Why we mistake the wholesomeness of Gen Z for conservatism
The youth give me hope for a more humane and less polarized future"N.Y.C. art schools see record-high application numbers as Gen Z-ers clamber to enroll," Gothamist's Hannah Frishberg reported earlier this month. Art school has a reputation for being totally impractical and mildly dissolute. But what members of Gen Z like about art school, Frishberg explains, is that it has "a comforting, human sense of purpose." The art school trend sounds counterintuitive at first. During times of economic uncertainty, the cliché is that young people usually go to law school or do something else that seems pragmatic, steady and lucrative. Yet art school can offer young people a set of tangible, hands-on skills and a road to employment that is set apart from an increasingly artificial-intelligence-driven corporate world. I have been interviewing 20-somethings about dating, politics, faith and their aspirations for a couple of years now. Dozens of conversations with members of Gen Z have convinced me that the most prominent aspect of their generational character is that they're small-c conservative. This is frequently misunderstood as politically conservative (more on that in a second). But what I mean is that they're constitutionally moderate and driven by old-fashioned values. It might be hard for us to recognize just how wholesome Gen Z is, or what that represents for America's future. But we should try. It's not just their "Shop Class as Soulcraft" disposition — their bias for the local and the handmade and against tech overlords — that makes this generation seem like a throwback. Or their renewed and unironic interest in things like embroidery, crocheting and knitting. There has been a lot of grown-up chatter in the past few years about the fact that Gen Z teenagers are having less sex, drinking less and doing fewer drugs than millennials and members of Gen X did. Teen pregnancy is at record lows. There's probably not a single reason behind these shifts. Of course, Gen Z consists of millions of people, and generalizations are not going to apply to every member. But I can see, in the ways this generation is different from previous ones, a clear desire for moderation in all things. Many young people seem to want to turn back the clock on what they see as libertine overreach. I was honestly shocked to read that "Close to two-thirds (64 percent) of men under age 25 say they favor making it more difficult to access online pornography," according to new research from The American Enterprise Institute's Survey Center on American Life — that's up over 10 points since 2013. And there's growing evidence that Gen Z-ers aren't just moderate in their personal behavior; they are also moderate in their politics. Though young male voters moved toward Donald Trump in the 2024 election (which has been covered ad nauseam), Kamala Harris still won 55 percent of voters ages 18 to 29, according to analysis of exit polls from Catalist, a liberal polling firm. Gen Z doesn't trust either of the mainstream parties very much, nor does it trust national politicians. Circle at Tufts University, which researches youth civic engagement, published a report in May illustrating this. "Young people's least trusted institutions are social media companies (19 percent trusted), the Republican Party (33 percent) and Congress as an institution (37 percent)," the report notes. Only 43 percent of Americans 18 to 29 trusted the Democratic Party, which is nothing to write home about. Gen Z-ers have the most trust for their peers and neighbors, nonprofit organizations, the military and local government. Gen Z's political ideology has become more moderate over the past few years, and it doesn't map cleanly onto political parties. In 2024, Morning Consult, a nonpartisan research firm, found that the percentage of young people who identified as moderate grew six points between 2021 and 2024. This shift toward the center was accompanied by more intimate changes: "Gen Z adults are increasingly valuing things like routine, traditions, privacy and faith, too," Morning Consult's Ellyn Briggs explains. Members of Gen Z, the youngest of whom are starting high school, are coming of age during a period of unusually ugly partisanship and amid the regular, depressing drumbeat of political violence. They have never known a time when social media wasn't the driving force of discourse, and because the medium incentivizes both extremes and overall negativity, it makes a certain kind of sense that many would be pushed to the middle. This attitude was perfectly captured by a liberal college student who wrote to me last year. She was surprised to find herself dating a Christian youth minister, but found the experience enlightening. "With such a large national divide between two politically charged extremes, people are becoming so intolerant of differing views. We often lose sight of the middle ground that most people actually belong" to, she said. "I'm learning that maybe I'm more moderate than I originally set out believing." After the geriatric mess of the past decade of American politics, I absolutely understand Gen Z-ers' pox-on-both-their-houses feeling toward what they see as the extremes of both parties. In an age when A.I. slop is increasingly clouding our ability to discern basic truths, I also think it makes good sense that Gen Z-ers are more trusting of their peers and what they can see and build themselves. It feels like we're at an inflection point right now, with some young men and the older influencers who speak to them appearing to have buyer's remorse about voting for Trump. In the population at large, there is decreased support for the Trump administration's border policies and anger that the president has broken his promises about getting to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein saga. For the first time in a while, I can see a future beyond the current boomer and Gen X leaders. That vision is hazy — we barely have millennials in power yet — but given our youngest citizens' increasing dislike of extremes, I'm hopeful that our country could become less polarized and more humane. End Notes
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