What Happened To Gen Z? The Hard Truth Of My Generation's Shift To The Right

-Analysis-

WARSAW — The demographic hand-wringing among progressives in the aftermath of Donald Trump's victory is bound to continue in the days, weeks and years to come. What explains his rising support among African Americans and Latino men? With abortion rights under assault, why wasn't there a female wave of Independent and Republican voters in favor of Kamala Harris? But from where I sit, the toughest pill to swallow is the end of the illusion of a progressive Generation Z.

As a lifelong member of Gen Z, I am stunned by the rightward shift of my peers, and at how much our opinions have shifted since the last election.

The oldest members of my generation began voting in 2016, Trump’s first electoral triumph. Back then, we were seen as a powerful new bastion of progressivism: on track to be the most accepting, open-minded, and left-wing generation of all time, an easy demographic for Democrats to target. The main issue in 2016 wasn’t to convince young voters to vote Democrat, it was to mobilize their turnout.

Now, however, my generation of fellow Americans is split, and notably along the lines of gender. While Gen Z women harken back to the promises of the past, and are some of the most progressive voters to date, young men have been shifting further and further to the right. While Harris won among all women, Trump won among not only older and middle-aged men, but also among 18-29 males. This was a group won comfortably by Biden in 2020. According to AP tallies, young men have shifted 30 points to the right since the last Presidential election.

This strategy of targeting right-wing young men played out even more significantly in individual swing states. In the crucial state of Pennsylvania, men under 30 favored Trump by a whopping 18 points.

The masses are being increasingly guided by young, right-wing influencers, streamers, and podcasters, who have begun to emerge and court a new generation of men. Trump’s campaign made sure to take advantage of this growing online movement, and in the months leading up to the election, the President-elect appeared on the podcasts of Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Logan Paul in a bid to court Gen Z.

Trump’s younger base, including some with prominent presences online, have celebrated his win in troubling ways, openly espousing hateful rhetoric. In one instance, Nick Fuentes, a right-wing streamer and a self-espoused incel, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Your Body, My Choice. Forever,” making reference to the “My Body, My Choice” slogan of the pro-choice movement. While these may seem like the remarks of a fringe voice on the outskirts of popular discourse, Fuentes has over 427,000 followers on X, and his aforementioned post received nearly 30,000 likes.

Shifting base 

This isn’t a uniquely American problem. In Poland, the other country where I hold citizenship, and where I currently live, young men have shown increasing interest in Konfederacja: a pro-market, far-right party characterized by euroscepticism, populism, and Polish nationalism.

Many of those in attendance at these events were high school age.

In parliamentary elections last November, Konfederacja managed to garner 17.8% of the vote from the 18 to 29 demographic, despite winning only 6.2% of the vote overall. Much of this support came from young men, especially those from small, rural communities.

Like the Trump campaign, the leader of Konfederacja, Sławomir Mentzen, placed a lot of emphasis on engaging with young, macho men, notably through TikTok and at events titled “A Beer With Mentzen.”

According to a report by Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, many of those in attendance at these events were high school age, some of whom weren’t even eligible to vote in last year’s elections. But, as Konfederacja’s online presence continues to hold, it may in fact be an attempt to prime the next generation of voters.

How to talk to Gen Z 

The same logic stands for the far-right in other European countries, like Germany and Austria, who are increasingly looking towards young men as a part of their core base. While Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) mostly courted older voters when it was founded, the new AfD has become much younger and more radical. It is now the most popular part among young people in the southern states of Saxony and Thuringia, according to the latest electoral data.

And while Vice President Harris still won among young women, they still experienced a 14-point rightward shift, according to data from the Associated Press. Not only did more young women vote for Trump compared to 2020 and 2016, but this happened in an election cycle highly focused on abortion and a woman’s right to choose, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

What is to blame? While men’s social media algorithms are being increasingly bombarded with macho content, Gen Z women have been consuming “tradwife” content, in which influencers flaunt their lifestyles as wives and mothers in lieu of working a traditional job.

Though the style of this content may differ from one creator to the next, typically these women film themselves cooking for their families, doing household chores, or playing with their children. While it may seem harmless to watch, for some, this content can normalize a lot of far-right rhetoric and values, albeit in an easier-to-digest format.

Hard truths

Shifting opinion so drastically to pre-2024 levels won’t be easy. Gen Z has had a tumultuous start, living through the post-9/11 era in our early youth, the financial crisis as children, the COVID-19 pandemic as teenagers, and countless wars, conflicts, and disruptions as we enter the workplace and begin our adulthood.

We are a generation that has grown profoundly disillusioned with the state of the world, and unfortunately, right-wing movements have been able to capitalize on it. Taking Gen Z seriously as a group capable of mobilizing around political issues isn’t only wise, but necessary. If other parties continue to dismiss us, the far-right will keep up their momentum.

All hope is not lost.

Trying to build a better future also means that Gen Z must accept some hard truths ourselves. It isn’t “boomers” who are the bastion of the new right wing, and we can no longer say that our generation is the best hope for pushing a progressive agenda.

And even the boasts that we are the first generation truly "native" to digital technology no longer hold. Not only have we turned out to be susceptible to the far-right ideologies streaming and seeping through the online pipeline, but Artificial Intelligence and deep fakes are a brand new challenge for us as well.

And yet...even though some received wisdom about Gen Z may have been shattered in this election cycle, all hope is not lost. This is the same generation that came out in droves for Bernie Sanders in 2020, the same generation that continues to lead the movement of street protests — and, for better or worse, a generation that cannot be taken for granted.