Anti-Trump Protests: Where is Gen Z?

Given the political stakes in the U.S., one might think Gen Z or “zoomers,” who were born between 1997 and 2012, would turn out in full force at anti-Trump protests.  In New York, however, youth have been largely absent, with demonstrations visibly dominated by older, white activists.  Video footage of protests from across the country suggest a similar pattern, with students speculating that perhaps “the Gen Z population in the U.S. doesn’t want to protest anymore.”  During a “Hands Off” protest in Manhattan on April 5, one Gen Z protester expressed dismay at the lack of any cohorts on Instagram.  On Fox, meanwhile, commentators remarked smugly that youth are with Trump, with others mocking protesters as “washed up hippies from the 60’s.”

Perhaps, recent protests against Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles, which have attracted youth, may suggest a political change.  Those protests have spread to other cities, suggesting we may be in for a new phase of demonstrations.  However, for the time being that remains to be seen, leading to the question of why Gen Z has been so absent as a whole, and what can be done to re-engage youth at a time of great authoritarian peril?  One mother of Gen Z children speculates that young folk are trying to pursue their education while holding down jobs and therefore can’t find the time to show up.

Commenters on Reddit have made similar claims, but on the other hand, haven’t young folk in previous eras managed to find the time to protest while having to cope with and overcome even greater economic obstacles?  On a certain level, Gen Z apathy is surprising: youth was supposed to be the “vanguard of progressive politics,” since it was more queer and environmentally aware than older folk.  In addition, Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation we have seen.  In the late 2010s, Gen Z was supportive of feminism, gun control and meaningful action on climate change.

In responding to such challenges, Gen Z experienced a sense of never-ending crises, amplified by phones and social media.  The day after Trump’s first inauguration, young folk turned the Women’s March into the largest one-day demonstration witnessed in U.S. history.  The following year, students launched a national gun control movement after the deadly Parkland high school shooting.  As if this were not enough, in 2019 students took to the streets in “Fridays for the Future” international protests to rein in climate change.  Later, many Gen Zers joined the Black Lives Matter movement.  In 2020, Gen Z proved decisive in the U.S. election, with Biden winning voters aged under thirty by more than twenty points.

Four years later, voters under thirty still voted for Harris-Walz more than any other age group.  This time, however, things were somewhat different.  Indeed, the Gen Z vote share decreased, with only fifty four percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 voting Democratic.  Furthermore, youth turnout in 2024 went down by ten percent from 2020.  What happened?  By all measures, Gen Z should have voted en masse for Harris, given that many youth valued egalitarianism while criticizing concentrated wealth and political power.

Completely caught off guard, pollsters have remarked, “young people have gone from being the most progressive generation since the Baby Boomers… to becoming potentially the most conservative generation that we’ve experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years.”  Ironically, for younger Gen Z 2.0, Trump may have actually become “the resistance,” since he represented the counterculture and became an anti-authority figure to the Democrats and Biden, which were the party in charge.

One possible explanation is that we have pigeonholed Gen Z and should distinguish between different groups.  “Gen Z 1.0,” many of whom were enrolled in college during the first Trump presidency, differed from “Gen Z 2.0,” which was prevented from participating in the full college experience due to COVID.  Most of Gen Z 2.0 was not old enough to remember the first Trump presidency.  Moreover, during the pandemic some Gen Z 2.0 chafed under public health restrictions which prevented them from attending high school proms.

During this time, young folk became isolated and retreated to TikTok, full of unmoderated extremist content and rightist conspiracy theories.  Unlike baby boomers, who are more likely to turn to television and print media for news, young folk share video and information on Instagram and Twitter, which simply offer one-sided narratives lacking any context or subtlety.  Perhaps, technology amplified a sense of loneliness and powerlessness.  “Alienation is not a feature of Gen Z experience,” writes the New York Times, “it is the overarching context.”

Simply pointing to COVID and social media, however, does not offer a satisfactory explanation for the rightward turn.  On a more fundamental level, Gen Z is losing faith in democracy, or at least the ability to participate in the political system, let alone preserve it.  Indeed, Gen Z has become fatalistic about economic inequality, climate change and democracy, and is convinced their lives have veered outside their control.  So pessimistic and disillusioned have Gen Z become, that it is possible the younger generation may opt out of political engagement completely.

But, while few would argue that U.S. political institutions are perfect, wouldn’t it be better to strive to make the country more democratic?  Not so, studies suggest: one 2024 poll indicated that a paltry 62 percent of Gen Z believes living in a democracy is important.  Meanwhile, in a bad omen for anyone hoping to restrict Trump’s power grab, young folk are the generation most likely to support the expansion of presidential powers and are more likely to accept political violence against elected officials.

Researchers note that Gen Z’s “sense that democracy is not working for them today may feed a perspective that democracy does not work at all and is not worth defending.”  Moreover, very concerningly, one in five Gen Z folk say that dictatorship would be fine if the situation were appropriate, raising the question of whether the educational system has taught World War II history and the rise of fascism in the twentieth century, or, if so, whether students were paying any attention.

In the rest of the world, the situation is hardly better: polls in the UK indicate a whopping fifty-two percent of Gen Z believe their country would be better if a strong leader were in charge who does not bother with parliament or elections.  “Screw falling literacy rates,” notes the Guardian in exasperation, “this is the most horrendous betrayal our education system has ever perpetrated.  What happened?  Did nobody tell them about Stalin?  Have they not heard about Kim Jong-un?”  Another poll raises the alarm bell, indicating that world-wide, Gen Z has the least faith in democracy of any age group, with a full third supporting the notion of a strong leader who does away with the legislature and elections.

But peer into the numbers more closely, and it’s clear not all members of Gen Z see eye to eye.  Young men, in fact, voted for Trump by a fourteen-point margin, and the GOP candidate dramatically improved his standing amongst this group compared to 2020.  Trump doubled his share of young black male voters from 2020, and young blacks were much more likely to vote for the GOP candidate than older African Americans.  Trump also did better amongst young Latino men, who split their vote.  Peer even closer into the data, and it’s apparent that young white men without college degrees are ripe for the picking.  Indeed, Trump received 67 percent of the vote from this segment of the population.  These “Lost Boys” fall for the authoritarian playbook: lacking any purpose in a rapidly changing society, they are struggling with isolation, unemployment, addiction and poor mental health.  They are also more prone to suicide and opioid overdose.

Though Trump did not offer compelling policy proscriptions for young white men, he was able to appeal to the latter through transgressive machismo.  In this scenario, Lost Boys see Trump as “an outlet for their grievances – a figure who promises to restore the old order and give them the recognition they believe they deserve.”  Trump echoes the “manosphere:” social media platforms pushing the idea that wokeness, feminism and progressive values are undercutting traditional masculinity.  As one young male Trump voter put it, “from the left, young men have only been told how bad we are,” whereas “strength, assertiveness and ambition are decried as ‘toxic masculinity.’  Men want to compete, support their families and be rewarded for hard work and risk-taking.”

But that’s all bunk, as another disgusted young woman put it: “there is a subsect of Gen Z that… believe that edginess is in vogue, who want the freedom to say slurs and who seem to support MAGA and Trump more than they support traditional Republican values.”  Young men and women now seemingly inhabit utterly different political worlds: the former seek to assert their manhood and are prone to traditional conformity, while the latter is going off to college at higher rates and is more interested in social issues and health care.  Indeed, even young white working-class women voted more Democratic than Gen Z men in 2024.  Perhaps, too, women bounced back from the pandemic better since they have stronger social networks.  This phenomenon is reinforced at the world-wide level, as young women are becoming more progressive and supportive of left-wing populism not only in the U.S., but also in such countries as Argentina, Brazil and South Korea.

But if all these trends are undeniable, it’s much more challenging to come up with instantaneous solutions to our political malaise.  If the opposite of fatalism and a sense of powerlessness is idealism, perhaps the first step is to simply encourage awareness of the loneliness epidemic and smartphone addiction, which may serve to undermine social connection.  Addressing the overall lack of critical or analytical thought, which, needless to say, isn’t being helped by the rise of smartphones and social media, is another necessary yet ambitious long-term goal.

Many young men, meanwhile, may feel like they have been given short shrift, or even mocked by progressives, in contrast to “endless white papers” tackling challenges faced by girls and women.  Some argue that until the grievances of Lost Boys are addressed, “we may continue to see them rallying around figures like Trump.”  Yet, while young men would certainly benefit from more meaning and purpose, what is meant by paying attention to “grievances,” particularly if the latter are a simple smokescreen for preserving male power and privilege?  Faced with such structural challenges, some advocate a paradigm shift promoting greater gender diversity within positions of power, so that boys are exposed early in life to a more egalitarian model, which in turn might help to “mitigate the anger and aggression they exhibit to prove their manhood.”

To be sure, Gen Z support for Trump could evaporate, though the polls are mixed, with one study from earlier this year indicating an increase in such support for the president after the inauguration.  However, subsequent polling suggests a sharp decline in support, with Gen Z increasingly unhappy with Trump’s management of the economy.  Will this translate into more youth protest?  Observers believe Gen Z’s rightward shift had less to do with Trump, and more to do with underlying exhaustion with politics, and even having to discuss politics to begin with.

Surveying the U.S. political landscape, leftist writer Michael Albert expresses exasperation and is worth quoting at length.  Addressing Gen Z, he writes, “I know you have lives to lead, friends and parties to enjoy, tests to take and grades to earn, jobs to be hired for and retain.  I get all that…but you are 70 million strong… Where are you?  NYC, SF, DC, and countless towns from sea to muddy sea display white-haired demonstrators galore.  Oldsters march forth on wobbly knees.  But dear Gen Z…your knees don’t wobble.

I get that the idea of collectively addressing reality has been seriously wounded, perhaps even amputated.  I get that what arises from today’s cyber culture as a way to address danger is to avoid it or anonymously curse it, but certainly not forthrightly collectively confront it.  I get that you feel mature and cool to personally rail at or joke about Donald but that you might feel tacky or just a bit out of place to collectively organize and demonstrate to stop him…

For any of you to not comprehend the news at this point seems impossible, unless it is willful.  To not know that fascism is now banging at the door requires not wanting to know, not wanting to see and admit the danger… To hunker down especially in the face of fascism is a losing game plan.”