Copyright New York Post
CNN’s Jake Tapper predicted that Gen Zers will be “a lot more conservative” than previous generations – and he blamed schools for “forcing” progressive politics “down their throats.” The lefty host of “The Lead with Jake Tapper” warned that Democrats are failing to win over Americans aged about 13 to 28. “I think Gen Z is gonna be a lot more conservative,” he said Wednesday on “The Reason Interview” podcast with Nick Gillespie, editor at large of Reason magazine. “Just my experience knowing Gen Z kids – my kids and their friends and whatever – I sense much more skepticism, and I think it is a reaction to Gen Xers and millennials forcing on them progressive views in school,” said Tapper, who has two teenagers. The journo – who got heavy backlash from Dems over his book about former President Joe Biden’s mental decline – took aim at specific lefty movements that might have pushed Gen Zers away. “I also think that it is a reaction to the failures of progressive movements to achieve what they wanted to achieve, whether it’s [Sen.] Bernie Sanders, whether it’s Black Lives Matter, whether it’s MeToo,” Tapper said. “I think it’s COVID, I think it’s a lot of progressive politics being forced down their throats in school.” Tapper still got in a dig at President Trump. “But then, Trump did not win young voters, as he constantly said he did,” Tapper said. “But he did do better with them than other previous Republicans.” As Tapper alluded, the 2024 presidential election revealed a notable shift in young Americans’ voting behavior. Gen Z favored the Democratic candidate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, over Republican Trump by just four points – dramatically less than the 25-point margin in favor of Biden over Trump in 2020, according to research from Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Another unique aspect of Gen Z’s political views is the stark split between men and women. In April, about 45% of young men approved of Trump’s performance in the Oval Office – while only 24% of young women did, according to an NBC News Stay Tuned Poll with SurveyMonkey. About 52% of women said they consider themselves Dems, the largest concentration in any age and gender group, according to the poll. Only one third of Gen Z men identified as Democrats.
