Why Gen Z Doesn’t See Politics the Same Way We Do

The other day, Hugo (our intrepid podcast producer) sent me an interesting column from blogger/journalist/pundit

Noah Smith

. In his piece for his Substack Noahpinion, Smith persuasively makes the case that seven trends will shift American politics and policy to the right over the coming decade: the rightward drift of non-white voters, dissatisfaction with DEI, the fiscal crunch leading to the rise of financial conservatism, the 2020 protests and the re-emergence of support for law enforcement, the broken asylum loophole, a conservative Supreme Court and the backlash to the protests against Israel.

If we’re talking about the roughly 10-15% on each side who actually vote in primaries and participate in electoral politics and include all of the attendant industries around it — media, social media, punditry, lobbying, lawyering, political consulting, advocates, nonprofits and the rest — Smith is probably right. The pendulum will shift right. 

Where I think Smith’s analysis may be off is how it applies to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Based on what I see from my students, from many of the people we work with on mobile voting, from my younger employees, from the younger employees of our portfolio companies, and from my own kids and their friends, I don’t think this generation views the underlying frame in the same left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal way that most of us do.

The vast majority of this generation just wants things important to them to get done. They don’t care which party makes it happen. They’re worried about their future. With good reason. That’s why the following five issues, in my view, will be resolved by Gen Z and Gen Alpha not through a typical partisan lens but rather through a practical one.

(1). Climate. The notion of whether or not climate change is real is not a debate among younger people. They’ve lived with the proof of it their entire lives — far more and far worse hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, landslides, wildfires, droughts, floods, heat waves, extreme cold spells and more. It’s not about white papers from the NRC on one side or white papers funded by Exxon Mobil on the other. Climate change is just an obvious problem. That’s why a group of young Montanans recently sued the state for not considering environmental impact in the consideration of policies and laws. They argued their right, under the Montana constitution, to a clean and healthy environment was being violated by the state’s refusal to take climate change into account. And they won. Similar lawsuits have been filed around the country. These kids aren’t the ideologues we see storming the barricades at college commencements. They’re kids who say things like, “We have to cancel soccer practice all the time because the turf is too hot to run on.” This is the reality of their lives and when they’re in charge, they’re going to address the problem head on, practically, non-ideologically. 

(2). Guns. My daughter is about to turn 18. My son is 15. They have never known school without active shooter drills. That’s true for virtually every kid in this country. The reality of someone storming into their school with an assault weapon and killing kids and teachers alike is a risk and fear they have to confront every single day. They don’t care about the Second Amendment or the risk of government tyranny. They care about not getting shot. And that’s why they’re going to support, en masse, gun safety measures that make it a lot harder to walk into a store and walk out with an automatic weapon. Politics takes a backseat to survival. 

(3). Immigration. Immigration is a hot button topic in this year’s presidential race and has been a political football for centuries. But the underlying issue is shifting dramatically. The question ultimately won’t be about whether we should help people from other countries by allowing them to come here. It’s about bailing out our own economy and our own senior citizens by bringing in millions of new taxpayers, year after year, for years and years to come. Medicare is projected to run out of money in eleven years. The boomers are all now drawing social security. Their life expectancy is generally rising (even as life expectancy is falling among younger people caught in the throes of addiction, gun violence, social media and untreated mental illness). Paying the cost of their benefits is incredibly expensive. And we just don’t have enough young taxpayers to foot the bill. We need to dramatically expand the number of taxpayers in their twenties, thirties and forties to keep the system afloat. A recent report found that social security, without federal action, will be unable to pay out full benefits after 2035. And without counting interest, costs to the program have outweighed income since 2010. Equipping social security for the long term is what will determine immigration policy in the long term, not slogans about abolishing ICE or building a wall. 

(4). Student loans and college. In most cases, the return on investment on taking out tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars in student loans to obtain a four year liberal arts degree simply isn’t there. The public recognizes this, evidenced in a 2023 poll that found that 56% of Americans do not think a four year degree is worth the cost, an increase from 40% in a similar 2010 poll. And that same 2023 poll found Americans aged 18 to 34 to be the most skeptical.  The idea of providing billions of dollars in endless taxpayer funding for the operations of four year institutions and pushing every student to pursue a liberal arts degree is going to fade, if it hasn’t already. Vocational schools that return us to the apprentice system are going to replace today’s college experience and they’re not just going to be trade schools to teach someone plumbing or welding. They’ll apply to every profession that requires tangible skills from coding to medical care. Smith is right that the backlash against DEI and against the Israel protests will further fuel the move away from four year institutions, but not in the traditional Republican/ Democrat frame where one side attacks higher education for being too liberal and the other cherishes it for supporting their value system and affirming their self worth. The current system will change once Gen Z and Gen Alpha take charge because the underlying transaction itself generally isn’t worth it — and there’s no evidence that higher ed is capable of seeing or doing anything to change the trajectory. 

(5). Health care. Young people don’t care about the promises or perils of socialized medicine. They just want health care they can afford. The Affordable Care Act reshaped the norms around universal health care and while a single payer system still isn’t here, Medicare is so widely accepted by both parties that ultimately expanding it so everyone can obtain coverage that way is going to happen. Sure, the health insurers will throw a lot of money at politics to preserve the current system. Pharma will too. But at the end of the day, the issue is going to become so clear cut and obvious to multiple entire generations that there won’t be any political upside in preserving the status quo and the underlying system will transform. The same is true with mobile voting; the status quo will fight us off for the next decade but eventually, they’ll age out and the logic of being able to vote on your phone will be unassailable to the coming generations that will take power.

The resolution of the five issues above is mainly left of center (except higher education). That’s not necessarily contradictory to Smith’s proclamation because Gen Z and Gen Alpha are not going to be in charge for a while. So over the next ten years, it’s quite possible that the country shifts rightward as Smith predicts. 

But ultimately, the issues we identify as highly divisive today won’t be partisan or ideological or divisive in the future. They’ll just be common sense — solutions to very real world problems that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have known and faced their entire lives.