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The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Scotland's future according to politicians sounds bleak
From a lack of bold visions to talks of increasing misogyny, politicians weren't exactly awe-inspiring at an event on Scotland's future yesterday. Scotland 2050. An event you may think promises chat about flying cars and robots taking over our jobs. In earlier discussions there were certainly mentions of AI and technological change but the pull for Scottish political correspondents like me was politicians setting out their visions for Scotland in the future. This offered the likes of the First Minister and the Scottish Labour leader a chance to set out bold and ambitious plans. The need for politicians to do so is becoming all the more pressing. Recent studies such as the Youth Poll show that young people are losing faith in the political systems and are worried about their future. Yet, listening to politicians yesterday I was left more fearful and depressed about where we will be in 25 years. READ MORE: Why FM is suddenly talking about Scottish independence John Swinney looks to the past as he plans for the future The Herald's Unspun Live heads to the Edinburgh Fringe In conversation with Cherie Blair, Kate Forbes told us the "destructive nature" of social media "cannot be overstated". The deputy First Minister branded actor Rupert Everett's recent description of Nicola Sturgeon as a 'witch' as 'abhorrent' and 'totally misogynistic'. Ms Forbes went on to say that we have been talking about the issue of misogyny for the last six or seven years and 'it's only got worse in that time'. As commendable as it is for Ms Forbes to speak out against this, this reality may push more women, who fear the ever-growing threat of online abuse, away from public life. How we prevent this still remains uncertain with a preventative measure- the Online Safety Act - yet to be fully implemented. It's not as if political leaders are cloth-eared when it comes to paying heed to issues such as youth apathy. When Anas Sarwar began his keynote speech with talk of what sort of Scotland he wants to see for his 16 year-old son, he understood the assignment. The future is the younger generation. But then a myriad of questions followed. 'What does a prosperous, hopeful and thriving Scotland mean for the NHS, housing, workforce, skills, education etc?' he posed. 'Care to tell us, Mr Sarwar?', I thought. (Image: staff) Tickets for Unspun Live at the Edinburgh Fringe are available now — click here to book your place. Five minutes in, he spoke of using Scotland's 'maximum levers' to 'make it fit for future generations'. He's also said we need to 'do things differently' to achieve 'positive outcomes', as he mentioned cutting taxes. 'Tinkering around the edges is not going to work', he insisted. And I agreed but my brow furrowed as I tried to work out what his plans for a future Scotland were, away from abstract language... Setting out his vision, the First Minister spoke of the growing risks to democracy because of misinformation, more frequent conflicts, increasing inequalities and climate change. Although an impending reality it's not exactly the most stirring way to begin a speech on our future. 'The Scotland of 2050 will be shaped by a series of unpredictable forces', he warned as if leading an intergalactic space mission into the ominous unknown. For Mr Swinney, a prosperous future will ultimately be achieved through Scotland becoming an independent country and rejoining the EU. Yet with no clear strategy to achieve this, I cannot imagine his words are setting the heather alight amongst Indy supporters and others. After the speech, a former SNP MP told me the First Minister needs to be given space to set out his plans for a future Scotland. But with 11 months to go till voters head to the polls, politicians really need to unveil plans to inspire future generations soon. Although important to raise, nobody will be inspired by talk dominated by a 1984-esque dystopian world view full of Andrew Tate-bots that awaits us.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The New Partisan Divide Is Old Gen Z vs. Young Gen Z
New data out of Yale's Youth Poll broke the internet last week when it revealed a partisan split within Gen Z. Given a generic Democrat vs. Republican ballot for 2026, respondents ages 18-21 supported Republicans by nearly 12 points, while those ages 22-29 backed Democrats by about 6 points. It was a stunning gap that undermined the longstanding notion of younger voters always trending more liberal. On the contrary, today's youngest eligible voters are more conservative than their older counterparts: According to the poll, they are less likely to support transgender athletes participating in sports, less likely to support sending aid to Ukraine and more likely to approve of President Donald Trump. Fifty-one percent of younger Gen Zers view him favorably, compared to 46 percent of older Gen Z. That split might seem surprising, but it's only the latest example of an emerging dynamic I've noticed developing over the last few years: It's increasingly clear that there are actually two different Gen Z's, each with a particular political worldview. Since just after the 2022 midterm elections, I've held listening sessions — open-forums for discussion — with teens and young adults across the country to find out how young people think and feel about politics. I've traveled to high school and college campuses, community centers and even homes. And as I've written before, these conversations with young people illuminated the distinctions between Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0. Gen Z 1.0, the older segment, graduated high school and tasted independence prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their coming of age coincided with Trump's first term in office and the rise of anti-Trump resistance movements for racial justice and gender equity. Social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, with all their filters and made-for-social media aesthetics, were commonplace — but TikTok wasn't yet the massively popular platform it is today. Fast forward to 2020 through today, and those in Gen Z 2.0 came of age under different circumstances. They graduated high school during or after the start of the pandemic, which disrupted their K-12 experience. When many in this cohort began college, it was largely on Zoom, or in a campus environment that barely resembled pre-pandemic times. The political situation was also starkly different: With President Joe Biden in office, Trump and his MAGA movement felt like the counterculture — especially for young men, who swung hard to the right. Indeed, gender played a prominent role in shaping the youth vote in 2024. An analysis by Blue Rose Research found a 20-point gender gap in Democratic support between men and women ages 25 and younger — the largest such gender gap in any generation by far. 'It's normal to see women supporting Democratic candidates at like a five- to 10-point higher rate than men do,' said Ali Mortell, Blue Rose's research director. 'Among the youngest cohort of Gen Z, it's north of 20 points. So this is really jarring, and I think, caught the Democratic Party somewhat flat-footed.' That gender gap has attracted a lot of media attention, but the headlines gloss over some important nuances. While young men turbo-charged Trump's success in November, they're not the only Gen Zers shifting right. Despite the overall gender gap, the Yale poll found that, while women ages 22-29 have a net-negative favorability of Trump, those ages 18-21 are more supportive of him, roughly split between a favorable and unfavorable view of the president. Young white women in particular are trending more conservative. Data from Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) shows that, while women of color ages 18-29 overwhelmingly supported former Vice President Kamala Harris, young white women were split between Harris and Trump, 49 percent to 49 percent. That's a huge jump from 2020, when, according to CIRCLE's data, young white women voted for President Joe Biden over Trump by a 15-point margin. That could be in part because some of the most formative experiences separating Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 cut across gender — the most obvious being the pandemic. 'We've definitely been cognizant that there feels like there's a change between the kids who got through high school before and after Covid,' said Jack Dozier, the 19-year-old deputy director of the Yale survey. 'There is a huge variation that came up between just the college-age young adults, and then the young adults who are over 22.' In my own research, I started to hear about Covid's impact in conversations with young Americans in 2022. Throughout history, young people haven't liked being told what to do, and for many younger Gen Zers, the pandemic restrictions chafed against their youthful discomfort with authority. At first, they expressed annoyance with what they saw as prolonged social distancing on campuses that impacted the student experience. As one 20-year-old told me in a listening session at the end of March: 'The adults don't have it all together, and they don't have my back.' When students finally went back to school, they complained about the policing of their behavior — not just regarding Covid protections like social distancing and masking, but also broader issues around language. Our national online discourse, these young people said, had adopted an overt political correctness and cancel culture – the tendency, particularly in online spaces, to denounce others for controversial statements or action. Many young people perceived this as promoted by Democrats — those in control, not just in D.C., but in pop-culture and on social media. As recently as late March, I checked in with a number of Gen Zers to see how they felt about cancel culture. Asked if it has been a net-positive or net-negative for American politics, young adults told me that, while there should be some social practice to hold people accountable for their words and actions, cancel culture limits freedom of speech and has the potential to radicalize those with already controversial opinions. Beyond the impact of the pandemic on these younger Gen Zers, Dozier said the schism within Gen Z might stem from how young those in Gen Z 2.0 were during Trump's first term in office. 'In Trump's first presidency, these 18-year-olds were only nine or 10 years old, at least when the campaign started,' he said. 'We found that there's a potential causality from the reasoning that these 18- to 21-year-olds just don't quite remember the impacts of the first Trump presidency, whether that be in global isolationism or in a change in American politics.' Put simply, older Gen Zers had a sense of what they were getting themselves into by voting for Trump; younger ones didn't. Meanwhile, news consumption has dramatically changed over the last few years. Dozier called the online landscape for Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 'a whole different world of media.' Similarly, Ali Mortell, the director of research at the Democratic Blue Rose Research, credited Gen Z's rightward movement to a 'radical shift in the digital media environment,' adding that 'TikTok has exploded as a platform.' While TikTok was around during the 2020 election, it really gained in popularity over the past five years and has become a go-to source for news and politics for young voters especially. When I conduct listening sessions with members of Gen Z, I ask where they get their news. TikTok is always at the top of the list. And while its mysterious algorithm feeds users' varying content, on the whole, an internal review of the platform ahead of the 2024 election found twice as many posts in support of Trump as those in support of Biden, signaling a mood shift on the app frequented by young voters. 'Young people are not only consuming digital media content, non-traditional sources at much higher rates than older generations, but they're increasingly getting their news from non-political, non-traditional sources,' Mortell told me. But she took it one step farther: 'We are seeing this very clear relationship between defection away from the Democratic Party and TikTok consumption.' The rapid onset of TikTok encapsulates the head-spinning pace of change younger Gen Zers have experienced. There are cleavages within every generation, but perhaps none more so than Gen Z, which has grown up amid the fastest speed of technological and political change in recent memory. When it comes to their politics, time will tell if the rightward shift sticks. Until then, anyone trying to understand this generation's politics will need to figure out just which Gen Z they're asking about.
Politico
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Politico
The New Partisan Divide Is Old Gen Z vs. Young Gen Z
New data out of Yale's Youth Poll broke the internet last week when it revealed a partisan split within Gen Z. Given a generic Democrat vs. Republican ballot for 2026, respondents ages 18-21 supported Republicans by nearly 12 points, while those ages 22-29 backed Democrats by about 6 points. It was a stunning gap that undermined the longstanding notion of younger voters always trending more liberal. On the contrary, today's youngest eligible voters are more conservative than their older counterparts: According to the poll, they are less likely to support transgender athletes participating in sports, less likely to support sending aid to Ukraine and more likely to approve of President Donald Trump. Fifty-one percent of younger Gen Zers view him favorably, compared to 46 percent of older Gen Z. That split might seem surprising, but it's only the latest example of an emerging dynamic I've noticed developing over the last few years: It's increasingly clear that there are actually two different Gen Z's, each with a particular political worldview. Since just after the 2022 midterm elections, I've held listening sessions — open-forums for discussion — with teens and young adults across the country to find out how young people think and feel about politics. I've traveled to high school and college campuses, community centers and even homes. And as I've written before , these conversations with young people illuminated the distinctions between Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0. Gen Z 1.0, the older segment, graduated high school and tasted independence prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their coming of age coincided with Trump's first term in office and the rise of anti-Trump resistance movements for racial justice and gender equity. Social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat, with all their filters and made-for-social media aesthetics, were commonplace — but TikTok wasn't yet the massively popular platform it is today. Fast forward to 2020 through today, and those in Gen Z 2.0 came of age under different circumstances. They graduated high school during or after the start of the pandemic, which disrupted their K-12 experience. When many in this cohort began college, it was largely on Zoom, or in a campus environment that barely resembled pre-pandemic times. The political situation was also starkly different: With President Joe Biden in office, Trump and his MAGA movement felt like the counterculture — especially for young men, who swung hard to the right. Indeed, gender played a prominent role in shaping the youth vote in 2024. An analysis by Blue Rose Research found a 20-point gender gap in Democratic support between men and women ages 25 and younger — the largest such gender gap in any generation by far. 'It's normal to see women supporting Democratic candidates at like a five- to 10-point higher rate than men do,' said Ali Mortell, Blue Rose's research director. 'Among the youngest cohort of Gen Z, it's north of 20 points. So this is really jarring, and I think, caught the Democratic Party somewhat flat-footed.' That gender gap has attracted a lot of media attention, but the headlines gloss over some important nuances. While young men turbo-charged Trump's success in November, they're not the only Gen Zers shifting right. Despite the overall gender gap, the Yale poll found that, while women ages 22-29 have a net-negative favorability of Trump, those ages 18-21 are more supportive of him , roughly split between a favorable and unfavorable view of the president. Young white women in particular are trending more conservative. Data from Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) shows that, while women of color ages 18-29 overwhelmingly supported former Vice President Kamala Harris, young white women were split between Harris and Trump , 49 percent to 49 percent. That's a huge jump from 2020, when, according to CIRCLE's data, young white women voted for President Joe Biden over Trump by a 15-point margin. That could be in part because some of the most formative experiences separating Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 cut across gender — the most obvious being the pandemic. 'We've definitely been cognizant that there feels like there's a change between the kids who got through high school before and after Covid,' said Jack Dozier, the 19-year-old deputy director of the Yale survey. 'There is a huge variation that came up between just the college-age young adults, and then the young adults who are over 22.' In my own research, I started to hear about Covid's impact in conversations with young Americans in 2022. Throughout history, young people haven't liked being told what to do, and for many younger Gen Zers, the pandemic restrictions chafed against their youthful discomfort with authority. At first, they expressed annoyance with what they saw as prolonged social distancing on campuses that impacted the student experience. As one 20-year-old told me in a listening session at the end of March: 'The adults don't have it all together, and they don't have my back.' When students finally went back to school, they complained about the policing of their behavior — not just regarding Covid protections like social distancing and masking, but also broader issues around language. Our national online discourse, these young people said, had adopted an overt political correctness and cancel culture – the tendency, particularly in online spaces, to denounce others for controversial statements or action. Many young people perceived this as promoted by Democrats — those in control, not just in D.C., but in pop-culture and on social media. As recently as late March, I checked in with a number of Gen Zers to see how they felt about cancel culture. Asked if it has been a net-positive or net-negative for American politics, young adults told me that, while there should be some social practice to hold people accountable for their words and actions, cancel culture limits freedom of speech and has the potential to radicalize those with already controversial opinions. Beyond the impact of the pandemic on these younger Gen Zers, Dozier said the schism within Gen Z might stem from how young those in Gen Z 2.0 were during Trump's first term in office. 'In Trump's first presidency, these 18-year-olds were only nine or 10 years old, at least when the campaign started,' he said. 'We found that there's a potential causality from the reasoning that these 18- to 21-year-olds just don't quite remember the impacts of the first Trump presidency, whether that be in global isolationism or in a change in American politics.' Put simply, older Gen Zers had a sense of what they were getting themselves into by voting for Trump; younger ones didn't. Meanwhile, news consumption has dramatically changed over the last few years. Dozier called the online landscape for Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 'a whole different world of media.' Similarly, Ali Mortell, the director of research at the Democratic Blue Rose Research, credited Gen Z's rightward movement to a 'radical shift in the digital media environment,' adding that 'TikTok has exploded as a platform.' While TikTok was around during the 2020 election, it really gained in popularity over the past five years and has become a go-to source for news and politics for young voters especially. When I conduct listening sessions with members of Gen Z, I ask where they get their news. TikTok is always at the top of the list. And while its mysterious algorithm feeds users' varying content, on the whole, an internal review of the platform ahead of the 2024 election found twice as many posts in support of Trump as those in support of Biden, signaling a mood shift on the app frequented by young voters. 'Young people are not only consuming digital media content, non-traditional sources at much higher rates than older generations, but they're increasingly getting their news from non-political, non-traditional sources,' Mortell told me. But she took it one step farther: 'We are seeing this very clear relationship between defection away from the Democratic Party and TikTok consumption.' The rapid onset of TikTok encapsulates the head-spinning pace of change younger Gen Zers have experienced. There are cleavages within every generation, but perhaps none more so than Gen Z, which has grown up amid the fastest speed of technological and political change in recent memory. When it comes to their politics, time will tell if the rightward shift sticks. Until then, anyone trying to understand this generation's politics will need to figure out just which Gen Z they're asking about.
