The crippling issue of Gen Z and politics
Gen Z was introduced to politics at the wrong time.
Generation Z is the generation born from 1990 until 2010. For most Gen Z kids, the 2020 election was their first introduction to politics. Unfortunately, Gen Zers were introduced to politics at the wrong time mainly because of the political divide that swept over 2020.
2020 was not only an election year, which is the reason why many Gen Zers started to pay attention to politics, but it was also the year where politics played a great role in the response to Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and more.
It is safe to say as a fellow Gen Zer, most of my generation has different ideals than the ideals of the Republican party and President Trump in regards to their responses to these crucial issues. Gen Z’s distaste towards Republicans mainly sprouted because of the leader who represented them, President Trump.
Pew Research Center conducted a survey in January 2021 concluding that “about a quarter of registered voters ages 18 to 23 (22%) approved of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president, while about three-quarters disapproved (77%).”
The incredibly low percentage of Gen Z Trump Supporters goes to show the large population of Gen Zers that dislike President Trump.
For months on end, videos about President Trump and his responses to Covid-19 and BLM swept the platform of Tik Tok. Angry Gen Zers took revenge on Trump by working together to help organize plans to sabotage the President in many different ways.
There were movements on Tik Tok where Gen Zers would reserve a seat at President Trump’s rallies with the full intention of not showing up. This left President Trump humiliated at many of his rallies.
I believe I also saw videos about surveys President Trump published on his website and how everyone - meaning Gen Z Democrats - should go and answer the surveys in a way a Democrat would in order to skew the outcome of the survey.
There was also a small movement to add all of the TRUMP merch from President Trump’s website to the cart feature online in an effort to “sell out” his merch so that his supporters could not buy it.
Gen Z lashing out against President Trump only worsened when the President aimed to ban the Tik Tok app. Many of the Gen Z kids believed it was due to the organizations that were developing on the app against President Trump.
The President said his ban against Tik Tok was “due to national security concerns.”
Tik Tok is a Chinese app that apparently gives a supposed reason for its dignification as a “national security” threat.
Anyway, it is safe to say that a large margin of Gen Z does not like President Trump.
Now, here is the problem with Gen Zers and politics: Gen Z refuses to look at the opposing side.
Gen Z is built the way that they are because they were introduced into politics with a leader who responded to BLM protests by saying it was a “symbol of hate,” and a leader who made the headlines almost every day because of something radical he did or said.
Unfortunately for Gen Z, this was an awful introduction to politics. I know this because I experienced that introduction myself.
President Trump played a key role in dividing the country and especially the younger generation in terms of political parties.
In polls out of 235 Gen Zers, 44% of Gen Zers said that after they had a political conversation with someone else, the other person ended up blocking them. Also, 60% of the respondents believe that Gen Z does not make an effort to actively look at their opposing party’s political views. In contrast, 90% of the respondents believed that they personally look at their opposing party’s political views.
In argument, this arises another problem with Gen Z: the enormous ego Gen Z has created for themselves. The fact that some respondents said that they believe they actively look at their opposing party’s political views and then proceeded to say that Gen Z as a whole does not make an effort to see their opposition’s views shows a larger problem of ego and lack of humility. Gen Zers appear to think highly of themselves in terms of acceptance of their opposing party’s beliefs, but then claim that Gen Zers as a whole refuse to see the opposing side.
Clearly, the Gen Z population values their ego to an extent where they are incapable of letting go of this ego and accepting humility for their actions of refusing to look at their opposition’s point of view. This all gives reason to prove that Gen Z refuses to look at the opposing side.
Many of my friends believe that you can only support one side and that there is no in-between. I have had friends who went through and blocked everyone on their social media who didn’t support the same party as them. I have had conversations with many Democrats and Republicans who refused to see the other side of the story. Most of those conversations end with me being blocked if it was a discussion over social media.
A friend of mine told me, “I just think that there are very few people that will actually listen anymore. The world, society, and Gen Z have all ‘evolved’ to a point where if someone does not have the same view as you, they are wrong no matter what. If people are hearing what they don’t want to hear then they close their ears and open their mouths and start claiming that the other side is wrong and their own side is right all the time.”
Everyone I know makes it a point to express their political beliefs on social media by reposting pictures or tweets displaying their political views. Most of these posts bash the opposing side.
Information gathered from a survey where Gen Zers were asked why or why not they make it a point to actively post their political opinion on their social media revealed a plethora of different responses.
Some Gen Zers claim that they try to actively post their political beliefs on social media because “silence is complicity” and some people don’t “inform themselves.” Other Gen Zers choose not to post on social media because their “opinions are not supported by the majority” and they are scared of “receiving hate.”
In a way, Gen Zers are hypocrites. They expect people to “educate” themselves to better understand their personal point of view and then refuse to even consider their opposition’s point of view. This can be seen through the big ego Gen Zers have created for themselves and their lack of humility with accepting that they may not always be right.
It is frustrating to try and have an educated conversation with someone my own age nowadays. The only time a political conversation is successful is when the people in the conversation support the same party or are willing to see both perspectives.
Another friend of mine told me, “I oftentimes get into political arguments with my hard-core Republican friend. I tried to get him to come to an agreement so that we could move past our discussion, but it would never work.”
I have seen best friends become strangers in a matter of days due to political beliefs and it is disgusting to witness.
The issue is now: How will Gen Z get away from believing that you can “only support one side?”
I believe this is a question that cannot be answered and can only be found after it has happened. My hope is that there are some Gen Zers out there who have enough perspective to understand that you can support some beliefs of one party and some beliefs of the other party. Ideally, throughout time and a President who hopefully won’t make the headlines every day, Gen Z will begin to gain some perspective.
In continuation, another problem arises in correlation to Gen Z refusing to gain perspective: the immense hate Gen Zers now have for the people who support their opposition's beliefs.
I have witnessed my friends refusing to listen to their opposition’s claims, but I have also witnessed how angry and hateful my friends can be towards the other side. It is almost frightening to hear people close to me express how much they hate Republicans or Democrats, depending on their political stance.
As Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 my social media was flooded with reposts of tweets and Instagram posts calling the rioters and Republicans awful names. In some of those reposts, people said that if you support the Republican party to unfollow them. Many people also took the liberty to express their hate for those who voted for President Trump.
Yes. Many people probably felt this way in response to the actions of the Trump supporters, but to witness people my age bashing the other side in complete hatred is disgusting. All I can say is that it is scary how hateful my generation has become to those who do not agree with them.
The thing is, Gen Z needs to understand that there is good and bad in every political situation. This means that Gen Z cannot just decide that all Republicans are bad and all Democrats are good. Each side does not get a title of “good” or “bad”. Each side is both good and bad combined and the only “good” is realizing that you must take the positives, or what you agree with, from each political party.
Gen Z must begin to change together as a generation as a whole or else our country will only continue to divide more.
Now I ask, is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Is there any way that my generation can figure itself out and learn that politics does not mean a divide in society? Will this hate for the opposition’s beliefs ever diminish? Will politics always be this way for Gen Z?
As a friend of mine once said, “There is no right or wrong, only the perceived.”
