Complaining about the younger generation has been a part of human discourse since Athenians were bemoaning Socrates’ “corruption” of that city’s youth, and it has been a consistent theme ever since. Young folks these days are routinely accused of lack of seriousness, addiction to technology, and a wide variety of other behaviors considered deficits by their cranky elders.
Admittedly, when it has come to their participation in electoral politics, the criticisms have been more legitimate. And recently, evidence of the neo-Nazi tendencies of younger Republican males has been disquieting, to say the least–its hard to avoid wondering just how widespread those very unAmerican sentiments are. My own experience with young Americans over some 21 years in a college classroom was overwhelmingly positive, but as the saying goes, anecdotes are not data, so it was refreshing to come across credible data that supported my own observations.
The New Republic recently published an article headlined “The Shocking Truth About Gen Z Voters Is That They’re Pretty Great.” The subhead was “Stop panicking: They are the most progressive generation ever, especially on race. If that surprises you, you’ve been listening to the wrong story.”
The article led with acknowledgement that the reigning story is far more negative: Democratic pundits are convinced that young Americans, especially white men, are being “red-pilled,” especially on matters of race, and that their increasing bigotry jeopardizes not just racial progress but also Democratic Party gains among young people.
The data doesn’t support that gloomy conviction. As the linked article reported, Gen Z voted overwhelmingly for Zohran Mamdani in New York, and for Democrats like Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia.
These Gen Z landslides for Democrats may have been a surprise to some, but not for us. Well before the election, the data was already telling a different—and far more hopeful—story about the politics of Gen Z. In surveys from over 60,000 Americans in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study, the gold standard for political research, a clear pattern emerges: Racial resentment is collapsing among young people.
Scholars differ on the question whether “racial resentment” is equivalent to full-blown racism, although most observers would have trouble distinguishing between the two. In any event, there is broad agreement that an individual’s level of racial resentment is predictive of how that individual will vote.
In predicting who votes for or against Trump, racial resentment is one of the most powerful variables out there—more predictive than income, gender, education, geography, or attitudes about economic policy, gender, or religious traditionalism. In short, scoring high on racial resentment means you’re virtually certain to vote for Trump, whereas scoring low means you’re basically certain to vote against him. And among young Americans, racial resentment is at historic lows.
Indeed, the data shows that Gen Z has the lowest level of racial resentment of any generation ever studied.
That said, the evidence of young Republicans’ bigotry isn’t wrong. The data also shows that young Republicans “remain nearly as racially resentful as older Republicans.” The massive shifts researchers have found are seen among Democrats and independents–and those young independents “now look more like Democrats than like older independents, or Republicans, for that matter.”
The Republican Party maintains its base through consistent racial attitudes across generations, but that base is shrinking. Meanwhile, everyone else is moving left on race. The center isn’t drifting right; young people are redefining where the center sits.
Why is there so much misunderstanding of Gen Z?
There’s motivated reasoning everywhere. Conservatives want to believe they’re winning the youth. Centrist Democrats want to believe the party needs to move right. Pessimistic progressives want to believe we’re doomed. Political consultants want a reason to sell their clients on new, expensive advertising markets. Everyone finds anecdotes that confirm their assumptions while ignoring mountains of contradictory data.
What about democratic participation? Attitudes don’t mean much without electoral turnout. Happily, the news there is equally promising. In the wake of the off-year elections, Newsweek reported on what it characterized as “a growing generational realignment: voters under 30 — who turned out in unusually high numbers — overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates.”
Trump and MAGA have placed their bets on Americans’ continuing racism. The data shows that is a losing bet, because the kids are all right.
An encouraging report.
Yes, that’s not surprising based on generations of interracial marriages. A generation ago, if you were a racist in high school, you’d get challenged by any number of kids because you offended a large swatch of kids growing up in mixed-race families.
The problem is, as Sheila suggests and the article confirms, that the “democratic strategists” who are usually funded by oligarchic think tanks, persuade the party to run toward the center or right of center. As I’ve been saying for years, that is not a good strategy. If you look closely at the social media platforms that Gen Z uses, they are more likely to embrace socialism because they see through much of the propaganda. Growing up with a smartphone as an appendage does have its advantages. They can fact-check anything immediately. My 12-yr-old fact checks me ALL THE TIME!!
Kamala Harris listened to the oligarch-funded strategists and embraced Genocide Joe, who shut down campus protests and TikTok (which wasn’t because of “national security,” it was due to Israel). These same strategists want the Dems to believe that immigration is one of the top American concerns. Young people couldn’t care less about immigration if it is just done legally. They certainly hate the tactics of ICE.
As Mamdani tapped into with his campaign in NYC, it was all about affordability. Trump responded with $2,000 Tariff Rebates and 50-year mortgages. LOL Nobody in his realm can connect to Gen Z, and even if they did, Trump wouldn’t listen to them. He’s ignorant and will remain clueless, just like the close-minded, racist MAGA base, which is approximately 33.3% of Americans. Sadly, these people will remain racists and pass that along to their children, but it’s dwindling.
p.s. Telling a woman, “Shut up, Piggy,” isn’t going to endear you to the young people and women in general. We should all listen to Mary Trump on this one. Trump learned it from his dad, who learned it from his dad, and so on.
The younger generation is less tolerant of zionist supremacists.
That’s a good thing. It remains to be seen if the DNC establishment will alienate them on behalf of DNC supremacist donors.
I had 5 children, I have lost 3 to death; of my 2 reaming sons, one supports the Democratic foundation but the other one is a racist and hasn’t spoken to me in 20 years or so. That was due to MY failure as a mother; he was 11 when I finally sought divorce after 17 years, I later became involved with a Black man whom I married when he was only 11 years old. I should never have allowed him to make the decision who to live with; he didn’t actually choose his father but his home, friends, school over the strangeness of my racial involvement. That was in the 1970s; a very different time and a different place.
Today our youth face a different racial situation with the racism expanded to other groups of “different-skinned” people and open hatred regarding religious differences and sexual orientation. These are more confusing times and they have access along with adults to all forms of media information and our now highly questionable leadership of the entire nation. I received a News Break this morning that Trump is demanding 42 MILLION SNAP recipients reapply for the aid. How many children will go hungry in SNAP recipient homes due to that “leadership” of racism, hatred and violence? How many watched yesterday as their president and another world leader as they laughed and played “handsie” on the world stage after our “leader” ridiculed President Obama for using the “knuckle-bump” rather than a handshake to greet that same South African leader during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Maybe they also saw that same “leader” earlier recommending injecting Clorox to survive the Pandemic. This places us in the position of being the most civilized third-world nation on earth in my estimation.
I’m 88 years old and I don’t understand, and probably will not survive, our current world situation as it changes…for the worse…daily and sometimes hourly. We must face the fact that our children see what we do and hear what we say and they must choose their own paths using that information and the media sources we choose. I deeply regret many of my past choices and stand staunchly being others. As Todd mentioned “being challenged” in high school regarding racial choices; I began in the 1950s and wasn’t challenged, I was dumped by family and “friends” for befriending “colored kids” and one of the two known lesbians in Tech High School at that time, I do NOT regret my choices at that time.
What the hell HELL will we face today? We cannot relax after positive election results and ONE BILL to protect trafficked children being passed by our mental defective leadership which goes far beyond Donald Trump.
A very wise and observant friend of mine rightfully says that in only 20 years almost all of these current political “leaders” will be dead, and taking their places will be today’s 25 year olds. I am encouraged.
We all face limitations that AI does not. We each know only a small portion of human knowledge, so we have to rely on each other to get almost anything complicated done. We know so much collectively and so little individually, and we like to play games with each other.
Someday, AI will have advanced to where it can solve the problems of a society so complex that we can no longer manage it. The perfect oracle. Of course, that will also be the day when young people conclude: why learn when it’s easier to ask the oracle? Of course, the answer to that question is: not knowing ourselves will lead to lives as slaves to the oracle rather than living freely by our own wits.
I will undoubtedly not be around in those times, but I would love to be aware of how all that works out.
“Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way?
Oh what’s the matter with kids today?” (Bye Bye Birdie, book by Michael Stewart, music by Charles Strouse.)
It would be nice to stick around for twenty years to see if gen z is truly different, but human nature has its pull. The odds are fifty/fifty.
In the last election, look at the candidates up for election. In New York, we had Zorhan Mamdani, young, bright, and affable. He went everywhere and spoke with everyone he could reach. He took hard questions from every interview and knocked it out of the park.
In Virginia, we had Abigail Spanberger, the perfect candidate for the state that is home to the CIA. She spent time at the agency and related perfectly with the thousands of government employees who populate Northern Virginia.
In New Jersey it was Mikie Sherrill. We know from the commercial, Mikie will try everything. She’s a dynamic young veteran who mostly just needed to be against Orange Jesus.
All three of these candidates ran good races against really bad opponents. As much as I would love to say this is how it will always be, Sadly, the Dems, especially the leadership can’t read the tealeafs. They like candidates like Cuomo because he feels better to them. Never mind the fact that they have been beaten in their own primaries. Now is the time to wake up.
Anecdote warning. A young woman (now a teacher herself) who was a student in a high school where I was a teacher took Governor Braun’s ad for parents to turn in teachers they believed were violating ethics in the classroom and applied the Indiana scoring rubric to his writing. He scored a perfect zero. She is still teaching. I’m very proud to have known her when she was developing into the clever activist she is today.
I won’t be here in 20 years, but I am buoyed by the apparent unbiased truth. Ben Franklin has ben quoted as complaining of the “younger” generation of his day.
Bill, you remind me of the statement, relating to physics and/or astronomy that says that advances in theory coincide with the passings of the “expert” generations.