Trump Won Gen Z’s Anger. He’s Losing Their Patience.
The same anti-establishment instincts that once drew young voters to Trump are now driving them away.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again — there really are two Gen Zs: those who graduated high school and were young adults pre-Covid and those who grew up during Covid.
The Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 framework helped explain some of young voters’ rightward shift last year. But it also helps us understand why, a year later, young people are breaking from President Donald Trump.
⚠️ But be careful. Just because they’re backing away from the MAGA movement, does not mean they’re suddenly Democrats. In fact, many are moving further to Trump’s right or bucking labels altogether. But Democrats do have an opportunity… ⚠️
📊 By the numbers: Recent polls of young people show that Trump has lost the very support he earned from young people last year, and his approval rating is hovering just around or over 30% with young voters in any given survey.
For example, here’s his recent approval rating in each of the following…
Harvard Youth Poll (under 30): 29%
Yale Youth Poll (18-22): 34%
Yale Youth Poll (23-29): 32%
YouGov (under 30): 35.9%
(Yes, Trump is bleeding support with older voters, too — his approval rating dropped to a new low of 36% in the latest Gallup poll. But young Americans are the tip of the spear of cultural relevancy, and this time a year ago, we noted that the president had outperformed any Republican candidate in recent history, even if Democrats still carried young voters on the whole. So their boomerang away from POTUS is noteworthy and gives us a window into how they think about politics writ large.)
Gen Z 2.0 grew up post-Covid and on TikTok. They are inherently more jaded, skeptical, and distrusting of traditional authority/institutions than their older siblings. They’re also used to instant gratification and the rapid speed of digital culture, where vibes shift very quickly.
Trump over performed with young voters (and especially the youngest Gen Zers) last year, because he spent the four years prior railing against the establishment and Democrats who fumbled the economy, immigration, and culture. With the help of surrogates like Charlie Kirk and manosphere creators who hosted him on their shows, Trump recalibrated his cultural currency and successfully politically coded culture, building a MAGA-pilled youth coalition in the process.
To top it off, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (who carried his baggage) were weak candidates, who had lost support amongst crucial youth constituencies throughout their time in office thanks to unrelenting videos plastered across their algorithms that broadcasted Biden’s age, the humanitarian toll in Gaza, continued war between Ukraine and Russia, and of course, inflation and the rising cost of living here at home.
But the MAGA youth who voted for Trump in 2024 were never hardcore Republicans. At the time, many young men who voted for Trump told me they felt politically homeless. (Some of the more moderate ones didn’t love Trump, they just felt they couldn’t vote for the Democrats, who they felt had enabled an aging president and circumvented common sense or kitchen table issues while prioritizing the policing of language or issues abroad instead.)
A year later, Trump has quickly lost the ground he gained. And the *very reason* he increased his margins with young people is the reason he’s losing their support.
🚨 Trump struck a chord when he promised a group of disillusioned young Americans that he would *continue to* tear everything down. But he isn’t rebuilding in a way that’s improving their quality of life. 🚨
Meanwhile, he’s starting to fall victim to the same type of age-bait Biden suffered from.
As a 19-year-old from Virginia told me in a listening session last week: “The past two presidencies now have just been constant news stories about the health of the president and about what time the president is having meetings at.”
He stressed that he’s looking for efficiency: “People are starting to get attached to leaders who actually work and get stuff done.”
Frustrated by the status quo and on the verge of an economic and technological revolution (AI) amid rising prices of everyday goods (thanks in part to Trump’s tariffs) and the high cost of rent and education, younger Americans are looking for leaders who will tell it like it is and who will offer bold ideas for solutions in order to deliver results. They are not looking for a POTUS who will say affordability is a con job, like Trump did last week, or propose a 50-year mortgage, which wouldn’t help them in the long-run.
A bit more: I see young voters’ disillusionment with Trump two ways.
Trump is all young Americans know, but the youngest Trump 2024 voters had little memory of his first term (an 18-year-old in 2024 was only 10 in 2016). Even if they were tuned into politics at a young age, they likely weren’t paying bills, taxes, or trying to rent an apartment at that time. They also likely weren’t read in on the day to day actions and chaos of that time period.
There’s a brewing anti-MAGA and America-First movement, rooted in frustration with ‘the establishment’ and its foreign policy. That rhetoric is most fervent online, where the young people who voted for Trump spend their time. And many of the loudest and well-followed supporters of Trump’s 2024 campaign have been just as vocal that they’re done with him (ex. Nick Fuentes, Marjorie Taylor Greene) as they were with their former support. Meanwhile, Trump has cozied up to billionaires, the cryptocurrency and tech industries – who don’t always have a good reputation with this cohort of angry, young men. As a member of The Up and Up community shared over the summer, when they think of crypto, they think of “another playground for the wealthy and well-connected, just with different jargon.” With things like the Epstein files and funding a new White House ballroom, Trump has signaled he is part of the system he promised to demolish.
Some context: I first wrote about ‘The Two Gen Zs’ last November — but I had been tracking the divide in listening sessions and hard data before then.
The basic premise of the theory is that a mix of Covid-19 and the technology that popped up in its wake bifurcated Gen Z, splitting our generation into two distinct subgroups. The pandemic changed life for all Americans, but one’s childhood is crucial to their social and political development, and the world looks entirely different pre and post-Covid.
In short, the cohort that really grew up During the Biden-era, amid prolonged Covid lockdowns (that lingered past Trump’s presidency under Democratic administrations in blue states and cities) and had TikTok from a young age (Gen Z’s TikTok usage quintupled between 2020 and 2025), had a vastly different adolescent experience than their older siblings (like me) — and therefore, a different worldview.
My initial thesis was that in that a mix of factors — anti-authority sentiment post-pandemic, coupled with the tone and tenor on TikTok (which is pithy, unfiltered, and promotes authenticity over scripted moments) — had contributed to Gen Z’s rightward shift in the 2024 presidential election. Topping that off, in March, I noted that there are stark shifts within Gen Z when it comes to their perspective on and experience with AI, social media habits (beyond TikTok), a collective vision of the American Dream, and the cost/ROI of higher education. The context of growing up today compared to that pre-Covid is just wildly different.
When it comes to activism, in documenting the rapid flip flop from Gen Z 1.0’s progressive idealism as they fought for the rights of others — climate justice, gun safety, racial justice, and women’s rights — to Gen Z 2.0’s embrace of MAGA and a more insular or individualistic approach to politics, I previewed the possibility that this cohort would quickly pivot again, as they are now.
So are Gen Z’s politics just reactionary? A little bit, but so are all voters’ politics. The last time a party won the White House three election cycles in a row was in 1988. Certainly, the culture on social media ups the ante calling for change (no matter who the party in power is), and we don’t yet know quite exactly what we’re in for when it comes to the long term arc of Gen Z’s political ideology.
But here’s what we do know:
They aren’t loyal to either party. Many reject labels altogether.
They aren’t monolithic. While the Two Gen Zs’ politics will ebb and flow in terms of the candidates they choose to support, those who grew up pre and post-Covid have a very different worldview and it shapes their political opinions and tolerance of the status quo.
Dysfunction and an in-real-time lens into that dysfunction shaped their entire upbringing —> They are anti-institution, anti-establishment, and pretty used to violence — from school shootings to political assassinations.
But they’re not disaffected (yet). Youth voter turnout was 47% in 2024 and 50% in 2020, an 11-point jump from 2016. In 2025, youth voter turnout jumped ~28 pts from 2021 in NYC, 9 points in NJ, and 7 points in VA.
The fact that young voters have soured on Trump is not surprising. Until they feel like the system works for them and reflects their values, they will reject the system’s leaders.
In other news
Gummies, glamoratti, and pen pals: Pinterest predicts the 2026 trends
The most popular TED talk of the year was on the rise of the “broligarchy”
Noteworthy reads/watches
What Gen Z Wants for Christmas 2025, According to TikTok, Casey Lewis for After School
“I Know a Good Etsy Witch”: Why Gen Z’s Turning to Witchcraft, Amy Francombe for Vogue Business
And icymi, yesterday, I joined MS NOW’s Ali Vitali to chat about The Up and Up’s listening sessions and data showing young Americans acceptance of political violence. You can watch the full clip here.
And a workshop announcement
There are more generations in today’s workforce than ever before — which means there are lots of generational dynamics to navigate too.
That’s why I’m teaming up with Amy Shoenthal, a leadership expert and bestselling author, and Lauren Smith Brody, a workforce strategist and also a bestselling author, for a workshop focused on addressing and navigating these generational differences at work. If you’re interested in learning more, please reach out!