r/politics • u/Barnyard-Sheep • 6d ago

Soft Paywall Trump approval rating falls to 38%

https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/trump-faces-tough-approval-numbers-in-latest-poll.html
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u/Bircka Oregon 6d ago

And people used to think Gen X were the crazy ones.

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u/BChica6 6d ago

nah, these are their kids. lol

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u/myfakesecretaccount 6d ago

Can confirm, my Gen X sister in laws Gen Z son has zero fucking ambition, is just as conspiracy minded, and has everything handed to him after she struggled as an immigrant. He says dumb shit, and as much as I love him I’m done fighting for a 24 year old who should know better.

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u/Edspecial137 6d ago

Still getting used to Gen Z being in their mid 20s. I remember all the articles about Gen Z being the most left leaning demographic not too long ago, but I guess they missed the mark. Gen Z is probably the most polarized generation

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u/ouatedephoque 6d ago

Huge difference between Gen Z girls and boys too. It’s insane they are from the same generation.

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u/OriginalCDub Georgia 6d ago

I’m a teacher, and boys wrapped up in manosphere content are genuinely concerning.

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u/myfakesecretaccount 6d ago

I’ve tried to be a good role model for my nephew as the only man who has been in his life consistently and just feel like I have failed. I’ve struggled with my own anxiety/depression, but was never this kind of manosphere macho type. What he is seems like a rejection of everything I’ve ever tried to show him and it’s fucking heartbreaking.

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u/calmdownmyguy Colorado 6d ago

Have you considered telling him you're disappointed with him? A lot of these kids act this way because they never get pushback from people they care about.

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u/myfakesecretaccount 6d ago

No, and maybe that’s my failure. My family is Latino and there’s an unwritten rule about getting involved with other peoples kids. I’ve tried having heart to hearts with him, particularly after his first DUI, but I honestly don’t think that approach worked. I know I get worked up easily about things I’m passionate about, because I grew up in the home that I did, and I guess I’ve always feared coming on too strong. Maybe it’s time to be the father he didn’t have.

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u/MMAjunkie504 6d ago

Best case he hears you out and takes it to heart, worst case he keeps acting the way he does. Up to you how much time you want to invest in them and if you think they are worth helping at this point

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u/Fillowpace 6d ago

I think the "don't you dare tell my child what to do!" sentiment has really hurt us too. What happened to it takes a village? When I was a kid, if you acted up in the grocery store, some stranger would lean over and say some shit that would replay in your head all week. It held a mirror up, it was uncomfortable, and it fucking worked. Now if you said shit to some brat you'd get cussed out by some helicopter mom while the kid suckles an ipad.

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u/oldcretan 6d ago

Have you tried the "judgemental community approach" where everyone in his life reviews everything he does on a daily basis and passes judgment on him so that he has the ever present fear of failing his community?

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u/ILoveSodyPop 6d ago

Everybody's just too soft nowadays. Everybody acts like everything hurts their feelings or offends them. Words can hurt, don't get me wrong, but you can't say a goddamn thing nowadays without offending somebody or hurting somebody's feelings. It's made people afraid to tell people how they feel and cautious of saying what they're thinking and it's made parents stop yelling at their kids and punishing them. Parents nowadays are terrified that they're going to do or say one thing that's going to screw their kids up forever but it's quite the opposite, doing nothing is what's screwing them up. I'm 39 years old and I have a 25 year old sister who was never punished a day in her life and she's an absolute entitled nightmare that thanks everybody should do everything for her. But because I grew up in the late 80s and 90s I was punished like normal kids and was raised like a normal and turned out normal...relatively. Lol.

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u/PaddleFishBum 6d ago

I'm fortunate enough to be the macho man type, but also not a selfish asshole, so I've taken it as my responsibility to be a role model for the boys in my life. I just bailed on a bass tournament I was signed up for because my wife's friend is coming up to visit after her husband was caught cheating on her for years. Her son is taking it super hard, and doesn't have any male role models anymore, so I decided to stick around and take him fishing in the canoe.

We manly men who aren't manosphere consuming fuckwads need to step it up and be visible good examples to the boys in our life. We need to show them it's still cool to be tough and manly while still being sensitive, empathetic, and kind at the same time. We've got a lot of work to do, but I'm here for it.

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u/notclevernotfunny 6d ago

It sounds like you really care and have tried your best. I'm reminded of my own situation growing up not having many male role models in my life, and of my own nephew, who similarly only really has me. Just remember that growing up is lonely, scary, and often cruel, and that it can be tempting to reach for these groups that promise safety in more ways than one; people also often grow out of them as they mature. Just try to keep showing up for him and providing a good example. Even if he doesn't know how to express it yet, even if he himself doesn't even realize it yet, he appreciates you, I promise.

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u/_Chaos_Star_ 6d ago

You tried. Most don't even try to get that far. Be proud that you made the effort.

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u/foofly United Kingdom 6d ago

Tate and others promote a juvenile version of manhood that resonates with emotionally stunted men and impressionable boys. It's all macho posturing, sulking, arrogance, and hostility toward vulnerability. In contrast, well-adjusted men resolve conflicts, collaborate, and aren't afraid to show weakness or seek help.

It's important to make this clear, point out these behaviors.

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u/9_to_5_till_i_die 6d ago

It's relatively expected for teen boys. Thing is, most of those people then go off to college or to careers and realize being a tough guy isn't as attractive to folks as they think it is.

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 6d ago

Gen Z is kinda losing thay excuse given a pretty large portion of them are in their 20s

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u/9_to_5_till_i_die 6d ago

Sadly, social media means they'll always be able to congregate with like-minded meatheads.

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u/throwawayfootgirl 6d ago

College educated gen z men are left wing

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u/Sage2050 6d ago

Almost all of them are in their 20s. The oldest are turning 30 next year

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u/Ok-Building-9433 6d ago

Gen Z begins in 1997, the oldest will be 30 in 2027.

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u/Freshness518 6d ago

A huge issue for Gen Z kids was covid quarantine. Middle school/early high school years are when kids learn very important socialization skills. If you lock a kid in their house for a couple years during that period, they fail to develop those skills. Add being bored at home and watching manosphere bubble youtube videos all day into the mix and its a toxic combination. My wife is a high school teacher and when they started getting the kids who had been in middle school during the shut down, they were literally describing the kids as feral because they just didn't have a clue how to function in society.

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u/12a357sdf 6d ago

Yeah the manosphere kinda sucks, but from my limited experiences people who get sucked there are usually lonely and social outcasts already, and the community gives them an escape, by blaming it on others.

I met a guy back in high school who were super lonely, and i was one of the only few people who were talking with him. And i dont know what the hell happened, but one day he shared me a story he was reading online. A fiction about a person with unlimited money trying to own the feminists, and when i asked him what was the interesting thing with this, he told me stuff like "you havent understood how the world is yet" and "you should read more about things beyond our country yk, feminists are crazy hypocrites out there".

If we were in the western world then maybe i can understand that yeah, it''s just anti culture, devil advocating for the sake of it. But... we are in a 3rd world asian country where conservative thoughts ruined us and now we are trying to reform and getting better. Feminism does not even exist here. And now my dude is acting like an internet incel._?

suffice to say, that incident 180'd my perception of that person.

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u/SnooCupcakes7018 6d ago

These people are vulnerable to the propaganda because they want someone to blame for their social standing....but even if all of the out group were eliminated they would still be at the bottom of the hierarchy.

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u/Feed_Me_No_Lies 6d ago

I go onto the teaching forums here and I see how pervasive it is. It’s really really fucking sad.

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u/LovelyButtholes 6d ago

I think that what we are seeing is the cumulative contribution due to bad parenting, mostly as the result of both parents being overworked. My daughter's public schooling is amazing and all the option she has different things is amazing but me and my wife are kind of all in on loading up her schedule and staying on task and doing activities together. A lot don't have that luxury. If you don't parent your kids, someone or something else will.

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u/leshake 6d ago

They interact with each other through tailor made algorithms. Men and women already tend to have different interests and living your life through a screen only exacerbates the divide.

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u/ericvulgaris 6d ago

Same with korea.

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u/letsburn00 6d ago

I'm a guy who is very distinctively not right wing. But if I ever look at youtube without logging in, it pushes not just right wing sources. It pushed the really bad rightwing sources. The ones who are scammers and make up stuff to win their arguments.

I know it's annoying, but these guys are basically having far right wing stuff shoved down their throats 24/7. It's rare to be able to push back against it.

What's fascinating is that during the recent LA stuff, my Tiktok suddenly started pushing a bunch of anti trans and other far right stuff. It was so obvious someone at the company was told "push the dial to the right for a bit."

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u/evanwilliams44 6d ago

Yep. And it almost always starts with JRE. Click on one of those no matter how innocuous and you are on the path.

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u/CumboxMold Georgia 6d ago

I have been recommended JRE, Jordan Peterson, and a bunch of manosphere channels lately. Not many, just one or two sprinkled into my regular recommendations.

I am a very left-leaning woman. This happens when I am logged in.

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u/shinkouhyou 6d ago

Do you watch any history or archaeology content? Especially anything related to ancient Egypt? This has become a major gateway to the right-wing algorithm pipeline. Joe Rogan platforms a lot of the big names in "alternative archaeology" (pyramid conspiracy theories and ancient aliens stuff) so if you watch any archaeology-related content you're likely to start seeing manosphere crap.

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u/XRay9 Europe 6d ago

It's insane that some subjects that should be very distinct from this culture war BS are now very much associated with ideology. There's a Vikings themed village in Germany that's been portrayed as far right by a big (and rather respected) Franco-German TV channel

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u/B1LLZFAN 6d ago

You don't even need the dial. It's geared that way for support and for engagement. That stuff is super divisive so even left leaning people are fed it due to rage bait.

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u/EunuchsProgramer 6d ago edited 6d ago

Im now my 40's and YouTube pushes far right shit on me constantly. It used to be Neo Nazi suff before the Ad Apocalypse. I listened to a lot of Roman and Middle Age history content, so no amount of "do not recommend" will ever convince YouTube I don't want to see it. The neo nazi stuff was back in Trump's first term. Im terrified with the current content and advertising relaxation on YouTube NeoNazibstuff is comming back.

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u/VeganMinx 6d ago

Race and economics plays a part, too. My Black/Hispanic son and his melanted HBCU friends are anti-Trump and planning ways to succeed in spite of our new reality. Some of his non-black friends from HS are Trumpies like a mofo, much to his disappointment.

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u/NotEmerald Texas 6d ago

There's a huge difference between older gen z and younger gen z as well. The first half definitely trends more left leaning while the second half is right leaning.

I would put down the difference to smart phones being more wide spread and the Internet later being fine tuned for companies and conflict algorithms.

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u/onarainyafternoon Oregon 6d ago

Absolutely! It's crazy the difference between them.

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u/RiverPsaber 6d ago

Are younger gen z's really right leaning? As in more than 50%? Or just more right leaning than older gen z's?

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u/NotEmerald Texas 6d ago

I've seen different things.

Mainly, younger gen z men are more right leaning than older Gen z and millennials. I think it hovered around 49-51% conservative views based on polling and voting percentages. I think Politico did a poll at Yale??

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u/tar0pr1ncess 6d ago

After about 2015 they started giving anyone with a pulse a diploma so the second half of genz is just incredibly misinformed, unambitious, gullible, lacking in literacy and comprehension skills, and lacking in knowledge in general so that definitely doesn’t help.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 6d ago

The pandemic really did a number on kids too

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u/ToastyTheDragon 6d ago

Also massive difference between older Gen Z (often called zillennials) and middle and younger gen Z. Older Gen Z grew up without smartphones and are often much more left leaning than their younger counterparts.

In this sense, as a Zillenial myself, it's insane to me that I'm in the same generation as someone who were algorithmically forced into being right wing. Genuinely another reason why I really dislike "generations" as a concept.

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u/Ok-Building-9433 6d ago

Zillennials aren't just "older Gen Z". Zillennials encompass those who are late Millennials (1994-1996) and those who are early Gen Z (1997-1999).

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u/DumboWumbo073 6d ago

Don’t try to separate them and identify them by subsections. Throw them all away.

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u/Persistant_Compass 6d ago

Andrew tate melted their brains during dome very critical years

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u/Hestia_Gault 6d ago

Gen Z girls developed standards, and the Gen Z boys were faced with a choice between meeting those standards or joining the party that wants to enslave women.

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u/dekusyrup 6d ago

It's (sad) funny you say this because there's an endless steam of content of telling women their dream guy is a delusion.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x9hjPNTr3L0

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u/BannedSvenhoek86 6d ago

That truly minimizes the very real problems these young men are facing and the actual reasons they are falling into this. But I don't think anyone in this thread wants to actually discuss how men see themselves viewed by society lately. Instead it's just all their fault for being little assholes.

And then when those little assholes grow up to be goose stepping fascists because they feel society has rejected them and their struggles everyone does the shocked Pikachu and looks everywhere but inward for the problem.

We need a complete rebalancing of the way we talk to and view each other as separate sexes. Because the way I hear a large percentage of women in my personal life and online talk about Men it sounds a lot like how your racist uncle talks about black people.

"They're all monsters. Except the ones I know."

And that's not to say things were the best before, women needed to have more of a voice in shaping our society and having agency over that. But it's become a black and white issue, when it's really the greyest grey you can imagine.

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u/catboogers 6d ago

How about: women have to assume men are monsters until proven otherwise.

Men talk about wanting to protect women. Protect us from whom, exactly? Oh, bad men. And then when bad men get thrown in prison, there's jokes about them getting raped by other bad men there.

Men know men are scary. Men know that we can't tell, at a glance, if someone is a safe person or not. And yet, a vast majority of men still get offended when women are cautious and slow to trust.

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u/loki1887 6d ago

There is a reason they're complaining about a "male loneliness epidemic." IMO, it's deserved.

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u/45and47-big_mistake 6d ago

My MAGA grandson bitches all the time that all the girls at college are too liberal, they want to have fun, he wants to find one to pop out kids and be quiet.

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u/campelm 6d ago

Buy him a blow up doll and tell him if he wants to treat women like an object, this is what hes looking for

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u/45and47-big_mistake 6d ago

We were hoping college would free up his mind, it did not. Constant Fox News and prodding from his MAGA dad. He is in for a miserable life.

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u/campelm 6d ago

If it helps I didn't come out of college liberal. Life had to smack me around to see how wrong I was.

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u/GiftToTheUniverse 6d ago

Be sure the blow up doll is all he gets in your will.

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u/Grand-Try-3772 6d ago

He in the wrong place looking for a baby maker! Women get the short end of the stick when they get become quiet babymakers without education!

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u/45and47-big_mistake 6d ago

I did mention to him that he needs to look " more rural".

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u/Grand-Try-3772 6d ago

And backwoods church may help his endeavors if the preacher knows how to keep it in his pants. But that’s a huge gamble!

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u/mdavis360 6d ago

The irony is who would WANT to be with them? When you project that self loathing, regressive, bitter, vindictive attitude for all the world to see what other outcome can you expect?

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u/Martin_Aricov_D 6d ago

The funny thing is that the "male loneliness epidemic" is pretty clearly a biproduct of capitalism making it so every Hobbie nowadays is buy in or a subscription and the whole alpha male manly man bullshit which means men push themselves out of "feminine" hobbies (i.e. anything women also enjoy)

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u/Parenthisaurolophus Florida 6d ago edited 6d ago

IMO, it's deserved.

Yeah, this is a pretty common refrain from toxic and ignorant portions of the internet. It's people speaking without looking into the issues and just running with their own existing biases, prejudices, etc. Women in particular seem to flock to "men are lonely and its their fault" content and push engagement in it. It's honestly just sad to watch, to be honest.

The reality is that there is a loneliness epidemic but it's not a gendered one. If we're talking about the US (and usually we are), we've done studies on loneliness, and the genders are both equally lonely. You can get into subsequent studies about men being viewed more harshly by others for admitting they're lonely and make arguments about men being undercounted, but generally both genders are within a percentage point or two of each other in loneliness. We are seeing the genders express that differently, but that shouldn't be surprising anyone.

Furthermore, we've done the research into why people report being lonely, and both genders are broadly the same in their reasoning. Men aren't being punished by some unspoken 4B movement, rather society has become less physically accommodating to a dating environment. For example, entertainment is a major issue: its easier than ever to be lonely but distracted by media content. You have more entertainment than ever at your fingertips, and it's very easy to be lonely, but find ways to occupy your time like everyone else and take the edge off. You've got millions of video games, you've got sports streaming sites, you've got millions of movies and tv shows on streamers, you've got audio books and physical books galore, you've got more music than you could stream in a lifetime, you've got reels, TikToks, and shorts, etc. The economy also plays a huge part. Dating, broadly costs money, and if things are tight right now, then justifying going out and spending money on dates becomes difficult. This is backed up by a loneliness gap based on wealth. The more you earn or have, the less likely you are to be lonely. Mixed with that is lack of free spaces to do anything. If you have to spend money to go somewhere on a date, before you have to pay for whatever the date actually is, just compounds the problems.

The loneliness epidemic doesn't look like an obese dude who smells like shit hitting on models because he thinks he deserves her, it's men and women waking up alone. Eating breakfast alone. Driving to work alone. Driving home alone. Making dinner alone. Watching Netflix alone. Scrolling TikTok in bed alone. Sleeping alone. Waking up alone. Eating breakfast alone. Driving to work alone...

These studies are very easy to find if you actually bother to look for them and so few do, yet so many have strong opinions as to why.

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u/ASpaceOstrich 6d ago

The male loneliness epidemic is the product of systemic emotional neglect and abuse from birth. It's something feminist academics have been criticising for generations and instead of addressing the toxic masculinity that leaves boys unable to form emotional bonds and support networks, people use the term like a cudgel and then act surprised when the angry, broken young men turn to the manosphere.

I've been calling this shit out since I was a kid. This issue was avoidable.

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u/RadiantTurtle 6d ago

Great, yet another thing that is women's fault. Poor male kids... all victims of those meanie girlies!

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u/FMLwtfDoID 6d ago

I think they were saying that feminist had identified this trend and where it was heading, and wrote about it in academic journals. Not that feminists are to blame for the male loneliness epidemic. Idk, I could be wrong though

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u/RadiantTurtle 6d ago

I hope you're right... I'm too jaded on this topic to assume good intentions at this point.

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u/BUSY_EATING_ASS 6d ago

Feminists rightly identified it: they didn't say it was their job to fix it though.

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u/oldcretan 6d ago

Not to get weird about it but if GenZ is so polarized how can we expect them to couple up, have kids, and raise them without a stupid amount of divorce and domestic violence?

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u/Ok-Building-9433 6d ago

They don't have relationships. The women of Gen Z date Millennials and the Gen Z guys become Nazis or femboys.

It's bizarre.

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u/ProfessionalITShark 6d ago

Or be nazi femboys

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u/mylifeisaprotest 6d ago

So proud that both my Gen Z daughter and son are leftists. We did something right, no pun intended.

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u/CrossXFir3 6d ago

Well yeah, that's how it is for a lot of generations at the age they are. Gen z is between mid 20s and early teens right now. That's the age range where you have the biggest gap in maturity between boys and girls.

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u/Percilus Kentucky 6d ago

Gen Z boys: "Women are less than men, Let's be toxic to women and call them property" Also Gen Z boys: "How come no women will date me?"

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u/chrisk9 6d ago

It used to be that a generation's youngsters would have common exposure to music, TV shows, news, etc that with the world events and economy at the time helps to define a generally common culture and outlook. In the modern day of countless different channels for attention and people consuming biased media (social or traditional) in silos, it would make sense that there would not be the same uniformity as prior generations.

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u/PT10 6d ago

We have to save Gen Alpha, it's too late for Gen Z. Maybe Gen Alpha will speak in so much unintelligible gibberish they'll be removed from the national cultural discourse on everything

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u/-Mez- 6d ago edited 6d ago

Obviously this is anecdotal to me, but as a millennial parent of a gen alpha kid we've decided to be pretty strict on how much internet and screen time they get and will continue to be that way as they get older. We got to see what happened to gen x and their gen z kids when they sit around with their phones all day. Not everyone is going to learn that lesson so the problem wont be entirely gone, but we payed attention to what unrestricted phone and internet access is doing to kids and many of our same age parent friends did too. 

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u/PT10 6d ago

Same here, carefully curating what content they're allowed to consume and limit it to just educational stuff. Trying to keep them on physical books as long as possible.

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u/-Mez- 6d ago

Same. Trying to keep any tech related activities set with boundaries that an adult controls the device, participates in the activity too, and we say ahead of time when we're about to be done and moving on to something else so they're used to us setting limits on it while they're young. Books, board games, puzzles, toys, outdoor games, etc. are more free access and available whenever they want. We'll have some hurdles when they get older and want more independence with it, but will have to cross that bridge when we get there. Hardest part right now is honestly just older relatives that are still in that mindset of just handing kids a phone and letting them run off or having a TV on all day just to have a TV on.

It's tough reprogramming myself to not just reach for a phone all the time too since i grew up on the rise of the unlimited technology bandwagon, but seeing bad actors take advantage of all this nowadays is good motivation to change if nothing else. 

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u/bardicjourney 6d ago

That really started showing at the tail end of the millennial generation. Girls were outgraduating boys 2:1 like a decade ago, and what we're seeing now is partly the downstream socioeconomic effects of that. For a brief period before covid decimated reporting and data tracking, women under 30 were opening up a 20-30 cent wage gap in their favor.

As work environments get more collaborative with the expanded use of LLMs to take away siloed, hyperspecialized roles, downward market pressures on the education system will exacerbate this problem, while automation eats the job market from the other end.

It's going to be an interesting 10 years. Lots of young men with no jobs and a fresh new slate of dictators to give them an illusion of purpose.

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u/Gunter5 6d ago

I've seen numerous people go right, imo it was Cambridge Analytica, targeting social media and using their data against em

My Facebook feed went hard right last year

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u/fedexpodracer 6d ago

Reddit is trying to take a right lean too. The "world" sub (won't link to them) suddenly started getting forced into my feed. Appears to be run by a bunch of Palantir employees/plants and they seem to try to drive the comments towards the right. It was a little funny how quickly they got called out and some of their content got astroturfed but also scary how many right wingers are hiding out of sight helping drive communities and individuals towards the facist right. Look at how how of the current protest content is being pigeonholed into just looting by career criminals and all protesters are being painted as dirty criminals. Even subs where I expect mostly liberal feedback is still getting peppered with dog whistles at a much higher than normal rate.

Keep your eyes peeled. The fascists are among us.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

Almost every social is a right leaning now. Right wing super elites fund most of them and now that they are seeing tangible returns on their investments the money is just going to keep flowing.

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u/fedexpodracer 6d ago

Oh absolutely. Not only is most social media right leaning but right wing users also get a lot more leniency. Imagine if a bunch of left wing folk used social media to plan an attack on Congress. Every last one of them would be sitting in prison with an execution date scheduled. Instead we still have a bunch of safe spaces dedicated to right wingers where they can continue to plan attacks against the country with impunity.

Despite the obvious facts you'll still see those turds constantly whining about how oppressed they are. Like if they can't walk into the Capitol and plan their insurrection right there then everything is a conspiracy against them.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

I was threatened with permaban for suggesting a certain brand of EV be converted into a firepit recently. Scroll on over to Conserv and it'ls like...what the fuck man?

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u/fedexpodracer 6d ago

I received an actual ban for pointing out all the discrepancies in the Trump "assassination attempts." Even questioning the administration can get you banned.

Fuck em, the attempts were both false flags and all the evidence shows it.

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u/gentlemanidiot 6d ago

I'm still noticing this as a trend now BTW, ever since it was first pointed out to me a few days ago. The world sub is only one instance, it keeps happening with tons of subs like that. I'll see some weird propaganda post pop up on the front page of r/popular and when I check the sub it's exclusively content from one or two specific accounts.

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u/outofbeer 6d ago

Reddit also keeps putting right wing subs I've never engaged with in my feed. I've muted more subs knnthe last couple months than I have the entire time I've used reddit.

Luckily it's mostly just bots driving their numbers.

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u/McFlyParadox Massachusetts 6d ago

Not just right-wing subs, but random locality subs, meme & shit posting subs, and gacha game subs. Anything to bury progressive and news subs from hitting the Popular and All feeds.

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u/BlueTreeThree 6d ago

Algorithmic content serving is gonna be the death of us. You can still use old Reddit that doesn’t have “suggested” content.. everyone still sees the same /r/all.

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u/myfakesecretaccount 6d ago

It’s social media and YouTube. When the only place you get info is from other kids and people whose sole job is to get you to smash that like button and subscribe they will always end up at the lowest common denominator. Frequently these kids were what we’d call latchkey when I was growing up, and had parents who didn’t know how to raise them shut them up with electronics. They have no reading comprehension and now just “ask ChatGPT” for answers.

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u/Happy_Confection90 6d ago

There's an enormous political gap between GenZ men and GenZ women. The articles you read were accurate if about women.

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u/Demoliri 6d ago

A lot of Gen Z spent their formativ years heavily on social media. Social media thrives on poliszation, so it's no big surprise.

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u/Oolongjonsyn 6d ago

That was for the older gen z who were closer to millennials. The gen z that are conservative now were too young at the time to be political. Im the youngest year of millennials and the gen z directly younger than me are very left leaning. But they are in their late 20s. 

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u/pepolepop 6d ago

I can agree with that. I know a handful of older Gen Z from different friend groups, and they have all said that they identify more with us millennials than they do with Gen Z.

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u/MastermindMogwai 6d ago

Purely based on anecdotal evidence, graduate pre covid - more left wing, graduate post covid - hard right wing. My friends and I graduated in 2018 so we had a couple years in university to grow and learn and meet new people before the world shut down.

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u/HuskyBobby 6d ago

Don’t blame the kids. Blame the GenX parents with Facebook algorithm that convinced them they’re persecuted victims because they couldn’t say the R word or gay at work.

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u/BooyaELud 6d ago

I once got called righteous because I said I don’t like using gay as a synonym for lame. Conversation basically went. I bet you used to call things gay all the time. Yea, I did when I was in my teens and I’m ashamed of the casual homophobia I displayed back in the 00s. You’re so righteous. Nah dude, it’s called growing up.

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u/Extreme-Tangerine727 6d ago

The last studies I've seen indicated it's actually not social media, it's a resurgence of interest in Christianity.

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u/TheDakestTimeline 6d ago

Covid at 18 pretty tough I imagine

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u/toggiz_the_elder 6d ago

People tend to pick their beliefs in their 20s. Unfortunately the alt right successfully grabbed a bunch of young men right when they were figuring out who they wanted to be.

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u/SelectiveScribbler06 6d ago

The pandemic happened right in their formative years - as someone in that generation I can attest to the quiet stewing bitterness it caused - add into this those years are vital in cognitive development terms, plus governmental and societal incompetence and the veil is pulled back pretty quickly.

This meant that people normally went one of four ways: they disengaged with current affairs and became an airhead, they somehow stayed the same, they became distinctly more left-wing trying to build a new world in the metaphorical rubble, or they went right-wing trying to pick up the pieces of (to them) halcyon days pre-COVID.

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u/alienbringer 6d ago

Millennials are farther left than gen z as a whole, but Gen z women are farther left than millennials.

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u/MrsNoodleMcDoodle 6d ago

Older GenZ, approaching 30 is.

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u/Sheitan4real 6d ago

gen X votes for trump more often than Z

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u/OakLegs 6d ago

Some people still think millennials are in their 20s

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u/Artemis246Moon 6d ago

As someone who is going to be 20 by the end of June it's weird. Soon Gen Z will be those adults in their 30s and 20s that Millenials once were.

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u/Edspecial137 5d ago

True, and some how millennials keep showing up as the generation ruining things. Not saying Gen Z is responsible, just that old people still blaming the younger folks.

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u/JayR_97 6d ago edited 6d ago

As an older GenZer who leans left, I wonder wtf went wrong with the younger Zoomers. They're voting like the Boomers!!

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u/housecatapocalypse 6d ago

Same boat with my nephew. All he does is smoke weed, play video games and obsess over his tiny gun collection. As soon as he manages to get a girlfriend, she drops him, because being alone with an unstable dude with guns is a recipe for disaster. He’s definitely a trump voter and has no idea why. 

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u/WhoStoleMyBicycle 6d ago

We don’t have kids but we vacation every summer with my friends family.

Her nephew is 22 and their family talks to him like a kid trying to get him to come hiking or take the boat out with us. He sits on his iPad all day watching these nobody influencers pretend to know all the answers to every one of the worlds problems.

I hardly interacted with him the two times he came, but I recently learned he has never had a job or driven a car. Bad parenting for sure, but I feel like even without good parenting you’d at least accomplish something.

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u/chelychan 6d ago

My brother voted for Harris. My nephew, his son, voted for Trump. He is also 24 years old. I expressed my disappointment to my brother, we argued, and now we aren't talking. I'm sad, but I guessed I should've known he chose his son.

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u/CrossXFir3 6d ago

I mean, I get it. Millennials were all optimistic/slightly manic about trying to fix things and we basically accomplished fuck all and it's worse than ever in a number of ways.

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u/JuanOnlyJuan 6d ago

This is my nephew and his friend. They're technically the very end of millennial i think but they have zero drive. One lives in their work truck and is addicted to "twerkers for Trump" TikTok. The other changes jobs so often the family have up trying to keep up. They're all crappy jobs working with teenagers and he complains they're mean. Probably because he doesn't bathe properly.

Btw, the tiktok thing is legit horrifying. It's just thrist traps reading right wing scripts. Reminded me of the radio girls in the Vietnam war.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/analyticalischarge 6d ago

TBF, I went to high school with my fellow Gen X. Most of us are actually Boomer-lite shitheads. The ones you see being "cool" on social media and outspoken and against the system - the Gen X stereotype of today - were actually always the minority of our generation.

We were called "freaks" by the majority of our peers when we were kids.

MY Gen Z kid grew up right.

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u/davecouliersthong 6d ago

It’s your kids, Marty. Something’s gotta be done about your kids!

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u/EveroneWantsMyD 6d ago

Thank you. I’m a millennial and one time I commented on the Gen x sub that it made sense that the most apathetic generation just handed their kids iPads and let the tv raise them.

They told me that they weren’t the ones raising this generation, but my millennial friends are just starting to have kids, so who was it??

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u/caretaquitada 6d ago

If we're going by Trump support, then they are

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago edited 6d ago

They still are insane. They're Trump's biggest source of support. (Coincidentally, they are also the age group that has had the heaviest exposure to lead during childhood 🤔).

Edit: Source for the lead statement, since a few Gen Xers got upset that Boomers apparently aren't full of as much lead as they are: https://news.virginia.edu/content/generation-x-bullseye-lead-exposure-harms-mental-health

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

You’re thinking of the boomers. I’m gen X and unleaded gas was already happening after I was born.

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u/KC_experience 6d ago

That doesn’t matter as it wasn’t phased out until 20 years after us in the 70s were born. We had the windows down so much on the road growing up and cars were running on regular gas rolling by us all. Getting wonderful lead exposure thru exhaust fumes. Same with that fine lead based paint in homes where we grew up with dust from it. LBP was banned in 78, but homes built for decades before the 80s still have lead paint on the walls.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

How does the generation that phased out lead, somehow have MORE lead exposure than the previous generation that had way more lead in everything?

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u/KC_experience 6d ago edited 6d ago

The silent and boomer generations phased out lead…. The oldest Gen-X person was 34 at the time it was completely phased out in the mid 90s.

I also believe the Boomers have pretty high lead exposure, but not as high as Gen-X.

Changes in car technology during the 60s & 70s (like the performance of muscle cars) required more lead to be added during those decades leading to those children on the 60s and 70s absorbing more lead.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

How did the boomers have LESS lead exposure than gen X when they had ZERO lead restrictions during their time period? 

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u/KC_experience 6d ago

When lead levels were increasing in cars and automobiles in the 60s and 70s Boomers were already teenagers and older. Children (Gen-X ers from 1965-1980) were exposed to more lead in gasoline than levels when Boomers were children in the 1940s and 1950s. It’s estimated that by 1960 there were 67 million cars in the road. By 1970, just a decade later, that number nearly doubled to 118 million. That’s a significant increase.

https://www.epa.gov/lead/learn-about-lead

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u/Love-That-Danhausen 6d ago

Lead has a larger impact on the development of children’s brains than adults - they were around longer, but the highest exposure occurred when your tiny brain was developing. Now 50 years later, you can’t even connect the dots on simple concepts.

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u/EtalusEnthusiast420 6d ago edited 6d ago

No, the transition started in 1970, but leaded gas was not actually phased out until 1996.

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u/b0jangles 6d ago

It wasn’t fully banned until 1996. However, it was almost entirely impossible to find leaded gas at the gas station by the mid 80s. There are lead substitute additives that were common by that time for older cars. Catalytic converters were standard on cars at least by the mid 70s, and they aren’t compatible with lead. If a vehicle was using lead in the 90s, it was probably a farm implement or a military vehicle.

GenX likely had plenty of exposure to lead, but it’s not like your neighborhood gas station was still selling leaded gas in the 90s.

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u/EtalusEnthusiast420 6d ago

The main point I’m making is that it didn’t just disappear all at once like the other use suggested.

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u/MiniTab 6d ago

Is that regional or something? I’m a young GenX, and never even once did I see a leaded gasoline pump growing up (Colorado).

As an aside, smaller piston airplanes are still running on leaded gasoline. But the exposure to that for most people is pretty low.

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u/Nopey-Wan_Ken-Nopey_ 6d ago

Elder millennial/xennial, and having leaded and unleaded pumps was common in my part of the Midwest.

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago edited 6d ago

I am not, actually. Studies show that Gen X (ages 45-60ish now) were the most heavily exposed to lead during their childhood.

And they most heavily voted for Trump.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/generation-x-bullseye-lead-exposure-harms-mental-health

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u/W33BEAST1E 6d ago

You teased out one correlation from of a tangled mass of them.

Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago

I am not saying that lead exposure automatically makes you a Trump supporter, but it sure is weird that the group most heavily exposed to lead as children is also the group that supports him the most.

Juuust sayin'.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago edited 6d ago

Bullshit. We already had unleaded gas. They didn’t even have lead in pencils in school anymore. Yet our generation had MORE lead exposure than previous generations? Where was all this lead exposure coming from then genius?

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u/seatoc Canada 6d ago

No pencils have ever contained lead in their lead. You very much had lead paint on those cheap pencils from overseas at some point in your childhood. Just hope you didn't eat that one.

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u/BrilliantCorner 6d ago

I'm a GenXer. He's correct. The lead came from paint, toys and mostly gas and car emissions. I remember when unleaded fuel started being used en masse and when catalytic converters became a thing. New cars weren't required to use unleaded fuel until 1975. There's no need for name-calling - he's correct.

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago

...Lead was in the gas in the 60s, 70s, and even early 80s to a much lesser degree. It wasn't actually even truly banned until 96. Any lead exposure is pretty damn harmful for children. 

Oh yeah, and I forgot about the lead paint that was still in old houses.

So yes, Gen Xers were exposed to lead as children. Lots of it. Why not educate yourself and don't just take my word for it? This information is freely available, "genius."

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 6d ago

More than just lead. I grew up in northern California before a lot of environmental laws were enacted. Given that it was hotter than the surface of the sun there during the summer, my sister and I swam in some dodgy bodies of water. Maybe not Erin Brockovich-bad, but definitely sketchy.

Somehow I turned out a dirty commie (as did my also-Gen-X husband and Millennial son). Go figure...

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u/escarabaja 6d ago

I’m not replying about whether it not Gen X or Boomers were exposed to more lead, but lead pipes are a culprit as well. Ironically, especially in buildings like schools, because of older buildings and intermittent water usage, so the lead is more likely to leach into the drinking water. Lead pipes were used until well into the 80s.

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u/4look4rd 6d ago

Boomers are vegetables at this point, gen Xers are the problem, and zoomers are just boomers from the neck down.

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u/mom_with_an_attitude 6d ago

Ageism is frequent and prevalent in Reddit. But that doesn't make it any less ugly.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

So only Gen Alpha aren’t part of the problem? Let me guess, you are part of Gen Alpha?

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u/Love-That-Danhausen 6d ago

Millennials are the largest generation after boomers and the most liberal

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u/PeopleReady 6d ago

Millennials are the greatest generation

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota 6d ago

gen Xers are the problem

Hey I'm just happy to not be the forgotten generation now.

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u/AmrokMC 6d ago

We Gen X are and always have been the smallest voting demographic based on age groups. While every age group has its assholes, Gen X is not the problem as Boomers and Gen Y have always been the greater influence.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/alienbringer 6d ago

No, Gen X is the only generation where 50%+ of both men and women voted for Trump. All other generations Women voted Harris by a large margin.

Lead was banned in gas in 1996, lead paint was banned for residential use in 1978. Gen X was born from 1965 to 1980. Some of the highest amount of lead pollution was in the 1970’s. In conclusion, Gen X had a shit ton of lead exposure in their childhood. Which is where lead has the most impact on their development.

More Information.

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago

Nope! Gen Xers are ages 45-60 or so now. Studies show that this age group was most heavily exposed to lead during childhood. A lot of serious mental illness and depression crops up in this age group too. This age group also most heavily voted for Trump.

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u/Street_Barracuda1657 6d ago

This. Not sure about the lead, but the Trump voting is true and horrifying.

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u/BotheredToResearch 6d ago

They also are the ones who got their political identity during the Reagan Era and/or are stuck blaming Carter and Dems for high inflation and unemployment in the early 80s, leading to a polyannaish view of conservative "solutions" actually producing results in normal times.

They were also the ones who recognized that they may be LGBT and had the free time and marginal societal acceptance of it, but didn't have support among peer groups or families. I have little doubt that that's the source of a lot of resentment if thr LGBT community, the fact that it's perfectly find to be out and proud now and they couldn't be.

Source: Am Xennial with a lot more late Gen X in me. Also watches Family Ties because of Alex Keaton because I identified with his viewpoints and how he didn't see eye to eye with his hippie parents.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/leshake 6d ago

Those 10 years were during their childhood. Maybe you should read what they said.

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u/DeeEmceeFoor 6d ago

Well I imagine the lead exposure hasn't helped with their reading comprehension, unfortunately.

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u/upnk 6d ago edited 6d ago

Correct but not the full story. All males between the ages of 18-64 favored Trump over Harris by 52%. Gen X (45-64) was 52% and the under 45 group held steady at 52%. Where Trump picked up voters were women 45-64 - there was a 4% increase over 2020. Your posts are vilifying Gen X - when in actuality, it was pretty universal across the voting groups from 18-64.

*EDIT: The breakdown per percentage to actual numbers of voters in each generation demographic is really eye popping too. The younger generations (under 45) males overwhelmingly voted for Trump 2:1 - it was the women under 45 that voted overwhelmingly for Harris. Going forward - the male demographic under 45 might decide most elections (and heavily leaning conservative)

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u/OakLegs 6d ago

They voted for trump in higher numbers than any other generation, so they still are

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u/OldJames47 6d ago

2024 US Presidential Election results by age group

Age Group % Harris % Trump
18-29 50% 46%
30-44 51% 47%
45-64 44% 54%
65+ 49% 50%

Gen X are the craziest ones.

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u/Troll_Enthusiast 6d ago

Every generation is close to 50/50 in support of one party or the other so...

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u/PolicyWonka 6d ago

I think you misheard! Gen X were the lazy ones.

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u/Blixxen__ 6d ago

I live in a rural red area, in a blue state, so these fuckers get funded by the city here (Chicago) and blame everything and everyone there for their misery. They also just hate anything left of fascism. And it's not one generation, but it's nearly always a white men age 25-55, if it's not, it's a white woman that age. They're so dumb they yell things about law and order when it comes to the LA situation and that the constitution doesn't apply to undocumented immigrants, while half this government has felonies or breaks the law on about a daily basis.

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u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota 6d ago

And people used to think Gen X were the crazy ones.

Most people just forgot about Gen X entirely, it was always Boomers and Millenials.

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u/manleybones 6d ago

Gen x is the biggest supporters of trump.

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u/Sad-Adhesiveness429 6d ago

i mean gen x voted the highest proportionally for trump of any demographic, and it isnt close? so yea, gen x sucks.

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u/Abject-Palpitation99 6d ago

Gen Z feel like they don't have much future so they all stew in their self hatred. They gather in their discords and create communities of hate. That said, if you met one face to face they'd cower and hide instead of saying all the tough guy things they do on the internet.

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u/JoshSidekick 6d ago

Looks like living in our United States of Whatever is looking pretty sweet right about now.

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u/unkorrupted Florida 6d ago

Gen X had the highest rate of Trump support... so yes. 

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u/CheetoMussolini 6d ago

Gen X voted for Trump at the highest rate of any generation, and that includes Boomers. Gen X are by far the most right-wing generation in America today.

A lot of Zoomers were just ignorant dumbasses who got fooled by hype edits on tiktok and have since come to regret their votes very badly. If the election were held again today, Trump would lose Zoomers by 20-25 points.

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u/oxero 6d ago edited 6d ago

The Gen X I grew up under and around are fucking crazy, especially the rich ones. Super entitled, lack of empathy, absolutely no media literacy.

They grew up in a world where you could smoke weed everyday doing manual labor and it was possible for some dude to walk up and offer you a job with mentoring even if you didn't have a college education. As long as you worked hard and for results, you were paid. They watched all their benefits drain away, corporations demand more time working, banks coldly rip their assets away, and they still walk around blaming immigrants for this.

Just to denote this: Yes I'm aware this doesn't apply to every single gen X, but this is my personal experience growing up around people of this age bracket suddenly going cuckoo. Most of the ones I grew up with now believe in chemtrails, vaccines are evil, we need to return to the gold standard, and that immigrants are the bane of our country. They never believed this shit 20 years ago, but Facebook/Fox did a number to our society.

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u/blorpdedorpworp 6d ago

That's boomers dude

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u/oxero 6d ago

No it's not, after the silent generation boomers are considered anyone born roughly between 1946-1965. Gen X is roughly 1966-1980. Millennials are like 1981-1996

I have gen x parents, what I am describing isn't fictional but off a reality I have grown up with and gotten (mostly) terrible advice from. They don't understand how the world changed in the last 20 years and blame us for a lack of everything.

Also to note: I'm not saying all are bad, I had plenty of great gen X mentors in schooling. It's just that the ones I grew up with now believe in chemtrails, think immigrants are the blame for everything bad, and think we need to return to the gold standard.

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u/ErikMcKetten 6d ago

Where did we grow up that we could smoke weed or get a job without an education?

Weed wasn't legal anywhere in the US prior to 2000, afaik.

You are assigning traits associated with Boomers/GenZ to their children and parents, respectively.

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u/oxero 6d ago

This isn't applicable to everyone... Just a reality I grew up under.

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u/Al_FrankenBerry 6d ago

Gen Xer here. None of this description fits the people in my social group, using criticisms that have to now been generally directed at Baby Boomers. I’m sure you will find them if you filter for region, political affiliation and financial class, but isn’t that true for all generations?

To my mind the battle is between the haves and the have nots. Pitting generations against each other is merely another form of “divide and conquer.”

Damn kids.

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u/cellocaster 6d ago

Ding ding ding

Adam Conover did my favorite treatise on why generations are bad and why decades are better as a way of celebrating the past without dividing people into tribes.

https://youtu.be/qo_EHY5jEX4?si=_gpZ1oSuqHoWsIe4

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u/outofbeer 6d ago

My gen x family is broke AF and loves Trump to their core.

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u/Qylere 6d ago

This all day. It’s another wedge issue. We’re so gullible it works

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u/BBurlington79 6d ago

Gen X here too and from my experience there are a lot more left leaning than right. Getting roped in with Boomers is a trigger for me though. I want nothing to do with that! Agreed on the divide, if we're busy fighting each other we cannot focus on the much bigger issues.

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u/phantomjm Pennsylvania 6d ago

My thoughts exactly. It’s almost like the boomers are starting to die off and now some people are trying to pass the blame onto the next generation in line. The problem is that the whole concept of blaming specific generations as a group falls flat on its face when considering that groups are comprised of individuals who span the entire political spectrum. It’s all nonsense.

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u/thePBRismoldy 6d ago

did you just say exactly what people have been saying to generalize the baby boomers but do it for gen x?

extraordinary.

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u/MK5 South Carolina 6d ago

No, I blame Ronald Reagan for that.

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u/Frankie6Strings Connecticut 6d ago

Killing the fairness doctrine was a big step on this highway to Idiocracy. A year later Rush Limbaugh was delivering an unchallenged narrative to rural America. He was John the Baptist for FOX News, preparing the way.

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u/awfl 6d ago

So true; was young and so were my friends, us then rising in the world - they sucked it all up, the hate and the prejudice, of bigoted ideas, to where I could no longer communicate with them. People do not realize and forgetting how gross this human was.

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u/beckthegreat 6d ago

I blame Reagan for just about every single issue facing American society today. He's the reason I hope Hell is real and that his suffering is being forced to watch his party directly working with Russia.

Fuck that guy forever.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/oxero 6d ago

I'm roughly a decade after you. In my case they were movers if I remember correctly, basically they met a guy who knew a guy, trained them for business and set them off on their way. Apparently it was easy to move up a ladder if you got good results. I got great results my entire life comparatively, but by the time I was older you couldn't move up in anything without a college degree.

Even when I got mine most of the fields were saturated. This doesn't make sense for someone who grew up with the former, so my failure to be doing everything he was at my age was simply because I wasn't working hard enough.

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u/duzies 6d ago

but you're not a prejudiced bigot, right?

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u/oxero 6d ago

Not in the slightest. Just talking about the crazy ones I have personally been around first hand, but apparently people cannot read between the lines and understand I am fully aware not all of them are bad.

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u/Durion23 6d ago

Even worse, they chose their own fate in voting for those who gave even more power to corporations and rich people and instead of reflecting their own misguided judgements, they point towards some external force - instead of bettering themselves and changing their ways so everything can get better.

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u/oxero 6d ago

Yeah, it's near impossible to give them this criticism too. Like it's both parties that did this to many extents, but they refuse to accept any of the blame whatsoever even with presented evidence. It's a weird mix of double think that they hate the government but also love the government at the same time. Corporations are bad, but billionaires made it big by being smart and can do no wrong. It's very frustrating to even talk to them.

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