Summary
Despite his conservative platform, Donald Trump made unexpected gains among Gen Z voters. Exit polls showed a shift, with young men favoring Trump by 2 points, a reversal from Biden’s previous lead.
Gen Z’s support for Trump may have been underestimated, as an Axios poll found nearly half of Gen Z voters lied about their vote, with young men more likely to support Trump quietly.
Trump connected with young men through appearances on popular podcasts and endorsements from social media influencers.
Disillusionment with the economy and frustration with the Democratic Party’s approach to working-class issues also drove some Gen Z voters to seek change, with Trump capitalizing on these sentiments.
The only people this was a “secret” too are people who weren’t looking or listening.
It sucks how much people are ignoring this.
Well, a lot of people - mostly people in a certain age range - kept saying how magical the younguns are, how media savvy and how morally upright they were, and how they were going to get things right where the stupid boomers, Gen X and Gen Y got it all wrong…
And while I’d like to believe that, I’ve seen little evidence of better instruction anywhere K-12 or in higher education about logical fallacies and teaching about a good media diet. Being able to install an app on your phone doesn’t make anyone media savvy; these things are designed so nearly any idiot can use it.
Why anyone ever thought that “the kids” were going to be able to have a better filter than older generations is like assuming kids plopped in front of Saturday morning TV that was meant to PREY on them were more “media savvy” about that environment…sigh.
If anything the easy access to information and apps are a lower barrier of entry than in the past meaning you can be dumber and still participate.
I don’t want to shit on an entire generation but I am also not so impressed. This is a historic thing though where people don’t think highly of younger generations. One needs to be aware of this bias.
If anything the easy access to information and apps are a lower barrier of entry than in the past meaning you can be dumber and still participate.
Yes, exactly this. I’m old enough to remember the Eternal September and the inherent assumptions built into that criticism - prior to that, the Internet population tended to be skewed toward very smart people in the engineering/technique kind of sense, but also I would say quite a few were lacking in emotional intelligence and/or wisdom as well and it would be hard to argue they were any better at critical thinking and/or media literacy. I remember people lamenting how “easy” AOL made it ( ironically, probably something quite a few of our “tech savvy” younger generations of today might find way too onerous to bother with, LOL).
But I certainly do chuckle at the notion that “kids just know tech better” just by virtue of using a touch interface from early childhood and having intimate knowledge of a few branded platforms. I mean, UX, when it comes to commercial software products, is about making sure people are not breaking their brains on using those products. They are specifically designed so even the dumbest (usually with a “but can your mother/grandmother understand it” kind of discussion by the builders) in the population can use it. Familiarity with a product/platform is no more “tech savvy” than knowing all about Nike makes someone a top athlete.
I’m a highschool teacher. This generation of students isn’t even more tech savvy, let alone media savvy. Your exactly correct about the design of modern technology; this generation grew up with tablets and iPhones, they have no idea how to do some incredibly basic tasks unless an app does it for them, and they no understanding of really core - and in my mind simple - computer use concepts like what a folder is, or how find a file on a device and attach it to an email.
We’ve begun teaching media literacy in the highschools, but it’s unfortunately falling into the pitfalls or most education. We pull specialized articles from sources that students would literally never engage with, discuss how to read such articles and how they can be misleading, and never make the connection to the kind of content that students actually absorb. Students are day-in, day-out learning from influencers and social media, and we’re handing them articles from 2010 reprinted into textbooks and news posts they’d never have the patience to read, while continually reinforcing that cell phones are toys that are meant to stay out of the classroom and used in private or with small groups of friends.
The kids aren’t alright, but that’s not on them.
this generation grew up with tablets and iPhones, they have no idea how to do some incredibly basic tasks unless an app does it for them
Yep, I’ve been completely underwhelmed with what constitutes being “tech savvy” for a lot of people in that age range. For some of them, if it isn’t a product (and a popular one), it’s like it doesn’t register for them. They think in terms of brands when it comes to technology.
Tech aside, I would love for schools at K-12 and at higher levels of learning to incorporate critical thinking and media literacy instruction. It would be an uphill battle though, probably at the very outset, but certainly after reactionary parents start noticing that their kids don’t think just like them. For some reason, people seem to believe that school is just a glorified job training program, and that anything outside of that is off-limits, meaning, their kids are expected to come out believing the exact same shit going into school as when they come out. I view that as an education FAILURE if a student comes out believing exactly what their parents believe in the end without ever having questioned any of it. Of course, if children deviate even slightly from what their parents/pastor/community believes, the wingers think that is “indoctrination”.
Kids should be forced to go through what I did to get on the Internet. Learn how modems work. Type
A:\install.exeand swap out a dozen floppies before you play that new game you love. (While you’re waiting you can read the manual.) Want a porn video? Learn how to use a downloader and be prepared to wait a few days. Want a new machine? Build it yourself.
I have written and moderated courseware for education students focusing on digital literacy. A requirement for graduation, pass/fail. I was so excited to start the project. I was so disappointed by the end.
The teachers to-be had very little digital literacy overall, and very little ability to recognize that or care. Too many passed, by design of the department heads. It was saddening to realize that most of them were headed out into the world with indifference to social media processes and little ability to recognize digital manipulation, and to share that indifference with children.
Just a few years ago this generation was walking out of schools to protest our lack of action against climate change. The shift is crazy.
It was mostly the girls doing that, and they haven’t gone as hard right.
I actually disagree. They’re the same kids. The problem isn’t that this is a different demographic, or even that the same demographic has suddenly become malicious and ill-meaning. It’s that that’s not how they see Trump. They’re not as educated on his past actions, being too young to vote and therefore too young to care during the 2016 or even the 2020 election cycle. They’re bombarded day-in, day-out by news media and social media giving them conflicting information. For many of them, their beliefs boil down to “well, my parents seem to think Trump is good for the economy, and there’s too much other stuff to pick through,” and a single-issue voter is born.
Others are simply tired of standing for morally and ethically good issues, only to be constantly told that, as young men or white people, they’re the issue. When you fight for someone else for so long and are still met with people who blame you for being born just because you seek a deeper understanding (as one 16 year old student in my class recently did when he tried to ask what the problems with Trump genuinely are), it becomes easy to fall into the political sports team paradigm.
And these are far from the only two reasons. But we have to try an understand that the same students who want the environment saved are the ones who vote Trump, because no other option speaks to them.
Secret republicans?
Everyone I know who listens to Joe Rogan is clearly Republican if they aren’t stating it themselves.
Didn’t Joe Rogan endorse Bernie Sanders at one point? The guy seems to be all over the map.
He endorses whoever likes him the most. He’s a moron. And so are his remaining fans.
Someone on Lemmy yesterday insisted that he was actually smart. When I asked for evidence, they mocked me for asking for evidence. That’s the level of intellect we’re talking about here.
Agreed, but, to be fair, what constitutes “smart” is not really objective. It can mean different things to different people and the evidence to back it up may not be acceptable evidence to those you debate.
I wasn’t the one insisting he was smart. It’s not really up to me to define it. They did not. They decided instead to mock the idea of asking for evidence for something.
Edit: Also, I provided links with quotes and a video to show what a fucking idiot he is.
Yeah, I went through a Rogan phase years ago back when he endorsed Bernie. He definitely was a little controversial even back then. I stopped listing as he got more controversial. I tuned back in briefly for the Trump and Rogan interview just out of curiosity. I was shocked to see how far Rogan has fallen.
For context, I’m a Gen Z man. I’m really disappointed the way my fellow Gen Z men are going.
I’ve gone on my own political journey being raised pretty conservative and becoming liberal as I met more diverse people. So honestly maybe Rogan should have always been a red flag, but I did look up to him for a while. I really wanted him to be a progressive voice, but it’s blatantly obvious now he is just as bad as the rest.
Yeah i gave the Trump and Musk one a listen in the interest of hearing what they are saying. Oof. Needs an independant real time fact checker. Bad.
There aren’t too many others getting much market share to voice other takes.
AFAIK he always claimed to be a centrist until a few days ago. I don’t think he exactly endorsed Bernie, but he’s said very nice things about him and his policies.
With dumbass hot takes like “You don’t need vitamins. You just need to concentrate about the pump.”
Gotta keep em busy somehow voting stupidly and paying wild interest rates on their lifted trucks or they might start thinking for themselves
I genuinely think Rogan is diluted to think those things rather than think big picture and make nefarious recommendations. On the other hand though he does hock neutropic supplements, so it’s just confusing to put a label on him. He’s legit uneducated and just parrots smart statements sometimes.
He was friends with Alex Jones for years. He got the entertainment side of him without the crazy dangerous conspiracy theories. Just the normal ones. I don’t hate Rogan. I just don’t find him funny or entertaining anymore. But I also haven’t listened to him in years. Maybe it’s worse now.
I’ve been listening to Rogan since 2017ish and he has totally shifted rightward. I used to listen to every episode because it was usually either funny or informative. Now it’s preachy and just captured by right wing talking points that border on conspiracy theories. My takeaway is that he listens to his comedian friends instead of his more educated guests, which is a microcosm of America. His show is only as good as the guest and subject matter… Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Fantastic. Trump? Problematic. It just comes across that since he is now in the running to be a billionaire with good investing strategy, he is now switching his interests and views to match. If you recognize a guest, definitely listen, but skip over everything else.
My little sister actually dodged a date with one of these chucklefucks only a few days ago. I think they were supposed to meet on Friday for the first time, but she asked if they could meet this coming week because she was slightly freaking out about the implications of the election results… dude straight up admitted he was excited, and that he was a MAGA/MAHA (I had to look that up - apparently it’s “make America healthy again” (???)). Instablocked that fucker lmao.
I wonder how many start trying to hide their magabrain, their magagear, their media diet, etc…for the early part of dating.
If my experience is any indication, they won’t be able to keep their yap shut about it for long, and…welcome to getting ghosted, swiped left on, and just generally having a very, very long dry streak. :)
That’s why they want to remove all agency from women
Any woman who’s terrified by the results needs to adopt South Korea’s 4Ds policy. Let’s see how these incels like an even smaller dating pool.
52% of white women voted for Trump. The Republican dating pool is large and won’t be affected by 4Ds.
Leftist women joining 4D just means fewer LEFTIST relationships and fewer leftist families.
It will be hilarious to see republican men complaining about women staying abstinent as a direct result of their attacks on women’s rights.
Secret? What secret? Its been fucking obvious for the last 10 years!
In other words: brainless morons let Rogan take a dump in their skull. It’s like the people that used to let Rush take a giant shit in their heads on the daily.
Remember how everyone was telling us how magical the next “generation” is? Yeah, I wasn’t really buying it, either. I fucking hate that Maher is right about this kind of thing, though.
Maher is right about this…
Maher is an insufferable cunt who just hates all young people. Broken clock and all that… I couldn’t take listening to him even like 4+ years ago, I can’t imagine how much more annoying he’s gotten as he gets older.
I can’t believe he still has a show tbh I gotta wonder who tf is watching him
Other old people is probably a safe bet. If anything, his audience is probably hyped about how “Finally, somebody gets it and is talking about these damned young people!”
Cmon, you gotta admit Tom Sawyer is a jam.
There was a reason they dipped deep into social media and podcasts, Dems didn’t understand this.
Less public / archived spaces as well. Videogame lobbies were rampant with Trump / MAGA messaging in 2019. Not sure what its like now as I quit all online gaming. Anyone 14-17 during that period who are now of voting age has likely gotten a massive dose of right wing propaganda.
That was Steve Bannons plan way back from 2015-16. He was the one to really push for indoctrinating the gamers and making gamer culture and maga anti-woke one in the same…
Now you can’t even go into a single steam discussions forum for a new popular game without seeing multiple “go woke go broke” and “is this game woke?” posts… Makes me sick…
Oh, but she went on The View! So, she’s all set.
2 percent is not the wave they want it to be. Especially not with 10 million Democrats staying home.
They underestimated the puppeteer who bought a social media for push hateful propaganda.
I think people also underestimate the amount of twitch streamers that are leaning right wing. Asmogold I think it the most popular one, but there are many others as well
Call them what they are : boys
Young men have become more right wing for sure.
I wonder why that is? The dems where marketing right at them?
There is a sizable group of young men who not only feel like the Democrats (and people on the left, in general) have not only ignored the issues they face, but view them as being inherently bad in some way. The alt-right spaces have been very successful at translating discussions of privilege into a message that everyone but the GOP believes young men, especially young, white men, are doing just fine and are greedy for demanding any sort of help or attention, as well as inherently being oppressors of the marginalized groups that have featured so prominently in contemporary discourse, with no way of redeeming themselves short of complete and total submission to these groups. Basically, painting white guilt on steroids as the only acceptable option for these young men to the Democrats, but with the caveat that nothing they do will ever absolve them of the crime of being born with a penis.
This is obviously nonsense, but it’s quite attractive to these people to hear someone say that they acknowledge their problems, those problems are real, and what’s more, those problems are not their fault. The absence of acknowledgement or inclusion of these problems in the Democratic talking points lends it some credibility, and there’s a robust media apparatus in place, with folks like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson, that allow them to form some sense of community and identity, while also moving them further on the way to being full-blown MAGA supporters.
It’s the same sort of strategic failure that the Dems encountered with working class people more broadly; they dismissed their concerns, told them everything was actually fine, when many acutely feel the struggle of existence, and didn’t offer a platform that got them excited and feeling like their economic concerns were being addressed. Then add in policy proposals that specifically target groups like black men, and many of them begin to view the entire field of politics as a zero-sum game, which one side is looking to rig against them.
Of course, this is a misguided take, at best, but it’s amplified by podcast bros and alt-right youtubers, and the way the DNC strategists takes the votes of these groups for granted lends further credence to the notion, in their eyes. The DNC desperately needs to come up with some countermeasures for the alt-right media bubble and stop assuming they can count on any votes as safe, especially if they don’t have heavy messaging targeting the demographics in question.
I really don’t see how Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson are an issue. Literally all Jordan Peterson has said that you should take responsibility for your life and do better, that Joe Rogan sits down and has conversations with people taking a neutral perspective.
Harris had every opportunity to go on Joe Rogan, and she didn’t, which I think is possibly one of the main reasons that she lost the election. People are sick of corporatised media, bullshit. They want to hear people have actual conversations about real shit. That is something that the new wave media has become extraordinarily good at. And the left wing just can’t play that game because they’re too insincere and corporatised to have anything more than a 5 second sand bite.
I wouldn’t call it an alt right media bubble. I just think it’s individuals exercising their free speech, which has landed us in a situation where the traditional media, which is bought and paid for by big business, can no longer compete.
Trump didn’t win the election. The Democrats lost. And the data backs this entirely.
Peterson has said way more bullshit and its all on YouTube.
Rogan supposedly being neutral with everyone is problematic since it puts crazy people on equal footing with experts, and it causes confusion for people who may not know better. As an extreme example, being neutral means you should spend the time and effort to hear out a flat earther as much as an astronomer. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not everyone is entitled to a platform to spew bullshit.
Whata the worste shit peterson has said?
What ur essentially saying is that people are too dumb to be allowed to decide if a flat earther or an astronomer should be listened to and that decision should be made for them? Who makes that decision joe? The government? You? The fucking stazi? Why not give the people the freedom to decide for themselves?
My biggest gripe is that science is really fucking hard and we’re unbelievably lucky to have made so many strides in knowledge and technology on the backs of generations of brilliant people lending their genius to the greater good. Flat-earth and other pseudo-sciences degrade the amount of pure brilliance, luck, and hard fucking work involved in getting to where we’ve gotten. I love the idea that some randos on the Internet could fundamentally turn science on it’s head, and perhaps it’s still possible. Science is much harder than most of these people even realize though.
Should we be skeptical of things in general–absolutely! Even if you truly believe you have a take that will change science at its core, you won’t be taken seriously by the scientific community if you can’t provide rock-solid proof that can be vetted and verified by other scientists. Is that unfair?
People are most certainly making their own choices – remember how hot ivermectin was for a minute there? Completely unsupported evidence of efficacy and guess what – it didn’t work. Personally, i think they should take science in their own hands and figure out why they’re wrong about so much. The problem here is what i think is a defining difference between a scientist and a pseudo-scientist: the scientist will pay attention to the results and will even change their hypothesis/theory when new evidence to the contrary is discovered. The pseudo-scientist already knows the answer they are looking for and will disregard any evidence to the contrary out of hand.
Remember the flat earther documentary where they set out to finally disprove modern science and failed spectacularly? Remember when confronted with hard evidence disproving their theory, they immediately started blaming the testing equipment and methodology, never yielding for a moment that they could be wrong. That is a problem, in my opinion. They regularly begin to reject real indisputable evidence in favor of ‘vibes’ or whatever leads them to believe hare-brained theories, and next thing you see people venturing further out into Lala Land where everything magically fits into their set of “theories” and they are further disconnected from reality.
I really think we’ve let down generation after generation with degrading educational standards. Pet theories are one thing but outright rejecting science because you can’t understand it or do it yourself is counterproductive. Pseudo science doesn’t help anyone and deserves to be relegated to the tabloids like they used to be (of course I’m sure that people believed some of that shit whole-heartedly back then too, again despite lacking any credible evidence)
As @[email protected] already pointed out, Rogan’s “I’m just promoting free-speech and practicing neutrality” platforms people who are wholly uninformed with equal standing as experts in a given field. For an example of how this is irresponsible, and yes, the average American really is too stupid to be trusted with distinguishing a square turd from a brownie, look at the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment and COVID denialism coming out of Joe “Just asking questions” over the years.
I wouldn’t call it an alt right media bubble. I just think it’s individuals exercising their free speech, which has landed us in a situation where the traditional media, which is bought and paid for by big business, can no longer compete.
It most certainly is an alt-right media bubble when those who get sucked into it refuse to even consider any evidence that doesn’t come directly from Joe Rogan, Fox, OANN or whatever other goofballs they watch. If you think these people and organizations are above the influence of big business, I’ve got several bridges to sell you.
This also isn’t strictly a matter of them not trusting news from other sources that don’t align with their own biases, but denying objective facts from experts in the field, all because Joe smoked DMT once, and what the experts say doesn’t feel right to him. See Rogan et al. as they promoted baseless COVID conspiracy theories while also disregarding any medical advice from public health experts, or the growing consensus amongst medical professionals and epidemiologists as we came to understand things better after a couple of years.
More like nagging at them.
While ignoring their concerns and blaming them for it.
Multiple reasons, but it starts with terrible education. They don’t know how to verify information at best, and at worst don’t want to, they believe they win when they piss off someone they don’t like. This means the information they get on current topics is generally something pushed by someone either paying an algorithm to target them or by things like AstroTurfing.
There’s a lot of value for the hegemony class in getting people to not care about the climate, endless war, genocide, and human rights in general.
And then you have the out of touch authoritarian liberals/neoliberals that control the liberal side of the mainstream media.
The way I see it is, the youth were super excited about changing the shitty situation that faced them, and the prospect of having Berny Sanders as president, who also wants to change that situation, and they had that ripped away from them, so they were radicalised, they spend 4 years with a senile old man, who did nothings to change the staus quo, and so they voted naively for the candidate who proposed change.
Sounds like a fair assessment to me. You couldnt have bernie so u settled for trump lol.
…this was never a secret.
It sure was to the democratic party.
Because the dinosaurs that run it are idiots.
I love how the picture is an attractive able bodied young white man with facial hair. I am so tired.
But Lemmy told me Gen Z was going to save us all this election.
If only it was just Lemmy…I was being told by so many self-styled authorities that this generation had some kind of magical properties that no one that came before them has had, and just by virtue of “getting it” when it came to consuming things like social media (or something).
This is dumb. It’s always been dumb. The target demo is the target; they aren’t savvier than anyone else is that is a target. So when boomers were saying stupid shit about how Gen X “just gets it” when it comes to something like MTV, or the early days of the (privatized) 'net, that was just as stupid. MTV was a product and Gen X was the target demo, emphasis on target. The elitists quickly figured out a way to monetize the (privatized) 'net with some of the first target demo being boomers and Gen X.
It’s no different today. Without serious education in critical thinking, this stuff is only weaponized against the target demo, they don’t know shit about the new product any more than anyone else does.
Tbf Gen Z women showed up.
But in the same breath they said that Democrats were right to ignore young people’s concerns because they don’t vote.
If they’re too insignificant to listen to, they’re too insignificant to blame.
I may slap the next person I hear say that. Fuck gen z soy boi beta cucks!
Lockdowns and distancing supposedly ended one of our flu strains but unfortunately stupidity never dies off.
This was never a secret…
