# Is Gen Z more conservative then Millennials?



## exodus08 (May 22, 2018)

People are saying Gen Z is more conservative then the last generation but have more in common with Millennials then older Generations. Not sure if the Pew Research Center artical on Gen Z is legit or not but they lean a little to the right by an inch. They're in their early 20s & teens right now so it's a little to early to decide if they are or not.


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## Millenium_01 (Mar 5, 2018)

exodus08 said:


> People are saying Gen Z is more conservative then the last generation but have more in common with Millennials then older Generations. Not sure if the Pew Research Center artical on Gen Z is legit or not but they lean a little to the right by an inch. *They're in their early 20s & teens right now so it's a little to early to decide if they are or not.*


This. 

It's way to early to know. I don't know why/how people are already deciding Gen Z's collective values and affiliations. 

(Btw, Gen Z also includes today's older kids: 9-12)


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Politically, I don't think so. I've been reading the opposite. Socially, I think they are a bit more, at least in personal conduct. I've also read that risky behaviors like drinking, smoking, sex are declining.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

It's done by design. Social media is an effective tool for shaping culture and behavior, especially conformity through propaganda.

And, now that we have firewalls blocking access to open communication, it's even more fascist now. We're living in the cyber dark ages and people don't even know!


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## Forest Nymph (Aug 25, 2018)

My observation thus far is absolutely not. If anything, liberal is conservative to them, and they care passionately about climate change and the environment so much that even the program I attended is now overflowing with competitive, prospective students. They are more likely to be vegan (decidedly not conservative) and I've even noticed a nasty hopelessness to some of them that isn't conservative at all, it's kind of Gen X like. Except in the case of Gen Z it's well earned - they grew up during the Great Recession and welcomed President Trump in their adulthood along with the End of the World. I can't say I blame them. What a terrible generation to be born into. Millennials who still feel sorry for themselves for not having a three story house in a gated community like some idiot Baby Boomers need to step aside to more pressing issues, in my view.

They are more likely to marry young I think. I know so many people born after 1995 who are dating, engaged to, living with, or married to something along the lines of a high school or college sweetheart. They know people aren't disposable and hate the hook-up culture. This is probably my favorite thing about them. (Even though I never married my high school sweetheart, or even think it advisable, I admire their romantic monogamy).


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## exodus08 (May 22, 2018)

Forest Nymph said:


> My observation thus far is absolutely not. If anything, liberal is conservative to them, and they care passionately about climate change and the environment so much that even the program I attended is now overflowing with competitive, prospective students. They are more likely to be vegan (decidedly not conservative) and I've even noticed a nasty hopelessness to some of them that isn't conservative at all, it's kind of Gen X like. Except in the case of Gen Z it's well earned - they grew up during the Great Recession and welcomed President Trump in their adulthood along with the End of the World. I can't say I blame them. What a terrible generation to be born into. Millennials who still feel sorry for themselves for not having a three story house in a gated community like some idiot Baby Boomers need to step aside to more pressing issues, in my view.
> 
> They are more likely to marry young I think. I know so many people born after 1995 who are dating, engaged to, living with, or married to something along the lines of a high school or college sweetheart. They know people aren't disposable and hate the hook-up culture. This is probably my favorite thing about them. (Even though I never married my high school sweetheart, or even think it advisable, I admire their romantic monogamy).


 I agree! I do hope we Millennials change in the next upcoming decades.


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## Dustanddawnzone (Jul 13, 2014)

> Not sure if the Pew Research Center artical on Gen Z is legit or not but they lean a little to the right by an inch. They're in their early 20s & teens right now so it's a little to early to decide if they are or not.


The Pew Research Center is a legit research center, and their methodology tend to be as good as a self-reporting methodology can be. Of course, this only refers to an average, and I've noticed some political ideas, on both extremes of the political spectrum, make head way with Gen Z.


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## isaac_a15 (Feb 14, 2018)

It depends on each person. I don't identify as liberal or conservative. There are valid arguments that both sides make, however I will not align myself to either label as I have a mixture of liberal/conservative beliefs.


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## incision (May 23, 2010)

No. Gen Z is the school shooting generation and they're behind why gun control will happen.


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## Mrblack (Jul 9, 2017)

Duo said:


> No. Gen Z is the school shooting generation and they're behind why gun control will happen.


Sorry to inform you but most school shooters are mentally disturbed white males bullied by the minds of the trouble youth and most of their victims happened to be the same race. 

Blame The parents if you please but modern music is what destroying this generation


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## incision (May 23, 2010)

Mrblack said:


> Sorry to inform you but most school shooters are mentally disturbed white males bullied by the minds of the trouble youth and most of their victims happened to be the same race.
> 
> Blame The parents if you please but modern music is what destroying this generation


In case you weren't aware, my point was that Gen Z is sick and tired of fearing school shootings, never mind dying from it so they're doing something about it and standing up for gun control. They're also less bigoted due to their exposure of other peoples and cultures through the Internet and are presently being traumatized by the GOP, Trump and the NRA, so look out when they come full force into their voting rights. 2020 and 2024 will see them rise to voting power. We've already seen the impact of their leading edge voting in 2018.


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## General Lee Awesome (Sep 28, 2014)

Mrblack said:


> Sorry to inform you but most school shooters are mentally disturbed white males bullied by the minds of the trouble youth and most of their victims happened to be the same race.
> 
> Blame The parents if you please but modern music is what destroying this generation


really? modern music is the biggest contributor to our current problems? you don't say?


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## great_pudgy_owl (Apr 20, 2015)

I think Gen Z is more balanced _on average_, but only because the seem more likely to be extreme in their views (which I'm sure reflects the polarization that's been happening with the parties over time).

I have very conservative friends and very liberal friends and those in the middle simply don't care. The main take-away from that is, really, it seems too early to tell what their views will be since early-twenties to ages "9 - 12" isn't a long enough time to have a fully developed rational brain...much less a fully formed world view. 

From a personal perspective, my views are slightly more liberal than my parents, which is far more liberal than the my dad's family. 

@Duo I'm hesitant to say because I don't want to start an online debate in this particular topic, but I'm actually more conservative regarding gun control and school shootings. (I.e., I believe the bigger issue is how these kids became they way they are today, how they're handled, and our education system). Doubtless, if guns were taken out of the picture entirely, those bitter, angry would-be shooters would find other ways to take their anger out on the world.


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## midnightdance (Mar 21, 2017)

It may be possible that Gen Z is more conservative. A lot of teens, especially white introverted males who go on the computer a lot, get into alt-right ideas. The alt-right ideology is very appealing to that demographic. Things used to be different. People used to form their political views from watching candidates on TV, or from their family or friends. Millennials grew up watching politics on TV. Politicians on TV also tend to lean establishment left (CNN, MSNBC) or establishment right/far right (FOX) rather than alt-right.
Now, many young people get their political views from the internet- twitter, online forums, reddit, memes, and youtube. Only 10 years ago, if you had a political opinion, you would either share it with your parents or friends (who may not have the same opinions as you), or keep it to yourself (most likely). Now, if you have a political opinion, you can easily go online and find thousands of people who have the same opinions as you, and share these opinions as a collective community. Being a part of a collective community on the internet for political views is a relatively new phenomena.

On the other hand, there is an increase of very far-left girls who grew up on Tumblr and are into the whole "woke" thing, so maybe we will have a generation of people with very extreme views, and maybe males and females will tend to have very noticeable political differences.


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## Convex (Jan 5, 2015)

midnightdance said:


> It may be possible that Gen Z is more conservative. A lot of teens, especially white introverted males who go on the computer a lot, get into alt-right ideas. T


Shots fired at all introverts. Go get em


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## Highway Nights (Nov 26, 2014)

Doubtful. 

A few years back, there was a widely publicized study that claimed this, but generally isn't taken seriously outside of clickbait thinkpieces due to the severe methodological problems of said study. It was:
1: A British study for some reason constantly being applied to Americans
2. With an absolutely tiny sample size
3. Leading questions
4. and made really weird leaps between unrelated things (drinking alcohol during teenage years=being liberal apparently, which is honest to god one of the weirdest claims I've ever seen. Anecdotal, but the super "reckless partier" types growing up were ALWAYS republicans, with rich parents, even in my fairly liberal area).
Here's an (I think Libertarian) guy eating it alive for all its worth. He seems to have a lot of really dumb beliefs, but it's nice to have that "study" countered by the right as well: https://calebjonesblog.com/generation-z-not-conservative/

More recent studies seem to show a generation with very similar political views as Millennials: Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues | Pew Research Center
The voting patterns of the ones of age seem to suggest that they might be even more left-leaning. 

People like to claim that the alt-right is Generation Z, and I'm sure _some_ of them are, but it seems to be based on the assumption that "they're isolated nerds on the internet, therefore they must be like, 17" as if there aren't tons of 30 year old NEETS like that. The bulk of them that I see are older Millennials/younger Generation X, which are who you saw at Charlottesville. If you're a white guy who was a teenager/college student in the 90s basically, your odds of being alt-right seems to shoot up.

American right-wingers really, really, really seem to want to believe in some second coming of conservatives, but the data doesn't support it so far. As a liberal, I'm far more worried about Millennials suddenly turning conservative, which actually does have _some_ (very wobbly) data to support it. 

That being said, I would take anyone pretending to be able to predict future voting patterns with a grain of salt, including myself. I remember in 2009 when it was a common take that Millennials were going to be overwhelmingly right-libertarian. Nope, just two years later here comes Occupy. In about 1960, there was a notion that the people graduating college over the course of the decade were going to become more conservative. Nope, here comes the counter-cultural movements. The data could be wrong again I guess _maybe_ Generation Z will be more Conservative. But if I were a Republican strategist, I wouldn't wager even an inch on that assumption.

Edit: I'm referring to the United States of course. I can't speak for Europe or anywhere else.


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## Ciphr (Mar 5, 2019)

From my experience, no. Gen Z is for more independent and pragmatic than other generations, especially after the 2008 recession, but definitely not more conservative. In fact, from my interaction with my peers, we're more anti-establishment than pro-establishment. I have both liberal and conservative friends that differ greatly on a lot of issues, but both agree that the American establishment parties (Republican and Democrat) care more about screwing the other party over than actually deal with pressing issues.

The vibe I get among my friends are very no-group-work, pull your own weight, and a balance between pragmatism and being a good person which some have labelled as conservative. However, there are a lot of social issues that Gen Z have adopted firmly that definitely wouldn't jive with most older conservatives. 

Like many have said, it's too early to tell. However, I think studies like these serve as a disservice to Gen Z as it's telling who are they are before they can do it themselves.


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## Highway Nights (Nov 26, 2014)

Ciphr said:


> pragmatic


This is precisely the word I would use to describe what I've seen of them. Millennials were far too airy to be particularly effective in political change. And frankly, super left-wing millennials had certain traits that tended to alienate people. If data remains consistent with Generation Z, and they continue to be comparably left-wing to Millennials, they have the potential to bring down conservative political structures like a wrecking ball.


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## Anunnaki Spirit (Mar 23, 2018)

80s born millennial chiming in. I have to say that in some ways I've found myself to be fairly conservative more so than most gen x and even some boomers I've meet over the years. I get the vibe that many in my generation drank the coolaid and frankly just don't have good values nor good sense for that matter because they were never given the chance to learn much less figure things out on their own. I don't hold any generation up on a pedestal any longer seeing that it is all a being steaming pile of crap because it was all engineered to be so.


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## NotAMeme (Mar 7, 2019)

In my opinion, yes. Much more conservative. 

So many people in the north western area of Seattle are conservative we just prefer to stay quiet. But it is a growing population. My old highschool HEAVILY supported Ted Cruz.

I think it has to do with the internet culture. Reddit/4chan/voicechats and even offensive meme pages on instagram has built some thick skin. That is not saying left leaning people are not thick skin either. Most people in generation Z, through all political philosophies, has entered the realm of xbox live chat and through that we have learned to not take offence.

I think that whole thing grows on conservatives more. Yes as someone living in a left leaning area, participating in debates for years and volunteering at senate campaigns I noticed an increase in conservative peers and membership especially among young voters.

Out of my 22 cousins, not a single one of us born after the year 1998 ended up being liberal. The rest of my family is very left.

The school shooting argument is flawed. Yes we all fear school shootings but we each have a diverse array of opinions to solve it. Mine is focus on mental health and possibly arming trained teachers and adding additional security. Not gun control. No, parkland did not make my school left leaning. Only 20% of us did the walkout. The rest, including me, discouraged that behavior out of respect for the teachers. School shootings are NOT a good correlation to political philosiphy, that argument has so many loopholes.


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