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'Everything got worse': Gen Z express frustration, regret after Trump vote
(navigatorresearch.org)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026
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The fact that only 54% voted for Harris is the reason why Gen-Z gets so much hate.
Everybody expects old white men to vote Conservative. Meanwhile Gen-Z was born into the era of ubiquitous internet access. They've had access to the entire world's knowledge from the very moment they learned to read. So what's their excuse? They didn't have to just blindly follow whatever they told you to believe on the TV and in the newspaper, they've had access to cold, hard facts from the very beginning.
Therefore it is mind-blowing to me that a whopping forty six percent of them could manage to be this ignorant and dumb, when all they gotta do is pull out their always-online pocket computer and read to easily figure out that MAGA is completely and utterly full of shit.
Bottom line is that old white men at least had an excuse for ignorance at one point. Gen-Z never did. And that's why they deserve the most criticism out of any voting-age generation IMO.
That's not how algorithmic social media, which is where they source all their "facts" from, works. Gen Z is not a generation that goes out and researches things; they are spoon-fed information (true or false) in bite-sized pieces which they use to piece together a basic world view that aligns with that of their tribe. They are more concerned with being seen to be good or smart by their peers, another product of being raised by algorithmic social media, than they are with being educated on a topic or developing an independent opinion or thought. This is a generation that is notorious for its inability to focus or concentrate or anything, and that severely impairs its ability to think critically and deeply about issues.
I get what you're saying, but I just don't feel like making excuses for dumb people. I believe that if you're raised in a certain environment it doesn't mean you have to end up a specific way....unless you're kind of dumb.
This isn't centuries ago where you're born into a village and that village and its customs are all that you know, forever. All data is accessible now. If you end up stupid, it's kind of your own fault.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I'm old enough that I lived the first chunk of my life before the internet became a thing and I'm WAY more intelligent with the internet than I was without it. I'm much more aware of what's going on in the world around me. I know so much more about, just, random shit. And I didn't receive some special education. I received a public education in the U.S.
There's really no excuses. I believe the internet, or propaganda in any form, only corrupts if you're kind of generally dumb.
I'm not really sure why you're talking about yourself. You are clearly not Gen Z, therefore your experience is completely irrelevant. It's like a Boomer telling a young person "well I bought a house so there's no excuses for you" - it completely ignores everything that has changed about the world since they were that age.
Yeah, what most people have in their pockets is providing them access to a well-oiled propaganda machine. Maybe the people on Lemmy are on average less trusting of such things, but that's not normal. The right picks and champions influencers nearly constantly. The Dems don't have much success here.
I like to say: we carry a re-education camp in our pockets. And we choose do do so.
Oh we're just going to pretend the children should have been the parents? The youngest and most vulnerable to manipuation should have been the adults in the room.
You're doing the EXACT thing I complained about.
You simply haven't made the case. Sorry, your argument is that more experience = a good excuse for ignorance? That first time voters should be the most expert... And that Internet access for young people, didn't also subject them to one of the biggest online propaganda campaigns ever seen.
Did you just not notice how memes were used in the Trump campaigns?... And then this whole idea that millennials and older just don't have Internet access? WTF is wrong with you? How out of touch with reality are you?
STOP EXCUSING OLD WHITE MEN, UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OLD WHITE MEN IN CHARGE.
...it's not that difficult.
I think you completely missed the point. They're not saying genz should be the adults in the room.
They're surprised that a generation who never drew breath without the internet came of age without the wisdom they hypothesized such a life would avail.
You gotta understand: earlier generations couldn't trivially verify things. Anyone they ever interacted with were the people like... On their street. Diversity of thought was informed by limited contact. The internet, at one point, appeared to promise a radical solution to both. The optimism for the future, as a result, was essentially unbounded.
It's not fair to ask gen z to save anyone. I don't think its what buddy was saying, but if it was, it was unfair.
I think buddy was coming to the very late realization that the optimism of the transformative nature of the internet was misplaced. The hypothesis just didn't pan out. You can give a human for their entire lives the ability to get the answer to any question, verify anything they're told, and meet and talk to people with diverse viewpoints that may challenge what they're exposed to based on proximity...
... And ultimately they're just about as dumb as anyone else.
And I get the impression that, more than anything else, is what makes them sad.
I still think raising the pre-internet era at all, and pointing towards people who live offline as if they're a big demographic, is weak excuse making. The internet is 30 years old and we're all on it now.
But yeah, it doesn't just solve everything... And nor will AI.
You're 100% right. I never said they don't have an excuse now, all I said is that they once did. I carefully worded my sentence for a reason.
Meanwhile Gen-Z never had an excuse for ignorance. That's my point.
First time inexperienced voters, the young not known for taking life seriously or for having ever seen the reprocussions of their votes... Have no excuses? Really?
You're still not making sense. You're saying young people aren't politically vulnerable, niave, or able to be manipulated when OF COURSE THEY ARE!
Like I said the first time, the pretense is: