Axios does a fascinating, multi-faceted dive into how “Gen Z’s digital world became a powerful political incubator for the Republican Party in 2024 — a force for persuasion and community building that reshaped the youth vote in astonishing ways.”
It is worth reading the four parts…
1. Into the MAGA-verse: What the algorithm feeds Gen Z
“If you’d paid attention to MAGA media in the months leading up to the 2024 election, the surprise wasn’t that young voters swung hard toward President Trump.
“The surprise was that so many people missed it.”
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“Seemingly overnight, MAGA took command of a full-fledged social ecosystem that met many young Americans where they already were.
“It was a cultural and political revolution hiding in plain sight — yet it blindsided the Democratic establishment, which is now scrambling to understand how it happened, and how to fight back.”
More…
2. Gen Z’s stunning partisan split
“America’s youngest voters are far likelier to vote Republican than their older siblings.”
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“Stunning stat: The latest iteration of the Yale Youth Poll found extraordinary 18-point partisan gap between younger and older members of Generation Z. When asked whether they’d pick a Democratic or Republican candidate in the midterm elections, voters age 22–29 favored Democrats by 6.4 points, while those age 18–21 favored Republicans by 11.7 points.”
Alternatively…
3. Zohran Mamdani taps progressive playbook for electrifying Gen Z
“Zohran Mamdani, the surging young progressive in New York City’s mayoral race, is showing what it looks like when a Democrat taps into the energy, language and anxieties of Gen Z.”
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“The big picture: Mamdani’s campaign offers a rare glimpse of what it might look like if Democrats actually tried to compete for Gen Z’s attention on cultural terrain — not just political ground.”
4. MAGA courts the next generation of conservatives, while conservative women take the stage
“Amid rising loneliness, economic anxiety and frustrations with the left, a growing share of Gen Z-ers are turning right.
“The big picture: The next generation of conservatives are in small towns and big cities, on college campuses and TikTok — and they’re minting a new youth culture.”
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“Although there are more men than women in the conservative youth movement, plenty of young women are part of it too.
“Feminism told women to chase their corporate dreams for their validation while their kids were eating seed oils and their marriages were collapsing,” Alex Clark, a conservative influencer and one of the speakers at the event, said on stage. “Well, we’re done pretending that a cubicle is more empowering than a countertop.”