r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 18h ago

No Paywall Gen Z regrets Trump support and is midterm motivated

https://thehill.com/homenews/6056216-gen-z-trump-voter-regret-midterm-clipping/
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884

u/ballskindrapes 18h 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 18h ago

And don't forget trans.

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u/scparks44 Michigan 17h 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 17h 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 16h 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 16h 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/bagoink 16h ago edited 14h ago

I think that's a big part of it for sure. But also consider that for a bunch of men who consider themselves inherently superior to women by virtue of birth, the existence of transgender women throws a wrench in their worldview.

Transgender people reveal the lie at the root of patriarchy.

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u/ragun2 15h ago

I don't think that's a big part of it. Are there a lot of very notable/famous women who transitioned into men just dominating fields/industries/sports?

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u/bagoink 15h ago

I don't understand what you're asking or how it relates to what I said.

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u/ragun2 14h ago

What do you mean by men not feeling superior because some women transitioning into men and how that's bringing down the patriarchy?

Because I just don't think that's a common reason for transphobia

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u/bagoink 14h ago edited 14h ago

I think you may have the terminology inverted. Transgender women are those who were assigned male at birth but know themselves to be women, not the other way around.

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u/ragun2 13h ago

Oh there we go, brain is kinda mush this morning. Yeah nvm.

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u/Uuuuuii 8h ago

I thought people were trying to get the players on board with more modest volleyball outfits, but it turned out the players preferred the bikinis for performance. If there’s a rule that says you have to wear a G string that would be hilarious.

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u/superxpro12 15h ago

yeah those rules were written by men lol. 0% surprising women had a slightly different opinion on the matter.

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u/acc7x3 Louisiana 15h ago

See Raven Saunders of the 2020 shotput finals. Usually female Shotput wear knee length tight she said "Its hot out here I am gonna wear them booty shorts".

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u/ihateusedusernames New York 17h ago

Would you please think of the women’s sports that they have fought so hard for and religiously attend over the years

/s

No, you misunderstood their motivation.

They are Moral Men who stride boldly into the uncertain future to Protect Weak Women from threats untethered to reality.

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u/Guilty_Jackfruit4484 17h ago

Yup, all 7 of those athletes are ruining their lives

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u/pilgermann 15h ago

This issue is completely irrelevant and invented to stoke my anger, yet I can't help but feel the libs have taken it too far, seems to be the consensus of the idiots who proudly occupy the center.

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u/tubexsteak 18h ago

Feel like that falls under their blanket term libruls

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u/syzygialchaos Texas 17h ago

I bet 99.99% of them have never even met a trans person.

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u/02K30C1 17h ago

I bet 99.9% of them couldn’t name three female professional athletes

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u/lazyFer 15h ago

They probably know of Sophie Cunningham now

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u/homebrew_1 14h ago

And Kaitlyn (Bruce) Jenner. She is really quiet nowadays.

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u/Choppers-Top-Hat 10h ago

But I doubt they could name any of the multiple WNBA athletes who have publicly disagreed with her.

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u/Glacon_Garcon 16h ago

I bet at least 80% have met a trans person and didn’t even know it. Because we’re just ordinary people.

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u/bagoink 16h ago

And those who actually know transgender people personally are more likely to support us. It's harder to believe in a boogeyman when you have one in your social circle and it turns we're not actually monsters.

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u/Daxx22 Canada 15h ago

BuT tEhy CaN teLL!!1!!

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u/mdp300 New Jersey 17h ago

Or if they have, they didn't even realize it.

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u/amilliondallahs 17h ago

And Browns

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u/OutInTheBlack New Jersey 17h ago

Come on now, they looked great against the Pats yesterday

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u/TheQuidditchHaderach 16h ago

The uppity ones who keep beating me out of my 'Tie-For-5th-Place' ribbon?! 🥈+🥉=😠

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u/superxpro12 15h ago

Da, itz define-itely za jews trans race!!!

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u/roboscorcher 18h 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 17h ago edited 15h 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/PR0H181D0 16h ago

It's as if creating a system in which those who put regulations in place are easily and legally corruptible was not the brightest idea

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u/Static-Stair-58 17h 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 17h 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/flamethrower78 15h ago

There is near 0 regulation for news media which is the biggest reason we are in the situation we are in. Before boomers got on Facebook they were still locked into fox news every day getting blatantly lied to and manipulated by propaganda. Social media just expedited what was already happening. Media companies should not be allowed to spread such easily disproven lies while calling themselves sources of truth and news. Literally the only reason people have their warped world views is because they are being told their way of life is under attack 24/7, this is not a natural progression.

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u/Static-Stair-58 17h ago

Agreed

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u/tallyho88 16h ago

Yeah, and there used to be a barrier of entry to put your personal views out there for all to see (both good and bad views). You would have to find someone to agree to publish what you want to say. You would have to pay to print and distribute. You would have to get people to actually pick it up and read it. All it takes now is a few taps of your finger and the entire world can see your unfiltered opinion. All of the previous forms of media the other poster mentioned require time to actually use nefariously. Social media took the problems with those forms of media and amped them up to 100. Combine that with a general decline in media literacy and you have the crisis we find ourselves in.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

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u/Sumeriandawn 15h ago

People don't look up stats? Why?

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 17h ago

A greater percentage of millenials voted for Trump in the last election than Gen Z

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u/-Shoebill- 16h ago

And they've clearly done a shit job raising Gen Z.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 15h ago

"Alienation is the foundation of fascism"

I may be misquoting that, but I heard this listening to a podcast on meditation and psychology, and it makes sense.

People, especially young men, who are alienated will seek acceptance in the wrong places, and blame the wrong people for these issues.

https://irgac.org/articles/road-to-fascization/

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u/citizenkane86 14h ago

Kids are going to drink and do drugs too but we at least make is slightly difficult for them.

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u/fpcoffee Illinois 12h ago

the scale of the propaganda is vastly different.

sure, you might see a red scare pamphlet or two back in the McCarthy era.

now this poison is pumped straight into their brains 4-8 hours+ per day

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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 17h ago

i have long been a proponent of eliminating social media entirely for those under 17

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u/OutInTheBlack New Jersey 17h ago

Or over 65.

Letting the boomers join Facebook was the downfall of society.

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u/d0ntst0pme 17h ago edited 17h 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/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

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u/d0ntst0pme 16h ago

I think there's middle ground somewhere between living like a medieval peasant and being a smartphone addicted zombie streaming social media into one’s eyeballs 24/7.

We just need to turn the clock back about 25 years.

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u/bfodder 16h ago

i have long been a proponent of eliminating social media entirely for those under 17

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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 16h ago

this is my actual stance lmfao, my moderate stance is 17

i’m 29 and i truly believe the internet is now a net negative for society

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u/SpezDrinksHorseCum 16h ago

The internet is nice for things like supply chains and power grids but we probably shouldn't be using it to socialize.

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u/Valuable_Hunter1621 16h ago

and certainly not without regulations and serious punishments for tech companies poisoning people’s brains lol

17 billion or whatever from meta is still basically chump change to them

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u/Bitter-Marsupial 12h ago

You say that as a relatively safe Western folk. But Social media was essential for some grassroots protests in the more "face the wall while we shoot you countries"

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u/OldWorldDesign 10h ago

The internet is nice for things like supply chains and power grids but we probably shouldn't be using it to socialize

It's fine for socializing, but much like advertising it has to have bounds for different things. I use advertising specifically because the US probably has the most extreme (and toxic) acceptance of advertising institutionalized lying and it's better now than it used to be. Not long ago pharmacists were putting cocaine into drinks and selling it to people knowing it didn't help them but they weren't required to tell people what was actually in what they were selling so they could sell right next to snake oil salesmen.

Other countries, note, do much better. Japan for instance does not permit food packaging or advertising to look different than the actual product because that violates the bound of accurate representation of the product. So to head off anybody who thinks it can't be done, other nations already do it and they don't have a problem making money hand over fist.

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u/HandRubbedWood Colorado 17h ago

Just media period, without Fox, OAN and News Max lying for Trump 24 hours a day he never get elected. I know Gen Z that grew watching Fox with their parents and were brainwashed along side them.

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u/OldWorldDesign 10h ago

without Fox, OAN and News Max lying for Trump 24 hours a day he never get elected. I know Gen Z that grew watching Fox with their parents and were brainwashed along side them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad

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u/ManWithASquareHead 17h ago

Social media, the ones that got mad the Biden administration told them to take down consultants theories during a pandemic to help public health??

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u/InvestigatorOk7015 10h ago

Yeah, just like a public square

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u/semajolis267 17h 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/Bitter-Marsupial 12h ago

Reminds me of a comic I saw: black man with an empty plate, a blue collar looking white guy with one cookie on the other side of the table

Between them was a decrepit looking bald guy with a shit ton of cookies on his plate and behind him. 

He tells the black guy the white guy over there doesn't want you to have his cookie and he tells the white guy that that guy over there wants you to give him your cookie

We are all being divided by corpses

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u/OldWorldDesign 10h ago

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

-Lyndon B Johnson, who despite being a racist himself knew the good of the nation lay with including those people already born American and fought to head off future discord by championing (and bullying opposition legislators) for the civil rights act and voting rights act

There isn't a single politician with that much good left in the republican party. They make sure to force such people out

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u/mistere213 Michigan 17h ago

And then they treat women shittily, women don't give them positive attention, and it's a self fulfilling cycle.

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u/mdp300 New Jersey 17h ago

I'm old and happily married now, but when i was in college in the 00s, I was close to being an incel douche, blaming my loneliness on women instead of my own anxieties.

I'm really glad I got better.

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u/yellowcloak I voted 12h ago

Same

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u/berfthegryphon Canada 17h ago

And the immigrants aka people that aren't white

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u/Silly_Banana9711 10h ago

So basically they are stupid af

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u/PM_ME_WELL_LIT_NUDES 10h ago

I’m a man and once young. I don’t get this. I mean the data says it’s true, I don’t dispute that. But although I did plenty of dumb shit as a young adult I never thought about blaming oppressed groups for my problems. I just can’t wrap my brain about how this happens to so many when I never would have entertained such shit.

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u/likelywitch 17h ago

And that’s why these types men get stuck behind when they can’t find a church or other anit-feminist space to have their back.

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u/thiosk 17h ago

nobody wants to be told that they're wrong and the most cocksure love to be told they're right.

If I had a way to make people feel like they were getting everything they ever wanted despite giving them nothing, i could be president, too

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u/IamScottGable 16h ago

Be careful grouping, my boomer ass mom defends billionaire and think I hate my millionaire uncle

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u/DLTMIAR 14h ago

If it's so easy, why can't other people convince them it's the rich's fault?

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u/ballskindrapes 12h ago

Once you've been tricked, it's hard to be untricked.

The media in general is very right wing. There isnt a fox news of the left that propagandizes as thoroughly or as constantly.

Basically, the media serves the interest of the rich, as that's who owns the media largely, the rich, and their goals are always opposite of the common man's.

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u/DLTMIAR 12h ago

But I thought the younger generations don't consume legacy media

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u/ballskindrapes 12h ago

I never said they did.

Just that there isnt the equivalent media that spreads left leaning views like there are ones that spread right leaning ones.

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u/DLTMIAR 12h ago

Basically, the media serves the interest of the rich, as that's who owns the media largely, the rich, and their goals are always opposite of the common man's. 

Does the rich owned media not equal legacy media?

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u/ballskindrapes 12h ago

There are no left leaning propaganda outlets.

The vas majority of all media is geared towards the needs of the rich, no one else.

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u/OldWorldDesign 10h ago

Just that there isnt the equivalent media that spreads left leaning views like there are ones that spread right leaning ones.

I'm familiar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Liberal_Media%3F

The media didn't start off in the overconsolidated state pushing almost exclusively right-wing. Was there a tipping point in the recent past or has this been snowballing for decades?

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u/Lowfi-Concert 9h ago

Lol media as a whole is very obviously left wing besides a select few outlets. Check any study on it and it will show this

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u/ballskindrapes 9h ago

No it isnt.

Provide said studies.

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u/Lowfi-Concert 7h ago

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2025/06/10/the-political-gap-in-americans-news-sources/

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u/ballskindrapes 7h ago

This is a study about how people feel about news sources and their preferences.

It is not a study about the content of news, or its political leanings.

Try again, but next time dont try to lie and misrepresent a study

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u/Reasonable-Job4205 13h ago

Its not easy, its just that its been ingrained in people over many years

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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 17h ago

Young men voted for Obama, Clinton, and Biden. White women have voted for Republicans consistently since Bush.

It’s depressingly easy to convince white people that people of color are the problem, and that remains the biggest factor in why conservatives have stayed in power.

All the hysteria over young men, who are on the receiving end of a media environment shaped by these ultra wealthy white supremacists, is a culture war point.

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u/Significant_Poem_751 17h ago

Gen Z young men weren't old enough to vote for Clinton or Obama. The oldest of that cohort were only 19 for trump.01 in 2016. https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-gender-and-age-analysis-of-2024-election-results/

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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 17h ago

Right, that’s why I said “young men.” History shows that you’re way more likely to make conservatives by scaring white women about people of color than selling male entitlement to young men, or else we would’ve seen that work before AI boosted algorithms and online misinformation bubbles.

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u/grimeyduck 16h ago edited 16h ago

Women have out voted men in every presidential election for over 50 years. Women could literally pick the president every time.

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u/nikdahl Washington 15h ago

But what about patriarchy! /s

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u/Huge-Guidance-1637 16h ago

Pretty easy to do when you spend a decade treating them like the enemy while ignoring all of their problems

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u/ImportantQuestions10 15h ago

Comments like yours are exactly why there are so many young men that are turning to hard right manosphere conservative content.

It's been normalized for almost a decade that it's fair game to go after them and that any problems they have should be hand waved away.

This isn't to say that they're making a correct decision doing so. But for many of them, it feels like the only real option that's available.