Gen Z: Nationalists vs. Communists
Adam Sharp

Young Americans are fracturing along ideological fault lines.

They are breaking into two camps. For lack of better terms, we will call them the far-right and far-left.

Unfortunately, there are few surveys which ask these kinds of questions. Pollsters still query along legacy party lines, Democrat vs. Republican, even though those labels are losing relevance.

Fortunately I have two teenage kids, and friends in the same boat. So I have a pretty good read on young Americans’ political leanings.

Most kids I know fall into one of two buckets. Let’s call them America First nationalists and hardcore socialists.

Girls are more likely to be on the far-left, while young men are increasingly right-wing. This gender divide couldn’t be clearer, at least in my area.

This shift to the extremes is understandable. Both sides are angry, and for good reason. The system isn’t working for them.

Young people today see a world in which they have no chance of affording a house. See the chart below, which shows how the average age of homebuyers has soared over recent decades.

The median homebuyer is now 56 years old! That’s up from 31 in 1981. Wages simply haven’t kept up with housing costs. The American dream is increasingly out of reach.

As kids, Gen Z was told to go to college and they’d get a 6-figure desk job. Now they’re graduating, often saddled with unpayable debt, into a rough market for new white-collar workers. Blue-collar workers are having less trouble finding steady work, but inflation is a pervasive problem.

The young left sees the solution in more socialism. The young right wants politicians to put America first and shrink the government. Both want to end corruption and tear down the status quo.

Strangely, on certain issues these two seemingly distant emerging political wings agree.

Increasing Nationalism

On both the left and the right, different kinds of nationalist sentiment is rising. Both right and left are increasingly against immigration, for example. For too long, mainstream politicians spurred immigration into the States. Broad support for this is ending.

And the more hardcore wings of each side are increasingly angry about America’s many foreign entanglements. They want the war in Ukraine to end. And Gen Z as a whole tends to disapprove of American support for Israel. This is in sharp contrast to older conservatives, who still tend to support Israel.

In general, young people want more focus on America’s issues, and less on the world’s. Again, this is completely understandable. Our youth is struggling, and they see trillions of dollars being spent overseas. Meanwhile our debt load continually rises.  It is politically and economically unsustainable.

Consequences and Direction

For the past 30 years, the left has dominated the culture wars. Think political-correctness, DEI, LGBTQ propaganda in schools, and immigration. Even mainstream conservatives gave way on these issues.

Now everything is changing.

The young right is on the rise, and the consequences of this shift will be dramatic and long-lasting.

A recent post by Robert Sterling on X summed up the situation perfectly:

The left has no idea the monster they’ve created with Gen Z men. Absolutely no idea.

These guys spent their formative years navigating an unprecedented social experiment—COVID lockdowns; DEI struggle sessions; pronouns, micro-aggressions, land acknowledgements, intersectional justice—and, as a demographic, they simply snapped. They stopped fearing cancellation, they realized black marks on social credit scores don’t leave permanent stains, and they started owning—rather than futilely trying to defend against—the accusations of villainry they had suffered since young age.

It’s a wholesale reactionary movement against a political system—more than that, a culture at large—which, rightly or wrongly, they see as dedicated to their emasculation. A system that, in their view, creates little of value, affords them scant opportunity, celebrates that which is ugly and mediocre and profanes that which is sacred.

From the fires of this crucible is emerging the most right-wing generation I’ve ever seen. And from the unhinged group chats of today are emerging the legislators and congressmen of tomorrow.

The left has no idea what they have done, and they can’t imagine what the second- and third-order effects of this will be.

Nailed it. Historically, major political shifts are driven by disaffected young men. That’s where we are with America’s youth today. Especially on the right.

President Trump is responsible for some of this shift, but I suspect the young right movement will eventually outgrow his brand of conservatism. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a vast improvement from Biden and past GOP leaders. But he’s still too mainstream for these disaffected young Americans.

For the past 3 decades, mainstream Democrats, neocons, and RINOs had their way with the direction of America. This new generation will lead the way to change that.

 

Adam Sharp has been a financial writer and Fed watcher since 2008. He is a contrarian who specializes in non-traditional assets. Adam founded and sold Early Investing, a newsletter about alternative investments. Sharp lives in Maryland with his wife, two children, and two dogs.

 

 

 

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