It Could Happen Here - Are Gen Z Men All Republicans Now

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Robert and Mia discuss a recent Washington Post article arguing that a Gen Z political divide will destroy marriage and take a look at the actual political trends in Gen Z.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Calls on media. Oh, boy, howdy. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here A podcast About those Wacky Gen Z kids

And how All of the things that the mainstream media Used to say about millennials I have now embraced to say about Gen Z Who are destroying the world uh through their through their greed and uh evilness and good knees comparatively um yeah mia uh how are you doing you're you're gen z right yeah so i'm on okay i am on the exact borderline of I am either the oldest zoomer or the youngest millennial. So you're a day walker, right?

Like you're the you're the blade of Gen Z. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so you could go out in the sunlight, but you still need blood. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Who's the Chris Christopherson?

I guess I'm the Chris Christopherson if we're doing the original Blade movie, which I watched over Thanksgiving break. Pretty good. I hadn't seen it in like fucking 20 years, but solid movie. Solid movie. I feel like it's kind of downhill from the Blood Rave, but the Blood Rave is pretty sick. Everything in culture was downhill from Blood Rave. But yeah, it's got some good bits to it still um you know what doesn't have good bits to it the institution of marriage that i mean i don't

disagree with that but um i was going to say the washington post editorial board um you know yeah so we are talking as this is an episode about um some jinzi panic shit that came out recently that You know, yeah. alone in the bathroom last week. On November 22nd, 2023, the Washington Post editorial board published an opinion column with the provocative title, If Attitudes Don't Shift, A Political Dating Mismatch Will Threaten Marriage. Hell yeah.

This rips. I love this. We're finally destroying the institutions. Yeah, we're doing this through a political dating mismatch. Now, I think an article with roughly this premise drops every year, sometimes a couple of times a year on a couple of different places. This time it came in through the Washington Post editorial board. And the basic premise of this specific article is that Gen Z and millennial men are growing more conservative while women are growing

more progressive. This threatens marriage as an institution because all these close-minded Gen Z lib broads won't date Republicans, right? That is literally like the point of the article is Gen Z liberal women are less willing to date outside of their political beliefs, and men are getting more conservative. So it's really a danger for marriage. Now, I understand if your first impulse is to say something like, well, when has the Washington Post editorial board ever been right about a single goddamn thing? And that is a correct attitude to have. Sometimes they make the decision not to publish an article.

There are some days where they don't write anything. Yeah, that is a good decision. If they made that decision every day, I would be fully supportive of the Washington Post editorial board. And if they'll hire me, I can make that decision for them every day. I'm very good at not doing anything. That said, even though it is correct to say the Washington Post editorial board are basically always wrong, I've still run into overwhelming numbers of my peers who think

this article is silly, but still buy into the basic points in this piece. This is generally married to a widespread belief, which is actually cited in the article, that toxic male influencers like Andrew Tate have tilted huge numbers of young men to the right. So even though people will be widespread belief, which is actually cited in the article, that toxic male influencers like Andrew Tate have tilted huge numbers of young men to the right. So even though people will be like, well, it's stupid to expect people to date, you know, folks who believe horrible political things that would hurt them. It's true that men are getting more, young men are getting more conservative, right? And this is, I think, generally down to this, this belief that has, I don't think people examine often.

They just sort of like – they get concerned about the popularity of guys like Tate, which is valid. He's concerning. But assume that does mean that like, yeah, we're losing the young men. They've all been tilted towards these guys. And so without discounting the damage of dudes like Tate, I wanted to give a breakdown of how common the so-called rightward tilt of young men actually is. Because, spoilers, this is a pernicious bit of disinformation, and I think it kind of blackpills a lot of people unnecessarily.

Let's start with the obvious point here. Young men are not growing more conservative across the board than men of other generations. So, first off, I want to read you a quote from this post editorial. Since Mr. Trump's election in 2016, the percentage of young women ages 18 to 30 who identify as liberal has shot up from slightly over 20 percent to 32 percent. Young men have not followed suit. If anything, they have grown more conservative. Now, that claim is based You want to guess

did they cite a bunch of different sources to prove that it's a really widespread problem? Or do they have a single shady source? It's the Washington Post editorial board. Those people could not find a second study if you nailed it to their face. They sure couldn't.

They googled real quickly, or I'm not even gonna give them credit for Googling. One of their friends who works at a right-wing think tank sent them a survey from that right-wing think tank because the entire statistical basis of that claim is a study by the American Enterprise Institute, which is a center-right think tank that tends to produce center-right surveys.

And even then, the study that they're actually citing doesn't show what the post-editorial board claims. Again, their claim is young men have not followed suit. If anything, they have grown more conservative, right? Young men. So they are talking across the board about Gen Z and millennial males, right? I'm going to quote from that study. Previous research identified a growing gap in ideological orientation between young men and women.

The gender gap in liberal identity is notable among members of Generation Z, but it's relatively modest. 43% of Gen Z women identify as liberal, compared to 35% of Gen Z men. However, the gender is doing there, is it's saying 43% of Gen Z women, all Gen Z women identify as liberal, whereas, and then it goes to 36% of white Gen Z men identify as conservative. Yeah, that's not the same. It's switching it on them, right? And while it does eventually acknowledge the differences, because it says that like across the board, all Gen Z men, 35% are conservative, 43% of Gen Z women are liberal.

That's not a massive gap, right? The Washington Post editorial board just makes the claim that young men have grown more conservative, which is not supported by the study. And also the study is specifically talking about how Gen Z white men have gotten more conservative, right? Very different things being claimed here. So the Post just ignored what was actually in the survey to claim all young men, not just young white men, are more conservative. Not just Gen Z white men are more conservative. Now, this is weird, but even if you take the study, which is misrepresented by the editorial board at its face value, that study does not gel with all of the other data that we have. Now, when I went through this, it was hard to find good data on just Gen Z men.

That is not broken down in most of the studies that we get. But we do have some information on how Gen Z adult men voted as a group in the 2022 midterms. And that data is telling. Based on the 2022 midterms, 71% of young women, that's Gen Z, mostly Gen Z, 18 to 29. So I think Gen Z taps out at 26 right now. So presumably a percentage of the people in this are technically millennials, but they're like you. They're day walkers. Yeah.

And that's like what, like, oh, my God, I can't do math live on air. I think it's like 27 to 40 something is the millennials. But I'm going to say it's close enough to this. This is close enough. It's only like three years of people. Yeah, exactly. And they're the three years that are that are right in the middle. But of that, of these voters in the 2022 midterms, 71 percent of young women voted for Democrats.

Twenty six percent voted for Republicans. Fifty three percent of young men voted for Democrats. Forty two percent voted for Republicans. And among LGBT. And again, this is not broken down male or female – 93% voted for Democrats. And overall among non-LGBT youth, 58% voted for Democrats, 38% voted for Republicans. here. And one thing that may help to explain this, that again, is not really broken down in the Washington Post editorial, is that while Gen Z white men are more conservative compared to like Gen Z millennial white men, Gen Z itself is a lot less white than prior generations, which means overall Gen Z men are not really getting more conservative. About 55% of Gen Z is white compared to about 70% of boomers,

right? So this is one major reason why, again, because again, if you actually factor in all of Gen Z, there's not this huge worry about like a marriage discrepancy, as long as you assume that people, you know, that interracial dating is not a problem for most people, the way it is for apparently the Washington Post editorial board. And there's a couple of caveats here. One is that midterm voters are historically more engaged and educated than voters of other generations. However, that may not necessarily hold true with Gen Z or millennial voters today due to a variety of factors. One worthwhile point is that young people tend to be driven far more by what they encounter through social media, which is probably part of why Gen Z and millennial voters consider

abortion to be a more important thing to vote on than the economy by a margin that bears no resemblance to older generations. This is why we've actually seen in the last four elections soaring youth voter turnout, particularly during the midterms, record levels of youth voting, which doesn't mean it's completely wrong that midterm voters may be a bit more engaged and educated, but that's probably less of a factor for young voters than it is for older generations, right? Some of the conventional wisdom about who votes when is not as accurate when we're talking about younger

people. This is not something that you can prove objectively, but there's significant sort of circumstantial evidence around this. Speaking of circumstances, you know what circumstances get me to spend my money? Is it being served products and services? Well, it's when those products and services advertise on this podcast and only this podcast. So check that shit out, homies. Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys,

and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter?

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as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, and we're back. So, yeah, one of the overall points to make that I think goes against this kind of panic a lot of people have that Gen Z is somehow being like pilled away from progressive politics is that as a result of stuff, primarily abortion, Gen Z voters supported Democrats over Republicans in the midterm elections by an astonishing 27 points. This is, again, a large part of this came down to abortion, which Gen Z voters prioritize by a higher amount than any other generation. One of the things that was noted in one of the studies I found is like a potential line of hope for Republicans is that while this, and this is

part of where I think some of the the fear mongering in these, these Washington Post articles comes from, although I don't think it says what they think it says, is that lower numbers of young people support specific parties, right? So only about 30% of Gen Zers align with Democrats, compared to 24% of Republicans. And if you just look at that, compared to 24% of Republicans. And if you just look at that, that's way less – that seems like you're seeing like these numbers sort of kind of tighten up. But again, they still voted over – Democrats over Republicans by 27 points. It's just that Gen Z is less loyal to political parties, which doesn't necessarily mean that progressivism is in danger.

It just means that most young people hate the democrats too and that could and the other thing is like the thing that actually legit and i think this is legitimately a part of it is like well okay so what happened what's happening to all those people and the answer is they're becoming socialists and it's like well that doesn't help the republicans either so yeah and it's it's i mean part of it is that more young people identify with like kind of more politically radical chunks of progressivism part of it is that a lot more of them identify as independent and may not have, may not identify themselves super much as a specific political chunk. But in general, like they vote progressive. They just don't have any faith in like the ossified political structures in our society, which is a rational thing to do as a young person, right? So I also want to address kind of the elephant in the room with this piece,

which is that the Washington Post editorial board's obsession with political divide among the young harming marriage specifically is also kind of gay panicky, right? Because one of the reasons why there seems to be this divide that they see is like this threatens marriage is that a higher percentage of Gen Z kids are less interested in straight marriage. And these Gen Z kids, male and female, are not getting more conservative, but they're also presumably not going to do the kind of marriage that the Washington Post editorial board wants. Right. I'm going to quote from a Time magazine right up here. Right. I'm going to quote from a Time magazine right up here.

In late 2020 and early 2021, Gen Z was the only U.S. generation in which a majority believed there are more than two genders. As recently as the first half of 2020, this was a minority opinion, even among Gen Zers, a remarkable amount of change over just six months. In contrast, there was only a small uptick in this belief among older generations. That type of data is finally available. Starting in June 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau offered four options on its Household Pulse survey question about gender. Male, female, transgender, and

none of these. The last, a rough gauge of those who identify as non-binary, gender fluid, or another gender identity. That is a terrible way of phrasing that question. It's not a great way. It's better than nothing. It's better than nothing, but like, it's not a great way. It's better than nothing, but like, my God. Yeah.

Come on. With more than a million respondents, the survey is large enough to provide accurate estimates. The results are clear. Gen Z young adults are much more likely to report identifying as either trans or non-binary than other generations. While only one out of a thousand boomers report they are transgender, one-tenth of one percent. Twenty-three out of a thousand Gen Z young adults, 2.3 percent, identify as trans, 20 times more. By this estimate, there are now more trans young adults in the U.S. than the number of people living in Boston, which is great because I have long felt that what we need to do is arm trans people to take over the city of Boston.

I've believed this for years, and I think we can finally make it happen. Okay, but here's the problem, Phil. You still have to live in Boston afterward. Well, I guess we could take the city of Boston and live somewhere else and then sort of like extract feudal dues from it. Yeah, presumably, yeah. You could basically become like collectively the landlords of Boston and then use it to afford rent in a better place.

This is viable. I believe in our lifetimes that we can do this. And this will finally increase Gen Z's like home ownership numbers, right? If collectively all of the trans and non-binary people own Boston. Yeah, this is a workable plan, I think. I'm going to continue that quote. Fewer than 1% of boomers identify as non-binary compared to more than 3% of Gen Z young adults combined with the more than 2% who are trans.

That means one out of 18 young adults identified as something other than male or female in 2021 or 2022, which is again, it's not true because half of that's not true. It's not, it's not because again, 2% are trans, which presumably based on this survey and how it's asked, presumably means identify as either male or female, whereas 3% are non-binary of some sort and may not may not identify as either male or it doesn't say that this is this is this is not well written.

But the data is interesting. It suggests five to six percent of Gen Z are trans or non-binary, which is a wild departure from previous generations, right? And also that's a significant chunk of these Gen Z numbers that are not being included in this Washington Post because presumably a decent chunk of these people will want to get married. They just don't identify in a way that the Washington Post editorial board respects, right? And again, one of the things that's interesting about this and contrary to all this fear mongering about Andrew Tate's destroyed all the men is that male or female Gen Z and millennial voters overwhelmingly support LGBT rights more than they support almost anything else. And this is consistent across the board and markedly higher than it is for other generations, right? Presumably,

this seems to include even like more independent or even more conservative Gen Z and millennial voters, right? They're just across the board, less shitty on this. I'm guessing presumably because a lot of their friends are trans or non-binary or just queer and that that makes them less bigoted about this stuff. And again, doesn't really fit into this narrative, right? And this is, again, part of why I'm not as doomer about, you know, there's this big fear. Oh, you know, progressives are – young people are deserting progressivism, which is going to doom us electorally. And I'm just not seeing that in the numbers. Now, again, everything that's been going on with like the Biden administration's support of Israel certainly may and probably will have an impact politically, but it's not necessarily, it's very clearly not a result

of young people getting pilled by Andrew Tate, right? That's not why that's happening. And there's a thing I wanted to talk about with the Andrew Tate stuff too, because everyone's treating this as a completely new phenomenon. And it's like, most of the people who are talking about this should be old enough to remember Gamergate. This stuff has all happened before. And it was like, yeah, Gamergate did produce a bunch of fascists. And also the millennials were still unbelievably further left than the generations

that came before them yeah so like yeah it's like this is this is this is just a thing like every generation has a a giant thing where there's like a bunch of right wing like yeah where the regressions get a big push yeah yeah it's like this just happens periodically it's just like a part of it's a part of politics and it sucks. It's bad, but it's also like not a thing to be doomed about. No, I do think another thing that is happening here is that the kind of people who become members of the Washington Post editorial board have this brain worm, this sickness that infects members of the American media worse than almost anyone else, which is like, they're always looking for, ah, contrary to popular wisdom, you think this,

but the reality, you know, it's Malcolm Gladwell syndrome, right? Where you've got to come up with some like clever thing that shows that you're smart because you don't buy into the standard wisdom, which is always wrong. And so they have to believe that whatever is really happening

is the opposite of what's obviously happening, right? Which is why this actually young men are getting more conservative and, and it's, I'm the only one who realized that I've got to warn everyone of the danger to marriage. Speaking of which, here's a quote,

another quote from that Washington post article in another era, political or ideological differences might've had less impact on marriage rates, but increasingly, the political is personal. A 2021 survey of college students found that 71% of Democrats would not date someone with opposing views. There is some logic to this. Marriage across religious or political lines, if either partner considers those things to be central to their identity, can be associated with lower levels of life satisfaction, and politics is becoming more central to people's identity. This mismatch means that someone will need to compromise. As the researchers Lyman Stone and Brad Wilcox have noted, about one in five young singles will have little choice but to marry someone outside of their ideological tribe. The other option is that they decline to get married at all. Not an ideal

outcome, considering the data showing that marriage is good for the health of societies and individuals alike. And again, this is only the case. That one five number is ignoring queer people. Yeah, just become gay. Largely ignoring non-white people. Right? Like, it's just

not accurate. Like, yeah, maybe a lot more young white men are going to be single. And there's problems that will occur due to that, right? Because for one thing, that's the group that tends Like, yeah, maybe a lot more young white men are going to be single. And there's problems that will occur due to that, right? Because for one thing, that's the group that tends to, like, load up on guns and shoot up public places. I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it doesn't mean that our society is doomed because no one's getting married.

It means that there's some serious problems with young white men that we need to deal with. Yeah, and there's two other things that I think are interesting there. One is, okay, you can tell when these people like formed their political beliefs because they're complaining about the personnel is political which is this is 90s shit like that is that is like that is like like old school ass like this is this is like stuff people were like i don't know it's it's like uh it's like political correctness where it's like it's the previous version of the same panic that everyone's having now but this is from the 90s

yeah so it's like like all these people are just like absolute dinosaurs who they've like dragged out yeah to write this like weird fear mongering thing and the second thing is i think is interesting too is like just the the deep ingrained sort of very conservative assumption here, which is that marriage is good for society. Yeah. Which I don't think is anywhere near as straightforward a proposition as the Washington post is making it seem like, and you know, and like they'll,

they have random statistical arguments. I mean, the statistics that I've seen, like, you know, just, just sort of like statistics that I've seen based on American society is that like women who aren't married are way happier than they are in marriages. And you know just just sort of like statistics that i've seen based on american society is that like women who aren't married are way happier than they are in marriages and you know like men

do worse but like you know but like i mean this is one of these things where it's like we don't know like there has not been a version of america where we haven't where the institution of marriage wasn't like our thing that hasn't existed for like two or three hundred years right yeah we don't know the washington post doesn't know what what an american society without like where people don't get married looks like like they have no idea but they're just sort of assuming that it's like the apocalypse because they're weird conservatives in the 90s yeah and a lot of i mean and again a massive part of of what's we're seeing here is less it's objectively good, like marriage is the result of all of these kind of positive mental health outcomes and more, well, when people are like,

have relationships and loved ones and like a family system supporting them, they're less likely to commit suicide. They're more likely to have someone notice if they take ill. They're just like healthier in general. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's marriage specifically and more like, yeah, not being alone, right? Yeah. Anyway, I want to continue and just kind of go through, I think we've trashed this article enough, but I did find a lot of interesting stuff about Gen Z and young voters that I wanted to get into. But first, here's some more fucking ads. You pigs, you filthy mongrels, slop it up, suck it down. Anyway, we'll be back in a minute.

Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens.

So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jack B. Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back! So, one interesting thing I found, I tried to stick to just stuff from like 2021 or later for this, in part because of the Andrew Tate of it all. Right. I wanted to like try to find stuff that was like, OK, since that guy came onto the scene, has there been some sudden shift because people treat him like the Pied Piper of fucking fascism, which, again, he's a problem, but I don't think that's broadly accurate. So one of the studies I found was a 2021 survey from MTV, AP, and ORC, right? And it was interesting because it showed something I didn't – something I had kind of bought into, was at least less supported by the evidence than I might have thought, which is like the level of doomerism in young people politics. Gen Z actually shows like that they are more optimistic than a lot of older people, both in the state of the world and their role in improving it. Two-thirds of Gen Z feels like their generation is motivated to make positive change in the country. feels like their generation is motivated to make positive change in the country. Part of, I think, where we get some of the feelings of doomerism is that only about 14% think that they can have an impact on what the government does.

Well, yeah. I mean, that is an entirely reasonable assessment of, I mean, just like looking at polling data on Palestine or like- Absolutely. Not a very rational take actually. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we had,

we had an entire uprising. Like people, people fought the secret service at the gates of the white house. And the product of it was the government was like, no, we should give more money to cops. Yeah. It's like,

it's like, okay, we're like defunding the New York public library system to buy encrypted radio, like things for police units. Like, it's like, yeah,

like this, it is objectively true that you have very little influence over the government like perfectly reasonable thing to say yeah um but yeah about uh it's interesting too another thing that i was kind of surprised by is about half of gen z people think their standard of living is better than their parents um but about half also think that the world their generation is facing is worse than what most other people, most other generations have dealt with. So like, they think that their problems are,

are worse than like what boomers and Gen X and millennials were dealing with, but they think they're about half of them think they're living better lives. This is pretty similar to how millennials feel. Gen X feels very different. Gen X is the most pessimistic generation about the state of the world, which actually makes kind of sense if you realize that like a lot of Gen Z kids are the children of Gen X people, right? So like they think their standard of living is better than their parents because Gen X

is miserable. Yeah. Which, you know, interesting. Gen Z and millennials are more accepting than Gen X of depictions of same-sex couples in media and hold more positive views of LGBT people, which, again, Gen X is the worst generation. We all have to agree on that one. It really sucked. Just terrible. It really didn't work out.

The 90s and 2000s were just a disaster. Yeah, a calamity. Worst decades. So I wanted to kind of break down some stuff from this survey that was interesting, just kind of on how the generations support various policies. So in terms of their support for prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity, 62% of Gen Z and 62% of millennials support that. Only 53% of Gen X does, which is still actually not like a massive gap, right? When it comes to, this is interesting, when it comes to requiring Americans to mask in public places like stores and restaurants, 54% of millennials support that.

53% of Gen X does, but 52% of Gen Z does, which is all potentially within kind of a margin of error. Yeah, that seems like noise. Yeah, that might just be noise. It's about equivalent, right? It's pretty close. Most of this is actually pretty – for all of our shitting on Gen X, most of this is actually pretty close. For acquiring vaccinations, millennials seem to support it higher than anyone else, 49%.

Gen Z at 43%, which is significant. Kind of Gen X is right in the middle at 45. When it comes to supporting a nationwide ban on AR-15s and other similar semi-automatic rifles, Gen Z and Gen X are at 42% for Gen X, 44% for Gen Z, whereas millennials are at 47%. Now, a lot of this breakdown, because I dug into the actual numbers, is the difference between men and women and conservative men and liberal women, right? Who are – liberal women are a lot more common and more likely to support these kinds of bans, whereas conservative men aren't. But that drags the overall numbers down.

It's just interesting to me that there seems to be less support with Gen Z over that. They're closer to Gen X. Increasing security at the border. This is where there's a huge gap. 55% of Gen X for increasing security at the border. This is where there's a huge gap. 55% of Gen X for increasing border security. Millennials and Gen Z are at 38% and 37%. So that's really, like Gen X really seems to buy into the, we need more border security, whereas the Utes are like,

no, fuck that shit. Yeah. Gen X or Gen Z and Millennials both tied at 48% support for a universal basic income. Only 36% of Gen X supports this. Again, another significant gap. One interesting thing is that Gen X and millennials at 38 and 36% support reducing regulations on businesses. Only 31% of Gen Z supports this. That's a significant difference.

I find that kind of interesting. Yeah. I wonder how much of that also is just like, like, like you are, okay. You are in, you're a Zoomer. You're never, are you over owning a business? Like first off, thank you. I am a Zoomer. Like under what circumstances?

I think it may, it may be, and I don't, I don't know that this has been studied. I think it may be, and I don't know that this has been studied. It may be that because Gen Z are so, so many of them want to be influencers who do some other kind of job in like internet content creation that, and a lot of them have done kind of work, made some amount of money in that field. That tends to be independent contractor work. And there's some pretty onerous tax regulations. You know, if you've ever been an independent contractor, about how you've got to pay taxes, it may have something to do with that. I don't know, though. Like, this hasn't been broken down, like, granularly that I've seen. But I did find that kind of interesting.

And then here's kind of depressing but interesting. Reducing funding for law enforcement agencies. 34% of millennials support that. 30% of Gen Z supports that, which is enough of a gap to suggest like might be somewhat less popular among Gen Z than millennials. Only 18% of Gen X feels the same, which is a huge gap. And that is kind of interesting to me. So yeah, that's all compelling.

I think there's one, I think there's one like last kind of interesting thing about this is that those numbers, the numbers on like police funding and a lot of the sort of like, if you just look at the graphs that were in the Washington Post article, a lot of that is it looks a lot like there's there's there's a giant spike during the uprising and then it sort of like tails off after it yeah and so and so that's the thing that i think is like like i don't you know and this is i think a thing i think is kind of important it's like these the stuff is all malleable and the moment something happens everyone everyone's beliefs change really quickly yeah and that's the thing and like like in that that's that's the thing. And like, like in that, that's a, that's a thing with these sort of like, you know, with, with the sort of doom,

bris and rancor taste like, yeah, like, but people, people's actual political beliefs and what they're willing to do for them can change very, very, very quickly in,

in, in moments where there's sort of, you know, I mean, there's, there's a bunch of people getting shot by cops in the street. Right. Right.

Like that, that, that changes people really, really quickly. And I do think that's why the gap is so high, both between overall Americans, which are at 28% for defunding police, and between Gen X and Gen Z millennials,

is that a lot more Gen Z millennials, people got like beaten by the cops in 2020. And this does show, well, again, it's an uphill battle. Most Americans, a super majority of Americans do not support that. Way more young Americans do. And it's probably because so many of us got our asses kicked. And also I want to like, like, like if you look at what was happening, like the numbers during the uprising, like the number of people who supported the burning of the third precinct

was like 50%. Yeah. So like these are things that change really quickly in the moment too. And now we're in this sort of long backlash. And that's, you know, that's driving like some of these numbers. But yeah, like don't be cynical. Things can and will get better. Yeah.

Yes, they will. And there's a pretty dramatic difference. Maybe it'll take a couple more general uprisings where people get their asses kicked, which is not great to think about. But like these are pretty stark differences in the generations. And I think that that's kind of worth noting and celebrating maybe the wrong term, but I don't think it's pessimistic. Now, in terms of stuff that is pessimistic, I want to end on a note of like where I kind of think some of the lazy, dumbass pundit brain on this is coming from. And I maybe I'm wrong about this. But I, I have a little conspiracy theory that involves AI, because I did kind of at the end of digging up a bunch of these studies reading through, I don't know, like 15 articles or whatnot. And,

you know, the actual like, entirety of three or four different big surveys, I decided just to hop onto one of the AI search engines that I use occasionally that is usually not helpful just to see what it said. And I asked, what is the most recent data on how young Gen Z men are voting? And it gave me mostly useless shit. The resources were bad. But one of the things it said, because it breaks down the different sources and summarizes them for you. So it says here, the Atlantic is kind of one of the sources it recommends.

The Atlantic reported that Gen Z and millennials are more likely to vote Republican. This could indicate a shift in political leanings among these demographics. Now, the article that it is linking there is an article called Is Jinsi Coming for the GOP? Not All Young People Are Democrats by Ronald Brownstein. And it does not say that. It does not say anything like that. It certainly does not say that. And I will tell you what it fucking says, right? Because it's wildly fucking different. An analysis of previously unpublished election data from Catalyst, a Democratic targeting firm by Michael Podorzer, a former political director for the AFL-CIO, shows that even the emergence of these new voters may not break the larger political stalemate that has

partitioned the country into seemingly immovable blocks of red and blue states. Podorzer's analysis of the Catalyst data, shared exclusively with The Atlantic, found that over the past four elections, Gen Z voters have broken heavily for Democrats in blue states and provided the party solid margins in closely contested swing states. But in red states, with a few prominent exceptions, Podhorser surprisingly found that even Gen Z voters are mostly supporting Republicans. Now, when you dig into the data, first off, that does not show that Gen Z people are voting more for Republicans. It's the opposite of that. The vast majority of them are voting for Democrats. But in red states, the number, and it's not finding in red states that Gen Z are more likely to support Republicans

than previous generations. They are more progressive than previous generations. They're just still majority supporting Republicans in deep red states. Now, again, if you read that quote, it's also saying there are some red states where Gen Z are voting overwhelmingly for Democrats. And in purple states, they are wildly progressive compared to previous generations. It is, again, the opposite of what that AI summary is. I'm wondering how many lazy pundits are doing this because they suck at shit. And we're just like, oh, well, the Atlantic says they're more Republican. It's like, no, if you read the article, it does not say that. It's a pretty good article, actually. Well, and this is actually,

there's one thing I want to mention about that polling data, too, which is that the 2022 election was really weird because the 2022 election was supposed to be, it was supposed to be a red wave election. And there actually was one, but it was, it only happened, it happened in deep red states. Yes. And it happened in New York.

And that has to do with the new york media market which is part of also why all these people's brains have been completely destroyed yes but i don't actually like it's actually genuinely unclear to me that this is even predictive of how those same people in deep red states are going to vote in like the next like four to eight years because that was because again this this this this was a midterm election with a democratic president that is when you're supposed to have the opposition like win a bunch of seats and stuff like that and like it didn't go the way it was supposed to and so and i so i i think it's actually even that part is more is more like even the the tiny note of it where they're like more like gen z people voted for Republicans. Like I,

I don't know. I don't even know if that's going to hold in the long run, but all of these puns, like, yeah, the fact that they probably are just reading AIs. Yeah. I, I,

I wonder just like coming across that dog shit, like just completely wrong. Um, very funny. Made me feel a little bit better about the computers coming for us all. Made me feel a little bit worse about the intelligence of pundits. But yeah, it's – and one of the things that is kind of – if you're concerned about 2024, that is a worthwhile concern and that is a real problem is that while young people are overwhelmingly progressive as voters, this is not evenly distributed across the country. And a lot of the gains in voters that progressives have seen are going to be clustered in states that were already overwhelmingly blue. And when it comes to a presidential election, those are wasted votes, right?

Yeah. And this is a problem that the Republicans dealt with a lot during the Obama years, right, where there would be massively more Republican voters, but they would be clustered in these areas that Dems were never going to win. And so it didn't help them electorally, right? That is kind of worth noting. It's potentially a thing. Although a lot of the gains when people are freaking out about like, oh, Biden's numbers among non-white voters have gotten worse. That is probably true, almost certainly true to some extent. But a lot of those vote gains are clustered in areas that were so heavily read, it may not have any impact on the overall electoral state. This is unclear.

I will say the one place where that actually does matter is Michigan. Yes, yes. Because Michigan has a huge Muslim population who are unbelievably pissed at Biden for, you know, offering them the deal. We're going to murder your family. And also you have to vote for us, which is like. I'm not doing the Will Stancil thing and saying there's nothing to worry about. There are places where it does matter more. But like, yeah, yeah.

It's unclear. And a lot of what may be a lot of what is certainly happening, although this doesn't mean that there won't be, because I think there's a good chance there will be an electoral impact, but a lot of what is objectively happening, both on the left and the right, is increasing numbers of voters who are in states that would never, were never going to be in play electorally. Yeah. This is because the electoral college is bullshit, you know? Yeah.

It's like, I've lived in Illinois my entire life. It is not possible for me to cast a vote that matters. Yeah. Like, it just isn't. Yeah. In Oregon, it's really not. It's just how the system works, right? It's like, it's a great, great, great job.

Great job. Yeah. People who wrote the constitution. So anyway, I think that's, that's about enough to get into. I hope this has been edifying and useful to people. Mia, you got anything else to say before we roll out here? Molotov 2024, just like Molotov 2020.

Yeah, don't, the Washington Post. Okay, I want to close on the note that the Washington Post editorial board managed to find the one socialist in the entire US who's anti-abortion and make her a writer for them.

So like these people really suck. But who are you speaking for? Why is it important that we have this voice of a person? Fucking hell. God, it's tiring. Speaking of tiring, I'm

tired, so now we're done. Goodbye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories,

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