r/fivethirtyeight • u/xellotron • 19d ago
Politics David Shor: Young voters, regardless of race and gender, have become more Republican
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u/ExternalTangents 19d ago
Not having the vertical axis start at 0% and go to 100% makes the scale of this look worse than it is
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u/Chemical-Contest4120 19d ago
I always thought of myself as never one to lambast the kids of today like generations of the past did to their young ones. Rebelling against the culture is what kids are supposed to do. But I never thought that the kids of today would rebel against the culture by becoming more conservative. What kind of fucked up counter culture is that?
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u/Brave_Ad_510 18d ago
A similar thing happened in the 1980s and 1950s. The pendulum swings back and forth. Counter culture can definitely be conservative given that the US has been historically liberal socially since the 2010s.
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u/double_shadow Nate Bronze 18d ago
Its funny too how the white men graph above is basically a sine wave...you can actually see the bumps for the Boomer and Millennial generations!
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u/xellotron 19d ago
I don’t think they took too kindly to be locked down at home instead of going to high school or college. The kids went feral. That’s my thesis anyway.
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u/obsessed_doomer 19d ago
Shor's thesis is that the "younger gen Z mindbreak" occurred throughout the polled world, despite wide differences in incumbent parties and lockdown procedures, so that complicates it somewhat.
I think the culprit is gen X parents + social media. Perhaps aggravated by covid, but in a way that seems to only somewhat depend on level of lockdown.
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u/TheXyloGuy 18d ago
Gen z here, it’s 100% parents and social media. Covid was not the reason, hell covid for most of us feels like decades ago by now. I feel if you’re still mad about covid it’s because you were a graduating class, no one else in my age group thinks about it politically by now
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u/xellotron 18d ago
Do you think lockdowns were the gateway, however temporary, to getting on TikTok/social media and finding these voices? Idle hands and such.
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u/Express_Love_6845 Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 18d ago
Yes. Waiting on someone to write the article but my theory is that there is a contingency of people who became “more online” during the pandemic who were ostensibly considered normies before with limited internet use and know none of the etiquette and rules of engagement when using the internet.
In addition to this, there are a lot of parents that think letting the internet raise your kids is a good thing. This is mostly because children aren’t outside getting caught up in physical dangers, but they fail to realize psychological harm from being exposed to bad elements is just as harmful.
These are the people that I suspect are becoming radicalized by the internet.
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u/trangten 18d ago
my theory is that there is a contingency of people who became “more online” during the pandemic who were ostensibly considered normies before with limited internet use and know none of the etiquette and rules of engagement when using the internet.
There is certainly a phalanx of British TERFs that fit this description
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u/Express_Love_6845 Allan Lichtman's Diet Pepsi 17d ago
yes, also there was a weird string of a few female white supremacists who would go viral for being openly racist from like 2021-2024 on Twitter. And the odd thing is that you could tell they were just doing it for clout, but you could also tell they were “normies” before.
I suspected that maybe they caught on to the Andrew Tate grift and wanted to copy but didn’t realize it had ramifications because they immediately disappeared after the consequences hit.
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u/TheXyloGuy 18d ago
Do you mean right wing voices or political voices in general? The way i see it as my own personal journey growing up politically and watching people around me i see it as like this
right wing pipeline on YouTube radicalizes primarily young men around 2015-2016 ———> anger at the trump administration pushes to a peak during covid and gen z being on tik tok has more time on their hands and becomes more liberal —-> biden wins and we become comfortable, the active voices die down —-> the economy starts to feel inflation more, people get more angry at the current administration and by this point there’s been a build up of anti lgbt rhetoric from groups such as mom’s for liberty over the years. ———-> the first debate was a fucking disaster for biden and charlie kirk(per his words) started working with tik tok more to push more right wing content, leading to more exposure to gen z
There was excitement for kamala but the damage had been done too much. The democrats trying to keep the status quo combined with the right making moves in silence was the nail in the coffin. I do believe that gen z is still overwhelmingly liberal but i think we’re de motivated and if things don’t change it will probably continue like this
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u/lokglacier 18d ago
I disagree. Dems are proper, nagging, and boring. The only thing a young kid hears from the left are lectures. I think kids feel the left limits self expression while the right allows it. Doesn't matter whether or not it's true, it's the perception.
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u/lorenzwalt3rs 18d ago edited 18d ago
Hi, older genz here with younger genz brothers. I lean left myself but you are right on the money with this. To be liberal in a lot of circles is to be “un-cool.” They hate how elitest the democrats seem, while liking how relatable the republicans have become. For us growing up on social media, our feeds were dominated by anything and everything millennial, from their memes and interests to their political beliefs which as we know lean significantly left online. I do believe THAT online culture is the one they are “counter culturing.” I was the same way when I was 18 until I got my wits together to see what the lasting effects of the republican policies were before I switched left.
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u/bravetailor 18d ago
It's not just in the political commentary, it's also in how our "liberal leaning" entertainment is presented too. It just doesn't come off..."cool".
I was reminiscing the other day about Madonna during her prime. By today's standards she would be considered fairly "liberal" as an artist but in the 80s she was perceived as shocking, transgressive and counter culture. She was rude to the media and not preachy. She was portrayed as the "bad" girl in an era where still much of the mainstream was Conservative. This was a large part of her appeal in the 80s to young people. She was a proverbial middle finger to their Conservative vanilla parents.
(Ironically, those same kids from the 80s seemed to have grown up to be the exact thing they were rebelling against. I guess this is a familiar pattern with all generations.)
We simply don't have "leftist" entertainers or influencers like that anymore, at least not on the same level of popularity.
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u/Froztnova 17d ago
People seem to have no conception of how thoroughly progressive activists destroyed the notion of the socially rebellious liberal back in the '10s. It went from the coalition of "do what you want, and fuck those stuffy pearl clutching Christians" to what it is today.
It's incredibly unsurprising to me that modern youth counter culture skews right, because the right learned their lesson and learned to stuff the nagging preaching.
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u/light-triad 18d ago
I disagree with that. They just don't hear anything from the left. Right wing commentators dominate social media in the US. They're for sure getting the message you described, but they're not getting it from watching Democratic politicians or commentators talk. They're getting it because that's what the right wing commentators are telling them.
Look at the big left wing commentators: Trevor Noah and The Breakfast Club. They don't fit your description. It's more that their viewership is dwarfed by the right.
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u/Froztnova 17d ago
It's quieted down now but for a long time the left was very nagging and critical and I think that we're still seeing the aftershocks of it. If you weren't online during the '10s you probably didn't see it as much, but it's largely codified the perceptions we're seeing now.
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u/MeyerLouis 18d ago
left limits self expression while the right allows it
except when they deem it "woke" or "DEI"
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u/lokglacier 18d ago
Agreed. I'm just saying it seems to be the perception, regardless of how true it is.
Republicans are now the party of Tony hinchcliffe and Joe Rogan while Dems are the party of boring senile old people like pelosi, Schumer and Biden.
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u/Red57872 18d ago
"Republicans are now the party of Tony hinchcliffe"
And yet Jon Stewart sort of defended him after his Puerto Rico garbage joke, noting that roasting is generally what he does, and it was actually pretty funny.
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u/RandomGuyPii 18d ago
tbf, there's probably a lot more gen z who want to be racist than gen z who want to be "woke"
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u/ToWriteAMystery 18d ago
Very interesting idea. This is the first generation that grew up in the era of cancel culture and it could be a backlash against it.
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago
Gen Z didn't grow up during Hollywood blacklisting, or when the Dixie Chicks got taken off radio.
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u/ToWriteAMystery 18d ago
Gen Z was born starting in 1997, so they certainly were around for the Dixie Chicks and 9/11 backlash, and unless you were born in the 1940s, most of us weren’t around for the communist panic and blacklisting.
None of that has to do with the modern phenomenon of cancel culture, which rose to prominence in the late 2010s..
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago edited 18d ago
The Gen Z born in 1997 are a vantablue demographic lol. They're literally the blue-est white people in the nation if you look at the chart at the top of this thread.
None of that has to do with the modern phenomenon of cancel culture, which rose to prominence in the late 2010s..
Yeah, I guess the difference is those things were actually bad, unlike most cancel culture. But otherwise getting taken off radio waves for voicing a political opinion seems like the kind of thing that'd absolutely fit the umbrella.
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u/ToWriteAMystery 18d ago
Oh I agree completely that those things were bad and that cancel culture has been overblown, but I think so many Gen Z just don’t have that context to understand. Instead, it makes them susceptible to propaganda.
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u/DizzyMajor5 18d ago
Cancel culture always existed McCarthyism, the red scars, banning books in the 60s, cartoons in the 70s, music in the 80s, and video games in the 90s the right just started to care when people we economically targeted rich white dudes.
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u/DizzyMajor5 18d ago
Trump uses slap lawsuits on behalf to silence criticism and Elon censors Twitter on behalf of dictators the problem is messaging and propaganda is used to to ignore when the right specifically targets free speech. If anything this is more evidence the left needs to be more aggressive with messaging.
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u/Red1547 Poll Unskewer 17d ago
I'm earlier gen z and yeah this is correct imo. I was moderate before the lockdowns but I will never forget what the Democrats did to me and my friends. Stole my senior year, prom, freshman year of college.
Now it's conservative all the way baby. All of my friends are conservative as well in my corporate job in a big city that are my age. Big government = Dems = bad.
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u/DizzyMajor5 18d ago
Trump was president during the lock downs
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u/Red57872 18d ago
And the lockdowns were mostly at the state level, with the blue states having more severe ones.
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u/DizzyMajor5 18d ago
Trump called for them pretty early on but you're right which is further evidence that the lockdowns weren't really the reason considering most blue states stayed blue and the red states that did lockdown continued to shift red.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/30/morning-brief-trump-extends-coronavirus-lockdown-april-30/
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/19/texas-governor-coronavirus-lockdown-orders-137691
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u/Red57872 18d ago
There were federal guidelines under Trump, but they were not mandatory, so it wasn't a lockdown.
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u/DizzyMajor5 18d ago
Yes and even red Texas locked down In accordance with Trump's guidance and still shifted red.
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u/AwardImmediate720 18d ago
But I never thought that the kids of today would rebel against the culture by becoming more conservative. What kind of fucked up counter culture is that?
The kind that's grown up with the results of social liberalism/leftism and is also the most neurotic and socially dysfunctional generation yet. It's quite rational and sensible to conclude that the former caused the latter.
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u/SyriseUnseen 18d ago
kids of today would rebel against the culture by becoming more conservative.
Because the US mislables their ideologies. Right now, the Republican party isnt conservative, it's regressive. Progressivism and regressivism are both deviations from an existing, conservative norm. Democrats, at least most of the ones holding power, are neither particularily liberal nor progressive, they are institutionalist conservatives.
Since there is no real progressive option (as voting D means voting conservative, at least at the presidential level), going with the regressive option is the only form of "counter culture" thats electorally available.
If Democrats want to recapture the youth vote, they'll have to move to the left. But that risks losing swing voters, so they currently dont see that as beneficial.
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u/jbphilly 18d ago
More to the point, Democrats have sort of fallen into the role of "status quo party," while Republicans are radical.
Now, if you're at all concerned about having a future worth living in and have half a brain and the inclination to use it, you'll look at these two parties and see that the Democrats are the better choice, or at least the least bad choice. But if you're just pissed off at the status quo (fair enough) and don't want to do any more thinking than it takes to get to the point of "fuck the status quo!" then the radicalism of Trump Republicans may seem appealing.
The fact that Republican radicalism involves burning down the society that could make a better future possible and replacing it with a Russia-style corrupt autocracy where most of us are serfs...well, that's a lesson that a lot of Gen Z kids are apparently going to have to learn the hard way.
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u/EndOfMyWits 18d ago
But that risks losing swing voters, so they currently dont see that as beneficial.
More crucially, it risks losing their donors.
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u/MasterGenieHomm5 18d ago
What is progressive about "progressivism" and how is it more "progressive" than regressivism? Progressivism is the side of negatively labeling and blaming entire minorities, believing in generational guilt, supporting blasphemy laws, supporting utterly barbaric cultures.
If Democrats want to recapture the youth vote, they'll have to move to the left.
nvm, just the usual delusional take from a left winger
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u/SyriseUnseen 18d ago
What is progressive about "progressivism" and how is it more "progressive" than regressivism?
Those are just two sides of the same coin. Fundamentally, your relationship to A can either stay the same or change towards something new (progressivism) or old (regressivism). Without the option to regress, progression is pretty much impossible as you never know all possible side effects of your decisions. Similarly, regression is impossible without progressing first.
Progressivism is the side of negatively labeling and blaming entire minorities, believing in generational guilt, supporting blasphemy laws, supporting utterly barbaric cultures.
Im talking about philosophical conceptions of time and human behaviour, you're playing party politics. I dont really care to discuss any of these points, they hardly matter to my case.
nvm, just the usual delusional take from a left winger
You're just misunderstanding the point - counter culture cannot be conservative, so it has to be restaurative or progressive. The regressive side is already taken, so theres just one option left. Note how Im not saying thats actually a good idea electorally.
Oh, and I know you dont actually care, but Im neither progressive, nor from the US.
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u/pulkwheesle 18d ago
But that risks losing swing voters
I think this is a misunderstanding of swing voters, who are ideologically incoherent and vote based on vibes/how the economy is currently doing.
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u/MakingOfASoul 18d ago
The dominant culture has been progressive for several decades. You don't own the counter culture, kids are tired of longhouse schoolmarms brow beating them into submission.
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u/DiogenesLaertys 18d ago
Targeted social media. Populism abuses people’s ignorance and kids these days are dumber than ever using chatgpt to do homework and never reading books.
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u/originalcontent_34 19d ago
I remember when a bunch of people on r/markmywords said Kamala would win in a landslide because a bunch of old people died during Covid and so young people would make her win Texas and Florida lol
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u/CrashB111 19d ago
Boomers, Millenials, and GenZ all voted for Harris. (GenZ at a lower % compared to Millenials when they were younger, but it still broke Democratic).
GenX was the generation really broke Red.
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u/flakemasterflake 18d ago
Gen X has always been the more conservative generation. Why are we shocked that their kids are as well?
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u/bravetailor 18d ago edited 18d ago
I have mixed feelings on this "Gen Z is turning MAGA" propaganda we're seeing. Like obviously there are data points suggesting a rightish lean but it's still not the majority. Part of it feels like 2025's version of "it's the boomers' fault" stuff from 2016.
I definitely feel like "Gen Z" is getting the brunt of the criticism for an election that was swung by a lot of generations collectively, not to mention women, immigrants and racialized peoples. A lot of them just broke for Trump.
That being said, I feel like Gen Z has been bombarded with propaganda since they were old enough to pick up a tablet. Older generations aren't giving them the necessary tools to make informed decisions, so one cannot be surprised if some of them make decisions contrary to their own interests.
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u/Friendly_Economy_962 16d ago
I don’t even mess with Reddit much these days, too many preachy clowns, but I saw your take while I’m kicking back with some free time, and dude, I had to jump in ‘cause the irony’s just begging for a smackdown. You’re out here moaning about “Gen Z turning MAGA propaganda”? Bro, that’s rich. So when the right’s got some pull, it’s all “propaganda” and brainwashing, but when the left’s dunking on everyone with their sanctimonious gospel, it’s pure wisdom? Come on, man, that’s some next-level hypocrisy. Back when all the young bros were drooling over Obama, it was “hell yeah, the kids are alright!”—now they’re vibing right and it’s “oh shit, they’ve been bamboozled”? You can’t have it both ways, fam.
And don’t pretend this is just some U.S. freakshow—it’s everywhere, dude. Young guys are swinging right like it’s a damn global sport. UK? Reform Party’s got lads hyped. France? RN’s basically the youth mascot now. Germany’s AfD, Australia’s right-wing crews—same deal. Scroll X, check some polls, it’s not a secret. Meanwhile, the girls are still mostly hugging the left, though even they’re not as gung-ho as they were when Tumblr was peak culture. It’s a wave, bro, not a conspiracy—history’s always bouncing back and forth. You genius libs should know this shit by now. The ‘60s had all that free-love progressive hype, then bam, ‘80s rolled in with Reagan and big hair telling everyone to cut the hippie crap. Same game now—your woke wave’s fizzling, and the bros are catching the next one.
But nah, you’re whining about “propaganda” and “boomers not giving Gen Z tools.” Dude, what? Gen Z’s got more juice at their fingertips than we ever did—phones glued to their hands since diapers, TikTok frying their brains, Social media throwing takes at ‘em nonstop. They’re not dumbasses; they’re just picking a team you don’t like. Quit acting like they’re lost sheep—maybe they’re just done with the lectures. And all your “mixed feelings” crap? Sounds like a fancy way to say you’re pissed the election didn’t go your way. “Oh, it’s women, immigrants, everyone else’s fault”—bro, just own it. People voted, you lost, end of story. Quit clutching your data points like a security blanket and crying about some grand injustice. Vibe’s shifting, deal with it. Go kick a rock or something, man—I’m out.
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u/Ed_Durr 19d ago
The whole “a bunch of Trump supporters died off from Covid so Republicans will lose the election” is a fantasy we’ve been hearing since before the 2020 election. A few issues:
1) The portion of Americans who died from Covid isn’t even 1%
2) There was no massive split in politician leanings among people who died of Covid. While the deaths were disproportionately among older voters, they were also disproportionately among minority older voters. I’d be shocked if the deceased had a greater partisan split than 55:45
3) Republicans being moderately less likely to wear masks and get vaccinated doesn’t translate to millions of net Republican deaths (or even hundreds of thousands)
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u/obsessed_doomer 19d ago
https://www.natesilver.net/p/fine-ill-run-a-regression-analysis
Once vaccines were introduced, there began a pretty brutal differential between red and blue states, even adjusting for age.
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u/Ed_Durr 19d ago
Yes, there was a partisan difference, but it was way overstated by some ghoulish online leftists. Your links do show a difference, but the spread is not massive and only represents a small fraction of the country. About 1.2 million Americans ended up dying of Covid, out of over 260 million adults in the country. (And that’s not even accounting for the not insignificant number of whom would have died of other causes before the election regardless.)
Could it make a difference in 2000 Florida, sure. But it mathematically could not have made a difference in the 2020. As of November 2020, Wisconsin had seen 3,178 deaths from Covid, Arizona 7,151 deaths, and Georgia 17,214 deaths. Even if you assume that every single one of those deaths was a voting Republican (they weren’t), it would have only been enough to narrowly flip Georgia. When you consider that this was before any vaccines and that a third of people don’t even vote, Republicans probably lost no more than a net few hundred votes in those three key swing states.
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u/tbird920 18d ago
Stopped reading at "ghoulish online leftists." I swear, most of the people on this subreddit have no idea what a leftist is.
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u/Ed_Durr 18d ago
What, do you want me to say “ghoulish online liberals”? I think that the redditors gleefully talking about so many Republicans dying aren’t exactly centrists.
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u/tbird920 18d ago
People actively rooting for other people dying are simply trolls. Leftists are people who support a restructuring of the economy to promote income equality (taxing the rich, expanding social safety nets, expanding the middle class, etc.).
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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 18d ago
I think it did happen though? The boomer vote was much less red this time around no?
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u/phys_bitch 18d ago
Is that because of COVID deaths? Or because they did not approve of Trump as much this time around?
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u/Mcatatonic1 19d ago
The Rogan effect
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u/xellotron 19d ago
Back in my day if you were a young conservative you had to watch Fox News with your dad or borrow his copy of National Review!
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u/DiogenesLaertys 18d ago
Alex Keaton conservatives were fine. They were productive and respected norms. Today’s conservatives are rabid reactionaries full of hate.
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u/MasterGenieHomm5 18d ago
*The liberal effect.
Young white men without college degrees didn't swing towards the right at all compared to the previous generation of white men without college degrees. Where was the Joe Rogan effect there? Nowhere. All those podcasts and social media propaganda didn't make uneducated young white men any more right wing. The exact same voting result for 18-29 year olds as for 30-45s.
But white men WITH college degrees voted 14% points more for Trump compared to their previous generation. They're now solidly Republican unlike their fathers who solidly voted for Harris.
Young people in California also had one of the biggest right wing swings compared to 2020, 30%. And California and New York were in general the two states with the biggest voter shifts toward Trump.
Seems like being exposed to liberals and progressives is what actually turns people to the right much more than Joe Rogan. I know it does for me. Couldn't care less what some people say about Democrats. Democrats are the best negative ad for themselves. Even Trump's attack ads just had Harris speaking.
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago
They're now solidly Republican
"There were also differences by education. Young white voters with postgraduate experience and college graduates both supported Harris: +14 and +4, respectively."
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u/MasterGenieHomm5 18d ago
That's white voters but I was talking about white men with college degrees. They voted 55-42 for Harris/Trump in the 30-45 age bracket, and 56-42 for Trump/Harris in the 18-29 age bracket.
That's from the second tab "Youth Vote +4 for Harris, Major Differences by Race and Gender"
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago
?
56% is also not solid lol
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u/MasterGenieHomm5 18d ago
It's as big as Democrats' general advantage among college educated people or Trump's advantage among whites, which I would call solid.
One group going from Harris supporters being a third more to Trump supporters being a third more across a generation, seems like a pretty dramatic change to me.
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago
Trump's advantage among whites, which I would call solid.
I guess we disagree on what solid means. If you sampled 20 random white voters, you'd find 11 Trump voters, on average.
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u/MasterGenieHomm5 18d ago
And 8 Harris voters. Anyway all this groups have roughly a third more people in one of the camps. Call it whatever you want, solid is just a word.
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u/obsessed_doomer 17d ago
I'll call it "basically dem's current Hispanic margin, which is allegedly a huge problem"
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u/YesterdayDue8507 Has Seen Enough 19d ago
this age group is probably the swingiest group of voters, if repubs dont deliver on economic promises majority of it will vote dem in 2028
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u/Tookmyprawns 18d ago
Republicans are counting on them simply not voting instead of swinging. Might work.
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u/Spara-Extreme 18d ago
Problem with democrats is that there is nobody for young voters to want to attach to. Who are they going to follow ? Chuck Schumer?
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u/Mr_The_Captain 18d ago
That's definitely a big problem. The most comparable figure on the left to someone like Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan is Hasan Piker, but the core problem with that comparison is that if you listen to Tate, he'll tell you that the world is against you and the only way to win is to hit the gym and be mean to people. Whereas if you listen to Piker, he'll say you need to get educated, read theory, go to protests, join the DSA, etc.
Basically, the right sphere tells you that you can solve all your own problems, whereas the left sphere tells you that all your problems are bigger than you. It's easy to see why one is more appealing than the other, even if it's not the more accurate one.
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u/sodosopapilla 18d ago
AOC and The Midas Touch guys are as close as I can think of, but there is a lot of ground to catch up
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u/doomer_bloomer24 18d ago
Shor was on the Ezra Klein podcast yesterday and I highly recommend listening to that episode. He goes a little bit deeper on this trend and says that this is a global trend and part of the global machismo movement perpetuated by the likes of Andrew Tate. This is also probably cultivated by diverging social media usage and growing influence of right wing politics in gaming and other social media apps. I am afraid that dismissing this as a reaction against inflation misses the entire point. Interestingly I watched the Netflix show Adolescence and it is actually based on a similar themes and the growing rightward movement of very young kids. It also may be a backlash against recent focus by left wing parties on women’s issues, culminated by abortion rights. Democrats need to really think hard about their priority areas in upcoming election and their media strategy. Otherwise they may lose a generation of male voters.
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u/Tom-Pendragon 18d ago
I feel like this is just backlash against incumbency. Watch them change their vote in 2026 and 2028.
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u/PerspectiveViews 19d ago
A lot of these voters were in high school during COViD. I imagine a lot of them blame Dems for shutting down the schools for so long and ruining their youth with the lockdowns.
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u/obsessed_doomer 19d ago
David Shor is getting the grand tour of every paper of note, and its based off of the work blue rose research does via surveying.
And I guess my question is:
Does he at any point specify what the sample size of this is?
Many polls have issues correctly capturing, say, Asians at all, but they've got enough to not only do that but split them up into three ideological categories?
Also, it's worth noting that, on net, this differs from exit polls by more than a bit.
He claims there was a 0% shift in the white vote from 2016 to 2024.
Roper says there was a 5 point shift:
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2024
Shor's reaction to this is "oh our surveys are better than exit polls", alright. I guess they're a lot better!
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u/phys_bitch 18d ago
Does he at any point specify what the sample size of this is?
If you go to the source: https://blueroseresearch.org/, fill in your name and email you'll get access to the PDF. They say "Our team collected 26M responses in 2024 nationally". Combined with the caveat that "Not all voterfile data is back yet – so this picture is evolving. Still, we have a fairly clear picture of what happened in the election from precinct-level data across the country, combined with our models of Democratic candidate support."
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u/IvanLu 19d ago edited 19d ago
The question is whether Roper has adjusted their exit polls as more voter data, right down to the precinct level have since been released. CNN's exit polls, which were updated in mid-Dec, also show the white vote shifted just 1 point in favour of Kamala.
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u/obsessed_doomer 19d ago
https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0
Harris 42% in 2024
Clinton 37% in 2016
If there was an update, you'll have to link it because I hadn't heard.
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u/wufiavelli 19d ago
Wouldn't exit polls be better given their ability to focus groups that would otherwise be dispersed with the actual weight of the decision trying to be tested actual coming to fruition compared to a hypothetical?
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u/obsessed_doomer 19d ago
I dunno, they claim to have interviewed 8 million people last year.
That's three magnitudes more than any real poll. At that point, why do we even have polling, if this organization can interview 8 million people (most of them multiple times)?
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u/jhkayejr 19d ago
enjoy this world of ashes, kids
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u/light-triad 18d ago
They also all seem to be so pessimistic. Like can they really not make the connection between their actions and why everything is so messed up?
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u/Glittering-Giraffe58 18d ago
Lol respectfully I feel like we were introduced into a culture of millennials constantly talking about how terrible and horrible everything in the world is so we sort of had a preconception and then the events throughout our lives certainly didn’t do anything to counteract that idea, to put it lightly
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u/RCT3playsMC 18d ago
Politely, as a zoomer - our entire lives have been under some form of "once in a lifetime" terrible event from post-9/11 to the recession to Trump to Covid to Ukraine to Gaza... Why and how could/would most of us in the age of the internet being in your pocket seeing everything good in this world continue to fall apart on more and more false promises - across the political landscape - have any form of positivity, hope, or optimism regarding things to come. The closest time I think we had to relative prosperity were Obama's second term and Trump's 1st riding Obama's economy...perhaps that's a factor in why so many of my gen banked on Trump, ignoring the growing machismo horseshit fault of Andrew Tate + other predatory media.
My point is less in terms of putting negativity to action, but more on the generational pessimism part, because that doesn't even feel like we're unique in that aspect. Gen X was angry sarcastic and unempathetic, Millennials are betrayed detached and anxious, Gen Z are exhausted careless and pessimistic, it's nothing new. Everything dominoing from a post-Reagan world is ballooning up in the faces of those who are beginning to realize the increasing threat that an ever increasing number of us will probably never afford a house in our lifetimes. It's the new American Dream: having every single one of your dreams and standards for society shattered one news article at a time.
Why would any of us have hope? Seriously? At least we're tuned in for the most part. Our generation's ability to bounce from left lean to right lean I prefer to believe shows that allot of us are actively thinking about the decisions we're making and we're less likely to stay within the confines of the two-party system that currently plagues us, but that's just me - an exhausted zoomer that can't think of a reason *not* to be increasingly depressed about everything. "Don't get my hopes up..." should be our generational motto.
Edits: wording
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u/phys_bitch 18d ago
our entire lives have been under some form of "once in a lifetime" terrible event from post-9/11 to the recession to Trump to Covid to Ukraine to Gaza...
Your generation is not special. Most millennials could say the exact same. Ask even older generations about living under the threat of nuclear annihilation during the cold war, or the communist blacklistings during McCarthy, or Vietnam, etc. Life is filled with once-in-a-lifetime events.
To give a somewhat lame but well-known example, in the movie Fight Club (1999), which was aimed at Gen-X members of society there is this quote, "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war's a spiritual one...our great depression...is our lives." Millennials felt the same, and now it is Gen-Zs turn.
The larger defining factor, from my experience working with Gen-Z, is growing up and having your world-view shaped by a social media ecosystem designed to prey upon children. The COVID mandated isolation during Gen-Zs formative years also does not help. The phrase "iPad kids" does not really come out of nowhere.
The bigger question is what will you do as your generation fully enters their productive years in the workforce. Continue to not participate in the electoral system and doom-scroll? Or actually try and affect change?
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u/Ivycity 18d ago edited 18d ago
My company is partners with Meta and Google. My theory on the shift happening and it will continue to happen is due to Social and how the Right utilizes it vs the Left. These companies are advertising companies and it’s pay-for-play while they boost the most “engaged” content. controversial content is highly engaging so people are incentivized to lie and spread misinformation. Zuck is ok with this because it brings in more ad revenue: “We don’t want to be the arbiter of truth”. He’s been this way for years, even before Trump.
So I can make content about getting women, why as men we’re harmed and how to get rich, etc utilize right wing talking points in said content and directly target it to teen males in <insert location here> who have interest in gaming, wrestling, mma, e-bikes, etc. look at a few video game vids on YouTube. In a day or two you’ll probably start to see in the suggested/auto play YT feed “<insert group here> DESTROYED by <insert right winger here>” or content taking advantage of your self esteem. You get fed that kinda content from like 12-15 years old, it’s not a shock they’re moving to the right. The Left has no counter to this because they’re drowned out and folks on the left aren’t as interested in grifting (yes they do it too). These “conservatives” you see likely don’t even believe half the stuff they’re saying, but it gets them a check. Elon taking over Twitter plus the GOP digital campaigns catching up on TikTok cemented their 2024 advantage IMO.
What happens now? Democratic politicians have to go where the voters are online. The party is bad at data sharing & operations (my friend worked on the Harris campaign). I wouldn’t hyper focus on age too much, the two groups in particular they need to figure out immediately are:
- Black turnout
- Latino outreach, especially with men. Democrats cant win if the GOP run those kinda numbers with them again. Letting the GOP set the narrative on platforms like Facebook, IG, & WhatsApp without any cohesive pushback let alone running an offense is playing to lose.
It’s a mix of in-person and online tactics that probably need to be done.
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u/Key-Boat-7519 18d ago
Totally agree that Dems gotta up their online game if they wanna avoid getting outplayed. I dabbled in digital marketing and saw how fast right-wing content dominates the feeds, especially with younger guys fixating on gaming and adrenaline-fueled stuff. But hey, if you’ve ever tried Vantage for campaign data sharing or Meltwater for social listening, you know they’re helpful but sometimes too clunky or broad. I've found Pulse for Reddit pretty handy for honing in on specific voter interests; it’s great for catching what's buzzing before it explodes. Definitely, these data-driven tactics need more spotlight if the Left wants to compete. Explore more discussions on voter outreach, and it might spark some innovative strategies.
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u/Apprentice57 Scottish Teen 18d ago
Source: Blue Rose Research survey-based models, shifted to align with election results
Uh... aren't we at the point where we don't need models for 2024 and can switch to verified voter polls?
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19d ago edited 18d ago
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u/obsessed_doomer 18d ago
I mean yeah, the dem 2024 campaign (Biden-inclusive) was close to WOAT status, I'd argue we have to go back to 1912 to see worse.
And the outcome is that we lost with most demos but were still within striking distance of EC and popular vote.
My interpretation of that is that the democratic party is far from doomed, but we'll see in 2026-2032.
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u/AaronStack91 17d ago
This is a data subreddit and no one pointed out this should have been a bar chart and not a line chart? SMH.
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u/chickenbeersandwich 18d ago
Political messaging in the media now feels overwhelmingly Republican.
Regardless of whether it's true or not, ask a mildly informed person what Republicans stand for and it's easy for them to rattle off a few talking points: lower taxes, strong border, law and order, America first, no more cancel culture.
For Democrats? It's way harder because their message is not constantly badgering everyone, so Republicans are defining their message for them. You might have some people mention reproductive rights or taxing the rich. Maybe a slightly more informed person will mention infrastructure. I think you'd hear more people inaccurately mention open borders, cancel culture, electric vehicle mandates, all of which the party does not and should not support.
Democrats need to start defining their message in clear, simple, short phrases, and force people to learn it.
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u/jbphilly 18d ago
Democrats need to start defining their message in clear, simple, short phrases, and force people to learn it.
"Force people to learn it" is the key here. They need a propaganda machine as pervasive, well-organized, and well-funded as the right-wing one. You can have the most appealing platform ever, but if voters only hear about you from your enemies, they're only going to have the image of you that your enemies portray.
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u/ImaginaryDonut69 18d ago
So much for the internet fostering a more knowledgeable electorate...pretty disappointed in Gen Z so far, I was hoping they would echo Millennial sentiments (which are decidedly leftist) but we definitely saw a split between the two gens.
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u/pop442 17d ago
Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Steven Crowder, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, JD Vance, Andrew Tate, Dave Rubin, Jack Posobiec, Asmongold, etc. are all Millennials.
That whole notion of Millennials being "Leftist" was always a chronically online take due to how the Left used to dominate the Internet and social media via Twitter, Tumblr, Buzzfeed, Youtube, Reddit, etc. until around 2015-2016 when the Right started dominating more on social media.
In reality, Millennials are pretty damn moderate and bipartisan especially today and many are Republicans in the South and Midwest.
I'm a younger Millennial(94 baby) and, when I go on Facebook and IG, I can even see that many friends on mines in their 30's are not even close to being Leftists even if they don't like Trump. I've even seen Millennial friends of mines with kids turn very socially conservative even if they vote Democrat.
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u/EnvironmentNo7795 18d ago
Democrats are socialists at their core. They are looking for a free handout.
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u/darkag18 18d ago
IMO this directly correlates to the amount of podcasts, internet shows and personalities that lean right.
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u/Olfactory_Reflex 11d ago
I strongly disagree. I was a non-traditional student who finished college in 2020. Young people have every right to be angry. Housing, cost of living, terrible job market. All they know is this plus Democrats shrieking max volume. They’ll moderate when things get better.
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u/Epicurus402 18d ago
Thats fine. Let em eat more of what Trump is serving up and let's see how they feel then. Because there ain't nothing, and I mean nothing, in it for them.
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u/Heysteeevo 18d ago
The whole interview was great and gave me a lot of hope for the midterms. One thing that annoyed me was the point about moderate voters not having moderate views and a completely incoherent ideology. Like that’s interesting but what do you do with that info? It’s like saying Latino voters aren’t a monolith. Ok… so how do you stop the bleeding with Latinos if you’re a democrat? I guess it tells you what not to do but isn’t especially instructive.
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u/gomer_throw 18d ago
Sorry if this has already been said, but the lines on that graph do not show that nonwhite men between 20-25 outright favored Trump over Harris…
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u/bibbybrinkles 15d ago edited 15d ago
Well let’s see. White men heard dismissive feminist rhetoric all through the 2010s and it’s only gotten worse and now it’s amplified by anti-colonialist rhetoric. I just can’t pinpoint why young men would vote right wing 🤔 🤔
These things aren’t that deep, but Dems and the left in general don’t want to admit inconsistency when it comes to white men. If they don’t fix this the radicalism will cement further if it’s not already gone too far.
Also right wing isn’t “conservative.” It’s radical. The democrats are now conservatives. They seek to conserve a status quo that was ushered beginning in the mid 60s. That’s why saying the young people are “conservative” is just wrong. The closest thing to liberal progressivism now is Bernie and AOC.
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u/PostmodernMelon 18d ago
Kinda makes sense. Literacy rates have been dropping pretty intensely lately...
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u/AwardImmediate720 18d ago
Probably something to do with the Democrats holding power for most of their lives and things having just gotten continuously worse. Even during Trump 1 the Demcorats managed to sabotage most of his agenda so they can't even escape blame for the bad parts of that Presidency. Plus they were the main drivers behind the biggest destructive event of the last 20 years: covid policy.
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u/kelehigh 18d ago
It’s also that 50 years of young white men thinking that they can’t compete with women and dark men in the classroom anymore; why I don’t know. Joe Rogan and Theo Von speak to these stupid or stupid acting men by telling them it’s alright to love video games, WWE, UFC, weight lifting, football and NASCAR, etc. while women don’t ID with any of that whereas men of all stripes do.
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u/PreviousAvocado9967 18d ago
In four years not a single thing will be more affordable.
Not housing
Not food
Not health insurance
Not car insurance
Not home insurance
Not college
Wages will not have gone up more than the rate of inflation while tax cuts for the billionaires will continue lower than ever.
tariffs will have increased all consumer prices.
You can't pay the bills with mass deportations. Actually thats going to increse labor cost inputs with an increase in flation.
young people voted more Republican because the cost of living went up and Trump said he would lower these "on day one". The Republicans are going to get absolutely WRECKED in 2028.
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u/Appropriate-You-5543 18d ago
Exactly. This surge in voter ID is just a flash in the pan. I doubt that the Republicans won’t fuck up badly enough for Gen Z to flip immediately as their lives get worse and they look at who they voted for and have a face of regret and grow Anti Republican.
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u/conorthearchitect 18d ago
This is really sad, I honestly thought the country was going to swing liberal hard as gen z came of age....
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u/pop442 17d ago
It doesn't work that way. Nobody's intrinsically Left or Right leaning.
The Democrats have become headless chickens since Obama's 2nd term ended and Clinton lost to Trump.
The Right Wing played the long game of dominating alternative media, podcasts, and ragebait algorithms early on.
The Democrats still stuck with legacy media via CNN, MSNBC, The View, etc. which is background noise to the majority of average people. And their news media blocked people out via paywalls and subscription fees.
People are crying about Joy Reid getting fired but she was honestly part of the problem. Nobody gives a fuck what Joy Reid has to say about politics or the news lol. She's not a skilled researcher or astute sounding person who's the antithesis to the very "misinformation" that gets pinned on the Right. Ditto can be said for Don Lemon and Rachel Maddow.
Hell, average people barely care much about what Fox has to say after Tucker left the network. It's the alternative media space that's drawing in "normie" voters by a mile, from Boomers to Gen Z, and the Left is laughably far behind in that type of messaging compared to the Right.
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u/aulait_throwaway 19d ago edited 19d ago
Gonna wait and see if this is really a larger trend or just backlash against incumbency in a time of economic woe. The article/interview touched on that a bit but I think we'll have to wait and see how much that really impacted the results