Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Good News: Here Comes Gen Z
I have been seeing this trend through my own child and her friends who are Gen Z. Extremely practical, level-headed, hard-working youngsters who scoff at political correctness. They aren’t ‘conservative’ in the classic sense, but they lean in that direction, mainly because they’ve seen through the absurdity of today’s leftist ideals and attempts at radical social reform.
Teenagers rebel. They usually find a weakness in the arguments their parents and teachers make. Because of rapid changes, parents and teachers are more out of touch, advising them to play by the old, outdated rule books. Or to abide by the political priorities and remedies they themselves believed most effective.
Generation Z seems to be rebelling against left-wing excess. Part of the ‘rebellious’ behavior is simply ignoring them, working hard, and not looking to others (government) to solve their problems.
As a side note, I’m seeing young YouTube commentators who can run rings around professionals on major networks, this impressive young man being one of them.
Published in General
Can it go either way? Socially liberal but fiscally conservative tends to go only one way in practice, IMO. Libertarian? Not really; no one seems to be agitating to dismantle the discrimination law apparatus. At best, as some have said, they don’t support the crazier propositions of the SJW’s. Yet. Intersectionality and identitarianism are still the reigning tag team champions. They are still liked, and going too far is no reason to go back to Jim Crow and handmaids tale. Or so I hear from time to time.
Generation X is defined as people born 1964-82. 1982 to 2000 are the millennials. The oldest member of Generation Z is 19. I wouldn’t be too quick to make lasting pronouncements about them yet. I answered your question, Filmklassik, so here’s a couple of my own: Why is it preordained that the left wins? And is there any alternative to doing what they do, only better?
Yep. You fight culture with the weapons of culture. Agreed, Gary. But here’s the problem. Strike that — the problems:
The Progressives have the schools. All of them. K through 12, then college, then graduate school. So kids are receiving a fully immersive curricula in Social Justice and Political Correctness and Men & Women are the same and America sucks and White People are guilty of blood libel and Intersectionality is a great and glorious thing and backwards reels the mind.
The kids are marinating in this stuff, almost from the womb, and certainly from kindergarten onward.
And are they laughing these ideas off? They are not. Oh, we tell ourselves they are (“My son and his new roommate? They were cracking jokes about their orientation seminar on Tolerance & Diversity! You should’ve heard ‘em!”). Whatever. The harsh truth is, they are not laughing them off. Just ask Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld or any number of perfectly anodyne comedians who can’t play campuses anymore because they’re not PC enough.
Recent polling shows that Gen Z’ers and young Millennials are internalizing this stuff, which is a far cry from the kids who greeted these ideas with amusement and derision in Tom Wolfe’s good-but-not-great novel I am Charlotte Simmons from 20 years ago.
The new hatchlings? They’re absorbing it.
Okay, that’s the schools, Gary. We can’t fight them there.
So how about scripted media then?
D’ooohhhh! The Progs have a stranglehold there, too. Do you wanna talk about how intersectional and nauseatingly PC movies and TV have become in the last few years? Please. I’m guessing you’re in LA, Gary. Maybe you’re even in the entertainment industry, or were. (I am) Trust me — it’s as Regressively Left as you’ve heard. Utterly intolerant — nay, hostile — toward any ideas that deviate from the Progressive party line. And getting more so by the week.
Some of us have (had) some hope for YouTube and other social media outlets. Milo; Sargon; Crowder; Gavin McInnes; Pepe; mostly fair hearings and good discussions on the Rogan podcast; Jordan Peterson. Is there really a substitute for school and mass media though? Rush Limbaugh had a huge impact on the culture. Yet more kids than ever think socialism is ok. But hey, we’re gaining some on abortion. As good as that is, even if it were to ever actually turn into reversal of Roe v Wade, it hasn’t actually stopped NY from cheering the passage of a later term abortion bill in the here and now. Will the pendulum start swinging again? Maybe, but we shouldn’t be so confident that it will ever swing our way again. It might just go perpendicular.
Preordained? Nothing is preordained, Gary. I’m just looking at polling and trend lines, that’s all. Like, if you weighed 200 pounds in June and 220 in July and 240 in August and the polling I’ve done (of your friends, your family, and you) indicate your crummy exercise and eating habits have only gotten worse in the last few weeks, doesn’t it make sense that I would forecast another significant weight gain for you in September? (And possibly a heart attack by Thanksgiving?)
Now, your wife or kids or friends might say, “Just you wait! Gary can turn things around!”
And indeed you can, Gary. You’ve got the potential. But the data indicates you haven’t the desire.
So your potential means little in the face of what you’ve done, and, more importantly, what you’re doing.
In other words, to forecast good news in the face of all contrary data and trend lines is to be guilty of a term I first heard on the Commentary podcast: Wishcasting.
I grew up in the greatest, luckiest expansion of wealth and freedom in the history of the world, and America’s biggest upcoming problem was going to be handling all that prosperity. General Motors was a global behemoth. Pan Am was the world’s most admired airline. Civil rights progress was so rapid that grateful Blacks would be sending us Valentine’s Day cards.
But then…Vietnam, Watergate, busing, the 1973-74 gasoline crisis, the 1974-75 recession that was the sharpest in 30 years, an explosion of bad social indicators…
If you’d polled or trended me and my classmates at age 19, I’d have said that the trend was towards Lunar living, a replacement of money with Roddenberry Credit Units, flying cars, and every guy having five girlfriends. I just don’t think trend lining these guys makes sense yet.
Well, maybe it wouldn’t make sense … or make as much sense … if it wasn’t for the existence of two places: Canada and Western Europe. But we can’t ignore those places. Why? Because as we’ve seen (and as I indicated in a previous post) when those places go in a certain direction, we always — invariably — within 10 or 15 years — follow suit. The only exception that leaps to mind is the metric system.
But on matters of recreatonal drugs … and sex … and health care … and political correctness … and attitudes toward Israel (have you seen the Democratic Party lately?) … and in the very near future, free speech … so goes Europe, so goes America.
And between that nearly unbroken, Europe-to-America pattern (it really is extraordinary), and all the polling of young people I alluded to (“Socialism is good, bro! And we also need to put in, like, hate speech laws in America, too! Cuz hate speech is totally, like, bad, bro!!”) … between those two things — which are empirical, not subjective — I remain pessimistic.
Can’t say I disagree all that much with @filmklassik. I put up the link to the pew study showing that the gen z’ers are more progressive in nearly every dimension. Wasn’t trying to be a downer, but I did want to inject a healthy skepticism into the debate…
Thanks. And isn’t it weird how all the polling data says down down down — uh oh! and yet so many people are seeing up up up — hooray!!
The disconnect here between perception and reality is incredible. And I’ll be damned if I know what accounts for it. (Wishful thinking?)
Well I’m not terribly surprised, I think a lot of older conservatives were hoping for a tidal shift circa 2016… especially since my gen (millennial) is decidedly left of center.
I love the “but my nephew” stories and of course they’re true, no generation is monolithic. But I can tell anecdotes too. I was judging policy debate for high schoolers and I overhear a group talking about a peer who had recently “declared” herself to be gender fluid. No mockery in the discussion, a weird reverence.
A few months ago I brought up how frustrating it is to be at a dc law school and be one of a handful of conservatives. It is a failure on the right to persuade and alarming. I think some just write those kids off. Bad idea if you ask me. The kids I go to school with are terribly bright and buy in to a host of nominally conservative values – marriage, hard work, moderation, delayed gratification. These are 24-5 year olds and they laugh at the idea of conservativism. Something’s wrong and I fear trouble down the road.
Me too.
Make no mistake, gentleman…I am well-aware of the overarching trend. I am not in a position to impact trends; I am in a position to impact those in my own ambit, and I see the difference I’m making. No denial, but a choice to follow the impact I’m able to have.
Life is made of individual choices, that are not necessarily counted in statistical trends. Thanks for the opportunity to opine.
Interesting story from seven years ago in the Los Angeles Times on polling results for Baby Boomers from the 1960s through the Oughts. Past performance is not indicative of future results, of course, but if you had taken the pulse of political analysts in, say, 1977, in the wake of Watergate and the Democrats’ big election wins in 1974 and ’76, most would likely have told you the progressivism of the Boomer generation was frozen as solid as Han Solo in a block of carbonite. The key points at the end —
I’m just curious to know when, exactly, those who still cling to the grey-bearded notion that “These young Liberals? They’ll change, yoooooou’ll see” will finally concede that “Uh oh, I guess they didn’t change.”
Will they concede this point in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?
When will they finally give up the ghost on this absurd “truism”? Because at a certain point, they’ll have to.
I’m not Pollyanna-ish, I’m not particularly cheery about the culture, I don’t think it’s going to auto-correct itself. I’m conservative; I don’t think a guardian angel is going to fix things. Plus, as far as the greybeard thing goes, I’m clean shaven.
But I’m not a doomster. I worked in Hollywood since the Seventies and retired two years ago. I know the battles we won and lost (and in the case of Mel Gibson, both at the same time). I worked with most of the town’s conservatives. I don’t see it as a young/old thing, Filmklassik. I see it like this: are you going to give up? I’m not. I’m going to make a grandiose comparison, and shoot me down if you care to: one of the most noble and wise of mankind’s peoples were once European intellectuals, too timid, too idealistic, too proud in their own way to change their habits and views to reflect times that called for something drastically different. Their grandchildren today are Israeli commandos, tough, resourceful and feared. They didn’t have it “in the blood”; they had to learn it. So can we.
Outstanding. Thanks, Gary.
God. You were there when they were actually making good movies. I know it’s a cliché to say that the seventies were the best time for movies, at least in America. For me it is actually one of my TWO favorite eras for motion pictures. I dig the 1940s, and 1967-1981.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway, of course I don’t have to tell you that anti-conservative sentiment has only intensified in the last few years. And of course my own politics are sub rosa. A few close friends know about them, but no one else. And yes, I’m in FOA.
And no, I’m not giving up; not by a long shot. Being a clear-eyed realist about the state of things is not the same as throwing in the towel.
Just like not throwing in the towel is not the same as having blinders on. (Maybe that’s the more pessimistic way of looking at it. If so, apologies.)
I try to be a force for good where I can (read: an exponent of classically Liberal values), in my own little corner of the world, both personally and professionally.
But the math is daunting. We are heavily outnumbered, as you know. And again, those bastards have the culture.
And also as you know (but so many other conservatives do not), the culture, finally, is all that matters.
Filmklassik, this interchange is like one of those scenes in a Robin Hood movie where two men who won’t back down end up tossing each other into a frozen English river, and end up being in the same crew. Often they also end up friends.
But did it have to be in February? Damn.
Ha. Was my last comment even remotely combative? If so, I apologize Gary. That wasn’t my intention. And as a tangible sign of my contrition, I will next do what Robin of Loxely did not, and hurl myself into the fridged waters.
And I’m willing to kneel in the snows of Canossa to reciprocate!
Stop it, @filmklassik and @garymcvey.
Gettin’ weird, man.
Completely disagree. I was in engineering college as a millennial and ALL of my science/engineering friends were liberals who watched the Daily Show and Bill Maher. We were forced to watch An Inconvenient Truth in an engineering class and my classmates enjoyed it.
Thats completely different than the other reports in this thread of Generation Z.
By far the biggest difference, though, is Generation Z has Jordan Peterson and others to show them the light. When I was in school, we had jack [CoC] to rebut the endless stream of indoctrination. That is a huge difference, and one that everyone involved is aware of to boot.
Yeah, I often feel like Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in the last half-hour of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.
It really is bizarre.
I am late to this discussion but the video was not persuasive. I will go through the reasons why in detail below.
1 ) Businesses fail, expand, and are sold everyday. Whoever the guy is in the video gives no details about those few transactions and how they are related to the wider market, aside from cost differences. If I remember correctly he only mentions 3 different websites. He does not do any analysis of which mediums Gen Z uses, the closest he gets is talking about Pewdie Pie, so we do not even know if it is relevant to the discussion of Gen Z being more conservative.
Many on Ricochet complain constantly about all the mainstream media sites being left wing. If so, then what does the sale of a few websites matter? That doesn’t speak at all to market share of Progressives in media consumption.
2 ) He mentions a Hispanic Heritage Foundation study on Gen Z and that they identify as Republicans. Here are the links to that source, since he conveniently didn’t look through it for the viewer.
https://hispanicheritage.org/50000-generation-z-high-school-students-identify-republican/
https://public.tableau.com/profile/mycollegeoptions#!/vizhome/PresidentialPolling-Fall2016/PresidentialPolling2016
I would implore anyone still interested in this discussion to look at both links. Now look at the first link. It says that Gen Z high school students identify as Republicans. Now look through those links for anywhere, aside from the title, where party affiliation is mentioned. Look long and hard. It is not mentioned anywhere. The closest it gets is which candidate the high schoolers wish to vote for.
Now some might argue that voting for Trump signals being a conservative or a Republican, which is tenuous at best, but only 32% of the whole survey wanted to vote for him. Compare that to percentage who approved of Obama’s Presidency, which was 43%, and those who disapproved, only 23%. Strikes me as if Gen Z is plenty progressive if nearly half of them approved of Obama’s Presidency.
Look further at their top news sources and issue concerns. Their top concerns are education, economy, and gun rights. Heck, environment is more important than taxes to them. Racism matters more than national security. Their top news sources are parents, cable news, and social media (and their teachers are top news sources for 40%). That hardly seems like rebelling against their parents or teachers if their top sources of information are them, which signifies trust. Far more progressive than conservative.
So that study hardly supports his point.
3 ) He mentions Gen Z working individual jobs, like teaching lessons or some other small gig work, as proof that they will be more conservative than Millennials. How so? Claiming to working some small gig is hardly evidence of wanting to be, or being, conservative. They probably earn so little income from those jobs that they don’t even pay taxes, whereas when they worked at those darn institutions they would see tax effects–payroll tax–in their pay checks, and as mentioned before with his own study they don’t care about taxes, only 9% claimed it was a top political concern.
So again, very little support from that anecdotal attempt.
4 ) There is considerable evidence from well regarded polling organizations like Pew Research that Generation Z is fairly progressive. Even the one source cited in that lame Forbes Article in the video hints at Gen Z being just as progressive as Millennials. According to the Generational Kinetics group, which is the organization that the Forbes article cites,:
That hardly strikes me as a more conservative, let alone conservative, generation than Millennials. (I should also note that those quotes capture most of that report, which has far more flowery interpretation than data analysis.) I could belabor you with the more detailed work from Pew but this is already a long reply. According to polling groups Gen Z is not conservative. You know what, I will belabor you all.
That looks pretty progressive to me. Most likely to think other nations are better than America. Second most likely, by 2 points, to believe that human activity affects climate change. Most likely to believe blacks are not being treated fairly. Most likely to think government should do more to solve problems. Most likely to think that ethnic/racial diversity is good for society. Only a third approve of the President’s performance.
5 ) Given all the above the video is wishful thinking. The guy uses a few incidents that have little-to-no connection, his own anecdotes, and a few un-examined quotes to conclude that Gen Z is “rebelling” against Progressives and becoming conservative. Poor sensationalist reporting to say the least.
Could Be Anyone —
Way to go on your comprehensive (and nearly unassailable) post.
But all of this effort (yours, mine and other people’s) strikes me as going through laborious contortions in order to prove that the world, in fact, is not flat.
Because of course the world is not flat.
Duh.
And of course Millennials and Generation Z’ers represent the most Progressive cohort in U.S. history. Their entrenched beliefs are truly frightening, and I am referring now specifically to their affection for socialism, unquestioning belief in structural racism, unquestioning acceptance of Political Correctness, disdain for the idea of American Exceptionalism, and on and on and on.
It’s insane.
And a new Gallup Study (less than one week old) shows conclusively just how far Left the Democratic Party has lurched in the last 17 years. But the most disturbing part of that study …
… the scary part …
… the take-note-of-where-the-life-jackets-and-exits-are part …
— is the data showing that college-educated whites are getting dramatically more Progressive and more “woke” by the year. With no end in sight.
Here’s NR’s David French writing about it:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/white-progressives-polarizing-america/amp/
In sum, we’re doomed.
Nah. We’re not doomed, we’re just Canadian. Or rather, we will be in 10-15 years.
And yeah, that’s bad enough. The end of the American Project is bad enough. It’s awful. But life will go on.
Plus there’s theology and eschatology.
Why?
Because we’ve got a bunch of knucklehead kids who know doodley and squat about how the world works that think they’re ready to assume the reins of national leadership.