S6 Ep23: Young Trump Voters Have Feelings (with Rachel Janfaza)

I know that you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a duurzame keuze, can ASR maybe help? I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing something to do with the things you love to do with Schade. Will you know more about the instructions where a duurzaam schade-restal can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This does ASR for you and a duurzame community. ASR does it. So, then you can now listen to your podcast. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and this week we're checking back in with Gen Z, specifically the right-hand side of Gen Z. And when I asked my producer what he meant by right-hand side, he was like, you know what I mean? I was like, I guess. But right-hand side sounds weird. But sure, we're talking to Trump voting Gen Zers. A couple weeks ago, you may remember Will Sommer and I talked about a group of male Gen Z Trump voters. We talked a lot about their politics, but today we're going to get into everyone's personal business and more on the future of the right, which is something I'm quite interested in. We also recently talked to a group of Gen Z women who voted for Trump in 2024. The conventional wisdom and the data hold that young men are getting more conservative and young women are getting more progressive. so the Trump voting women are kind of an interesting woman bites dog story. This is also my producer's joke that I laughed at really hard when I read it the first time. My guest today is a repeat guest and also very exciting, a new Bulwark contributor. She is going to be here doing focus group stuff with me on Gen Z, Rachel Janfaza. What is up? Welcome to the team. Thank you, Sarah. I'm so excited. You know, it's going to be nice to have another focus groupie around here. Somebody else who talks to people. And, you know, because I am old now, I need somebody to walk me through Gen Z. Because you guys make no sense to me. Get off my lawn. Well, I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to talk to more voters with you, especially young ones, and make sense of all of it. Yeah, if you guys missed my last show with Rachel, you should go check it out. because she was so smart and so good that I was like, yo, you should come do this with me. Also, she writes a great Substack newsletter called The Up and Up, and it's all just very smart, very good. And she has the same psychotic impulse that I do, which is I just wanna listen to people all the time because that is cheat code for politics. And so I'm super pumped to have you here. Well, thank you. And I've looked to what you're doing as an example this whole time. So now we get to do it together, which is fun. Amazing. All right, let's jump into it. You've written a lot about religion, AI, tech policy more broadly to name just a few things. But what under discussed trends about Gen Z do you see going into the midterm elections? It's a great question. And many of the topics you just touched on, I think, are kind of the sleeper issues for Gen Z in the midterms. Of course, everyone talks about affordability. And I think that for a long time, there's been this idea that affordability is something that only affects older people. And it's just not true. Economy, affordability, cost of living is the number one issue for young people as well. And for young people, they see many of the other political issues through the lens of affordability, and all of these issues are interconnected. So, I mean, that's far and away the top issue. And when you think about AI and young people's relationship to it, I think you might be expected that young people are going to be the most bullish on AI, the most gung-ho, because young people are always leading technological change and revolutions. But Gen Z is not AI fluent. They are not AI native. It was introduced to all of us at the same time. And so they don't feel very confident in either their ability to navigate it, but also they're very scared about what it's doing to the educational space and also the job market. And many, particularly college students, are worried about whether or not their degrees will be relevant when they get them or if they're still relevant if they just got them since AI is changing everything. And that's directly tied to economic concerns as well. And so I think both yes, cost of living, but also when it comes to jobs and AI, you know, that's another massive issue that I think is underrated. You know, I just want to like, stomp on this particular point, because it is something I talk about, think about a lot, which is people say the economy, and they think people are talking about GDP numbers, or even jobs numbers, but like, that's not how people are interacting with the economy. Like, this is where it is about housing. It is about the cost of healthcare. It is about your electricity bill. It is about the cost of college and whether or not you can afford it. Do you have a job that allows upward mobility and a future? It is all of these things. It is gas prices. It is grocery prices. These things converge to tell one big story. That is what matters the most to everyone, hands down, doesn't matter who they are, unless you are people who live at the top of the income scale, where you have the luxury to really be like, no, climate change is the only thing that matters. And I'm like, I am not here to tell you that climate change isn't deeply important. I'm just here to tell you it is not the thing that comes up ever when you ask people, like, how do you think things are going in the country? Like, that's not what they talk about. Like you said, all of these issues are related. And so when it comes to affordability issues, yeah, they're not talking about, you know, the stock market. They're talking about whether or not they can afford day-to-day things in their everyday lives. And at the end of the day, that's what young people are looking for from their politicians, from their elected officials. They're looking for people who can make their everyday life better, and they don't feel that it's going very well right now. Right. Which again, this was a lot of like, why did Trump happen? Well, Trump happened because a lot of voters who aren't particularly partisan, aren't particularly political, maybe a little vibey in the way that they make decisions, said, I don't know, the business guy who had the good economy last time and who promises to lower grocery prices. Like, I'll take him. So, all right. A quick note, because everyone you're going to hear from today is actually like a subcategory of Gen Z. And I learned this from Rachel. She calls them Gen Z 2.0, which is on the younger end of that cohort. It's like the 18 to 24 age range. And these really are the people where I'm like, what is going on with these kids? I don't understand. So I want to start with foreign policy. Now, in that episode that we did with Will Sommer, we heard a lot of skepticism of Israel from the young men that we talked to that ranged from sort of genuine empathy for people in Gaza to clearly having listened to a lot of Nick Fuentes. For these young women, too, foreign policy was a bit of a frustration with the Trump administration. Let's listen. I didn't really hesitate to vote for Trump, but if there were any reason they did, it was kind of this. And it just seems like we're just getting into this war with Iran on behalf of Israel that doesn't benefit us. And I don't think that's a good thing for us to do. When Trump did promise we get out of war with Ukraine, and it just seems like he's getting into more wars and global stuff with pretty much a lot of other countries. So I'm not really too much in agreement about the global stuff happening and like Greenland and whatever, but it's supposed to be for strategic reasons and like for strategic military reasons. But I don't know why it's like very important now currently when it wasn't like a few years ago or anything. Yeah, so I don't really agree too much with how he's getting involved with a lot of the global things. And I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the end results or aftermath is of all of it. I feel like the issue with Israel has been going on for such a long time with the U.S. Like we're just barely getting, we're seeing like the worst of it right now, honestly. And it's very cruel what's going on in Israel. They shouldn't be murdering and targeting children specifically because they say they don't want them to reproduce. Like that is insane. Killing children specifically is crazy in a war, you know. So you wrote a piece for Vox recently headlined, The Quiet Reason Why Trump is Losing Gen Z. And it basically dealt with this same point. You said there's a bit of a generational split on how involved the U.S. should be in world affairs. Walk us through that and what you hear from Gen Z about why they're more resistant to a robust role in the world. Yeah. So Gen Z has been raised with their only point of political reference is Trump. And Trump has for a while talked about how he wants to be America first. And this idea of quote unquote America first has really resonated with young people across the ideological or political spectrum. And I think it makes a lot of sense if you boil it down to Americans should come first and the leader of our country should be putting the American people above foreign interests. And that's kind of the baseline of, I think, how young people feel about foreign policy. This comes up in my listening sessions all the time. And young people say, I don't understand why we are getting involved in foreign crises that don't involve us or seem to be a distraction from the domestic issues we are facing here at home. and we started talking about all of the economic concerns that young people are facing and their fears for the future domestically. Then you put on top of that ice raids and concern over unrest and American citizens literally being killed. And they're like, why are we focusing on these crises abroad when we clearly have our own issues here at home? And so this is something I'm hearing from young people is like, it doesn't make any sense to them and it doesn't appear to be America First. Yeah, I mean, I always say this, that America First is such a good slogan, even though we know it has roots in some really bad stuff. But America First for people isn't a slogan. It's a statement of prioritization. And if you live in America, and you are an American, America First just means, oh, I get to be first. Like my priorities are paramount. But it is interesting. And I wonder what you think about this. I've been floating my own sort of new theory on the schism going into the future of the right post-Trump, which is that there is going to be kind of an America first wing, which is more Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Because I would say Both them right now are kind of in this, a real America first agenda has never been tried, right? They like, I supported Trump because he was America first, but why are we helping Israel? Why are we bombing Iran? Why are we talking about Greenland? Like the real America first kind of side that got built around that set of prioritization, then they bristle at anything that doesn't feel like it is prioritizing Americans and that it is somehow either prioritizing other countries or just like shouldn't be the thing that we're focusing on, then the other wing of the party is kind of the MAGA establishment. And for all of the MAGA establishment's demonization of what they would say, like, are the neocons from the past Republican Party, the MAGA establishment likes to bomb some things. It likes to saber rattle. It is still very much on the side of Israel. And so, I don't know, What do you think about that breakdown between those two? I totally see that. I see it within the sort of right-leaning youth voter base as well. It clearly came up in this focus group, but it also comes up in my conversations with young men in particular. There's a split in terms of there's more of the young men who are listening to people like Tucker Carlson or Nick Fuentes versus more of that. They might be labeled, like you said, as neocon or sort of rhino. But I do hear from some young men, too. And I mentioned one in that Vox piece I wrote, who do appreciate the sort of more hardline traditional foreign policy posture of the old Republican Party. And there's certainly some center-left folks, I think, who could get on board with that as well. And I actually kind of see the horseshoe theory coming into play, where you have very progressive young people aligning more with that sort of America first cohort on the right and are getting behind some of the messages that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been sharing recently, which is, of course, quite ironic. But I definitely see that breaking down within the Republican Party. And I think just the other point I would make about Gen Z when it comes to foreign conflict is they're, for the most part, pro-peace. I think they just don't want there to be global conflict, period. And this is the age cohort that would perhaps be drafted if there were to be a draft. That's something that they're scared of that comes up in conversations. And so I also there see alignment between sort of the more anti-interventionalist progressives and the left-leaning side of things. And then also this cohort on the right, even if they get to it from a different ideological route, they're kind of landing in the same place. Well, I don't know if it does any good for me to suggest that we all want peace. All of us want peace, but there's also bad guys in the world. And maybe that's us now too. So anyway, we don't have to get wrapped up in that because I do want to move on. And speaking of people who are more isolationist in their foreign policy, I want to talk about J.D. Vance. A couple weeks ago Politico reported on one of our focus groups with a lot of young men that you about to hear And the lack of enthusiasm for J Vance got a lot of attention not the least of which is because some of the J Vance handlers and online combatants were very upset that we were playing sound from a bunch of Trump voters talking about how they think J.D. Vance is lame. But I'm sorry, I didn't make them say it. Like, this is how people are talking about J.D. Vance. But we did want to flush that, finding out just a little bit more. So what you're about to hear is the reaction to J.D. Vance from both the Gen Z men and the Gen Z women. Let's listen. I never understood too much about him and I don't know enough about him, I guess. I do know that he did come out originally and not care for Trump to begin with, but then his views changed. I just haven't seen him do really anything. I've watched him speak. I'm not really a huge fan of him. I wouldn't care to see him go any further. I'm not a huge fan either. He just seems kind of weird to me and I don't really trust him. So and I would not like to see him as the president. I don't know much about him, but something I do remember, like in the debates, he was a really good public speaker. Yeah, I think he's a good speaker. I don't know if I would vote for him if he were to run. I feel like I would have to see how he kind of formulates his own agenda and what he wants to do. I think some of the things that he advocates for are a little bit against maybe what Trump theoretically would push for. So I find that balance interesting. I feel like I just don't see him as like Trump's vice president. Like, I feel like I don't like hear about them a lot together. And maybe I just am not seeing things. I think they're just very different from one another in the way that they view things and approach things. But I am happy with the way that Vance has been addressing more of like local level or like communities. Like he was just recently in Minnesota. Although Vance is often, he's like, he's younger. He looks a little healthier than all the other presidents, I feel like, or possible candidates. I feel like just the way Trump handled his presidency or is handling it now, especially when it comes to the Epstein files, because J.D. Vance was also pushing that as well. I feel like it's just time for someone new. Just like a clean slate. It's just time for someone new, especially for the Republican Party. I don't think Vance can win because I think he's too connected to the current political establishment in Washington. which I think has a very negative approval rating right now. Additionally, I don't just don't like Vance a lot. I think he has flip-flopped on issues. If you look at what he was about in 2018, 2019, or 2020, and you look at what he's about now, it's very, very different. Not that someone's views can't change, but like I mentioned earlier, I don't like people that sort of flip-flop their views on things. I'd love to see, like, a Marco Rubio. I was pretty pro around DeSantis four years ago, but I think somebody younger, I really agree with Alexander, I'm like, somebody younger running an office would be awesome. Rachel, I cannot tell you what it does to me to hear these young people be like, look at Marco Rubio. He's been the same the whole time. And it just breaks my brain that they are looking at Rubio as the steady, yeah, no, he's always been like this, right? Like, no, guys, he was like me. Me and Marco Rubio were the same. When I talk about the MAGA establishment, I'm talking about Rubio. I'm talking to people who were like, yes, yes, yes, I was a normal Republican once, but now? Trump is right about everything and I do whatever he says. Okay, so Rachel, there's some conventional wisdom that Vance's more isolationist version of the Republican Party is more representative of where Gen Z is right now. Like, what do you think it is about him that doesn't land with folks? Authenticity. I don't think he's very authentic. And I think young people read right through that. We just heard all these young people say that he doesn't, they're not really sure what he stands for or what he cares about or the fact that he has changed his stance on Trump in particular. That's a big part of it. What struck me in listening to the quotes from the members of your focus groups is that young men were almost more strong in their opposition to Vance than the young women, which I think is really, really fascinating, especially given Vance's comments about women even this past week. And I think maybe young men are seeing him more in their social media feeds than young women are because he's going on some of these shows. And before the election, he was on all the Manosphere podcasts that Trump was on or adjacent ones. And maybe young women aren't seeing him as much as young men are. And so they haven't had the exposure and the chance to therefore be more critical. But we clearly heard those young men who don't like him and don't want him to be the candidate. I just want to throw in here that, look, we throw the quotes into this show so we can give people a representative kind of sample of what we hear. I got to tell you, I don't know that this is true forever. People don't like J.D. Vance. I wonder if you kind of hear this to this idea of like, well, he's a pretty good speaker. And, you know, they find him to be like his presentation is good and sufficient and feels, but like, especially women, like one of the women in here did this, but I hear this for a version of this all the time. He's weird. There was one in the women's group we had a little while ago where she was like, right, guys? It was a mixed group of men and women. There was a young woman who was saying to the boys, doesn't he weird you guys out? He weirds me out. You mentioned he did this this week with Caitlin Collins, where he's like, isn't it so funny that she doesn't smile? Wasn't it funny when Trump said, hey, Caitlin, you should smile more, while she was asking Trump a question about the victims in the Epstein files. So trafficking victims who were trafficked as children or young women, young girls, why would she be smiling when she says that? But it's such an old man thing to do to be like, hey, young ladies, nobody under the age of 40 does that crap anymore. I don't think. But old men do this stuff. And so for Trump, it sort of makes sense. But J.D. Vance doing it, I feel like young women look at that and they're like, shut up, man. But okay, so anyway, I will take myself out of it, but you tell me, because I think some people are like Sarah Longwell, who hates Trump and probably hates J.D. Vance. Of course, this is what she's hearing, but it's everywhere. I'm not making it up. So what do you think? This is not made up. I hear this in my listening sessions all the time. These are nonpartisan groups of young people. We hear from people across the political spectrum. It's hard to find someone who really loves JD fans, even amongst young men who are right of center. And I've been hearing recently more appreciation for people like you mentioned before, Ron DeSantis or Marco Rubio. Those are names that have come up. I think people see Rubio on the global stage now. And so he's just someone that they're pointing to because they're interacting with him. But I think, you know, in 2024, there was a conversation about some of these men that young men could look to and aspire towards who have been successful in their careers. Vivek Ramaswamy was a prime example of that. I've heard Ramaswamy's name and more of this appreciation for him in his career than for J.D. Vance. So, you know, while there's an element of his background that I think people might appreciate, he's not the guy that they're choosing. And also we're hearing that, you know, in one of the quotes you just shared, a young man mentioned that J.D. Vance feels too tied to this administration given that he is the vice president of the United States. And I think in our, we did 2026 prediction listening sessions, and there was just such a strong appetite for anything beyond Trump on the left and the right. And so someone who is this closely tied to this administration, I think I agree based on what I'm hearing in my research, isn't going to have that strong of a chance given that people are looking for what's coming next. hey guys we've launched our first round of bulwark live shows for 2026 we've got two in minneapolis which are about to be sold out the first one sold out in like seven hours so we added a second night but there's only a few tickets left go get some maybe there's still a few when this comes out all the proceeds are going to go to second harvest heartland which is a great non-profit that helps feed people in the state but if minnesota in february isn't your I understand that you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a cost-effective choices, can ASR maybe help? Well, I think, how then? For example, when you're selling the expensive things that you love are, you want to know more about the insurance where a cost-effective choice is? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This is ASR for you and a cost-effective society. ASR does it. So, now you can listen to your podcast. designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. It is interesting to start to hear the, like, fatigue from young people for whom Trump now has been the dominant figure through much of their lives start to be like, OK, what else you got, guys? And, like, they don't remember the Republican Party that I do. I don't think they have an appetite for that version of the party. But there is an appetite, although the irony of the strange new respect for Marco Rubio, I am starting to see this all over the groups. And it is, I don't know if it's making me laugh or if it's too bizarre, but it is a real thing because these young people, they don't know Marco Rubio from the pre-Trump era. And so they just like think, well, look, he's this competent grownup in the MAGA establishment. I'll just say one last thing on the J.D. Vance lack of riz, no authenticity is like what is happening to him is what happened to Ron DeSantis. So I tracked the Republican Party's interest in Ron DeSantis the whole time it was happening. And lots of people loved DeSantis in the beginning. They were like, oh, look what he's doing down there in Florida. And like, I really like him. That guy's got some stuff. And the second he got on the national stage, they're like, this guy sucks. Like, this guy sounds like a regular politician. He sounds like everybody else. he's stilted he's not fun to listen to and i feel like part of what's happening with jd vance is that same thing where he's like he doesn't have enough exposure to be sort of everywhere but he has enough exposure that everyone's getting like a flavor of him and they're all like i don't know this guy's lame and weird and bizarre and i like they can smell the inauthenticity the fact that it is kind of an act from him and the reason they bring up the flip-flopping isn't because they care about flip-flopping. It's a thing they can put their finger on to say, I don't like this guy. I'm not getting a good vibe from him. Yeah, it's a really good point that they don't care about the flip-flopping because Gen Z flip-flops all the time. This generation is very used to instant gratification and wants things done really quickly. And if the elected officials aren't going to change the problems that they see in their day-to-day lives, they're going to flip to the next guy. And I think about this all the time. Are Gen Z's politics just going to be reactionary because of that. I mean, by the way, Gen Z still voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. There just was a massive shift to the right. It wasn't like all of a sudden, you know, Trump won the youth vote. But I think seeing the shifts within Gen Z's politics, it's a very fluid voting block. And there was Gallup polling that came out last month that showed that 56% of Gen Z considers themselves to be a political independent. So they're not tied to either party. And it's not like they are completely only going to stick with the party line, you have to pass their sniff test. They're so used to seeing up close and personal on social media and feeling like they have a direct line to the people who are in these positions of power. And so they'll call things out when they see it. And they want to be able to call a spade a spade on both sides too. There's so much in there. This idea of how different it is to no longer have our public officials mediated through the mainstream media as people my age and older are so used to, because they sit and watch people all day long on their phones. They know when someone's being themselves and when someone's acting. When you say they sniff it out, it is like a totally different level of exposure that young people have in the way that they evaluate people through non-intermediated sources. Anyway, it's a whole other discussion, but it is sort of relevant to, I think, the generational difference. and a more expensive community. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Okay, I want to get into some of the boys versus girls gender gap discourse. We talked a lot about this the last, yeah, we talked about this when you were on last time, but the focus was on conservative men and progressive women, right? So there was that. And so this time we're going to do it differently. And honestly, we did a lot about like the discourse on the discourse. in these groups because these young people are kind of into the discourse. I was really interested in how these Gen Zs perceived the political differences between men and women in their generation So let listen to how Gen Z women talked about the gender gap Graduated from Hamlin University. It's almost like you have to follow these ideologies to do well and to be accepted socially. And then there's also a lot of like appealing to emotion within like social media and within professors and women tend to be more emotionally influenced than men are not as like a weaker vessel but just because like that's how hormonally we kind of tend to respond things we're more empathetic sympathetic and so I think a lot of times when you're in these positions where you need to have a certain belief to be accepted like socially or to do well in school or to do well in the workplace with men I think that Gen Z men are probably starting to become more conservative honestly because of like current dating situations. I also think that with the amount that like schools, especially like colleges are pushing people towards the left, we're also seeing a huge rise in things like, you know, transgender women in sports. There's just like a lot of weird like gender imbalances going on where I think like a lot of men are trying to find more, like they're trying to feel more firm in their identity. And I think like pushing towards the conservative values, those traditional values, allows them to achieve that. I think there is a gap, but I think it might be like a little overrepresented because I feel like women do feel a certain pressure to like kind of conform to what maybe their friends think or what is popular. So maybe this isn't fully representative of personal views. And another thing is I do feel like Gen Z men can be like kind of sexist and like just sort of you know degrading or insulting to women or I guess all men kind of but so I think the divide is kind of like more of a like a gender thing than like ideology. Maybe a right-wing guy would be like shut up feminist and maybe like a left-wing guy would like try to gaslight you or like try to just like oh I don't think you fully understand the theory or that just they'd talk down to you. Being a homesteader, I'm in with a lot of people that are also conservative, but I also want to speak really quickly on men. I have a husband and I know that not all men are like this, but my husband didn't come into the picture and force me to be a trad wife. It was a discussion that we had together and everything that we do is together. And he is, you know, he's, he's a very strong Republican, but he's also respectful. And I think that it's, it's disappointing because not all men are bad. Not all men are pushy and say that women have to do this, this or that. Republican men, I should say, or whatever. There are good men out there. For our generation right now, it's a lot more acceptable for a guy to just be outright Republican and love Trump. And for undergrad, I went to a very liberal college where every single girl I knew was liberal. and when you went on social media the day after the election, every single guy was able to just put on their story pictures of like Trump winning the election and like excitement and all this stuff. There were like signs in the women's bathrooms all over campus that said, if you voted for Trump, go kill yourself. Like all over campus, coming from women, writing those things. I feel like we as women are more focused on just being approved of by our peers While men, they don't really care as much about having friends, getting people to like them. Rachel, I heard a bunch of things in there from these women who chalked it up to a kind of peer pressure to be liked because women are more emotional, hormonal, whatever. Is that true? I mean, there's obviously hormonal differences, but I think it's less of a peer pressure and more of a group think. I also think there's a piece of it where, you know, if you look at the policies that Republicans are putting out, especially on the local level when it comes to reproductive health care access, it's not necessarily policies that women can get behind. So I don't necessarily think it's so much of a social dynamic and about the social fabric or even group think, which, you know, you could say is a part of it. It's actually, I think, more times about the policies and about the issues. And when I ask in my research, you know, what is it about the Republican Party that is pushing you away? It's often the fact that they're not protecting women's rights is what I hear. I, of course, agree that there are many differences between men and women, hormonally and otherwise. But I guess it's this idea that there's a social desirability bias. Women, unlike men, care about what people think and want to be included. In my experience with humans, they all want that. And so when you say groupthink or peer pressure, I wonder if there's just kind of a social norming thing that is happening. It's all rooted in something. And I think you're right. It's rooted in like kind of policy, but also it sounds like it's rooted in socially the way people engage, right? If like a lot of these young women are dealing with young men who are talking in ways that they find, it's funny the way they just kind of casually toss in like, well, you know, yeah, men are degrading or talk down to women. But to me, that seems almost a more important factor in some of the gender divides where if you are a young woman and you feel like men are acting like this and they're using politics as an outlet or a permission structure to act like this to women, that then they reject the politics that are also making men behave in this way that affects them directly. I have so many thoughts based on the quotes we just heard, but one of them is that if the young women are saying that most young women think and feel this way, and that's because of the sort of social pressures associated with it, does the same thing not go for the young men, where maybe it's just that young men are more on the right because that's like the cool thing for young men right now to be and to do. And I know in our research, we've heard from young men who say, I don't agree with the way that the president talks about women, or I don't agree with, you know, certain aspects of his administration's policies. And yet they're not willing to associate with the Democratic Party either, in part because it's just so quote unquote, like uncool for a man to say they are a Democrat right now still, even though maybe that's getting better since 2024. But certainly in 2024, there was a social pressure amongst young men to not be a Democrat. And so I think it goes both ways. The other piece that surfaced in those anecdotes and those quotes is that the fact that these women are saying not all men are bad, not all men say these horrible things, it goes to show that a significant portion, or at least in the discourse, it seems like a significant portion, whether it's on social media or in mainstream media and pop culture, are using derogatory language or are talking harshly about women. And that's just been so normalized that it becomes kind of the baseline. I heard that too. When people kind of do the like, well, not all men are like this. I'm like, so you think the vast majority of them talk this way about women? And I got to say, this is just because it's top of mind because we're dealing with the release of all the Epstein files. It is sort of shocking when you see the way that these men were talking to each other about women in the files. And this isn't even like the stuff that is, the grotesqueries of the trafficking of young girls. It's about just like, in the general course of interactions, they were referring to women as knee pads, or they were referring to the way that that Dr. Atiyah guy that Barry Weiss is trying to keep on CBS was talking about women. You're like, oh, wow. I got to say, sometimes this can feel a little anthropological to me, not just because they're younger, but I think this is like maybe a weird conversation to have, but it does cross my mind when I hear them, is that as a lesbian who never cared about men and what they thought that much. Like I, I thought about as like humans, I cared, but I think that I often wonder, I'm like, do women care more about what men have to say than I ever did? And like, is that a difference with straight girls and maybe girls that were not interested in attracting men or interested in partnering with men? But I also, because of that, I feel like I often get more of a glimpse into the world of men or my dude friends all my life. And so, like, I'm not naive about the way that people talk and whatever. And also, women can say lots of things about men, too. Like, there's not all – we don't have to be scandalized by absolutely everything. But I was sort of struck by the, like, they're not all bad. And I can't tell if what they're saying is, I meet lots of men, most of them are bad, and I'm glad I got a good one. Or if they're saying the women that I'm around think all men are bad, and I think that's not true based on, like, my personal circumstances. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's obviously a distinction, and it's hard to tell which angle they're coming at from it. But I think in the same way that sort of public discourse talks about, you know, the fact that there are so many examples of men being vulgar or talking in a way about women and how public that all is. I think that young men have internalized that too. And it's part of their own identity and they're figuring out their identity. And whenever I ask about dating in our listening sessions, there's a fear from young men that they are very cautious about what they say to young women because they know that this baseline perception is there, that men are creepy and men might make unwanted. advances. And so they're very reactionary and cautious as a result. And it's almost recalibrated how young men, or not almost, it has recalibrated how young men are willing to approach young women and it's contributing to this gender gap too. So again, these norms and the stigma goes both ways and it's changing how young men and young women interact with each other. And also what's normalized amongst groups of themselves too. And then I think there's that, again, social pressure where they feel like they kind of have to speak in this way or have to use this language in order to fit in. And so it's very complicated, but I think it's deeply interwoven. Also, you know, you mentioned kind of how women perceive themselves and how women perceive men. And I think that for Gen Z, who, you know, have only lived in Trump's America, 2016, I was a freshman in college during the 2016 election and then the women's marches were in 2017. That was my freshman year of college. And this whole generation of young women grew up with this identity of we as women come together and sort of this resistance. And I think that that is interwoven into young women's political identity as well, but it's also part of our gender identity. As I was listening, I was thinking There's some cocktail in here of Me Too being a dominant feature of the culture for a period of time and then the backlash to Me Too being a dominant feature of the time. And, like, somehow those things are interwoven. I'm not quite sure how to disaggregate them really well. But like you can see both those, the tensions of those things impacting young people in this moment in a way where I think older people who kind of just can see the swings, it's different than if you kind of grew up with like the culture pressing down on you about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man as you come of age. totally I think that as you come of age peace is what's so important is because these national conversations have been happening in the context of our adolescent years of the time when we're figuring out who we are and our gender and sexual identity and how to date and how to you know maybe find the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with etc it's all been tied so closely to this like very pervasive national conversation that we're watching 24 seven. And there's a conversation about it happening on every podcast, on every social media platform. And in many ways, you know, the gender gap is seen as this political thing, but it's not political. It's tied to every part of our lives and it's more relational than it is political. And it's very different if you I know you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a lot of choices, can ACR help? I think, how then? Now, for example, when you're selling the things you love to buy, you want to know more about the offerings where a cost-to-share-share can be? Go to azr.nl. This does Azr for you and a more expensive family. Azr does it! So, we can now listen to your podcast. online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.nl. That's Shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. You just walked us into a good transition. So let's do it. Because one thing we heard a lot in these groups is their reluctance to date someone from the other side of the political spectrum, which if you start to think about far more women being Democrats and far more men being Republicans, you start to see there's a supply and demand problem there. So let's listen to how the women talked about that. I just don't think it's possible to date someone that doesn't share the same values with you, even religion-wise. Same thing with values. I just don't think it would ever work and like there would always be a fight A big reason for me that I don think it would work is because of my family My family is very very strong you know Republican And I think that if I brought somebody home that wasn't, I don't know how they would react, to be honest. Or I, this probably sounds horrible, but I know how my family is and they'd probably say something offensive and it would not end well. I'm in a relationship and I am in like a very heavily Christ-centered relationship. We're following very biblical values in the way that we're dating one another. And I think it's almost a little bit of an oxymoron to be a progressive Christian or a left-leaning Christian. So for me, if someone was very strong as a liberal, I would question their biblical integrity or their integrity as a follower of Christ. And that's more important to me than politics. And I feel like that just typically aligns with conservative values. It's like also like about my parents, you know, because I don't want to bring someone home that they like would argue with or someone that would like cause a fight because, you know, that's just not something I'd be willing to do. So Rachel, you made this point actually to my producer about the supply and demand issue. And so these women don't have to be open to dating across the political divide because there's plenty of conservative dudes out there and there's not that many conservative women, whereas conservative men do need to be. What differences do you hear in men's and women's attitudes on dating and the role politics plays? And after you answer that, we were going to play some of these Gen Z men on dating. Go ahead. Yeah. So these women are very much in the minority because they are conservative or center right women, right of center women. And so they have a choice. They can find a conservative man easily to date, whereas liberal women have a very different situation because there's more conservative men. And so liberal women might have to think more seriously over whether or not they're willing to date a conservative man. And then on the contrary, conservative men might have to date a liberal woman because there's more liberal women. And I think that for a lot of young people, they're kind of willing to put politics aside. I mean, I know plenty of people, even in my own personal life, where the woman is more liberal than the man and it works. And they kind of butt heads sometimes, but that's the way it is. And that's how it kind of should be, right? We should be okay with having political differences. I mean, I know so many couples, especially parents age and older who are from opposite political viewpoints. And like, that's a beautiful thing to have those conversations. And you might argue at the dinner table and you're also giving permission structure for your kids to have different political opinions and to argue at the dinner table too, in a way that is productive. But I think this idea that if all young women are liberal and all young men are conservative. There's never going to be able to be any couples and we're going to have a problem. That is not helpful to anyone. We already have a problem with declining birth rates. And I think the fact that young men and young women just feel so at odds is only contributing to that even more. I don't know, man. That's a tough one because getting married, well, so first of all, I mean, my first thought is like, yeah, I experienced this. You know what it was like being a young lesbian. I used to just, people would ask me what I did at the bar and I'd be like, I'm a firefighter. You know, like, I wasn't going to tell them I was a Republican operative, whatever. But of course, you know, I married someone who was like an NPR listening normie who thought I was fine. But like, both of us were kind of moderates. Also, when she did tell her parents that I remember, she was like, she's a libertarian. She's a libertarian. It's fine. But like these are real things that young people navigate on the dating scene. And I think I remember us talking about this and being like, but we share the same values. Because your point about seeing parents argue like is actually like a really good thing for kids to see because it's good to see like disagreement modeled under a banner of love or a foundation of love, right? Like you sort of want that for the entire country that we can disagree and still be held together as a country. But the values alignment gap that I think I felt with people when I was in my 20s wasn't very big. Like, we had policy disagreements, but not values disagreements. Whereas I feel like now that gap in values is kind of big as it's represented in politics. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm overstating it, but what do you think? Well, I think it goes back to kind of the idea that young people's political leanings are not set in stone and are actually really fluid. And most young people don't align with either party. And so I think a lot of the reason why many young men voted for Trump in 2024 wasn't because they agreed with every value that Trump has or doesn't have, but more so because it was kind of the cultural thing to do. And we're seeing many of these high profile men who supported Trump in 2024 withdraw that support, especially after what's been going on in Minnesota with ICE, etc. These values, quote unquote, are not set in stone. And I think the political vote in 2024 wasn't necessarily rooted in values so much as it was in economic anxiety. And so I don't necessarily think that just because a young man voted for Trump and is right of center does not mean that they are, first of all, it doesn't mean that they're anti-choice. There were a lot of men who were pro-choice who voted for Trump. I wrote a piece about that at the time. And I just don't think that the mismatch of values is actually as clear as it might seem. And I don't think that it's black and white. And therefore, I think that a lot of these relationships are possible because the political leaning is way more fluid than we make it out to be. Yeah, I'd buy that. I'd buy that. That makes sense. I know you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a duroze choices, can ASR help? I think I'm thinking, how then? For example, when it's a lot of stuff that you love to be in Schade. Will you know more about the resecering where a duroze schade can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This does ASR for you and a duroze. ASR does it. So, we can now listen to your podcast. All right. Let's listen to the Gen Z men. Because we asked the Gen Z men, this is the same group we listened to with Will Sommer, if people are remembering that episode, about why the gender gap has gotten as wide as it has. And let's listen to how they talked about it. I think COVID had a big deal to do with it because I feel like when COVID happened, a lot more echo chambers started really appearing or being more effective. Especially with like the slew of people running to Twitter. and i just feel like a lot of times guys usually have a more objective sense on things and a lot of times women have a more emotional way of thinking about things i think here yeah i mean look i remember there's a waltz journal article right after the election like gen z men had flipped i think 10 to 15 points trump and gen z women had flipped almost 5 to 10 points harris and that's the huge discrepancy i mean you look at i don't know about a lot of us like i'm very blessed to an awesome conservative girlfriend but like i don't know i don't think i would ever be able to date a liberal woman in this setting because of the values being so so different i look at a lot of my friends who are men and are conservatives and one of the first things they get asked on dates all the time is yo are you a conservative and then immediately the woman will just think bang can't date this guy because he's like evil to a certain extent like is the democratic party for years, I think has abandoned young men. I think by focusing so much on gender politics and all this other stuff, a lot of times I think young men felt, myself included, felt kind of pushed to the wayside and like not important to the Democratic Party. Though I've heard though, like a lot of people are shameful of Republican men or that they might be too macho or too masculine and it's toxic masculinity or whatever. But honestly, when it comes to dating or whatever, I don't mind if I date a Democrat, you know? I honestly, like, politics is not a big talking point in my life. I don't go around actively talking about politics. Women not dating men who are Republican. I didn't particularly experience it like that, but my friend who's my roommate, his ex-girlfriend, was a Democrat, and she wrote me into some debate about some topic that they were having, and that didn't really go right. I didn't try to be like too deep into it because I've heard like how she could be about certain topics but yeah that was not fun that we discussed about it. I personally have a girlfriend and she's actually a democrat I mean I've seen here in Illinois again Illinois is very very democrat and I've definitely seen lots of girls that they say like oh I will never date someone who bought for Trump. And with my girlfriend at the beginning, she definitely had like some wrong ideas about what being a conservative means. Like she just said that, oh, if you're a conservative, that means that you're going to love Trump no matter what he does. And no, I just wanted to her like, hey, I mean, I'm a conservative because I believe in these values. I believe in the traditional family. I believe in the Christian values. I believe in a free market instead of socialism. and this is what the left has done in my country and this is what the right has done in my country. So she still doesn't like Trump. She's still a Democrat. She already kind of shifted to the point where she can understand right now why some people are Republicans or why some people are Democrats. So there's a lot of discourse and a lot of money, actually. There's not just a lot of discourse. There's a lot of money around this idea of sort of reaching young men who have shifted to the right. What do you think the conventional wisdom gets right and wrong about this cohort of men? So we just heard in that last quote that that young man was explaining like what it means to him to be conservative and why he has conservative beliefs and values, and it's not tied to Trump. And I think a lot of the conversation about young man shifting right was very Trump centric. I think it actually misses their relationship to Trump and the fact that what's going to happen when he's no longer running and when he's no longer the face of the Republican party. And you heard this young man saying he believes in free market values and he believes in, you know, the traditional role of family and religion and faith. If Democrats can get their messaging right on those three things, which, you know, used to be kind of part of the Democratic Party too, then there's no saying that these young men are still voting for Republicans. So I think that part of what's missing is that it's this idea that the key to young men is the manosphere and you have to talk about sports all the time and you have to talk about betting and you have to talk about crypto. And yeah, these are things that are more geared towards young men, but it's kind of more simple. It's about values and they feel like the democratic party abandoned the values that they care about, which are, well, I think the role of family is really important and has been seated to the right. I think the role of religion is really important and has been seated to the right. And I know that you guys had a piece at the bulwark last week about Democrats and religion and looking at candidates like James Tallarico or even John Shapiro, you know, with his new book that he's really talking about his Judaism. I think we're seeing examples of Democrats leaning more into religion. Religion comes up all the time in my conversations with young people, young men and young women. And young women, I think, you know, when you think of a conservative person in this country right now, or a conservative young person, you picture a MAGA hat wearing young man, but that's just not the case. There are so many religious young people who are not conservative. So I think that's one of the values that needs to be revisited. You know, one of the quotes was about socialism. And I think there are a lot of young men who believe in capitalism who feel like that means they're a Republican. And it doesn't have to be that way. Right. Also, I have a couple of cheers for capitalism over here as well. All right. Rachel, Jen Faza, you were excellent. This was an excellent conversation. so thank you and thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast we're going to be back next week but in the meantime remember to rate and review us on apple podcasts subscribe to the bulwark on youtube and become a bulwark plus member at thebulwark.com we will see you soon bye thanks sarah Thank you. shopify.nl that's shopify.nl it's time to see what you can accomplish with shopify by your side