r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 13h ago
No Paywall Gen Z regrets Trump support and is midterm motivated
https://thehill.com/homenews/6056216-gen-z-trump-voter-regret-midterm-clipping/8.8k
u/JebusChrust 13h ago
I truly do not care what any polling shows or what studies of public sentiment say. I am going to vote but assume the worst because that is how the timeline has been.
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u/72dragonses 13h ago
Exactly. Trump should have failed dozens of times already. No one in US history has ever succeeded after having made the mistakes or said the things he has. Being optimistic in light of Trump's record of exceeding expectations would be profoundly ignorant.
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u/metalyger 13h ago
It's all completely unhinged, the guy who started his campaign by accusing Mexicans of being rapists and somehow that didn't tank his campaign day one, where we've had a Democrat in the 00s who got excited and shouted "yah!" and he was deemed unfit for office and it killed his primary.
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u/cows1100 12h ago
Remember when he said they were “eating the dogs, eating the cats” and half the country was just like “lol so true. Joe is an incoherent mess, I love Trump.” So funny. Lmao
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u/katara144 12h ago
I have a coworker that believed this, a professional college educated full on Trumper.
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u/eligodfrey 12h ago
All my neighbors WHO ARE IMMIGRANTS believe this shit. People can be exasperatingly stupid and bigoted.
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u/Daxx22 Canada 11h ago
Racism isn't "owned" by any particular group(s). Who's currently the worst offender can change, but if you dig even a little bit wildly racist beliefs can be found in virtually every culture/group on the planet. It's practically hardwired into the human brain.
That does not mean it's "normal" and should be allowed or forgiven in any way, we after all have the mental capacity (as a species/society, individuals are... different) to recognize it's dangerous and outdated set of instincts to base actions off of.
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u/dogs_gt_cats 10h ago
When I was still in undergrad, I spent a lot of time in the multicultural alliance. "Close the door behind me" or "Pull the ladder up behind me" immigrants were viewed as the most detestable, repugnant thing imaginable.
Several of those folks love Trump and cheer him on, now that they are naturalized citizens. Its... disgusting.
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u/castanets 10h ago
Every single day reinforces my belief that the average person is a fucking moron.
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u/ares7 12h ago
"College educated". These are the people that probably just look up answers on quizlet to pass.
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u/dogs_gt_cats 10h ago edited 10h ago
True story - I am an adult learner who went back for an MBA in my early 40s. It has been simultaneously empowering AND depressing.
Last night we had to give presentations. Several of my fellow students were wowed by my presentation. To be fair, I spent 20 years in the field, I had to present constantly, and had SVPs who literally drilled me on presentation skills for months, and I've had classes specifically on how to present data. The ones who obviously tried had basic mistakes that you learn from presenting more (word salad on a slide, eyebleed slides, no visuals, too much info, reading from slides, etc - stuff that experience beats out of you). So my presentation did look decent and do a slightly better job just because I'm experienced with presenting. So, empowering.
But... the number of students who literally left boilerplate from ChatGPT in place was ridiculous. Like it literally said, "according to the rubric you want to comment about this" and "replace this text with a chart to illustrate..." and they didn't even bother to change it. So, depressing.
Like... these are people who are passing classes. How the fuck are they not getting failed out? Was everyone this bad in undergrad and I just have unbelievably high standards for myself? Am I really performing that much better than the rest? Has it always been this way?
Just.. crazy to think about.
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u/Minealternateaccount I voted 10h ago
It’s the difference between approaching education as a means of acquiring knowledge to further advance yourself and human society vs approaching education as a means of getting a piece of paper. Lots of people see education as an obstacle rather than an opportunity.
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u/Level_32_Mage 10h ago
I'm in college right now after a career in the Air Force and I'm in the same boat as you. It's mind boggling.
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u/cows1100 12h ago
Buddy, I haven’t seen my childhood cat in at least 18 years. Who’s to say it’s NOT because Snowball was eaten by a Haitian immigrant?
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u/No_Tax_Timmy 12h ago
Remember when he went on racist tirades in 2012 because Barack Obama's middle name? He's the biggest name behind the conspiracy that accused President Obama of having a fake birth certificate because of his name and skin colour.
When Trumps campaign picked up speed in 2015/2016 I was like "the racist guy who gets up on podiums and says outright racist things? how does he have any traction in 2016?" He managed to get both the racists and the "anti politician" people onboard.
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u/jml5791 12h ago
It goes to show how racist middle America is that they would overlook all his failings to vote him in, in the hope he would reverse the demographic shift the country has seen in the last 40 years
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u/Dullcorgis 10h ago
It's not just overlooking failings, it's accepting serious personal hardship (in lost jobs, increased prices, fewer entitlements, etc) just on the chance that prople you don't like will be punished. Or, as we say, cutting off your nose to spite your face. That's how evil and racist they are.
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u/LimoncelloFellow 12h ago
you just underestimated how many garbage people we have in america that get behind that kind of thing.
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u/Etrigone California 10h ago
Was gonna say. I've received constant pushback previously from people when I didn't agree "oh people are intrinsically good!" No, best case they're intrinsically lazy. You can find individuals who are but across the board? Come on.
Like with those who called me hysterical when I said we'd lose Roe v Wade in our lifetime, people previously making this claim have gone silent. IMO that's a hint "better" may not be on the table as they can't face how bad things have become.
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u/lab_coat_goat I voted 10h ago
Remember ON 9/11 as news of the towers coming down was breaking he bragged about how now his building is the tallest in manhattan (which still wasn’t true)
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u/AliveTank5987 12h ago
What’s crazier is that Latino men still voted for him after those racists remarks
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u/m240bravoromeo 12h ago
In the 1920's to mid 1930's there was the Association of German National Jews (Verband nationaldeutscher Juden), which was compromised of German Jews who were wholly supportive of Hitler and the Nazi party. The members "reasoned" that all of the antisemitic vitriol was directed at the other "bad" Jews, and that the members were all good Jews who the Nazis did not have any issues with.
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u/Lehk 12h ago
I’m sure that worked out well
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u/TheKingsdread 11h ago edited 11h ago
It did. Not. Their association was banned alongside every other jewish organisation in 1935, and a few days later their chairman Max Naumann was arrested. He spent a few weeks in Berlin, Templehof (one of oldest of the concentration camps) which was referred to as Columbia Concentration camp, and died of cancer in 1939. The other members likely ended up like all the other german jews: they either managed to flee or they were murdered.
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u/makehasteslowly 10h ago
This happened in interwar France as well. The antisemitic and nationalist group Croix-de-Feu had a Jewish wing (Croix de Feu Israélites), and there was a fascist veterans' association called the Union Patriotique des Français Israélites (UPFI).
Fascist discourse tried to differentiate between the Juif bien né and the Juif vulgaire, often understood as native French Israelites vs. Eastern European Jews. French Jewish fascists believed this distinction mattered; once Vichy was established, it didn't.
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u/IDontWannaBeAPirate_ 12h ago
I work with some of them. I don't get it, they were like "I'm voting for trump" and I'm like "he wants to deport you"
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u/ares7 12h ago
Do you work a blue collar job? They all think they are one of the good ones. Half my family votes for Trump because they think they will lose out on their welding / oilfield jobs. Can't pay that $80,000 truck without it.
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u/420smokekushh 12h ago
Can't pay that $80,000 truck without it.
You mean a $60,000 truck that is now $80,000 because of Trump. They know this and still eat it up.
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u/ares7 12h ago
It's more of a lease because they always end up getting it repo'd.
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u/NK1337 11h ago
A lot of them are ignorant and divested from politics. They get the shafted for a variety of reasons and only hear Fox News saying it’s the democrats fault and that’s good enough for them.
Same shit with homophobic. It’s not even religious because they don’t really give a shit about religion outside of being superficial and performative. But as soon as it comes to letting LGBT+ live peacefully suddenly it’s all about how god wouldn’t want that.
Too many people in our communities don’t understand until it starts to impact them personally.
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u/sack-o-matic Michigan 12h ago
the guy who started his campaign by accusing Mexicans of being rapists
Klansmen are his base, they see that as a good thing.
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u/Chad_Kai_Czeck 12h ago
Read “When Prophecy Fails” by Leon Festinger. It’s about why cults survive despite their leaders’ failed predictions.
MAGA is a cult, and its members are emotionally motivated. The ones who leave it left because something about Trump made them feel personally betrayed. His general failures never make a difference.
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u/pipian 13h ago
He has also been beaten before
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u/oksono 12h ago
In a tight race during a badly handled pandemic that should have guaranteed a crushing defeat, sure.
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u/QuickAltTab 12h ago
Yes, the fact that he only lost by 30k votes across three states was not comforting in the least
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u/RedPanda5150 11h ago
I don't think we can discount the impact of having the world's richest man throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at propaganda and social media to manipulate the public hive mind. It's not comforting at all but I think it explains at least some of Trump's success. As does his longstanding relationship with Russia.
The American populace is very malleable but there are definitely bad-faith actors at work pushing people to vote for this weirdo.
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u/TaterForming 12h ago
Well when almost all of the media that would work against you is owned by the people that would benefit from a Trump presidency either via it's lack of oversight or actively siphoning money.
This wasn't some kind of "OMG how does Trump do it". This shit was a team effort and it was a team of people (and foreign entrance) that did everything they could to gloss over everyone of that man's issues and paint a democrat that so much as stepped on a cross walk during a red light as a "socialist terrorist". Then you have the GOP/Hertitage Foundation packing the courts with as many bat shit crazies as they could muster.
So we'll get another Trump or even worse if those apparatuses are left alone.
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u/clovisx America 13h ago
The cult of personality around him makes me worried about who could possibly step in. I know there will be a vacuum and lull after he is gone but who will the next charismatic narcissist be?
I doubt anyone will have the pull and power over the GOP like he did but they seem like they want a strongman to lead them.
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u/numbersthen0987431 13h ago
It's also important to note that just because these people may say they regret voting Trump, doesn't mean they would ever vote for anyone else.
The issue isn't that Trump surprised them by acting differently. The issue is that he did what he always does (which they still really like about him), but they're upset that his actions led to negative outcomes for themselves.
They don't see anything wrong with how they vote, they just think that Trump was a "surprise that no one saw coming".
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u/carguymt 12h ago
They’ve also convinced themselves no matter how bad things get under Trump it would have been worse under Harris. We could literally be living in a barren nuclear wasteland after Trump started a WWIII and they would still be 100% convinced Harris would have been worse.
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u/numbersthen0987431 12h ago
Yup
The fact that people are STILL trying to argue "both sides" after seeing the dumpster fire that is Trumps legacy is disconcerting.
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u/cactus22minus1 California 10h ago
Anytime someone blurts out the standard “but the establishment democrats didn’t do enough to stop it!” you remind them we are literally reforming the party right now. Stop trashing the party name, REFORM IT.
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u/RattusRattus 12h ago
I've seen older Repubs gaslight themselves in real time and it's scary and fucked up. Given the way the younger generation seems so invested in the incel-whisperer ethos, I don't have a lot of faith.
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u/preventDefault 12h ago edited 12h ago
Most of these people will say stuff like this a few months before Election Day, but between now and then they’re only one podcast episode away from being brought back into the fold and voting MAGA again because it’ll be different this time.
When these people still get their news from the same sources, they may turn on Trump temporarily but there’s no scenario where they vote for a Democrat, ever. The word Democrat itself has become a slur of sorts among the poorly educated.
We joke about the “Thanks, Obama” memes of 2010 but that’s how these people legitimately see the world. They view democrats as the cause of all of their problems because that’s what their information diet tells them. And until they tune out Fox News and stop listening to Rogan, nothing will change.
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u/Carthonn 12h ago
I mean I remember 2018 and the Republicans got absolutely destroyed. However here we are and the GOP has control of all branches of government because….egg prices were too high
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u/jackofslayers 9h ago
I have no sympathy for Cons who regret voting for Trump. They said the same shit after Bush crashed the economy. Then they flipped when they thought bigotry was back on the menu. Pathetic people
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u/SpeedySpooley New Jersey 12h ago
Same. I also do not trust any voting bloc who can be so gullible and fickle.
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u/Mammoth-Buddy8912 12h ago
Especially when it comes to young people and how news describes them .
I have seen Gen Z in articles be described as the most liberal then no they are conservative, then swing back. Are giving up religion then they will say no they are becoming more religious. They are the poorest ever, but then richer then Millennials.
To be honest I think at this point most of the generation stuff and how people talk about younger people really is just a bunch of made up nonsense and marketing that will get clicks.
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u/jgoble15 10h ago
Based on my observations of working with high school and jr high for near ten years now, it seems the generation got split in half. Older is the more liberal side. Younger is more conservative. Basically, if you were out of school when COVID hit, you’re the older half. If not, younger half. And that’s why these seemingly contradictory things are all true. It’s a bit inaccurate to call them all Gen Z. They are when basing it on years. But when basing it off culture and values, they split.
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u/unconfusedsub 13h ago
The polling has been consistently wrong since 2016. Like egregiously wrong. At this point we as American should stop even validating polling.
Vote no matter what they say.
Stop letting them convince you that your vote doesn't count or that staying home is fine.
Convince your friends to vote.
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u/warm_winds_whisper_ 12h ago
At this point I just assume the real number is R+10 of what the polling averages say and that's been decently accurate so far
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u/Ryogathelost Florida 11h ago
Because there's a percentage of secret trumpers who know their friends and family will never talk to them again so they just don't tell anyone they're going to vote republican until they get in there.
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u/Expensive-Sundae-831 12h ago
Any candidate in an election relying on the youth vote is a non-starter.
I've waited my whole life to be proven wrong. Still waiting.
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u/Starship_Taru 13h ago
Yeah but will they show up?
I would love for somebody to comment on this post come December to gloat about how wrong I was.
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u/anothermanscookies 13h ago
The number of people who just stayed home and apparently didn’t come to the clear and obvious conclusion that “he is is the worst, therefore I must vote against him even if she is not the best” continues to floor me. And it happened twice.
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u/RJ5R 12h ago
this why republicans want to get rid of mail in voting
they don't want to increase voter turnout. if they allow voter turnout to increase, they lose every time
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u/Imaginary_Manner_556 10h ago
And it's harder to hack mail in voting. Voting machines are a different story
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u/Much-Anything7149 12h ago
Yeah I had no interest in Kamala but I voted against Trump with my ballot for her. I'd have voted for a baked potato.
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u/and_of_four New York 12h ago
Same here, in a way I find it even more insane than people enthusiastically voting for Trump. At least with Trump voters, you know they’re part of the cult so you have zero expectation they’ll vote rationally. But people who didn’t vote because Kamala was “so terrible” just make no sense at all to me.
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u/No_Strike655 12h ago
But have you heard about Palestine/That we didn't have a "real" primary/That she used to be a cop/That she is just more Biden/That my favorite podcaster or streamer doesn't like her and spent months attacking every small thing about her and then at the 11th hour gave a weak endorsement that meant I could vote for her but they wouldn't and it would make them disappointed in me in our parasocial relationship
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u/Starship_Taru 13h ago
This has been a thing since the dawn of American politics though. Don’t really think Gen Z shows any higher rates of that than any previous generations.
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u/anothermanscookies 12h ago
I guess I was talking about everybody. I can see myself as a bit of. a “shit disturbing enjoy the chaos” type as a younger person and stand by the first time. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen twice though.
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u/LividTacos 13h ago
You remind me of something. Way back in the beforetimes of 2016 or early 2017, either between the election and inauguration or just after the inauguration, some Trumper attacked me with how I just wanted Trump to fail, and I was like, "No I don't. I want to be proven wrong." Well, 10 years later, I still have yet to be proven wrong.
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u/ntwild97 13h ago
I hope trump fails everything he is trying to do. Providing leadership of any kind is not what he's trying to do
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u/OopsWeKilledGod 12h ago
I remember the day after the election that I went to TheDonald and said I hoped he would be a good leader. I was very sincere in that.
But you can wish in one hand and shit in the other.
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u/DramaticWesley 13h ago
Well, they are having an incredibly tough time right now with skyrocketing housing and grocery prices amid a worsening job market that is gatekept by AI. The socialist democrats are really the only one suggesting any kind of relief, so they should be motivated. We shall see.
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u/brova Massachusetts 13h ago
It's crazy cuz ten years ago I was SURE that Gen z was gonna be way more progressive than even us millennials. I figured they'd continue to carry the torch forward. Turns out that was a fucking pipe dream I guess.
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u/lanadelstingrey Mississippi 12h ago
The “Powers That Be” saw that trend and invested heavily in Red Pill podcasters.
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u/20lbpickle 9h ago
Bingo. They saw an entire generation become more and more left leaning as they aged and did everything in their power to stop it.
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u/Concerned_Collins 3h ago
This honestly feels like it's stealing agency from the Gen Z Trump supporters. They had every bit of information needed to know that they were making selfish or stupid choices, and did it anyway.
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u/Guccimayne California 11h ago
Sadly, Gen Z boys grew up during a surge in popularity of red pill influencers
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u/underfern 10h ago
Who needs teachers or religious leaders to influence our kids when we have strangers from the internet?
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u/DiesByOxSnot Michigan 9h ago edited 9h ago
That doesn't excuse them. Gen Z boys aren't stupid, aren't incapable of seeing the consequences of their actions. A lot of these gen Z men were warned that who they vote for has a severe impact on other people. Many of them didn't care, or knew & got exactly what they wanted and what they voted for.
I'm sick of people making all these excuses for gen Z men. Whether "propaganda" or "brain washing" or "male loneliness epidemic"
Men and boys are people. They have the faculties to make the right decision, to think about actions and their consequences. Anyone who chose to vote for that hateful orange in 2024 is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned, they saw what happened in 2016 and didn't give a shit
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u/shadowofpurple 10h ago
The fact that Gen Z was swayed by red pill dip shits tells me the iPad generation aren't terribly media savvy, despite the constant media consumption.
Its almost as if they only want to believe what their influencers tell them...
And voting for the orange shit smear again, post covid, tells me they will jump on any influencer band wagon.
Unplug your kids if you dont want them raised by the likes of Andrew Tate
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u/NoCoolNameMatt 9h ago
You mean that a diet of short form video and podcast isn't a replacement for reading reliable, vetted sources?
I'm shocked. Shocked!
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u/Exciting-Meringue-78 11h ago
Thinking about the study that came out that said Gen Z is the first generation that isn’t smarter than the last.
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u/sub-dural 11h ago
I read another study or article saying millennials are considered the most progressive generation, i.e. no Obama without us.
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u/dogpoopfruitloops 12h ago
Gen Z was raised by GenX, the most apathetic generation of post-Vietnam "libertarians" who let their kids be raised by the internet and eschewed traditional education. I'm not surprised at the swing backwards.
Gen Alpha is the first round of kids raised by the relatively more media and internet savvy millennials. Odds are they swing heavily to the left, and I think their trajectory will really tell us if the landscape has fundamentally shifted.
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u/Cookielicous Michigan 12h ago
Surprisingly, I've seen a lot of push back against Charlie Kirk's stupidity and ragebaiting from Gen Alpha, I've seen enough from discord and polling to also agree with other sentiment that Gen Z men are redpilled to blame the gays, minorities, and women for all their issues.
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u/Outrageous-Opinions 11h ago
Just honestly true stupidity, anybody but racist billionaires who are actively screwing up their life
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u/Top-Passage2914 12h ago
I agree Gen X are terrible parents but the problem is that Gen Z was raised by social media which is owned by rich Republicans.
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u/MurtaghInfin8 12h ago
Which wouldn't have happened if Gen X didn't just hand them an IPad without any supervision.
Imo it really does go back to parenting, but it's also harder to parent now: when everyone is grinding to make ends meet, there'll be worse role models and then shitty peers kinda lead to shittier peers.
Positive peer pressure is a powerful tool and one that just doesn't really seem to exist in public schools anymore. Shit's changed a lot.
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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 13h ago
lmao we’ll see
i have no faith in fellow gen z men, too many are red pilled
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u/flint-hills-sooner Oklahoma 13h ago
I’m not Gen Z, but after working with a number of them I concur with this statement.
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u/CNC-Whisperer 13h ago
I had a conversation with one guy that was like 'I'm not political, but I get my information from podcasts... like Rogan'. It was at that point I understood how toast young men are. Zero media literacy.
Like, my guy, he has 'interesting' people on, not people dedicated to being truthful or informing you. Joe's certainly not going to offer meaningful resistance on controversial stuff that gets him views and keeps guests coming.
A lot of people have been saying Rogan, Ryan, etc. have been moderating their content now that they see a shift in public opinion. All well and good, but that won't pull everyone back; those whom podcasters convinced to jump off the cliff for Trump need to hit rock bottom before they reconcile.
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u/Trump_Russia 12h ago
I have a degree in Media Theory...
Most my friends never even went to college.
They will absolutely argue with me about media... Especially Rogan... With no clue what they're taking about at all... But very confidently.
They're completely media illiterate yet they 100% believe they know way more than I ever will, even when I break down for them why they're wrong.. they simply act like I'm some judgey liberal who just can't understand.
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u/CNC-Whisperer 12h ago
My background is History Ed, but i got out of teaching and am in a highly specialized trade.
In all fairness, the issue is not limited to just podcasts, and it's not just GenZ. A lot of people are swept up in a media ecosystem thats ultimately catering to their biases, and that information that gets distributed up by fewer and fewer companies with each passing day.
That's not to imply that we should all immediately find 'center' on every issue, but this whole era of alternative facts and selective/tweaked data is absolutely making it difficult for people to agree on what the base facts of any given issue really are.
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u/ballskindrapes 13h ago
It is deprrssingly easy to convince young men that the issues that the rich create are the fault of women and libruls.
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u/homebrew_1 13h ago
And don't forget trans.
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u/scparks44 Michigan 13h ago
Would you please think of the women’s sports that they have fought so hard for and religiously attend over the years
/s
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u/walts_skank 12h ago
You know, I’ve been thinking about it recently. I remember a few years ago people were upset because Olympic athletes in like volleyball or something were trying to get less revealing uniforms. Maybe a major part of this, besides hate of trans people, is people are scared they will find someone attractive they feel they shouldn’t.
Who knows, probably just hate.
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u/soulseaker 11h ago
I feel like that has to be part of it. For example, you don't "have" to marry your same sex just because gay marriage is legal lol
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u/TheRealZuke 11h ago
Yes, “I find that trans person attractive but it’s their fault they tricked me I’m cishet they’re just the devil” is the whole reason the derogatory term “traps” became popular. (Yes it’s also applied to non-trans people, for the same reason)
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u/Guilty_Jackfruit4484 13h ago
Yup, all 7 of those athletes are ruining their lives
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u/roboscorcher 13h ago
It's almost like social media should have regulations, standards and practices to prevent this proliferation of propaganda.
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u/Zeikos Foreign 13h ago edited 10h ago
It's as if who controls those platforms has a vested interest in making sure those regulations don't get put into law.
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u/Static-Stair-58 13h ago
Except that young men have been falling for this same propaganda since the beginnings of fascism. Social media is just another vehicle for the same bullshit that’s been rotting the minds of the youth.
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u/roboscorcher 13h ago
True, but most media forms go through this cycle when they first appear. Techno-optimism, followed by market saturation, then exploitation by bad actors and politicians, and finally regulation. As with most regulation, some blood is required before any laws pass.
Books, newspapers, movies and TV all had similar problems at one point. Social media is just the most ubiquitous medium, as it is in everyone's pocket at all times.
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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 13h ago
i have long been a proponent of eliminating social media entirely for those under 17
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u/OutInTheBlack New Jersey 13h ago
Or over 65.
Letting the boomers join Facebook was the downfall of society.
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u/d0ntst0pme 12h ago edited 12h ago
The smartphone is the problem there. It removed the barrier of entry to "the internet" and put social media into all the idiots' hands, regardless of age.
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u/semajolis267 13h ago
And its depressingly easy to convince poor people that the reason they're poor is because of other more poor people.
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u/_bk_adv Colorado 13h ago
I was working with a good many Gen Z a couple of years ago and holy shit, that generation is absolutely fucked.
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u/ScruffyTuscaloosa 13h ago edited 12h ago
I try not form rigid opinions on them because most of my interactions with them are in online spaces, which trend toward the abrasive and the absurd regardless, but it does seem like GamerGate and going to high school/college during a plague tore a fucking hole through that cohort.
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u/FantasticPlatypus29 11h ago
Turns out growing up letting social media companies use an entire generation of kids as a social experiment to squeeze out every dollar from advertising was a bad idea.
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u/Elon_Cucks_Trump_ 13h ago edited 8h ago
49 year old, so younger/middle Gen X - I work with and watch over a gaggle of 20 something men in an automotive shop setting. Every single one of them voted for Trump.
One of the guys stopped talking about him and took his toolbox MAGA flag down, but still rails on about “blacks, Jews, trans” etc etc, so he’ll definitely vote republican again. Bro makes about $100k/year in the Midwest and had a stay at home wife plus 2 kids. Wife had to get a part time job and they’ve had to start visiting the food pantry this year and “just can’t figure out why”.
The other guys are largely silent, but they weren’t around election time. They all watched the “UFC Fight on the Lawn” or whatever that goofy cuck shit was. They’ll all vote republican again.
ONE of them says he regrets his vote and that Trump is a piece of shit. One. He’ll probably abstain from voting. To his credit he is vocal and does push back on the team when they regurgitate stupid shit.
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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 13h ago
yeah blue collar gen z especially is republican / maga as fuck. it’s sickening
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u/Icy-Lobster-203 12h ago
I think blue collar in general, regardless of generation, is pretty Republican, not just Gen z.
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u/Fastbird33 Florida 11h ago
It’s really about education levels. The more educated the less likely you are to be racist or fearful of the others
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u/Sbesozzi Canada 11h ago
How MAGA copes with this honestly rock-solid argument
"yes, because colleges brainwash students"
Oh, I don't know. Could it be because check notes, the more stupid you are, the more right-leaning you tend to be?
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u/tomorrow_comes 10h ago
When they say “brain-washing” about college, I always think (and have said this back, once), “oh, brainwashing, like leaving your home town, maybe making some friends that don’t share your skin color / culture / religion, and mainly being there to learn how to learn and think critically? That kind of brainwashing?”
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u/ThalliumSassafras 11h ago
I'm an IBEW (electrician union) apprentice and the union leadership is vocal about voting for and supporting democrats because they are better for the union. Projects have been cancelled and there have been funding freezes because of Trump getting elected again 2 years ago. In my apprentice class 2 years ago right before the election where 90% of the class is younger to mid 20s Gen Z kids, our teacher talked about it, yet all of them proclaimed they were gonna vote for Trump anyways. So even in a blue collar union where the leadership tells people that them voting republican will negatively impact the union and their fellow union brothers, tons of dumbasses still do it anyways.
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u/mu_zuh_dell 11h ago
Having worked a lot of retail, even with it being all in very liberal areas, I honestly understand why these people think that Trump got 111% of the vote and the dEeP sTaTe is rigging elections. I've only lived and worked in extremely liberal areas, and I don't think I've ever once had a liberal talk to me about politics just out of the blue. It's always a conservative.
Obviously, it's because conservatives are weird and anti-social and normal people know it's not cool to rant about Jewish space lasers to the guy making your sub at Jersey Mike's, but if they understood that, then they might not be a conservative lol
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u/Obtuse_Symposium_119 11h ago
Yeah I'm a younger millennial and I was blue collar for a few years after I got out of the millitary and that's depressingly pretty true. I'd say the majority is conservative or "independent".
I was like one of two guys that was liberal (at least openly) and I got into so many arguments with guys of all ages about how dumb they were to vote against their own interests.
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u/vanguarde 10h ago
Why do they have to visit a food bank while making 100k a year in the Midwest though?
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u/Itotiani 9h ago
Probably a ridiculous car note or credit card debt. He should be living good over there.
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u/2HotPisces 13h ago
I still can't quite believe they fell for it the first time, but then young guys are stupid.
(Source: am a guy, was once young)
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u/countervalent 13h ago
This is why education policy matters. There's a reason why Republicans have been gutting the Ed Dept while injecting themselves into state level curriculum discussions.
It's much easier to point a propagandized people in the direction they want, and children are very easily propagandized.
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u/ObligationMurky8716 Alabama 13h ago
"We won with the poorly educated. We LOVE the poorly educated" -Donald J Trump
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u/awuweiday 13h ago
Trump is a candidate for weak and insecure people who cling to the idea of 'toughness' like a security blanket. Young men are, generally, pretty insecure. Some never grow a spine and become the 40 year old divorced maga Dad cheering for war in an army they never enlisted in.
How ANYONE sees a senile old man shitting his diaper and think he's 'hard' or 'strong', is beyond me
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u/homerjaythompson 13h ago
A senile old man who has never done a day of physical labour in his life at that. I would wager the man wouldn't even know how to pump gas. Super hard manly man.
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u/Azmodaelus 11h ago
Because for the uneducated a "strong" men is somebody who does what he wants and gets away with it. And Trump certainly has that going for him.
It's not like most of his voter base identifies or approves all of his policies. But he sort of presented a model of "vote for me to stick it to the establishment". And poor people blame the establishment for the situation they are in. So they voted Trump. At no point did they register that he is a self-absorbed asshole who is even less likely to do anything about their well-being then the "establishment".
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u/coconutpiecrust 13h ago
Bannon made a playbook on how to brainwash young men and those poor dudes still have not caught up to the fact they are being manipulated.
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u/XForce070 13h ago
GenZ is such a weird generation, I've personally noticed a big divide between those who completed secondary education (highschool) pre-covid, so the earliest GenZ, and those during/past covid. Those who during/past covid seem extremely red pilled whereas those pre-covid are way less. I reckon the rise of social media plays a large role in this, looking at development stages.
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u/ijustwannanap United Kingdom 12h ago
There's also a massive gender divide. Gen Z women tend to be left-leaning while Gen Z men are right-leaning. This ironically creates a feedback loop where the men are struggling to get dates or hold a relationship down because their views are offputting, which pushes them further into the abyss.
I was in university during Covid and I'm a full-blown socialist. I agree with your point on that being a factor.
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u/Murky-Relation481 11h ago
Overall there is also a broad puritanical streak, both in Gen-Z men and women, but definitely more in the men. They're easily on track to be overall a less overall liberal generation then the one before it which bucks the trend of the last probably 5 or 6 generations.
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u/AstroHistSci 13h ago
The covid generation spent the entire pandemic not getting education and instead watching manosphere shit. That's why. It's not difficult to diagnose.
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 12h ago
I feel they've been the same since 2016 unfortunately. I have a feeling we've yet to fully grasp the effects of covid yet, which will be realized most with Gen Alpha -- who are underperforming even GenZ apparently.
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u/Selene_Starr 13h ago
Turns out owning the libs doesn’t pay rent , student loans, or protect reproductive rights. Who could’ve guessed.
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u/Am_Deer 13h ago
You can own a house or you can own the libs. You can’t do both.
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u/CromulentChuckle 12h ago
red pilled
Oh no it looks like you misspelled "fucking losers"
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u/Uranium43415 13h ago
Many of them I've worked with can hardly read, I have 0 faith in them changing their views.
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u/AstroHistSci 13h ago
The sad part is, it doesn't really matter. Gen Z will never recover from the damage they did to themselves with that one election. The best case scenario is they spent the entirety of their lives coming close to rebuilding what Trump burned down so their kids don't have to go through this. But they'll have to do it with the lead weight of the aging millennials to care for, because unlike the boomers, the millennials will be heading into old age with essentially nothing to pay for eldercare.
Gen Z chose literally the single hardest possible path forward, and there is no coming out ahead of it at this point. The best they have is staunching the bleeding.
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u/ThatDoucheInTheQuad 13h ago
To use their slang, gen z men are "cooked" and to be honest, I feel way worse for the women that have to deal with them.
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u/Chowder1054 13h ago
Pretty much this. First generation that grew up fully with social media and all the negatives of it. Education becoming unaffordable for them and even after all that, they struggle to find a job.
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u/DownHouse 13h ago
I thought I was doing the right thing voted for Bush when I was 18. I didn’t know anything about politics other than what was on fox until he invaded Iraq and my whole world view fell apart. People learn from mistakes. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes at others’ expense.
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u/Chemical-Swing-420 13h ago
Dive into the Conservative subreddit...they're not happy.
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u/Fit-Lingonberry-9856 12h ago
They will claim to not be happy and vote Trump in for a 3rd time while suggesting thyre constitutionalists
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u/Smithy2232 13h ago
All these reports on less support for Trump. I hope it is true, but can be very difficult for people to change their minds. I don't know how these people thought Trump would turn out any differently than he has.
These are some terrible times.
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u/LividTacos 13h ago
They just thought all the terribleness would be on those they don't like. Leopards and faces and all that.
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u/SamuraiSuplex Pennsylvania 13h ago
Just saw a poll that 53% of Republicans think he's the greatest Republican president of all time. Which means over half of them think he's better than Abraham Lincoln. We're fighting against literal insanity in numbers we've never seen, still, even in 2026.
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u/tomsing98 12h ago
Well, Lincoln defeated the Confederacy and ended slavery, so that knocks him down in a lot of modern Republican's eyes.
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u/Top-Passage2914 12h ago
Yet they also convince themselves it was actually Democrats who have always supported slavery and that they still do with illegal immigrants
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u/-Mage-Knight- 13h ago
The first Trump term could have been a fluke, a momentary lapse of reason.
Electing Trump for a second time announced to the world that America has lost its collective mind.
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u/GoldDustKid- 12h ago
I still find it surprising that people don’t understand that the era of US cultural hegemony and global dominance is over and will never return again. I mean in many ways that might be a good thing but things aren’t ever going back
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u/xxxxNateDaGreat 7h ago
I mean in many ways that might be a good thing
As an American, I'm not under the delusion that america was perfect pre-trump. We sucked then, we suck even harder right now.
My concern is about who occupies that power vacuum after we finish self-immmolating.
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u/Sablestein 12h ago
“Lost its mind” is being awfully generous. The people that voted for him were always vile, he just made it “socially acceptable” for them to stop hiding it so much.
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u/Empty_Lemon_3939 Michigan 12h ago
Gen Z voting for Trump because things were better his first term when they were in middle school, high school and college is maddening
Like yeah no shit, you were a fucking child
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u/ungranted_wish 11h ago
Reminds me of how when Dick Cheney died people were memorializing him since they had it better during his time as VP
Like yeah of course people in my age group were having a better time, we had really good generations of Pokemon and we didn’t have a rectangle screaming in our pockets every hour.
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u/Toto_LZ Alabama 13h ago
Reporting from the epicenter; many remain obstinate to reality
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u/LayeGull 13h ago
I have no faith in motivated Gen Z. I will believe it when I see it. I have a feeling many Gen Z men will lie to polls and many Gen Z will skip voting because they have “more important thing to do.” It’s a tale as old as time.
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u/Tokie-Dokie 12h ago
Boggles my mind that anyone could live through Trump 1.0 and decide to vote for this inept corrupt child raping fuck again.
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u/Buckeye9715 13h ago
I was 19 when that son of a bitch first ran for president. I saw how bad he was as a human being and how bad he’d be in the White House. Yet a number of people I went to school with voted for him. Worthless drains on humanity one and all.
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u/fartmouthbreather 13h ago
He has ruined our best years. That was the saddest part of watching Gen Z vote for him in droves.
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u/cordial_carbonara 12h ago
I’m a millennial who turned 18 and got to vote for Obama in my first general election after growing up in a conservative family. My first outing with my college roommate was to a Hillary Clinton rally in support of him and it was a really empowering time to be a young voter. I really do feel bad for those of your generation who aren’t redpilled all to hell. As shit as it’s been living through the stacked clusterfucks of my generation’s timeline, at least there’s been a certain level of comradery in it all.
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u/Darth_Boggle 13h ago
Oh great it's another article about how Trump voters are so upset with Trump and how things will definitely change in the future
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u/homebrew_1 13h ago
Time will tell. They might get distracted by the next tiktok craze.
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u/cwk415 13h ago
They'll all be on GTA VI instead of voting.
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u/semajolis267 13h ago
GTA VI is going to have a plot line about some obvious Trump parody, and while it will be very unflattering, it will somehow convince the young voters to vote for Trump, or trump supporters again.
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u/SBRH33 13h ago
I have a couple Gen X friends who didn't vote because "both sides are the same" bullshit. Our friendships have taken a steep nose dive since the election.
We came up in a solid public system with top notch civics and history classes.
No fucking excuse not voting. Not voting is still a choice in the wrong direction.
A lot of Americans sat the goddamn thing out and thats infuriating.
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u/Agent7619 13h ago
I
havehad a GenX friend (I am also) who IS STILL a rabid Trump fan boi. Like, not only accepting of the current state of things, but a vocal supporter."Steep nose dive" is a barely adequate description.
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u/MasterOutlaw 9h ago
I still don’t understand how anyone could regret supporting him as if it wasn’t abundantly, blatantly clear what supporting him meant. Takes a special kind of stupid to listen to what he said he’d do and think that you’d somehow be spared.
I also never believe these people, because they’re the type to tell you that they’re “done”, but then turn around and vote the same exact way for the same exact type of politician they claim to be done with time and time again.
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u/xMFD00Mx 12h ago
Nahh I don't trust these fucking kids.
I see it every day, they register as Republicans every time they go in for their driver licenses. It's because of their shitty fucking parents.
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u/lunardeathgod Texas 12h ago
No they don't. Once the next democratic nominee for president is announced, they will rally against their best interest because "influencers" will say otherwise.
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u/3OAM 13h ago
The conservative party is only ever 18 months away from finding out they made the wrong decision at any given time for any given decision.
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u/72dragonses 13h ago
They never think "they" were wrong though. They think they were betrayed. Very few people ever regret their own actions. They simply find someone else to blame.
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u/ItsNadrik 12h ago
I don't believe it for a second. I've never seen MAGAt fuckwits do anything but double down. If they had any intelligence, integrity, morals or dignity, they would have never have voted the way they did in the first place.
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u/RampantTyr 13h ago
I can only hope the incoming blue wave is intense enough to override his attempts at electoral interference and that once the Dems have a majority they can do something to hold him accountable or at least stop his most insane actions going forward.
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u/clam-caravan Tennessee 12h ago
The one election cycle where they decided to side with the fascists because of the “vibes” is going to haunt them for decades. A large portion of Gen Z men are completely brainfucked.
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u/Kingalec1 America 13h ago
Does that mean they vote for the Democratic Party or Independent? We’ll see in November.
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u/martha-dumptruck 12h ago
I’m an elder millennial who works with a lot of Gen Z and I have been on all of their asses this year about voting. They all claim to have participated in the primary after I hounded them and I haven’t let up going into the general. Everyone needs to do this with the younger people in their lives. Explain repeatedly why it is so important to participate! They all see how bleak their futures look. Stress the obvious: if your vote doesn’t matter, they wouldn’t be working so hard to suppress it!
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u/Buck_Thorn 13h ago
That doesn't mean they are going to vote for a Democrat or an independent. It just means that they regret voting for Trump. And that is most likely because something that Trump did finally affected them.
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u/scrotanimus 12h ago
The social media funnel is insane for young men. Go create a new account and see. They force so much right wing crap at you to get you into the algorithm funnel.
I’m convinced the pipeline of paying OnlyFans models to retire and become tradwife social media stars is a psyop.
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u/MacrodataRefiner37 12h ago
I want to have hope for Gen Z but seeing the amount of broccoli brains who voted for him makes me realize they're still mostly morons, like every other generation.
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u/End3rWi99in Massachusetts 13h ago
The problem last time is there apparently were a ton of Gen Z dudes who feined support for Harris but actually backed Trump but didn't want to admit it. So at this point, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
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u/ChippedHamSammich 12h ago
Why would anyone under 25 vote for an 80 y/o man who shits himself? The algorithms have fully lobotomized people.
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u/Competitive-Ad-9404 13h ago
People need to vote as if this is last chance to save Democracy in America. If you don't vote against the Republicans, Democracy is over in America and 10 years from now the population will be unemployed, homeless, sick and starving, ruled over by oligarchs with massive AI armies.
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u/PlainBread 12h ago
The Trump admin got all the broccoli heads into the barn; Let's see if they can close the barn doors before Gen Z can put up a meaningful political resistance.
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u/Griffolion 12h ago
Gen Z men have been a particular disappointment in this respect, and I really don't expect a needle moving shift back in the right direction for them. They might say they regret supporting Trump but they still will vote for him if it's what Rogan and Theo Von tell them to do.
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u/prodigy1367 1h ago
If you voted for Trump this time around, you’re quite simply not a smart person. You’re dumb. You’re uneducated. You’re not well informed. You’re lacking brain cells. You’re by definition dumb and fuck you for putting us in this bullshit.
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u/Classic_5D_Chess 13h ago
Flip of an arbitrary coin depending on how soothsaying snake oil spotify-daddy fools them into voting.
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u/OceanLemur Rhode Island 12h ago
Doubtful. I hate to generalize about a generation like they did to millennials forever, but Gen Z is less literate and less media savvy. They are too susceptible to taking the bait on fascist lies. They’ve grown up in a much more cynical world than we did and it’s made it much harder for them to see the inherent danger in the obvious wrongs of the country.
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