Economic concerns and growing disenchantment with both parties is draining support for Trump among Gen Z young men, a key bloc of support during the 2024 election

Male Gen Z voters are breaking with Donald Trump and the Republican party at large, recent polls show, less than a year after this same cohort defied convention and made a surprise shift right, helping Trump win the 2024 election.

Taken with wider polling suggesting Democrats will lead in the midterms, the findings on young men spell serious trouble for the Republican Party in 2026.

Younger Gen Z men, those born between 2002 and 2007, may be even more anti-Trump, according to October research from YouGov and the Young Men’s Research Project, a potential sign that their time living through the social upheavals of the Covid pandemic and not being political aware during the first Trump administration may be shaping their experience.

  • 800XL@lemmy.world
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    It’s amazing to me to see how gen z acted after the neo-liberal boomers destroyed the economy and shit all over millenials. Millenials were blamed for everything. I’d have thought gen z would have gone hard left after seeing how their siblings and even in some cases parents were treated, but instead they were easily manipulated by russia and 4/8chan into stupidity. Instead we got gen z who was already fucked over by trump once to vote for him.

    Every generation learns too late that old white men are not their friends and don’t have their best interests at heart. Only with gen z it mattered more than ever in history and they blew it.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      The atomization of our perspectives is what allowed the cancer to metastasize.

      Most people don’t browse forums, most people don’t read news stories, most people don’t fact-check or watch debates or listen to pundits talk for more than 3 minutes.

      This should normally lead to rapidly shifting political landscapes, but we’re all being a carefully cultivated feed of validating and self-affirming information that makes people feel a lack of involvement and urgency. You see it right here on Lemmy, people are reposting all the pandering news site bullshit every day “Trump and MAGA is collapsing!” “Trump HUMILIATED by latest release!” “GOP is crashing and people are fleeing the sinking ship!”

      For every headline like that you read, people who lean right are seeing the exact opposite. And since we’ve all isolated ourselves from social connection, we don’t see how atomized our worlds are, we just assume everyone is seeing the same headlines and it makes us complacent.

      • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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        and the rub is to understand this… you’d have to have your foot in both feeds. which is difficult to do unless you do so deliberately. which 99.9% of people aren’t ever going to do.

        any if you are not part of the bias-confirming group, you will be harassed, reported, and banned. people don’t want to hear narratives outside of the ones they have already chose as ‘truth’.

        just the fact that i go and check the headlines of Fox news, for example, would makes me an awful human being corrupted by evil, according to the lefties. You can only be truly left if you remain ‘pure’ and live in your bubble and never interact with someone outside of it.

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          I guess it depends on how much they dip their feet in. I have seen people who hate watched Fox News long enough that they became fans and eventually Republicans.

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      They made a mistake in their first big election, and now many seem to realize how fucked over they were. That will stick with them for LIFE, and many will never trust the right for the rest of their lives.

      Don’t forget, many were voting at 18/19, only knowing life in their hometown. In 2028, many will be graduating from college, and they’ll have had a much wider experience with other people and ideas, and won’t tolerate MAGA bullshit as easily, especially when they recognize that MAGA policies are intended to oppress them for the rest of their lives.

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    My sister (F 22) voted for Trump over taxes, Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants. She is 1st gen, born of 2 immigrants who also voted for Trump. Every time I present new evidence of how bad Trump is, she pulls ChatGPT and “debunks my lies” with nicely crafted confirmation bias prompts. If you all know how to get through to GenZers, I am listening.

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      What does she actually know about?

      Doesn’t matter what it is, literally any topic that she knows about, even if it’s the Kardashians.

      One day ask her a question about it, then ask whatever chatbot she trusts, if they’re not the same, tell her she’s wrong and if she doesn’t believe you to ask her AI.

      A big reason people think AI is smart, is they never ask it about something they know.

      That sounds basic, but it means they never notice when any of their questions get a wrong answer.

      Getting them to ask it about topics they know about, means they get to see how it can fail, and how a small initial error it makes can be extrapolated to the point everything else is bullshit.

      Once they learn it’s not always right, they’re less likely to blindly trust it. That leads to them double checking some things, seeing it’s bullshitting more, and then double checking it more.

      You need to replace the AI feedback loop with the rage loop. It ain’t hard to get a conservative there, get them to the point they’re asking chatbots questions they already know the answer too, just to see it get it wrong.

      Ethics aside, if we don’t manipulate the idiots, someone else is going to do it.

      • stringere@sh.itjust.works
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        Best one I’ve found recently was the top article on DDG search for “peacock mantis shrimp cleanup crew”.

        The Peacock Mantis Shrimp is a valued clean‑up‑crew addition sold in‑store here in Columbus, Ohio. It acts as a scavenger and algae picker, keeps substrate clean, helping reduce maintenance and improve water quality. Stock 1–2 per 5 gal in a balanced reef or fish‑only system for best results. Difficulty: Easy. Offer varied empty shells. Drip‑acclimate and maintain stable salinity for long‑term health.

        There are so many problems with this but I’ll start with the one that made me search for a cleanup crew for a mantis shrimp:

        • they are aggressive and deadly to just about anything other than some damselfish
        • minimun tank size is 20 gallons, putting one in a 5 gallon would be terrible for everyone and stoclong 1-2 per 5 gallons would be a bloodbath
        • they are not scavengers or detrivores and do not eat algae
        • they do not clean the substrate other than to kick it all over the place when making a burrow
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      You can’t help morons unfortunately.

      My father is Gen 1 of immigrant parents. His parents HATED Trump. Yet he voted for Trump all three times.

      I have a GenZ sister-in-law that uses ChatGPT for relationship advice. Like copies and pastes responses from men into ChatGPT and asks what they’re “really saying” or “what their intentions are”, instead of you know, JUST ASKING THE PERSON OUTRIGHT.

      We’re fucked

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        2020: you have your facts and I have my facts

        2025: you have your prompts and I have my prompts

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      Ask her to read the links from her ChatGPT queries with you. Do it together. Show her how ChatGPT is confidently and convincingly lying to her. And each time she comes back with another result from a biased prompt, do it again. Eventually she’ll at least stop trying to convince you that ChatGPT knows all, out of embarrassment.

    • sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org
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      my dude, you have a sister who is going to chatgpt for facts, Id feel that she’s in a lot more trouble than being a trump supporter.

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      born of 2 immigrants who also voted for Trump

      Ho boy, I wonder how they’re feeling now with ICE running wild.

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        No problem. According to their bubble, that only happens to the bad people that didn’t follow the rules. Every single one deserved it in their view.

        I’ve spoken to Trump supporters who are themselves illegal immigrants (overstayed visa). They don’t see the problem.

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        Or when they start trying to denaturalize everyone not sufficiently white based on quotas set by that dickhead Stephen Miller…

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        From another who has 1st gen relatives who literally entered illegally and who also voted Trump, the following are some reasons in no particular order. They fully believed he would only deport “the bad ones.” They STILL voted for him despite one part of the family who is still not fully citizens.

        They still don’t believe non-criminals are being kidnapped, they still think he’s a good businessman, and still think he’s a great president.

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      have the AI cite it sources for the claims it makes, and read through those sources. ask the AI what information it used in the source to come up with its statement.

      using chatGPT in this way is like how I used Wikipedia growing up: just pull up an article on something, check out what citations an article had, and walk it backwards from there

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        Does the paid chat gpt actually cite?

        The free one (which most people are using), when asked how much an aircraft carrier costs just links to the main page of CNBC and the department of defense.

        I further prompted and it gave me 404s

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          It does a mix of hallucination and self-correction once you tell it to search the web to actually find out current information. And even then, you don’t have a good chance of having truly accurate information. It really does take work.

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          not sure if only the paid gpt actually cites, but anyone thats trying to show someone else how inefficient LLMs are with data should be able to come to the conclusion the output is untrustworthy if you’re getting 404 errors after asking to cite, in my opinion

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            The problem is it “cites” things by inserting obscured hyperlinks that people see and never click but assume there is a “source”

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              I guess we found the answer to how the original person i was replying to can validate anything thats generated by an LLM: looking up sources that an LLM claims to use

      • When searching something online, I already many times came across AI written articles being quite high. So now it’s possible LLM will just cite another LLM which got its content from an LLM written response on Reddit.

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          These ChatGPT articles are ruining the internet, it’s almost all I can find now when searching for information.

          I ask a question in google and then get sent to a website which has a novel about why my question is a good question and then gives the simplest 5 outcomes/solutions (i.e. did you turn it off and on again?) with zero photos or diagrams or anything and it’s just a giant waste of my time.

          I only need to open a webpage for like 5 seconds before I know it is going to be worthless.

          Is there a way to blacklist a web domain from ever popping up in your Google search results again?

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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      tell your sister that she’s a fucking dumbass for thinking a chatbot is a source, tell her that all a chatbot does is aggregate data on the internet, and that if she doesn’t smarten the fuck up then she’s going to be a failed unhappy outcast in life that is hated by successful people and shunned by her family

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        if she doesn’t smarten the fuck up then she’s going to be a failed unhappy outcast in life that is hated by successful people and shunned by her family

        Shit, I’m already all these things. I wonder what would happen if I used AI.

    • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
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      I’d love to pretend I have a tried and true method, but statistically I’ve hit more walls than bridges. The thing that works more often than others is finding something they care about that’s easily falsifiable and honing in on that. Do that a few times in a row and hopefully they see that they don’t actually know what they’re talking about because their politicians don’t want them to. One of the easiest for me has been to really explain the gun show loophole. Guns seem to be pretty important to people I interact with, even if they don’t own any. They really have no idea what gun laws are. One of the other more recent things is Hegseths changes and the Trump ballroom. Depending on how tech bro they are and how willing or able you are to keep them on topic, DOGE isn’t too bad, but it can get off track fast. If she’s spiteful, the new Trump accounts might be worth bringing up. It’s really not a bad idea, but that’s HER taxes going to a bunch of babies.

      • GutterRat42@lemmy.world
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        I asked ger how she would feel if ICE took our family members. She said that it would be sad, but that’s why we have laws. 😮‍💨

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        I would rather pay the exactly same amount in taxes as I do my rent that goes up every year. It sucks we get punished for existing, pricing ourselves out of shelter so the property owners can became even more rich…

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        I kinda hate the premise that young age automatically makes you stupid or your opinions a result of manipulation. Someone in their 60s can be just as stupid as a 22yo, and a 22yo is also capable of having nuanced thoughts about politics and taxation. “Young=naive” is a bad trap to fall into when evaluating political opinions and feeds into the old adage about people becoming conservative as they get older.

        I think this person is just stupid on their own, regardless of their age.

        • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world
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          There was no premise of anyone is stupid or not - I simply mean that early twenties voters are by and large concerned with social issues since they very likely don’t ow property yet. So to me, this feels like Faux russian news leading kids around with a hate carrot on a fascism stick

          • UltraMagnus@startrek.website
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            I suppose I did simplify your argument.

            I’ll restate, then: it’s erroneous to say that any young person/22yo with a strong opinion on taxes is being manipulated. Although life experience may prevent naivete in some cases, I think it’s incorrect to make a bold assertion like that because older folks are capable of being manipulated and younger folks are capable of being discerning and having the critical thinking skills to avoid manipulation.

            I would also take issue with your follow up on whether owning property impacts whether or not someone’s opinions on economic issues are well defined. I don’t think people need to be personally invested in an issue to have a nuanced opinion on it, though it can certainly help (and you definitely want to consider interested parties when it comes to property tax- i.e., before a city raises property taxes, they should take into consideration property owners with fixed incomes, who do tend to be 60+)

            I get that you were just making a short comment and didn’t intend to go deep into the weeds on it, but I find these kinds of assumptions dangerous.

            • lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world
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              You did simplify, correct. I wouldn’t call it an accurate simplification, either. Thanks for clarifying that your assumption was out of turn

              • UltraMagnus@startrek.website
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                If you enter into debates with weak ad hominem arguments about someone’s age, you aren’t going to change minds and you will be steamrolled by anyone with an understanding of the topic.

                Skimming your recent posts, I don’t think our political views are particularly different, so it’s in both of our interests if you are using the best arguments possible on these topics. This was not an attack on you as a person, so your hostile response is unnecessary.

        • valek879@sh.itjust.works
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          My friend, when I was 22 I didn’t make enough to pay taxes. You’re getting downvoted because you’re defensive, aggro, and misunderstanding the premise.

          Very few people on Lemmy believe you’re actually stupid because you’re young. Often times just uninformed and, per your example, impulsive. “Young=naive” tends to be a regressive position. I think you’ll find Lemmy is typically a progressive website. Most of us left reddit over ideological/enshitification differences not because we were too radically right. .ml is among the exceptions.

          Anyway the premise isn’t 22 year olds are too dumb to worry about taxes.

          Instead the premise is that you’re too poor to worry about taxes. That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t but you likely won’t have anything worth taxing at that age. If you do have things worth taxing that young you either have inherited well, I’m sorry for your loss, or you are offspring of the 1%-0.0001% and were born with a silver spoon. Otherwise you’re the lowest on the totem pole and it’s been proven throughout the millennials growing up that you’re not going to get ahead if the status quo remains as it is. In theory you should be looking for the most radical change because you’ll see the greatest benefit over your lifetime.

          Anyway my friend, chill, touch grass and have a lovely day.

          And when it comes time to worry about taxes worth less about how much you’re paying and instead what you’re getting out of it. Paying taxes is pretty sweet when you get stuff in return like healthcare, schools, parks, places to get out and do things that don’t cost money, transit investment, bridges that don’t fall down. Taxes only such when you can’t see the impact it has in your life…like this moment in history right now where the rich own the government and want more money from us to improve their lives.

          • UltraMagnus@startrek.website
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            I think this is a more nuanced take on the situation. I would agree that folks who are directly impacted by an issue are more likely to be impacted by it. Original comment seemed too absolutist too me.

            I think there are 22yo who can be impacted by the issue of taxes while being poor (Though they may end up on the other side of the argument). For example, issues of food stamps and medicare-for-all affect all ages. A 22yo might have a strong opinion in favor of taxation for these purposes. A conservative making an ad hominem argument on the basis of age in this case (e.g., that they are simply being manipulated by the radical left) would be clearly incorrect.

            I also think, as more of a moral argument, you shouldn’t need to be directly impacted by something in order to support/oppose it. I am not on food stamps but I absolutely think we should have them (or perhaps “upgrade” it to UBI to avoid nonsense on what poor people are allowed to buy).

            In any case, dismissing someone as simply being manipulated is not a good approach in general. It could be a good approach when we are specifically talking about the person overselling on confirmation bias from ChatGPT, but it is a poor way to change minds as a general tactic.

            Is there any particular language I should adjust to avoid being “aggro”? I did say that I hated their argument. And I did call them hostile after their last sarcastic response to me trying to extend an olive branch.

            Is that going too far? “Touch grass” is about the same level, I would think, but I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be wrong again.

      • MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
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        Considering the lack of value we’re getting in return for these taxes, nah I’m pretty sure everybody should be upset about taxes. Other, better countries may pay more in taxes, but after accounting for the healthcare and worker rights that the taxes get them, they end up with more time and more money than most Americans.

        I met a local politician who, in my red area, just seemed like he was dancing around labeling himself a Democrat. The office was for basically money management in the area, and he was talking about optimizing the use of tax funds. I made it clear that I don’t really mind paying this tax rate, and I would even pay more, but only if it starts getting used on shit that matters like building another school because ours are getting overcrowded, and the area is growing whether we prepare or not. I said that even if I only cared about my own finances, that’s an investment that supports growth which would raise my property value, and it would attract new businesses to serve that growing population. Just plan for it so that it doesn’t grow out of control and become a shit hole with stupid intersection infrastructure and urban sprawl.

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        Everyone should be upset how this country has lies to its citizens for decades on the premise of it can’t “afford” free healthcare and education. It is not a generational problem, but a societal one.

        Yet half this country joyfully would wallow in their own shit if it means their neighbor suffers just the same as they are.

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      Ghost her, go no contact, on moral grounds.

      Sorry, you support a criminal fascist pedophile warmonger.

      Thats bad.

      You’re bad.

      Bye!

      … Its really not that complicated.

      You can make it complicated and go into ostracization as a means of effectint social change, of cutting someone off being a very costly form of socially signalling how serious you are about this…

      But its really not that complicated.

      • GutterRat42@lemmy.world
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        I feel like that would do more harm than good. It would just validate her views that leftists and liberals are intolerant of other viewpoints. I want bridges.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Leftists are intolerant of fascists who want to kill and harm innocent people for no good reason.

          Please go actually read the wiki page on the Paradox of Tolerance.

          Its a bit of a misnomer, its not actually a paradox. The solution is do not tolerate the intolerant, otherwise the intolerant win.

          Liberals are tolerant of fascists, which is why fascists are able to thrive, liberals attempt to take them seriously, defeat them in the battle of ‘ideas’, do battle with them in conventional ways which they essentially always fail out, because facists don’t abide by the norms or civility politics that liberals build their entire political identity out of.

          Their whole thing is breaking from all the liberal norms and standards, and liberals basically just continuously act ‘shocked pikachu face’ and aghast at every horrific thing a fascist says or does… while not resisting them in any actually meaningful way.

          You can’t make a bridge to a fascist. Doing that makes you either not a leftist, or a very very stupid one.

          Just go look into the history of fascist movements, this same pattern plays out every time. Liberals make concessions to fascists and move to the right, increasing overall societal harm.

          Leftists either vehemently oppose the fascists, or, in some instances, they attempt some kind of anti centrist alliance with the fascists out of expediancy, and then they nearly all get literally hunted down in the streets by the fascists if they do succeed at knocking out the center.

          You can’t logic a fascist into not being a fascist.

          They’re delusional cult members, they have ‘alternative facts’, and when they tire with those, they’ll wrap around to some other avenue of discussion, lies you already debunked.

          The only thing that can stop them is either ‘impolite’ means of resisting them, or just hoping the internal contradictions of their movement lead to its eventual implosion… without causing too much damage.

          And they usually cause a very significant amount of damage by the time they metastasize, and afterward.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Hah, well, given how frequently mine has directly ruined my life, betrayed me, and more recently, attempted to kill me, I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.

          Yeah, it would be a terrible weakness if I still loved or attempted to have any contact with a bunch of dysfunctional, violent, abusive narcissists.

          There’s a difference between ‘haters’ and ‘have directly tried to destroy you, multiple times’.

          And thats just how fascists ultimately act, the behavior they ultimately enable against their outgroup, or, as in this and every other ‘leopards ate my face’ type story… themselves, their ingroup, their own family.

          But hey I guess if your family is just ‘fascist-lite’, then I’m sure they’d never do anything to hurt you, right?

          Because theae morally bankrupt people, well, they love you, so its fine.

          Spoiler: If they’re actually fascists, they hate you and they want you to die.

          If they got into it as a fad, they’re too stupid to be trusted with any complex task, and will be that stupid again.

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      You have two choices:

      Put her down or call ICE.

      The former is more humane, but the latter would be a lot funnier.

      But seriously, I would just disconnect, or at most, I would ask her to have the chatbot provides sources and then ask her to pull them up.

      If her learning that it’s making up sources doesn’t get through to her, I wouldn’t try anymore. Just accept that she’s either going to have to come through it on her own, or she’ll just progressively get worse and worse, and you’ll have to decide if you want to stick around for that, I wouldn’t.

        • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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          Some liberals enjoy the idea of ICE being called on an immigrant that supported Trump or MAGA. America is such a police state that having a paramilitary presence in its cities is not consistently a problem for either side of the political spectrum there.

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      Ask what it would take to convince her.

      She will probably require something which is just not practically possible.

      If her assertion is not falsifiable, then its based on faith. You can’t argue with that.

      edit: I’ve thought about this a little bit more and realised that this approach won’t work with something nebulous like “my sister supports the Trump presidency”. It’s a good tactic with specific beliefs like “the Earth is flat”. Subjective statements like “Trump is the best president” are subjective statements of opinion.

      • Klear@quokk.au
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        This is a bit disingenuous. Convincing me that Trump is not an idiot would also require something that is not practically possible (namely him not being a total imbecile).

        • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          I think it’s implied to ask for what it would take to convince you if it were true. If you witnessed trump in a non prepared debate making salient points, clever logic and such, you figure he wasn’t actually an idiot, right?

        • fizzle@quokk.au
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          5 days ago

          If it were true that Trump is not an idiot then evidence of that would be practically possible.

  • switcheroo@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Not for any altruistic reasons, probably because no woman will touch them once they find out they’re a mysogynistic rapist-supporting bigot…

  • Scrambled Eggs @lazysoci.al
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    5 days ago

    Any reason for this? Higher education? Developing brain? I mean, whatever the reason, it’s good. I’m just curious as to why.

    • BanMe@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Half of Gen Z doesn’t remember a time when Trumpism wasn’t normal. They don’t know how the economy should be, how diplomacy should be, anything. They just heard Trump saying Biden was a pussy, and Biden acted like a pussy, so they believe Trump was the only reliable narrator. It took these people a great deal to overcome it - I heard a lot of younger people saying Trump was the peaceful, anti-war President. Now that they realize that was a lie, other dominoes are falling.

      • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 days ago

        This is the thing I fear with autocratic/fascists in this country. If your normalize it to the following generations they’ll accept it. Why it’s important to at least be loudly against it even if it’s online. Don’t let them ever control the narrative exclusively.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        I heard a lot of younger people saying Trump was the peaceful, anti-war President.

        This is such a big factor, imo.

        The democrats refuse to budge from this neocon position of “benevolent interventionism.” and Trump has been able to attack them over both parts of it, which allows him to appeal both to libertarian types who want to stay out of conflicts because “the government doing stuff is bad,” and to nationalist types who want to just overtly plunder everywhere (with his actual policy being the latter). Meanwhile the democrats just cast anyone who disagrees with them on foreign policy as a Russian bot. They’re stuck in the early 2000’s where there was overwhelming bipartisan support for “bringing democracy” to the Middle East, and they seem think if they can just pick up the “moderate Republican” neocon voters who definitely exist and still believe in that project, then they’re sure to win.

        The effect is that they fail to capitalize on the ideological divisions that exist on the right. The actual Republican voters that there would be a chance of peeling off are the libertarian anti-war types, but that would require actually trying to appeal to anti-war voters instead of treating them with contempt.

        • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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          4 days ago

          I don’t fully agree. There’s plenty of people on the Near Right that are primed for switching to Democrat as both parties marched to the Right. Some already have. The ones who haven’t are either held back by social pressure or Democrats position on Guns.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            4 days ago

            Clinton and Kamala both tried to appeal to that “near right” and failed. Social pressure isn’t going to magically disappear, I can agree with the point about guns but that just ties into what I’m saying. If anyone on the right can be appealed to, it’s the isolationist, pro-gun libertarian types. You will never win the nationalists, they already have a party that is giving them exactly what they want.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      5 days ago

      Charlie Kirk was a big gathering point for that age. Without him, they are rudderless, until somebody steps up to replace him, which will take time.

      Until then, it’s a perfect opportunity for Dems to employ their own propaganda, and steer these people in a better direction. Give them a strong warrior leader they can believe in, who isn’t an obvious phony like Newsome, and they’ll switch their allegiance. But the window of opportunity is short, and now that they see the momentum shifting their way, the Dems have to move fast to recapture them for the Midterms.

      It’s very possible to flip these voters, which could be most helpful in flipping barely red districts, but I also have great confidence in the Dems screwing up this golden opportunity.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      Shifting narrative, it’s part of the perpetual political swing.

      Shit is always going to suck, and people have attention spans that last maybe 3 years at the most. Shit is sucking right now, and people are associating that suckiness with the people and faces who appear on their TV.

      For further evidence of this very dumb, simple phenomenon, look at 2024 exit polling in the presidential election. Overwhelming results said that average Americans saw eggs and other basic necessity prices skyrocketing and connected that to Biden being in power, so the reaction is to over-correct and pick someone as far from Biden as possible. People weren’t thinking about policy, people don’t watch news or listen to debates. People get their information from 30 minutes of Facebook memes every sunday night while getting ready for bed.

      • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        People get their information from 30 minutes of Facebook memes every sunday night while getting ready for bed.

        Yup. People aren’t responsibly informed and I don’t see this changing without a major push to revamp our educational system to include courses in critical thinking and how to deal with misinformation. And I don’t see that happening. So I think we’re pretty well fucked.

  • LemUser@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Uhm, no thanks. MAGA are too stupid to become liberals. They don’t deserve forgiveness for what they’ve done to the country.

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    It’s still crazy how many people want to write them off as lost causes already.

    Those little idiots are going to be voting for decades, it’s insane to stop trying to bring them around.

    • foggy@lemmy.world
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      I genuinely can’t fathom how folks mad at gen Z voters don’t understand that their anger toward gen Z voters was equally manufactured as those gen Z voters support for Trump was.

      How fucking stupid.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        Meh.

        I 100% get being mad at really any random voting demographic.

        Like, pick a group. I got a bone to pick with them.

        My issue is people who fall for the oligarchs propaganda that want us to fight along their carefully manufactured battle lines instead uniting against the oligarchs like we need to.

        It’s why I’m such a broken record about wealth inequality. It’s the one thing that resonates with over 99% of Americans, it’s the obvious choice to use to unite the people against the oligarchs, and why they constantly have to manufacture other shit.

        We solve that, and no one’s pushing all the other shit as distractions, so it solves most of our issues at once.

        4 years under a progressive with support of the House and Senate and we wouldn’t even recognize America, and I mean that in a good way.

        • foggy@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          And if you don’t 100% get why fascism is here, revisit what you responded to I guess.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        Its all fucking stupid. Kids were memed into voting for a felon for president because the kids were stupid.

        The kids were stupid because the schools are underfunded and the parents are overworked trying to keep a roof over their heads. All as a result of Republican policy (but they’d never tell you that).

        Millennials at least had parents that were doing decent on 1-2 full-time jobs. Those who had all their parents working were latchkey kids before the social-media era.

        So now, we have a generation of kids, who are now adults, who got a shit education and no critical reasoning skills at all. They were raised by screens and babysat by Zuckerberg.

        Now they are idolizing the absolute worst people on the world. Between the constant dopamine drip from short-form videos and social media, the shit education (and the online finishing school thanks to COVID), and being raised by gen X and the early millennials…who are somewhat naive to how much the world has actually changed since their childhoods while also being pissed off about being fucked by boomers.

        What’s really scary is how the fuck we recover from that. It’s basically brainwashing on a generational level. An entire generation largely made up of thoughtless drones that puppet whatever they read from the biggest/wealthiest pop-star and/or chauvinist cumstains on the internet.

        And now, basically all of the legacy media (even the local news) is owned by the same clique of shitty billionaires, riding on Trump’s cock hoping to feel Putin’s thrusts.

        We are beyond fucked, my friend.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      So far, the Gen Zs that have entered Congress, like Max Frost, have been spectacularly successful. We need a lot more of them in government. They know they have the rare opportunity to steer America in an entirely new direction, and they are ready to go to WAR over it.

      I’ll take ANY Gen Z over that cowardly bitch Schmuck Schumer, any day.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      Good, we hate the establishment Dems too. Last thing we need is people flocking to the dems before the midterms, we need to empty that jug out and fill it with new people.

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      Eh. For people choosing to vote for a fascist or sit out the election, the better choice is to sit it out. We should accept the little victory of them not voting at all if the alternative was Trumpism

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      In this case, it still matters if they don’t vote since before this change they would have voted for conservatives

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    Realizing you got played like a fiddle makes you take a step back. I won’t hold my breath that we’ll see real change here, but the sheep are at least becoming concious of the wolves.

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      It’s just the nature of the population who will flock towards an authoritarian, they’re not making rational, thought-out choices, they’re JUST following a narrative of feelings. It could flip 180-degrees the next day and they will go with that new storyline if it validates their anger or frustration or just the need to follow a soap-opera of pundits and angry shouting people on TV.