The State of Our Union

Trump's fav/unfav with young Americans is nearly -30 points. As one put it, the state of things in the U.S. "seems almost dystopian."

Tonight, President Donald Trump will deliver his State of the Union address.

He’s doing so on rocky ground. Currently, according to YouGov, his fav/unfav is -29.3 percentage points below water with voters under 30, ~4 points lower than the last time I wrote about his favorability with young Americans (which was just a little over one month ago).

Screenshot of Trump’s favorability rating from YouGov.

But you don’t need to listen to just me or the hard numbers.

Here’s how members of our Gen Z community are feeling about the current *state of our union*

A quote from a member of The Up and Up’s Gen Z community about the state of things in the U.S.

How do you feel about the state of things in the U.S. right now? Be specific.

“I feel very disheartened and fearful that even if things start changing, eventually we will be back at a point like this where hate, fear, politics, and division are what dominate the country,” said a 20-year-old from North Carolina.

“It feels like everyday, I wake up, and a new catastrophe has hit the news. Like each thing that’s happening (ICE in Minnesota, the USA taking a sovereign leader hostage, the Epstein files, etc) would be its own months-long issue in normal times, but everyday there’s something on that scale new. It’s so overwhelming to experience and it seems almost dystopian that there’s a new catastrophe each day,” said a 21-year-old from D.C.

“Depressed,” said a 25-year-old from Illinois.

“I’m definitely feeling worried. I think the divide in our nation feels bigger than ever, and it feels like the public has less power to change anything,” said a 19-year-old from New York.

“I’m numb,” said a 21-year-old from Arizona.

“I feel that it is very chaotic and turbulent. And anxious. Economically I have trepidation about AI and the future. Politically I feel like things are not stable and very fiery and big. And our place on the world stage is also on the decline by bullying allies and being inconsistent,” said a 19-year-old from New York.

“I think that the U.S. is extremely divided and is full of contradictions. I do not feel happy with U.S. leadership and neither are many of my friends. I hope that things will change in the future but I am unsure with the way that there is no competent opposition party in the U.S. right now and voters are more disillusioned with the system and less likely to change it every day,” said an 18-year-old from Arizona.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though.

“I feel like the U.S. feels calmer. Despite the upcoming primary elections, the country feels less tense. I feel more hopeful in the job market as well,” said a 21-year-old from South Dakota.

The Up and Up’s take: What a time. Life feels hard to afford. Political violence is on the rise. A technological revolution is on the horizon. All of this is documented in-real-time, without much moderation — consumed immediately and then quickly politicized. It’s a specific kind of learned chaos. When everything is urgent, nothing feels stable or solvable.

This is part of what makes this moment uniquely demoralizing for Gen Z. Our generation is hyper-informed, but feel as though they have no power. They are watching the world like a movie (agh, a series of social clips), history happening to them, not with them.

Gen Z is inherently distrusting. They sniff through B.S. and don’t restrict their conception of how things should be to the way things have always been done. But there’s a difference between skepticism (which says, “prove it”) and cynicism (which says, “nothing matters”). The constant churn of instability, institutional failures, and no consequences is pushing people from the former to the latter.

And while older generations define distrust as anti-government, what is emerging (and has been for some time) from Gen Z, especially the youngest amongst us, is distrust in every layer of authority: government, politicians, media, corporations, institutions, systems.

This quote will stick with me:

It’s one thing for elected officials to act poorly. It’s another thing for everyone else in positions of power to put up with it. Gen Z was already deeply anti-authority. The lack of visible consequences (and instead, watching people fail upwards) is turning disillusionment to outrage. But it could quickly become outright disengagement.