You said you
had some notes yourself.
I would love to hear them. Just
start off. What do you think about
Gen-C policy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let me pull up my notes real quick.
I won't, I'll put these away when
I'm actually like talking.
No, I'm sorry to take your time.
Yeah, I did I did have some
some notes on this You
know I think the first thing I would
mention is that the gender gap
in American politics is nothing
new The first time that we
saw the gender Gap emerged
statistically was 1980
in part that was because
a lot of male voters were
particularly drawn to Ronald
Reagan conservatism the
two parties diverged
on issues like abortion,
and they also took different stances
on issues like the Equal Rights
Amendment.
So I think the
first thing I would like to do is
lay out that context, that
since 1980, we have
seen a gender gap where women are
more likely than men to vote for
the Democratic Party.
Now, it's not a
massive gap.
So we're not talking like 80%
of women vote for the Democratic
Party and 80% of men vote
for the Republican Party.
We're not that wide of a gap,
but it is a gap nevertheless.
And I think the striking thing to me
is we've seen that
gap in every major election
since 1980.
So it's a consistent pattern
in American politics.
Another potentially related gap,
and this may come
up in your story,
not only do we see the gender
gap in voter preference, but
we also see a gender gap in
voter turnout, where women
have been a bit more
likely than men to turn out to
vote. Again, it's not a massive gap,
but consistently we do
see.
A difference of a couple percentage
points between the voter turnout
rate of women and the voter turn out
rate of men.
There could be any number of
explanations and that's kind
of beyond, out of
my lane a little bit to talk
about what the reasons might
be.
But I think that's the general
context. So when we're talking about
the Gen Z gender gap,
which is a very important topic.
We're talking about it in the
context of a long-standing
pattern in American politics.
But there are some unique aspects
of the Gen Z gender
divide that I think are worth
discussing, and that
maybe could be a bit unique
when we compare the GenZ gender
gap to other eras
in American Politics or other years
in American Politics.
I think one,
when I was researching this,
the The explanation that
popped out to me the most is
abortion and the aftermath
of the Dobbs ruling
that overturned Roe versus Wade.
When we think about abortion,
there wasn't a ton
of activity on that front
since Roe vs.
Wade and then the follow-up ruling,
which was Planned Parenthood versus
Casey.
And I think that was in the early
1990s.
So for a long time, we
were...
Of wondering if and
when the Supreme Court
was going to give Roe
versus Wade another look.
And it finally happened under
the Biden administration, during the
Biden administration.
That's seen as one of the reasons
that Democrats were able to avoid
catastrophic losses in
the 2022 midterm election,
that women were particularly
mobilized as a result of
the Dobbs ruling that um
that overturned
the Roe versus Wade ruling.
Now, the Dobbs ruling might have had
a particular impact on
younger female voters,
because they're coming of age
at a time when there
is significant turmoil
on the issue of abortion.
And when we see younger
female voters rank their
issue priorities, the issue
of abortion tends to be
pretty close to the top of the list,
perhaps at the top the list.
We don't see that same
prioritization for male voters.
Now many male voters do pay
close attention to the
issue of abortion.
They did pay close to attention to
the Dobbs ruling.
And many male voter have
pretty liberal views on abortion.
But it's just not the same
priority for lots
of male voters on average
that it is for female voters.
And so, if I were to
pick out, to me, the most obvious
explanation for the gender gap
in Gen Z voters,
it would be the aftermath of the
Dobbs ruling and the
resulting gap between
young men and young women in just
how much they prioritize the issue
of abortion.
But there are other reasons as well.
Yeah, that's actually interesting
that you picked that out.
One of my questions was going to be,
when I've been looking into this
story, a lot of the
framing seems to be on Gen Z men.
Why are they behind?
Why are not getting degrees as much
as the women?
Absolutely.
They're not getting jobs as much as
the woman, stuff like that.
Why do you think that's the frame?
Do you have a sense?
Yeah, I mean, I think when
I think about young men,
there's a book that had a lot of
impact on my thinking.
It's called Of Boys and Men by
Richard Reeves.
And he's emerged as
a leading scholar of young
men.
And what he points out is
not only are women
making significant gains
in education and employment,
but men are actually going backwards
on those metrics.
So we're seeing a widening divide
in educational attainment
and employment outcomes because
women are advancing and
men are falling backwards.
And I do think that that is
part of the story.
It might not be the full story, but
I think there's a role for
the educational and
employment situations of young
men. Where they were
perhaps drawn to Donald Trump's
message of affordability
and economic
prosperity because
lots of young men feel like
they face an uncertain
economic future and
they perhaps were drawn
to the candidate who they
felt had the most compelling message
on the economy.
But do you think the
issue of the economy, do you that is
something that is,
obviously that doesn't affect just
men, but do you it's particularly
unique to men that's an effect of
more?
I would go back to that point
about prioritization.
I think both men and women,
I think both young men and young
women care deeply about economic
conditions.
However, young women
are putting
more of a priority on abortion.
So that's up the list competing
with the economy as
a major issue concern.
For men, it really is
the economy at the top of
the list, and abortion is
down the list.
So for women, there are a
lot of priorities that are up there
with abortion.
For men abortion ranks down
the list with the economy
kind of by itself at the the
top the list and I think that's
why young women were
drawn to Kamala Harris
because Kamala had
a significant focus on the
issue of abortion, which
was compelling to voters who
care more about abortion and have
more liberal attitudes on abortion.
But I agree that a lot
of the pop culture commentary
has been focused on
what's going on with young men.
And I think there is a
sense of urgency within the
Democratic Party to try to figure
out why they lost
so much ground.
With young men in the 2024
presidential election and
trying to figure out how the party
can come up with a more compelling
message and a more appealing policy
platform that might help reverse
those losses.
Yeah, tell me more about that,
because in my research I have
been seeing that there's a sentiment
among men that they feel pushed out
of the democratic party, that
they're not feeling welcomed into
that space. Do you think that's
true? Do you that is something that
is a problem within the left?
Yeah, yeah, and there
could be a couple explanations for
that. I think to me,
the explanation for the voting
behavior of young men that has
gained the most attraction is
the so-called Manosphere, with
podcast influencers such
as Joe Rogan, Theo
Vonn, Andrew Schultz,
people like Andrew Tate who
advance a self-improvement message.
They advance a message
of masculinity, really embracing
masculinity.
And some Democrats are
honestly not entirely comfortable
with the full-on
embrace of masculinity that
we see in the so-called
Manosphere.
We've seen,
if you wanna, I think
there's lots of...
There's lots of hot takes out there
about woke ism.
And if that is harming Democrats
with young men,
I think the jury is
still out on that.
I think that jury is out on all of
this, by the way.
Like, you know, another explanation
that popped up to me is the
algorithmic world in which
Gen Z people
live,
where if women have,
if young women have curated
feeds that speak more to women's
issues, while young men have
curated feeds that speak to
what we would
often think of as masculine issues,
then that could push the
two genders further apart
and cause them to
be more drawn to
either party, but more
Polarized, I think, is kind of the
word that I'm searching for there.
Pete Buttigieg had a really
memorable quote about this,
where he said that Joe
Rogan, Theovon,
Andrew Schultz and the rest of the
Manosphere aren't overtly
political,
but...
So his
theory, which I think there's
something to it, people aren't
watching Joe Rogan or
listening to Joe Rogin or listening
to Theo Von because they crave
political content.
I think the young men who are
drawn to those programs are looking
for entertainment.
They're looking for self-improvement
content. They're look for comedy.
And politics finds them there
rather than them seeking out
politics.
So I think JD Vance being on
Joe Rogan recently is a
good example of that, where
I mean, like a lot of Joe Rogans
guests have nothing to
do with politics, like a lot of Theo
Vans guests, have nothing
to do with politics.
But some of them do.
And one thing that I noticed during
the 2024 campaign is
that Donald Trump and JD
Vance made what
seemed like countless appearances
on podcasts.
That have a significant
male audience, particularly
a young male audience.
So perhaps it was the
issue positions, perhaps it
the persona of Donald Trump,
but also I think the
Republican ticket made a much more
concerted effort to
be in the media spaces
that young men are drawn to,
where Kamala Harris was on
I think, memorably to me, was on the
Call Her Daddy podcast with
Alex Cooper, which has a
significant young female audience.
And so I think Donald Trump
on Joe Rogan
versus Kamala Harris
on Call Her daddy and
Alex Cooper is emblematic
of how the two sides were thinking
about that new media podcast
space in the 2024 campaign.
Yeah, and you know,
going
back to that 2024 campaign, I
think that's where a lot of this
conversation about the Gen
Z gender divide came up.
Do you see that as something that's
going to happen again this midterms?
Is it is it got worse?
Do you think do you think it's
gotten better?
Yeah, and you know, one
thing that just came to mind for
potentially for your story is that
UW-La Crosse swung heavily
to the right in
the 2024 election.
I don't think we're at all unique
in that, but
you know I think one thing
if you kind of want to do a data
dive for the story is to look at the
voting patterns of the UW
campuses.
And I think what you'll find is
that there was a pretty significant.
Shift towards Donald Trump
compared to, like, 2020.
But that
is the question.
Was 2024 a one-off
in gender polarization,
or is it the sign of things
to come?
Now, there is an argument
for this being a durable shift.
And that argument is
that people's
formative political years tend
to have long-lasting impacts.
When I'm teaching this in my
classes, I always like to use
the example of the New Deal,
how people who were
young during the Great Depression,
people who are teenagers and in
their early 20s during the great
depression, many of them became
lifelong Democrats because
they felt that Roosevelt was
getting the job done in
trying to respond to the Great
depression.
And that had not just.
An effect on them during Roosevelt's
presidency, but well beyond that
because it shaped their impression
of the Democratic Party as a whole
and shaped the
Democratic party brand for decades
to come.
The other example that I like to use
with my students is the Reagan
Revolution of the 1980s.
How many young people who
came of political age during
the 1980s are
still voting Republican because
those formative years had
such a profound impact on them
in drawing them to a
conservative ideology.
So the argument
in favor of this being a durable,
thing in politics.
The argument in favor of this being
a durable trend in politics
is that people's
formative political years can
have long lasting effects.
The habits and the preferences and
the views that people develop during
their teens and 20s can
affect them well beyond those ages.
And I think for Republicans,
that's extremely promising.
Because, you
know, I think...
There are several
mistaken views, I think,
of young voters.
I think the left had...
I think there was a false sense of
security on the left about...
I think there was a false sense of
security on the left about
them being able to win young
voters indefinitely,
that it was bound to happen,
that young voters would be drawn to
the Democratic Party, that the young
voters who would be liberal, and
that they wouldn't really have to do
much to try to attract young
voters, to put the work in,
to craft a compelling message to
young voters.
And then on the right,
I think there had been a real...
Well, I think when
I heard the rhetoric
among some on the right about
young voters, there seemed to
be almost a fatalism.
Like they're doomed because
young voters can't
possibly vote conservative.
Like it's unthinkable that
they would be drawn to the
Republican Party.
But it turns out that those
assumptions were
significant simplifications
of how young people vote.
Young people are often not
significantly attached to either
political party.
As people age, they become more
attached because they
develop more durable preferences
and they develop habits.
But young people, just
because they haven't been alive that
much or voting for that long, have
not developed durable
preferences, have not develop habits
of how they vote.
So the young vote is
completely up for grabs.
And I think both sides
are starting to realize
that, certainly in the aftermath of
the 2024 election.
Yeah, no, one of the things that
I found in my research is that
apparently there's this huge
independent block among
Gen Z. What do you make
sense of that? Is that just young
people not being attached to a party
yet? Is that the sign of people
being dissatisfied with the parties?
Yeah.
I do think there is widespread
dissatisfaction among
young voters with both parties.
And my word of caution
to the Republican Party about
this trend with young men
is that it's not really a
trend. It's one election.
And young men are
not overwhelmingly
becoming conservative.
Like, we're not seeing young
men self-identify.
In droves as conservative.
Now, they could potentially do
that as they develop
more concrete preferences and
as they get into the habit of
voting and as the follow politics
more.
And that makes me wonder,
OK, if young men
were drawn to Donald Trump,
but they're not overwhelmingly
becoming conservative.
Does that mean that it was based
on the momentary
economic conditions of
the election?
Does it mean that they were drawn to
the personality of Donald Trump
and the toughness and
the combativeness that he
demonstrated?
I mean, when I think about that,
I think how Trump makes these
grand entrances into UFC
events.
And how those are events
that young men really like to
watch.
And he's almost kind of the star of
the show in those events.
And I think it's emblematic of the
strategy of
Donald Trump.
There was something else I was just
going to mention.
Yeah, so,
you know, I'm.
I mean, I think the other thing I
would have to mention is
the Charlie Kirk
factor and Turning Point USA.
Okay.
You know.
When I think about this sense
of fatalism on the right
about young people inevitably
being liberal and the
sense that there's no
hope in even trying to appeal
to young people, Charlie Kirk
did not have that
level of assumption.
Charlie Kirk
I think one thing that set Charlie
Kirk apart from a lot
of people on the right is
he treated the Gen Z vote
as up for grabs and
he treated the GenZ
vote as highly persuadable
that he could show up on college
campuses, that he could make his
arguments and win over
young people and
that's not a sentiment
that everyone on the Right
had. But it is a sentiment
that Charlie Kirk had.
And I think it's one thing that
made him particularly influential.
Because there is
that sense that college
students are bound to be
liberal. Young people are bound be
liberal,
and I think I'm
not in a position to evaluate
exactly how many votes.
Turning Point USA might have
converted or their effect on
voter turnout.
But what I can say is
Turning Point U.S.A.
Fundamentally believe that
Gen Z is persuadable,
that GenZ can be won over to
the Republican Party.
And I think that gave
that organization and Charlie Kirk
tremendous influence.
Do you think the
stance of Turning Point USA has
changed after his
assassination?
Yeah, I think the future of Turning
Point USA remains to be
seen because Charlie Kirk's
power of personality was
a major driving force of
that movement.
I mean, he made countless viral
videos, viral TikToks.
He understood the media ecosystem
of Gen Z, and I think that
made him powerful.
He understand how to make
viral moments.
He understands how you
could pack a lot of content into.
30 seconds, 45 seconds,
the exact type of way that
Gen Z consumes media.
So I think Turning
Point USA is part of a broader
story of how to package media
for young people.
And I think Democrats are playing a
little bit of catch up on that.
Um, you know,
um, you have to, um.
You know, I think, um...
The older forms of media are
not dead.
A successful campaign has
to do door knocking.
A successful has to
TV ads,
particularly a statewide campaign or
a competitive congressional race.
But that's not going to
work to reach younger voters.
For a candidate to make
a successful outreach to younger
voters, They have to have a
digital media strategy.
And I think that's
a work in progress for a lot of
candidates. I think it's a working
progress for the Democratic Party.
And I mean,
one
of the interesting questions that
Democrats have asked, and it's not
the right question, who
will be the Joe Rogan of the left?
That's the wrong question because
Joe Rogan is not, first
and foremost, a political figure.
Now he's, I think,
friendly to a lot of conservative
causes, but he also
had a very enthusiastic
interview with Bernie Sanders, with
James Tallarico.
So Rogan is not
a political creature in the way
that a lot of Democrats think
of him as.
And I think that's part of the mind
shift. Like Joe Rogan is a cultural
figure rather than a political
figure.
So if Democrats are looking for
their version of Joe Rogin,
I'm not sure that they're going to
be successful because
Joe Rogon is not
a political figure first and
foremost.
Like going back to that quote that I
recall from Pete Buttigieg, he
said, you know, young men are
looking for self-improvement
tips. They're looking for.
He said, young men
are looking for self-improvement
tips, they're looking for
comedy, they are looking for
which protein powder to buy,
and politics finds them.
And I just think that's the perfect
way to view it.
A lot of young people are
not seeking out politics,
but politics finds THEM
in their ecosystem.
Yeah, and going
back to what you said about
the Democratic Party just kind of
assuming that they're going to win.
Right.
I'm a young person,
and you know, I look around at the
world, we have had six
members of Congress die
this time.
The Republican part, we don't know
the Democratic candidate, but the
Republican candidate in the
governor's race is 68.
We've had however many presidents
born in 1946.
It seems like it's a boomer's world,
and I'm just living in it.
How do you think that affects the
youth, though?
Yeah, I think in a couple ways.
Political science research shows
that lots of voters
are drawn to
people who look like them.
Now, that could be any number of
aspects of someone's identity.
It could be their race.
It could their gender.
And I think it could be the age,
too. And I the age issue
is one that had been overlooked
for a long time within my
field and in the political world
more generally.
But I think in the aftermath of
Joe Biden's presidency and
with high profile issues
like multiple members of Congress
dying in office, the current
situation with Mitch McConnell,
things that just grab people's
attention and call attention to the
issue of age.
I think that's a very real issue
these days in politics.
And again, I think maybe it
wasn't such a high profile issue
when you had folks like Barack Obama
in office, who was
fairly young.
You know, people weren't really
talking about George W.
Bush's age. Bill Clinton was
relatively young.
Now there were concerns about Ronald
Reagan's age,
particularly towards the end of his
presidency.
But still, that didn't stop young
people from being drawn to Ronald
Reagan, just as Trump's advanced
age is not stopping young
men from being drawn to him.
But I do think age is
an important aspect of
representation and it's becoming
more important as
people pay more attention to the age
of politicians.
You know, on that note,
when it comes to the
issue of gender,
you know,
In terms of understanding
why
Gen Z men and women polarized
in 2024,
we could just kind of look at the
obvious and say there was a female
Democratic candidate and a male
Republican candidate.
It might just be that simple
or that could be part of the
story.
I'm not sure that that's a
full satisfying explanation,
but I think we should at least put
that on the table as a potential
explanation and how
gender was communicated by
both candidates during the
election.
So I hesitate
to push that explanation too
far, but we
might just reach for kind an obvious
explanation like that.
Sorry, what was your question?
Isn't that old versus young?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Old versus young.
You know that could speak to the
broader economic insecurity that
many young people feel.
And that's why I do think that
the young vote is up
for grabs because
the candidates who express
a clear vision on
the economy I think are going
to be well suited to pick up
young voters who have
justified concerns about
buying a house someday.
And affording health care,
affording a school, having the
type of job where they can live a
comfortable life and start a
family, dealing with
health care costs.
Yeah,
so, you know,
I think,
yeah, so I think.
I mean, I'd also have to
throw into the mix, like, artificial
intelligence, right?
I mean artificial intelligence and
how, you know,
I think artificial intelligence is
almost insult to injury to
young voters because they had
already been facing a
precarious economic future
with the skyrocketing
cost of housing, the sky-rocketing
costs of care and education,
the challenges in
getting a job that pays people.
The type of wage to live a
comfortable life, now you throw
AI into the mix, and
that adds even more uncertainty
about their economic future
due to the potential for
AI to be disruptive to the
economy, to be destructive to the
labor market, to be descriptive
to all aspects of society.
So I think that,
you know, I mean...
I mean, for your story, I mean
one interesting thing to note
would be,
and it's just this video, these
videos are just etched in my mind,
like mentions of AI getting booed
at college commencement speeches.
I mean like, I take that
seriously as a sign of where
Gen Z is at on the issue
of artificial intelligence.
I mean...
For all the talk these days
about artificial intelligence
being used as a tool for
cheating in school
as a substitute for learning,
for all the talk these day about
artificial intelligence being used
for cheating in school or being used
to complete schoolwork without a
lot of learning happening, I don't
think there's nearly enough
conversation about a
potential wave of negative attitudes
among young voters and
young people generally towards
artificial intelligence.
Totally.
So we've talked a lot about a lot of
different issues, right?
And you work with students all the
time.
What are you, how are you seeing
these issues affect your students?
And what are you saying to them
about this? Where are their heads
at?
Yeah, so I've
been teaching since
I was 22.
So I've already
had quite a few years in
the classroom, just because it's
kind of the only real job that I've
had. I mean, I shouldn't say that.
It's the only full-time job
that I've ever had is
teaching. Um,
I gotta tell you, um,
after the Dobbs decision...
I saw students talking about
abortion in
a way and
in an amount that I had never
seen before in my teaching career
and still haven't.
I think that speaks to issue
salience and what I talked about
earlier, the prioritization of
issues, which...
In my view,
in my view as like
a political scientist who
hasn't personally done research
on this topic,
I think issue prioritization
is a compelling explanation
for the divergence of
men and women of young age.
I think it's a strong explanation.
And I think that
The reason I think it's a strong
explanation is we have to reconcile
a couple things.
We have to acknowledge
that many Gen Z
women have liberal views
on abortion.
Not all of them but lots of them do.
The Dobbs decision moved
that issue right up the list
in priority for all young people
but women in particular.
Men do
not Gen Z men do not
have overwhelmingly conservative
positions on abortion.
They don't overwhelmingly have
conservative positions much.
So why were they drawn to Donald
Trump? We have to look for a
different explanation than Gen
Z men are flocking to the
conservative wing of American
politics. And,
you
know, there's a lot of,
there is, you know,
I do think, and
so I think issue prioritization
helps us square that circle
and helps us explain
how Gen Z men were
drawn to Donald Trump even if
they were not flocking to the
conservative end of the political
spectrum.
Yeah, so
last question.
Yeah.
Suppose I'm a student, I am a
student. But suppose I'm your
student.
What do you say to me about why I
should get involved? What is so
important about my vote in this
moment?
You know, it's interesting.
Political science research shows
that young people are already
involved, well,
in some ways.
So young people
often attract a lot of criticism
for their low voter turnout rates.
But that's true for every
generation.
So I think that it is
fair to want Gen
Z people to vote.
More?
But...
We've been saying that about
lots of generations preceding
Gen Z.
So I think,
first of all, I think it's important
to be optimistic about Gen
Z, because I do have lots of reasons
for optimism.
Yeah, they don't vote at the same
rates as
older people do, but that's
always been true.
I mean that's always been true as
long as we've
had mass voting in the United
States.
So, you know,
I think part
of this is being positive
about Gen Z and
I do have
to shout out again Charlie Kirk
about this.
I think Charlie Kirk had a
fundamentally positive view towards
Gen Z, that they are
open-minded, that they're
open to being persuaded and
that he could persuade them.
Now...
Again, I have to contrast him
with a lot of conservatives
who, it seems to me,
have had more of a negative view
about Gen Z, viewing them
as close-minded, viewing them
indoctrinated
to a liberal perspective.
Charlie Kirk didn't take that view.
Lots of young conservative
influencers don't take that view,
so I think one positive
aspect of Gen Z that
I think is well worth acknowledging
is that they are open to
strong arguments.
They are open to being persuaded by
people who make a compelling
case for their point of view.
So I would start there,
just having a positive attitude
about Gen Z.
The kids are all right, as they
say.
I think that we should be
open to the idea that Gen
Z has a lot going for it
politically, not necessarily
in whatever political attitudes
it might have.
In whatever election
is upcoming or whatever
election we've had before.
But yeah,
I'd start there.
Now, when it comes to voter turnout,
so like how do I reconcile the
idea that Gen Z cares about
the world but doesn't vote
at as high rates
as older people do?
Lots of people in Generation
Z Do not view
voting as the main
way.
Or even a particularly good way
that they can make a difference in
society.
Now many of them do vote and
I think that we've seen
high voter turnout overall.
I think one of the
most positive aspects
of recent presidential elections
to me, particularly 2020
and 2024, is that we
saw higher than average voter
turnout and the
age groups kind of move in parallel
to one another where Although
Gen Z isn't to the level
of boomers, it's not to the level
of Gen X or Millennials,
it still gone up.
So I think, again, that's part of
being positive about Gen Z.
So I take having a positive mindset.
And so how
would I talk to a Gen
Z, someone in Gen Z?
I think I would be very open to
the idea that voting
is a small
part of the story in
American politics.
Now I like
to say that people
get into annoying debates about
the term that best fits
the American political system.
Is it a democracy?
Is it republic?
The term that I most like
to use is a representative
democracy, where it's
based on representation at
its core, but it's a democracy
in the sense that it also
relies on the participation of
the people, primarily
or at least to a great extent
through voting in elections.
So I think I'm
open to the idea that Gen
Z is skeptical about
the power of the vote.
And isn't sure that the ballot
box is a
good way to make change in society.
Frankly, I think there's something
to be said for that argument, and I
think it ought to be taken
seriously.
But I would also go back
to the idea that representation is
at the core of the American
political system.
Whether we like it or not, whether
we feel good about our
representatives or not.
All roads kinda lead back to
representation.
So I think when we look at American
politics in that respect,
it does mean that voting is
critical, even if we
look at voting as one
piece of the puzzle in being a
community member.
The other thing, on that note,
the other thing that I like to
emphasize to students is
that the
goal is to prepare them to be
community members.
And that does involve
voting. But...
There's lots of things that go
beyond that in being a community
member. It means knowing
the people you live around.
It means making
strong arguments to
people you know and being open to
their strong arguments.
It means valuing freedom
of speech.
It means valueing an open exchange
of ideas.
It means understanding the
Constitution.
It means understand American
history. It means
understanding.
The variety of ways that change
happens in society, where
elected officials are part of that,
but they're not the entire story in
how we see change in
the political system and change in
society.
So with Gen Z, yes,
I like to emphasize voting,
but I also like to emphasis this
broader idea of being
a community member and
understanding their role as a
community members.
Absolutely.
Absolutely. Any final thoughts?
I feel like there was, oh,
the only, when I was
talking to, who was I
talking to about this story?
God, I can't remember.
When I was, it was someone I was
talking to your story.
And they raised
an idea that I think is really,
really important where we
might need to dig.
Into Gen Z and distinguish
between the older Gen Z and
the younger Gen Z.
Just as in my
world as a millennial, it
might be worth distinguishing
between older millennials and
younger millennials.
And the reason I do that is
we might wanna isolate when
in someone's life they
experience the profound moment of
change. And of course, with Gen Z,
I'm talking about the pandemic.
And I think that that has to be part
of the story.
Now...
I am hesitant to make
grand conclusions about
the long lasting effects of
the pandemic on how people
think about politics and how they
vote, but I think it's
gonna be part of the story.
And I think, it may be worth
distinguishing between the older Gen
Z and the younger Gen Z
because formative years matter
and the pandemic hit
at somewhat different points
in Gen Z's formative ears.
And just like for, you know,
millennials, I mean, this is not a
great comparison, but
the financial crisis of
2007, 2008,
how, you know,
older millennials and younger
millennials might have
been, or I mean not might,
older millennials and young
millennials were just at different
points of their development and
different points of their passage
into adulthood when the financial
crisis hit.
And I think that that's
part of the story of the millennial
vote, just like the pandemic is
gonna be part of story of the
Gen Z vote.
I mean, I go back to the Great
Depression, right?
Like catastrophes and disasters
and crises don't
just matter in the moment.
They are sticky.
They have long lasting effects on
how people view the world and how
they view government institutions.
So I'm not ready to make
a concrete prediction about how
the pandemic will influence Jay-Z,
Jay-zee, Gen-ze,
it might influence
Jay Z.