Changing your mind after you vote to destroy democracy is rather pointless.
The time to decide not to jump off a cliff is before you do it; six inches from impact is much too late for regrets to matter.
Let me have my hope.
Really though… the question “why would [Gen Z’ers] vote for Trump” could have that demographic replaced with “Latinos”, “Suburban Mothers”, and any of a dozen. And let’s face it, if when they themselves tell us why, our response is “but… but… that’s NOT TRUE!!!” they’ll retort that’s just, like, our opinion.
Indeed. It has been one of my repeated themes at the Dope: been hearing the expectation that the rise of new generations will doom conservatives since the cohort before me was the “new generation.” Kind of forgetting people who voted for the likes of Reagan and Gingrich and Trump45 raised their children with their value set all through these years.
I also suspect that conservatives are having more children.
JK Rowling, as other people here have mentioned, really has gone off the deep end, but there is something to this here. The left seems to be much less forgiving of transgressions, both past and present, than the right. If you posted a tweet with an inappropriate joke 10 years ago, or hell, even if you liked a tweet containing an inappropriate joke 10 years ago, or if you were once friendly with a conservative politician or pundit, you’ll forever be viewed with suspicion, if not outright hostility by many in the left, regardless of what your current politics are. Look at the teeth-gnashing about Gavin Newsom sitting down with Charlie Kirk.
The right, however, doesn’t really give a shit about your political history, so long as you’re currently parroting the proper talking points. RFK JR, a former darling of the environmentalist left, along with Tulsi Gabbard, a former vice chair of the DNC, have found homes in the Republican Party. Hell, Trump used to be pro-choice, he used to hang out with the Clintons and the “Hollywood elite,” and he once said, “In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat.” I don’t see too many conservatives wringing their hands about that stuff nowadays.
My son, who is a very smart programmer, I think got caught up in the ‘tech bro’ movement- at one point he admired Elon Musk and wanted to work at Tesla. I’m pretty sure he voted for trump.
Now he has become completely disillusioned with trump and Musk and speaks badly of them both. Whenever he does, a couple times I’ve said “guess you regret voting for trump now, eh?” He says nothing to that.
“They’re stupid, because they grew up in a world without a consensus reliable source of news, have no ability to think critically about media, and as both a cause and result of this get all their information from Russia-funded TikToks run by antivaxxers and jihadists” is, certainly, true to an extent and explains part of it. There’s no real way to be a moral, educated person and support Trump’s immigration enforcement policies or think that his economic agenda will be less inflationary than what actually took place under Biden.
But, younger people also are bearing the brunt of the worst Democratic policies, and there doesn’t seem to be any interest from the people who control the party in addressing that. There was a huge shift to Trump in urban centers that are traditionally overwhelmingly blue - and in close states like Pennsylvania, Democrats winning cities 65-35 instead of 90-10 made the difference in who won the electoral vote. The reason this happened is because big-city Democrats are closely tied to disastrously unpopular pro-crime policies, run urban school systems that suck up billions of dollars to produce 18-year-olds who can’t read, and are in bed with NIMBY shitheads who are keeping the price of housing up by blocking nearly all construction of new apartments. These issues affect young, city-dwelling people a lot, and are particularly relevant to people who are not rich and white, who as a result exhibited a marked break to the GOP in 2024.
Fixing the fact that current 20-somethings are unmoored from objective reality is going to be a longer-term project, but fixing the above could be as simple as members of the Democratic National Committee choosing to do so.
I graduated in 1996, and I had my own apartment, but drove a ten year old junker I got at an estate sale, made enough money to keep myself housed, clothed, and fed, but without much left over- getting a $300 graphics card (a 3dfx Voodoo 2, IIRC) was something I had to save up for.
The only person I knew who even came anywhere close to all that was my best friend, who got out and got defense sector jobs that paid well even by 1990s entry level CS standards. He managed to get a new Saturn and later a Toyota Tacoma and buy his own house (a 20 year old house in Frisco, part of the FAR DFW suburbs at the time). He accomplished this by basically not getting seriously pinched in the 2001 internet crash and not having any girlfriends or really even dating much during that time period. And by having a roommate from 1999 onward (me!) to help defray the costs of an apartment or house.
I will say this though; companies in the mid-late 90s were FAR more willing to hire entry level college kids and train them than anywhere I’ve worked since. After that, all the IT shops I’ve worked in have invariably wanted people with experience for nearly every position, and I can see how the Millennials and younger could be very frustrated with that. I don’t even think it’s a good thing for the organization- new perspectives and eyes on things are good, even if they’re disruptive.
This is absolutely true. There’s a whole lot of disdain for career politicians out there, especially the mealy-mouthed ones who won’t give a straight answer or who carefully parrot the party line on things. Trump did have the advantage that his verbal diarrhea was not cast in that mold.
I don’t know if anyone forgot that. It wasn’t that long ago polls were showing even the children of Evangelicals were growing more accepting of gay people. It’s a stark reminder that current trends aren’t a certainty that people won’t turn against you in the future.
I don’t think Gen Z is saying they want everything instantly. They want a path to those things, which you had.
People in the 90’s may have graduated with a little debt. Current students have crippling amounts of debt. College costs have gone up way beyond cost of inflation. They are starting their adult lives in a giant hole.
You said buy a good home. They just want a home. Lots of people in your generation were able to buy starter homes in the, build some equity, and save up for a more permanent home with their family. Starter homes have generally disappeared as a concept. There are no cheap homes. New housing has slowed considerably and prices have soared. Even if you make good money, there a good chance you are priced out of everything.
The 90’s were also a far easier time to find a job if you are starting. Getting into a college, finding internships, finding that first job have all gotten way more competitive. Companies no longer want to invest in new staff. Technology has replaced a lot of these start-up jobs and AI is making it way worse. AI isn’t as good as a good software engineer, but is or will be soon as good as a junior engineer with no experience. Even if you find a job there is no guarantee you won’t get laid off tomorrow.
We have effectively the bottom rung of the corporate latter. If you are established then the economy is likely working perfectly fine for you, but if not you are screwed.
You can sum that up in a sentence ‘The problem is capitalism’.
Now one could argue that voting for Trump was the best move since Trump is hell bent on destroying capitalism. Problem is the path of Trump leads to fine houses and fine dining . . . refrigerator boxes and tasty sparrows roasted on curtain rods.
Too many people, not enough jobs. That’s the root of the problem, and technology only makes it worse.
But that doesn’t mean that Gen-X or earlier generations had it easy; that’s the fallacy I think a lot of younger people fall into. The boomers for example, may have had some aspects easier, but others were considerably worse. My father had to wear a suit for half his professional career, and the second half was basically a dressy business casual. I’ve had to wear business casual for about half, and jeans/polo for the other half. They didn’t have the option to work from home. They didn’t have a realistic option to switch jobs- you were viewed as unreliable, or if you were past a certain age, ageism kicked in and nobody wanted to hire a forty-something person. They also had less disposable income as well- when I was a kid, it was one car, one TV, and we ate at home. And my dad was a cost analyst for a major insurance company, so white collar and fairly well paid.
And job security was only really a thing for the boomers and earlier; Gen-X has never had that. In fact, among older tech workers, getting laid off was sort of a rite of passage. It’s hard to find someone who didn’t get unceremoniously and abruptly shit-canned from a job at some point in their career.
Well I did, but then I went into government. Back in those days once you were past probation, you were sorta good(ish). There were of course always the threat of drastic budget cuts. So it was usually better to work for utilities than the Feds, better the Feds than state, better the state than county and generally better the county than a city. But if you scraped by long enough “last hired, first fired” union protections offered another layer of safety.
But that to is fading just a bit into history. Witness the axe recently taken to Federal government where experts with decades of experience were getting fired for the crime of being promoted at the wrong time.
Many young people are not politically astute yet, trump lied to them, and they believed the lies.
Let’s also not forget that all incumbents everywhere did poorly that year. The only incumbent party that escaped the wrath of inflation-weary voters was in Canada. They were set to take a historic bath, possibly even losing their status as a political party up there, but Trump saved the day by aligning with the conservatives and threatening to annex Canada.
The Dems did not bring up objections with Project 2025 very effectively for this specific cohort, and the press was incurious when Trump simply denied knowing the authors.
What percent of this project has been put into effect?
This specific cohort includes folks that want Project 2025 in all it’s horror.
This may be true. But cohorts are not monolithic and many people who voted are having second thoughts - things change with time.
Anyone who voted for Trump in ‘24 and who now has second thoughts was never paying attention in any way, shape or form.
Sure. This is true for many people - then and now - and also some in this cohort.