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.
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.
Except the parents aren't hippies but run a Yoga studio and make podcast to stay afloat, are apolitical and don't vote. Alex's only successful venture has been to transform his parents' yoga retreat into an oligarchs brothel catering to Russian billionaires and Chinese whales.
You joke, but ... fore many white men these job prospects (cop, immigration office, jail guard) are a reality. The factories have all moved away. If you're a contractor, doing roofing or painting for example, you're competing against illegal immigrants that work under the table.
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.
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.
Weren't the same kinds of things aimed at kids raised by Dr. Spock? In other words, the boomers?
Voting isn't an endorsement for literally everything a candidate says and does. No one even knows who you vote for unless you tell them. It's about picking the best of the choices. Your lack of a vote is just as much an endorsement of genocide as a vote for Trump, especially since he won.