Summary

Donald Trump’s popularity among Generation Z voters has sharply declined since the 2024 election, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll.

His net favorability among 18-29-year-olds has dropped from +19 in November to -18, raising concerns for Republicans about sustaining youth support.

While Trump gained ground with young voters in 2024, recent policies—such as his mass deportation plan and targeting of DEI initiatives—may have contributed to this decline.

  • SabinStargem@lemmings.world
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    3 hours ago

    I don’t think it is young people that are the problem. Recall, it is largely billionaires and elderly statesmen that either supported the coup, or stood aside. Of all people, they should understand the consequences and it is their job to guide the nation. That includes telling people how neat government programs can be.

    Our most influential people either failed to communicate, or are aligned with the plot to some degree. Young folks are too busy slaving away to dedicate time to politics, which requires time, money, and education. Things that society has consistently transferred towards the wealthy, while denying the poor.

  • uis@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    Either USSA 18-29-years-old are weird, or newsweek is corporate shill. Mix in one bag

    mass deportation plan, targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and suggesting that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip and resettle Palestinians from the area while it is rebuilt.

    and ignore everything else.

    Well, thank Faust, I am not in Memericas.

  • Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    13 hours ago

    I get that these kids were brainwashed a little but what bothers me is that it was never any secret what was happening to women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights but they went for it anyway. It wasn’t some secret plot or trick, these people told us all exactly what they’re about.

    Even if they don’t care about queer people, they happily sold out the rights of their own mothers because the word of some ex reality TV star meat head was more important to them. I feel like even if I was that age being bombarded by propaganda, I would’ve woken the fuck up the moment they started going after my mother and my sisters.

    I actually saw a story on Reddit shortly after the election, that’s a double whammy in this regard. It was a divorced woman who is currently in a relationship with another woman, telling the story of how her own son visited her and fessed up to voting for Trump and happily said out loud “I don’t agree with gay people.” Based on the reactions she described afterwards, this dumb piece of shit kid only realised that the people he was hating included his own mother, after it was already too late.

    It’s all fucked. I forgive these kids to an extent but I know that when I was that age, I did in fact have a sense of morality and could in fact use my own brains to figure things out for myself.

      • Snowstorm@lemmy.ca
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        3 hours ago

        Half of Trump votes and a bigger part of abstentions are a protest directed at the economic system that, in the aftermath of Covid, got rich people richer while most people got reduced buying power in the form of inflation.

        Then surprise surprise: sh!t policies and more inflation. Can Trump keep control of this growing rage or…

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        There’s also a lot of incel Zoomers. I think that’s where the bulk or his youth support came from.

        • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          It’s so stupid because it’s entirely typical for guys 12-22 to not be getting laid, and the boys who get sucked into this extremist bullshit shouldn’t be thinking they are victims of anything other than typical adolescents. The dumb kid to neo nazi pipeline is really shitty and clearly still works very effectively.

          • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            Well, that’s true, but the Zoomers are facing some unique headwinds. They’re the first generation to come of age in a post internet era, and I’ve heard people argue that being inundated with social media as well as having such easy access to pornography is giving them a warped view of sex and personal intimacy. There’s also data going back to 2017 saying they have less sex than previous generations. And on top of that, many of them had Covid interrupt what should have been their formative sexual years.

            Anyway, I’m certainly not excusing any of these little shits that become Nazis. But when I think about how I was as an adolescent, and then think about what these kids have to deal with, I can definitely understand how someone like Andrew Tate could manipulate them.

      • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        It’s more that Gen Z wants change without putting in effort. They (and millennials too) aren’t voting in primaries at all let alone showing up in non Presidental elections so all parties are putting money and effort into candidates that appeal to older, more conservative voters that actual show up.

        The younger people I work with and interact with on a regular basis that admit they voted for Trump say they didn’t do it because he appealed to them but because they had some protest against Harris or Biden. Dems dropped the ball entirely this election but the majority of voters fail to turn out and prove their desire for change and progressive candidates is anything but talk.

        • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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          14 hours ago

          There wasn’t a primary to vote against Harris in though. I’m not bashing you, it’s just that was a mistake IMO.

          • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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            13 hours ago

            There was primary for congressional seats where the actual change Gen Z keeps saying they want will have to come from. And there was basically no participation there nationwide for their generation.

  • RufusFirefly@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Either all of the polling sites are lying or that impotent clown still has a 47% approval rating. Why? I have no idea.

  • wolfeh@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    Be aware: Newsweek put out a string of content before the election, making it clear that Harris was winning and that Democrats were in the clear when few other news outlets were being that optimistic. Recently, they’ve been putting out a lot of articles talking about how the Orange One is losing popularity. While I hope that’s true, they definitely have a weird angle. Take their content with a big grain of salt.

      • tehfishman@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        You can put a bunch of it in the microwave with a bowl of water to make a humid environment that might help it to form into a huge chunk. Then you can put it in a sock to persuade your local billionaire to stop fucking up society and the planet. I may have left out a few steps, what were we talking about again?

        • OneTwoThree
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          18 hours ago

          I genuinely think the type of social media you use in your youth has a very strong influence on the type of person you become:

          Instagram/Snapchat: Average, slightly sociable

          Reddit/Tumblr: Insightful, knowledgeable about niche topics/social issues (respectively), better at writing, worse at socializing

          Twitter: Argumentative, not really capable of cohesive long-form thought, great at one liners though

          TikTok: Mindless beasts conditioned through a variable-ratio positive reinforcement algorithm to uncritically believe whatever thoughts China wants to insert in their brains: “The US is awful!!” Heck yeah! “Because of this, we’re going to not vote/vote for Trump!” Wait, what?

  • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    One would think watching Nazi salutes on inauguration day of a GOP president going blitzkrieg all around the world, would be enough to forget about them reaching the White House again… but, seriously, this is the USA.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I think these polls are bullshit. The same gen Z kids who voted Trump after being brainwashed for years watching Rogan, Shapiro, etc rail on DEI, trans, ‘wokeism’ and ‘open borders’ haven’t suddenly changed their opinion once Trump’s started enacting policies that aim to enact those goals.

      These kids just recognize how unpopular these actions are in the wider community and are lying to pollsters now. It’s virtue signalling. They’ll continue to vote right-wing imho

      • DiagnosedADHD@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It could be as simple as losing access to grants, scholarships, and general funding. Add to that any of them hoping for a government job doing something they’re passionate about (wildlife/park/environmental sciences) only to have their future prospects crushed by an ignorant foreigner.

        • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          You might be right, but my question here is: Has it really had time to sink in yet? They got their student aid in January when Biden was still in office. Some of them may have lost jobs, but for the most part, there hasn’t been enough time yet for the leopards to come around for their faces. And Newsweek HAS posted overly optimistic articles saying the Dems have this in the bag. Granted, we won’t know the actual outcome until 2 years from now, but I am thinking the shitheads will just blame Dems, DEI, or whatever other BS to avoid realising that it’s their own leopard eating their face.

      • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Well these days I’m starting to think I have to put

        /s

        behind every statement since I’m hearing so many people say things so friggin bizarre I never suspected I would ever hear such a thing and expect they were actually serious.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Good news, having such an eye-awakening experience at an impressionable age can drive people left-wing for their lifetime. Same has happened during Trump-1, Bush-2 and Bush-3, (now in Canadian politics) the Walkerton Crisis, the Mulroney days, and now hopefully with Doug Ford.

    Bad news: They already got played, and they might get played again in 4 years with billions of big tech money intended to distract the masses.

    • gdog05@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      We’re going to be damned lucky if we get the chance for people to be played again.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        It will happen, might take a generation or three.

        This is all so depressing… Its like there needs to be a massive war every so many years so people remember why it’s important to have a democracy and be kind to one another.

      • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Question of when, not if. Fascism isn’t sustainable, it will fail eventually (but gods is depressing to think of it getting real bad)

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          There’s a famous quote about investing by Garry Shilling: “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Sure, you can say “this is definitely a bubble” and “it will eventually revert to the mean,” but fat lot of good that does you if you’ve already been screwed by the time it happens.

          Similarly, it’s easy to say that dictatorships are doomed to failure “eventually,” but that “eventually” can easily be beyond your lifetime. Just look at North Korea, for instance.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            north korea isn’t doomed to failure by virtue of how incredible aggressively their abuse their citizenship.

            By literally ANY metric of the definition of failure, except for “dissolution” north korea has utterly failed their citizens. They’ve only managed to keep control through force.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Theres 3 seats up for special elections here soon because of appointments for the house I believe

        • samus12345@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          Yes, in blue states. State governments are responsible for elections, not Federal. I expect plenty of fraud and worse-than-usual voter suppression in Republican-governed states, though.

          • stickly@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            The Federal Election Commission has determined that your state had a fraudulent election. Please remain calm while our jackboots personally conduct a recount…

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            the concern here is that if the redwall we saw in the presidential election persists into the midterms, it may not matter what blue states vote, it’s entirely dependent on how well the general public views the current administration as doing, and if that’s “poorly” they’ll get fucked and we’ll swing blue, if not, nothing happens.

            If enough of the population thinks they did a good job, for whatever reason, it may not be recoverable at all.

            • samus12345@lemm.ee
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              2 days ago

              I’m assuming that there won’t be another Democrat in the White House in the foreseeable future due to corrupt red state governments. Elections will be good for for state things and that’s it.

        • compostgoblin@slrpnk.net
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          2 days ago

          I’ll echo the other reply - red states will not have them, blue and some purple states will. I suspect we will continue to have the facade of democracy for a while, and may see the Democrats take the House and maybe the Senate in 2026.

          The real question is, if there are elections in 2028, and the Republicans lose, will there be a transfer of power? I don’t have a good feeling about the answer, but only time will tell. Four years is a long time for an obese old man with a very stressful job to live, and I don’t think there is anyone who can easily take over Trump’s cult of personality and take the reins of the fascist movement.

          • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            They’re completely ignoring congress right now and they control both chambers. You think they’re going to start listening if the democrats gain control?!

            This will not be solved by an election. Germany couldn’t vote away Hitler. Russia can’t vote away Putin. And America can’t vote away Elon Trump.

            Anyone who believes there is a peaceful way they can sit on their ass and hopefully maybe one day vote the problem away is in denial.

          • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            The real question is, if there are elections in 2028, and the Republicans lose, will there be a transfer of power?

            i imagine there will have to be, otherwise there will literally be a civil war. Unless they rig voting somehow.

        • SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I hope so. Also, I feel like saying things like this only make more people fall into the defeatist attitude which tends lead to lower voter turn out. I get where you’re coming from, but we have to at least try.

    • Triasha@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      If that were true, trump wouldn’t have won his first term or his second.

      Republicans can rest easy, they will forget by 2028, 2030 at the latest.

    • jaybone@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      There’s a Bush-3? In Canada? Sounds like the sequel to a really bad movie nobody liked and everyone is wondering why it even got made.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Cannot wait for the types of gen z voters that voted for a dipshit like donvict to turn around and blame “boomers” for their issues.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      They kinda already are. Though they seem to be blaming the Democrats for not doing enough to convince them to not be stupid.

      Being raised by social media has caused some issues with them. They seem to value the ability to say whatever you need to say to get to the top of the algorithm and aren’t able to question the algorithm itself.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    We thought GenZ was going to save us, but that was bullshit.

    I work with a few in a DEEP BLUE state in a field in which the majority of my co-workers have been liberal and they’re Trumpers. Morons who grew up on social media and had their minds warped by it. Fell for the alpha male bullshit too.

    They aren’t going to save us. They’re pretty dumb.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Surprise the iPad kid generation that were brought up on 4chsn derived troll culture are not bastions of virtue.

      Like I have a zoomer nephew, and he’s genuinely a good kid at heart, and his mum raised him well, but he also showed me things like videos of people harassing kids in video games until they meltdown like it was the funniest shit in the world, and also thinks Trump is super funny.

      Being a shitty person is just good “content”.

      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Seeing this with my own kids. We strictly manage their YouTube time, and that’s fucking hard because there’s million stupid ways to sneak on to YouTube. I wish there was a way to set them up with an allowlist feed instead of having to go and block every single bullshit video and channel, but then they couldn’t feed my kids to the algorithm to make it shit out money, I guess.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      its not social media that causes this, it’s the political brainwashing and propaganda, idk why people are so blindly ignorant to this fact. Does social media propagate and disperse it? Yes, is it entirely the reason behind it? No.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      Yeah. I’ve got a high school teacher in my life, they told me recently that many of their Seniors can’t do what Freshmen could just ten years ago, and they have a shocking amount of Seniors who can’t even read at a second grade level (they teach general ed, not special ed). I mean, not five or twelve of them, but like 30 or 40 percent. They say the kids struggle super hard these days (again, relative to Freshmen a decade ago) to analyze text and form original thoughts, and it’s almost like they’ve all been trained to just be told what to think. In a way, I guess that’s true, thanks to the Algorithm. I think we’re seeing the fruit of that; the algorithm has told these boys what to think, and now they get to find out for themselves what the consequences of that is.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      Sitting around and waiting for someone else to save you is defeatist. There’s no magic fix to this. You have to get up and do it yourself.

      • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        I’ll do what I can but I can’t stop the zoomers from listening to Rogan any more than I could stop the boomers from listening to Limbaugh.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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    1 day ago

    What do these numbers mean? How is there negatives?

    I would expect a scale from 0-100

    Edit: its a scale from -100 to +100

  • eletes@sh.itjust.works
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    I don’t trust polls anymore. Trump wasn’t supposed to win '16 and it wasn’t supposed to be a blowout '24 according to polls.

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      What sucks is he only won the popular vote by about 2 million votes. A lot of these states misrepresent their population with the electoral college and gerrymandering.

      • goldfndr@lemmy.ml
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        Gerrymandering would only change a state’s electoral college votes meaningfully in one or two states.

        It’s more often an issue of:

        1. Citizen becomes voter via “motor-votor” registration.
        2. Later, state sends postcard asking to confirm voter’s address.
        3. Voter sees postcard, looks like junkmail or fraudulent mail, discards without response.
        4. State, not checking anything else, drops voter from roll.
      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        it’s almost entirely up to the fact that we use FPTP voting structures in the electoral college, not the electoral college itself.

        granted getting rid of FPTP is going to be easier said than done, but it would definitely benefit us in the long run.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      Hillary had an 80% chance of winning according to polls. That’s a lot, but Trump still had a 20% chance. That doesn’t really detract from the polls as much as from the reporting on said polls.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      If you think about it, a TON of zoomers were maybe 10 years old when he started his shit.

      It’s literally all they have known for most of their formative years. I blame their parents more then them. They never talked to their kids about what he’s doing apparently.

      I tell my two kids that what he is doing is evil, and anyone who follows him is broken in some form or another. I tell them ALL the stuff our country has done, good and bad, and to keep learning, keep questioning, and most of all: beware of people like him. They are world enders.

    • stickly@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      A lot of people were the same age when GWB was signing the Patriot Act and didn’t realize the consequences of his presidency until much later. Young people are impressionable but they do change.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        Problem is there are too many old people misguiding young people, the capacity for change doesn’t matter if the same mistakes will be repeated by the next generation.

    • blakenong@lemmings.world
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      They were kids. Their parents blamed Biden for the lockdown. They hated the lockdown.

      But, many people are easily swayed by emotions. That’s why that whole “genocide Joe” influence worked so well.

      Very few people can see the forest through the trees.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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      I was 16 at the start of the last time, so yeah quite a few of the middle and younger zoomers may legit not remember or were too young to understand.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      the unfortunate truth is that most zoomers got politically engaged during the biden admin, most zoomers were in elementary, maybe middle MAYBE highschool during the first trump term. This was most definitely an expected result to some degree.

      best we can hope for is a significant demographic shift.