving priorites
Incels, what will they prioritize next?
Incoming Subsidy for Tesla Sex Robots
Honestly, if the weird "men's movement" and incels actually got their way on having great robot sex wives, and they thought that meant all the uppity real females have now been "replaced" or outsourced or whatever, would they stop being so angry? I do have to wonder....something tells me they'd still be butthurt about stuff.