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‘Maybe Gen Z Is Just Kinder’: How America’s Youngest Voters Are Shaping Politics ‘Maybe Gen Z Is Just Kinder’: How America’s Youngest Voters Are Shaping Politics
(6 days later)
Members of Gen Z (Americans under 26 years old) have come of age during the Trump presidency and a pandemic, in an era of protests over police violence, attacks on reproductive rights, rising economic inequality, and frequent school shootings. These young people are calling for major changes, but many aren’t confident that politicians will act with the urgency necessary to carry them out. As Gen Z voters consider the midterms, they are prioritizing the issues, not party allegiance. Members of Gen Z (Americans under 26 years old) have come of age during Donald Trump’s presidency and a pandemic, in an era of protests over police violence, attacks on reproductive rights, rising economic inequality and frequent school shootings. These young people are calling for major changes, but many aren’t confident that politicians will act with the urgency necessary to carry them out. As Gen Z voters consider the midterms, they are prioritizing the issues, not party allegiance.
But with a history of low turnout, and disenchantment with politics across the spectrum, will young voters be moved enough by the issues to show up at the polls? And if so, will there be enough of them to sway decisive races? But with a history of low turnout and disenchantment with politics across the spectrum, will young voters be moved enough by the issues to show up at the polls? And if so, will there be enough of them to sway decisive races?
[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.][You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
Today on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston convenes three voters in their early 20s to talk about how their families and communities have affected their politics, what matters most to them at the ballot box, and what they wish older Americans and politicians understood about people their age. Today on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston convenes three voters in their early 20s to talk about how their families and communities have affected their politics, what matters most to them at the ballot box and what they wish older Americans and politicians understood about people their age.
(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.) A transcript of the full episode can be found in the audio player above. An excerpt from the conversation with host Jane Coaston follows. It has been edited for length and clarity.Jane Coaston: I want to start out by asking you to introduce yourselves. So do you want to introduce yourself very quickly and just say what pronouns you use, just to make sure that we’re all feeling comfortable?Zak Krebs: I go by Zak. My pronouns are “they/them.” I’ve lived in Fort Wayne, which is a city in Northeast Indiana, my whole life. I went to one year of college, but that was right around when the pandemic hit, and I ended up leaving as a result of that and other things.
I currently work for a union. It’s not a new one. It’s been around for, I believe, over 100 years. I got into it because of my dad, and I work with a bunch of conservatives, and I am not. But you know, that’s life.
Jane Coaston: How old are you, Zak?
Zak Krebs: I’m 21.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, do you want to introduce yourself?
Isaac Willour: I’m Isaac Willour, “he/him.” I’m a junior political science student at Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania. I’m currently working as a reporter at a couple of outlets, including The College Fix, which is a news publication that covers higher ed, and I do commentary for a conservative think tank called the Acton Institute.
Jane Coaston: And Bella, do you want to introduce yourself?
Isabella D’Alacio: Hi, I’m Bella. I’m 22 years old. I’m from South Florida. My pronouns are “she/her.” I studied government and international politics at George Mason University.
I’m on the Team Enough Executive Council, which is a youth-led gun violence prevention organization. And I’m a former policy associate at March for Our Lives, and I still continue my work with them as a co-facilitator of a binational peace summit.
Jane Coaston: Bella, how do you think about where you fit on the political spectrum?
Isabella D’Alacio: In a utopian society, I would be extremely progressive. But I feel like, today, I have to kind of abandon my morals a little bit when I vote. Because I feel like there aren’t really truly candidates that check off all the boxes for me. But left leaning, for sure.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, what about you?
Isaac Willour: Center right, I think, is probably the most accurate characterization. I don’t want to say “conservative,” because that comes with such a long line of baggage, and some of it is not my baggage. So I think “center right” is a pretty accurate characterization. But I would echo Bella’s point about voting for candidates who don’t completely line up with my values, and I’m sure we’ll get into that.
Jane Coaston: And Zak, what about you?
Zak Krebs: I do want to agree with both of them about no candidate really representing me. But I would consider myself progressive, forward. I don’t want to say “Democrat,” but “progressive” is kind of how I like to think about it.
Jane Coaston: I’m curious what that means for what party you align with. Zak, what do you think of the party that you generally align with, and what do you think about the one that you don’t?
Zak Krebs: So Democrats are kind of the option I have, you know what I mean? Without, like, seeking out a third party, which — there’s a lot of complications with that. I definitely am not a big fan of the fact that we only have two choices, and the Democrats, especially where I am, are extremely moderate compared to what I would like, and it’s kind of a disappointing thing.
So they’re satisfying, I guess, because conservatives — or, I guess, the Republicans of the moment — are kind of scary. Just — the way that they talk about people like me is not something I can really handle. So I’m finding my home where I can, I suppose.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, what about you?
Isaac Willour: I’ve grown up with a lot of Republican influences in my life. My parents are both very conservative. My father is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is a Protestant denomination, and I’m still very Protestant.
I wasn’t born in this country. I was adopted at 18 months. A lot of my childhood environments were full of very conservative people. And I think I generally, growing up, associated that with the Republican Party is the way to go. Although I will say, when I was 8 years old, I asked my dad, who was listening to Rush Limbaugh at the time, “So is it the Republicans are the good guys and the Democrats are the bad guys?” And my dad looked at me. He said, “There are bad guys on both sides, and don’t forget it,” which is very wise. I’m a registered independent, because I don’t — my political party identity basically comes down to where I feel like my vote can actually accomplish the most.
And so my party identity is going to depend on a couple of things. And one of them is “How much can I actually accomplish in a primary? Which party’s primary is more interesting, slash, has the capacity to move the needle more?”
And right now I’m kind of at a loss of faith on both parties, and I’m not happy with where the Republican Party has set its trajectory. And so I’m not going to align with that, so that’s why I’m an independent now.
Jane Coaston: Bella, what about you?
Isabella D’Alacio: I tend to vote Democrat, but I don’t necessarily happily vote Democrat. I think with my roles in both gun violence prevention organizations, I’ve learned the urgency of a lot of these issues. For instance, with firearms being the leading cause of death for young people, I think that there’s so much more that needs to be drastically done immediately to mitigate this reality.
And so for me, I kind of just find so much disappointment in the lack of urgency in the Democratic Party. And with the Republican Party, I think, you know, our nation has become so polarized in this present moment. And I feel like when you say “Republican,” people nowadays just think “fascism,” and that’s just what we have on the table.
And so I personally know, talking in college with Gen Z Republicans, I didn’t feel like they were fascist all the time. So I think that there’s definitely a loss and a lack when it comes to the political spectrum and we need a third party. I think that would really help, but that’s my perception of both parties.
Jane Coaston: So, not hearing a lot of happiness with our two major parties.
Bella, you’ve worked with March for Our Lives. You’re about to start a new job at a policy nonprofit. What appealed for you about pursuing policy work?
Isabella D’Alacio: Yeah, absolutely. I would say this kind of goes into growing up in Florida. So growing up with Republican parents, I didn’t really — I was told what I was supposed to think. I was told Cuba — before it turned into a communist dictatorship, we had to leave. “America is the country that’s going to give you all the freedoms.” You know, just, “Follow the rules. Follow the American dream.” And for me, I just always held on to that. I thought it was possible.
I thought, “My grandparents made it. I’m able to stand here today and get a higher education,” and things like that — and my parents as well.
But when I was in high school, I did face a lot of tribulations, things that I didn’t realize were abnormal.
For instance, I didn’t have health care my entire life, pretty much. I grew up with a single mom. So going to the doctor was always a thing of, “Is it really urgent? Can you wait? Is this something that we can fix at home?”
Even now, I kind of have to tell myself, “Go to the doctor.” Also, in high school, I experienced homelessness for a few months with my mom. And that was something that took a really big toll on my mental health.
And my senior year of high school, I feel like it all just poured over, because I grew up in Broward County. I used to live in Parkland, Fla., and I went to elementary school there, and my sister went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas when we lived there.
So when the shooting happened, I was a senior, and I had friends in the building. I remember texting them. I remember receiving videos of young people bleeding on the classroom floor and dying and just immediately being traumatized.
And that day changed my life forever. And I remember the day that we’d planned to walk out, and I was like, “Oh, I’m just going to go in the courtyard and see what happens.” I didn’t really plan for anything.
And my entire student body was there, and we just overcame the administration and just marched out the doors. And I was like, “Whoa, we just overcame administration. Like, we’re on the streets right now. We’re fighting for something, and there’s helicopters with news outlets. Like, we’re making a difference!”
And what I thought was such a politically apathetic community of young people was actually a really strong movement to be reckoned with. So with that, I was like, “OK, if I can overthrow some administrators, maybe I can convince some legislators to vote for some gun violence prevention bills.”
And so for me, it was kind of a matter of healing from my trauma as well. And I think when it comes to political advocacy, politics used to be a thing of just older people. It used to be a thing of older white people, older white men who had a lot of power. But I think now politics is everywhere around us. It affects our everyday life. And so that’s what has driven me to become politically active.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, do you have a memory of when you started caring about politics?
Isaac Willour: Yes, so I became politically conscious after the election of 2016.
And I’m realizing now, for a lot of people my age, that was, like, their first political memory, right? So I’m realizing, like, people’s first political memory actually fundamentally shapes their view of politics. So mine was, Trump was elected when I was 14, and I knew enough to know that wasn’t normal and that very few people in the country expected it, even people on the right.
And people were really mad about that and still are. And that was my first — that was kind of my first political memory. It was kind of that descent into our current polarized state, not that it didn’t exist before.
Zak Krebs: I think I’d have to agree that it was Trump. But it was more the run-up to Trump getting elected, and then the subsequent things that happened as a result. But I, at that point in time, was the only progressive voice in this group of people that I talked to that all were a big fan of what was happening in the Republican Party.
So there was constant conversation leading up to it. And I was 100 percent one of the people that were upset when Trump was elected. I can remember just being moody that day, walking around the halls, and it was very upsetting.
But then everything that kind of happened after that, like with the policy things that he did — I remember getting into a very heated conversation about the Muslim ban that he put in place, and that was probably the first time I felt super politically charged.
Jane Coaston: So for you guys, your big political memories are from, largely, the past six years, and a lot has changed since Trump, obviously. So I want to talk a little bit about the ways that you engage with politics and the issues you care about. To start, I actually want to do a quick lightning round on some of the big issues that people are talking about a lot.
So first up, Bella, climate change — is the government doing enough? Yes or no?
Isabella D’Alacio: No, absolutely not.
Zak Krebs: No, not at all.
Isaac Willour: Um, not sure.
Jane Coaston: The economy — on a scale of 1 to 10, how worried about it are you? And what, in particular, are you worried about? Bella?
Isabella D’Alacio: 10, housing affordability.
Zak Krebs: I want to say 6. Personally, I just don’t think it’s the most pressing thing right now.
Isaac Willour: 9, inflation and global trade.
Jane Coaston: Bella, gun control. Do you want more or less?
Isabella D’Alacio: Way more.
Zak Krebs: I’d like more gun control.
Isaac Willour: No, we don’t need more gun control.
Jane Coaston: Bella, what did you think of the Dobbs decision when you first heard about it?
Isabella D’Alacio: I was heartbroken, wrenched. As a woman, this is terrible. So this is a huge issue.
Zak Krebs: It was absolutely devastating to me and everyone around me.
Isaac Willour: Roe was a badly decided case. As a person of color, I was very happy that there was going to be less abortion in America.
Jane Coaston: Bella, crime — are you worried about crime? And if yes, what kind?
Isabella D’Alacio: I would say I’m not so worried about crime. I’m more so worried about providing resources to prevent people to commit a crime.
Zak Krebs: I’m not superworried about crime, personally.
Isaac Willour: Yeah, we have a major crime problem in America, and we should probably look into some way to fix it.
Jane Coaston: Affirmative action. Bella, do you support it? Are you opposed to it? Colleges, workplaces — what do you think?
Isabella D’Alacio: I think it’s important, but I think there’s definitely flaws.
Zak Krebs: I agree with affirmative action, but there definitely needs to be some nuance in how it’s applied.
Isaac Willour: Yeah. As an Asian, I really don’t like affirmative action. And we need to gut large parts of it and figure out a way to make an actually equitable system.
Jane Coaston: So let’s talk about these a little bit more. And you tell me — of the issues that we just talked about, which of these do you have the most complicated feelings on? Are there any questions you guys have for one another on these topics?
Isaac Willour: I do. Zak and Bella, I guess I’m assuming I’m the only anti-abortion person on this podcast, and I think I’m right about that. I don’t know about Jane’s —
Jane Coaston: I have complicated feelings about the subject, but that’s not my job.
Zak Krebs: I’m curious!
Isaac Willour: In terms of do you support — is it all abortions? Are there any restrictions that you would support, in terms of are there any limits that you’d be OK with, or not really?
Zak Krebs: So I’ll go first, if that’s cool. I don’t know. It’s not super my place to say, really. That’s kind of been my opinion on this as a whole. I think that if a person’s able to get an abortion up to 15 weeks, it’s way better than just outright banning it. So I would accept that.
But I think, with my limited knowledge about the actual biology of pregnancy, I think abortions up to fetal viability was a satisfying thing for me. I think that helped a lot of people not get trapped into having a child.
Isaac Willour: Yeah.
Isabella D’Alacio: I think it’s like — when people are seeking an abortion, I don’t think that they’re doing it with the intention of murdering a child. I think there’s definitely maybe a medical reason or a reason that they can’t take care of the child and provide a good life for that child.
And so I think that is completely valid and everybody should have the choice. I think not only that, but I think that the decision overturning Roe v. Wade was more than just abortion.
It also just influenced reproductive health in general. For me, being someone who menstruates, someone who has a feminine reproductive system, it is incredibly hard sometimes to get attention when you’re having an issue.
And a lot of these things go hand in hand with Roe v. Wade, you know, like, birth control and things like that. But sometimes women don’t take birth control or menstruating people do not take birth control to prevent pregnancy. They also take it because they might have a lot of pain from an ovarian cyst or things like that.
Isaac Willour: Sure.
Isabella D’Alacio: And so for me, the main thing is not just abortion but also all the other health care aspects that come with it.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, how do you talk about this issue?
Isaac Willour: I think it’s very, very important for people who are critics of abortion policy to understand that people who support abortion are supporting it in good faith. I don’t think most of the people in America who are pro-abortion are doing it because they specifically think it’s a baby and they think it’s OK to initiate surgical procedures upon it that will lead to its death.
I don’t think that that’s how most people are approaching the issue. I do think it’s a baby. And I do think that the moral calculus involved with abortion involves some serious conversations about “When does life begin?” “Do the circumstances of life dictate its value?” — those kinds of things. I think it’s important to get down to the moral roots of the abortion question.
Zak Krebs: I don’t know if I feel like abortions — I don’t have a moral complication with it. It feels like it is needed a lot of times, outside of a person just not wanting to have a child. It’s like the policy that’s actually being put in place sometimes means that people will die as a result. And that really concerns me. I feel like if we want to talk about morals, that’s also really complicated.
Isaac Willour: Sure. That’s a very valid point. Some abortion policy is really badly written.
Zak Krebs: Like, a lot of it.
Isaac Willour: And we should talk about that. We should talk about some of the inconsistencies and difficulties in anti-abortion policy.
Jane Coaston: It turns out it matters how you write a bill. So I chose to talk to you, because you’re all voting in the midterms.
Jane Coaston: Bella, you grew up in a Cuban American family. There’s been a ton of conversation about the Latino vote in Florida. That’s a superannoying generalization, but I am curious what you’re hearing in your family and with relatives and how they talk about politics.
Isabella D’Alacio: Well, definitely, a lot of Cubans tend to just be Republican. It is the fact of the matter. But Cubans are incredibly different, I think, than a lot of the rest of the Latino population. So I think they’re a little bit misled, because Republicans will gear messaging towards their trauma and use that lingo and those buzzwords to get them to vote for them.
Jane Coaston: Is that something that you hear from your parents or family when they’re talking about this? Do they talk about it with you?
Isabella D’Alacio: They do not. They’re very much just in their echo chamber. And I think what I’ve learned, listening to newer generations of Cubans, is that we have a different outlook than our parents. A lot of newer-generation Cubans just tend to also think what their parents think as well, but there definitely is a little bit of change in the conversation that I’m witnessing.
Jane Coaston: Isaac, you’re voting in some races that are getting a lot of attention. Democrat John Fetterman versus Republican Mehmet Oz, otherwise known as Dr. Oz, for Senate. Republican Doug Mastriano versus Democrat Josh Shapiro for governor. So who are you voting for and why — if you’ve decided?
Isaac Willour: I’ll probably vote for Dr. Oz, because I don’t like John Fetterman’s policies on a bunch of stuff. I’m not sure if I’m voting for Doug Mastriano. I think there are profound moral failings in Doug Mastriano, and they are ones that we can’t just let slide.
That said, I also think Josh Shapiro would be a very bad governor of Pennsylvania. So I’m torn. The moral calculus on the Fetterman-Oz race — it goes to Oz for me. I’m aware it’s a very, very unpopular opinion, because the room has gone deathly silent.
Jane Coaston: So for all three of you — is there someone who appeals to you in politics right now?
Zak Krebs: I guess the people that I’ve heard about that are kind of changing things — Stacey Abrams and John Fetterman pop up in the news a lot about doing things in a little different kind of way, which is interesting to me. I think it is really important to me for a person to be younger, like no geriatrics. I think younger people and the ones that are trying to challenge the system.
Isaac Willour: There’s someone I think morally gets it, and I think there’s someone that strategically gets it. So morally gets it — Rand Paul. I really like Rand Paul. I think he’s done a good job. He shills a little bit for Trump, which I don’t like, but I think he’s generally done a pretty good job of merging conservative and libertarian sides of things.
Tactically — and I don’t really like him on policy as much — Tom Cotton has done a really good job of tactically playing the Republican legislature. I think he’s going to make a presidential run someday, and he could very easily pull off the nomination if he does it right.
Jane Coaston: So it seems like everybody — pollsters and pundits and news services and me — is trying to figure out what Gen Z is all about. So what do you guys think people get wrong about Gen Z?
Zak Krebs: I feel like the people that I am around — we are very much more politically involved or at least more conscious than, I think, the people that are older than us. Like, my family was never super politically charged. But I feel like all of the people my age have opinions and talk about them, you know, on both sides of the political spectrum. And I think that that’s something that I like about Gen Z more.
Jane Coaston: What would you want people to know about what you want from politics right now?
Zak Krebs: I want to be given space to exist as ourselves. I feel like a lot of times, the government is going to try and step in and set rules that I just don’t need in my life. And I guess we just are trying to be ourselves. And I want the space to do that.
Isaac Willour: Yeah, I’d echo Zak’s sentiment very strongly. Like, a bunch of us just want to be left alone. It’s like that quintessential libertarian thing. I just want to be left alone always, right? And I think Generation Z tends to be politically burned out, but so is everybody, to be fair. We want to live our lives in a society that isn’t trying to kill us.
Zak Krebs: Actually.
Isaac Willour: That’d be great.
Jane Coaston: Bella, what do you want people to know about you and your friends and what you want from politics? Like, what keeps you going?
Isabella D’Alacio: I think one thing that people get wrong about Gen Z is that they think that we’re entitled. They think that because we have the internet and all these things like Uber Eats and convenience. But I think Gen Z is just trying to push the conversation a little bit further past, like, accepting things in this country to assimilate.
Like, I feel like our parents and our grandparents had to assimilate a lot to this country, whereas we’re now trying to take control and really make it a home. And then, to their point as well, Zak and Isaac, I think the sensitivity is a huge thing — so, sensitivity and acceptance.
You know, I feel like older people are always like, “Oh, Gen Z is so sensitive. They have to say their pronouns. Back then, we used to joke around about these things, and now you can’t talk about that.”
And I don’t think that that’s necessarily true or OK. I think that maybe Gen Z is just kinder. Maybe we’re just getting a good understanding and intelligence of how to be culturally aware and understand what other people feel comfortable with and making each other feel comfortable and accepted.
And I think that’s something that we all really collectively value, and it’s not something to be mistaken for weakness or sensitivity. It’s acceptance, and it’s love, and I think Gen Z has a lot of radical love. And I think that that’s really beautiful. I just want to live in a community of love, where we do things for each other and not for power.
Zak Krebs: I really want to agree with what Bella said. The whole radical love thing just really spoke to me, and I agree with that very much.
Isaac Willour: Interesting. I actually completely disagree with the utopian part of it. So I’m just naturally a tragedian, because all conservatives are just really gloomy people. But I guess what keeps me going is — yeah, no, some of these battles, we’re not going to win, and it’ll be OK. The country is going to be OK.
Because if it’s not, it’s going to really suck. Maybe it’s blind faith. Maybe it’s misplaced faith that the country is going to be OK. That doesn’t mean that I get to not do everything within my power to try and make the country a better place, even if it doesn’t work out.
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“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, and Vishakha Darbha and Derek Arthur. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon. With original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker; mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski. “The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett Vishakha Darbha and Derek Arthur. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon. With original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker; mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski.