We aren’t particularly kind to those young Gen Zs. See my The Financially Crushed Generation – Gen Z blog. They must deal with cost and income issues that older generations never faced. And while they seem dramatically alienated from traditional political parties, they totally diffused the potential of the red wave in the midterms. See my recent Younger Demographics and Our Political Future blog. They are better educated, as a whole, than X and older generations, however, and most are deeply committed to values like tolerance, diversity and climate change related issues.
The antiabortion stance, the denial of truth and history embedded in the culture wars, climate change marginalization, the brutal unkindness to immigrants gathered at our southern border and the excessive linkage with conspiracy theorists, White supremacists and hypocritical evangelicals embraced by the GOP suggests that Republicans are on the wrong side of an entire generation. Add millennials to that Z cohort, and the GOP may want to restructure if they are to remain viable. But to many, Y’s and Z’s also represent hope. Hope to end the bitter polarization that defines our nation today. Hope to resurrect a viable democracy from nascent autocratic, White Christian Nationalist trends among GOP voters, MAGA extremists, armed right-wing militias.
Sarah Lawrence College Politics Professor Samuel J. Abrams, writing for the November 19th Associated Press, looks at this potential – Gen Z saviors of democracy – that he sees every day among his students. “These young voters turned out en masse for Democrats [at the midterms]; CNN House exit polls show that 63% of Gen Zers voted for Democrats, which was a much higher percentage than for older generations. Just 43% of those over 65 voted for Democrats while 55% cast ballots for Republicans.
“But this midterm outcome does not mean that voters in this new generation are dedicated Democrats. In fact, they would be better described as pragmatists and issue-oriented voters… Gen Zers showed up at the polls in large numbers and voted in 2020 to push out Donald Trump. They engaged again this year because they wanted to take a stand against extreme positions promoted by many on the right. They turned to Democratic candidates who supported abortion rights and opposed the Trumpian movement to deny election results, and they rejected a host of extreme candidates in places like Arizona and Pennsylvania.
“At the same time, this generation largely lacks strong party attachments if we look at their political and ideological attitudes. This is made quite clear by College Pulse’s Future of Politics survey, which queried 1,552 undergraduate students at 91 colleges and universities at the start of the school year… When asked about how they see the major political parties, today’s college students are anything but enthusiastic. Less than a quarter of all students (21%) — Democrats and Republicans included — believe that the Democratic Party is acting in the best interests of democracy and just 25% feel the same way about the GOP.
“And when asked whether the parties are moving in the right or wrong direction, just 18% of all college students think that the Democratic Party is moving in the right direction; the number is a bit higher for the Republican Party. Cynicism about the parties’ future is the norm, with roughly half of all students being pessimistic about both parties.
“Interestingly, a poll released in late October by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics found that 57% of young voters ages 18-29 preferred Democratic control of Congress while 31% preferred GOP control; 12% were undecided. Yet only 32% of college-age voters identify as liberal, with another 19% claiming to be conservative. The plurality of students — 48% — call themselves moderates.
“The Future of Politics survey uncovers a similar breakdown with young voter party affiliation — 31% report that they are Republican and another 33% Democrat. The remainder 37% are either unaffiliated or Independent. Gen Z looks very different from those in the Silent Generation — President Biden’s and Nancy Pelosi’s generation, which has seen a decline in Independent voters and a rise in Republican identification in 2022.
“Gallup corroborates these trends and found that younger generational groups are more likely than their older counterparts to be centrist and less partisan. Millennials appear to be fairly stable centrists, unlike earlier generations, which have become more partisan over time.” Clearly, it wasn’t party loyalty or zealous leadership cult worship that brought Gen Z’s to the polls; it was issues and revulsion at the rise of right-wing, anti-democratic extremism that pulled them in.
And as I have blogged before, and notwithstanding the above surveys, pre-election polling of Gen Z is exceptionally difficult. They resent unnecessary intrusions into their lives, don’t answer phone calls from unknown numbers and, being deluged with requests for feedback at every purchase, they tend to avoid these surveys like the plague. But they are rising fast, and while they may seem politically apathetic, cynical to the max, given a strong reason to vote, they do so en mass. 2024 looms large!
I’m Peter Dekom, and if Congressional gridlock and polarization are the disease, Gen Z just might be the cure… as possible saviors of American democracy.
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