Memes

R.E. politics, the tail-end millennials (me) grew up during the death of education which I think is a huge factor. For every good part of our education was two dying branches of it. Funding going down, extracurriculars being cut, food quality going down, strikes in colleges for pay and I mean so, so many others. And I grew up in California where education was a heavy focus, especially for anyone who wanted to get out. But despite all the shortcomings of our education system, we had teachers who cared and some students who wanted to learn, these teachers were mostly all within a decade of my age now and so they were fairly young and politically minded. Some were Teach for America staff so they were literally just out of college, I'm sure many remember what it's like to have that mindset. We also grew up in the Obama years so we had the full range of "holy shit first black President representing us!" to "oh God he bombed Syria" which pretty heavily politicized us (and then we got Trump who appointed Betsy DeVoss as Sec. of Education which set that politicization further). I can't speak for all millennials of course but I feel like all this led to us being hyper-aware of our politics making it especially easy to see the insanity that Fox News peddles, and more recently the transition of CNN from biased but informational to Fox News lite. All in all it's a pretty strong foundation for young leftists to form some convictions.

It seems to me that Gen Z did not have these foundations by design. In 2016 with the appointment of Betsy DeVoss as Secretary of Education our school system was absolutely butchered. Fox News wasn't even under the guise of news anymore, it's just "pundit" talk shows providing "statistics" that they use to push hate. They grew up with the tail end of Obama culling any possibly early sense of hope that the millennials had. That apathy only further onset when Trump was elected, but not just apathy. Since in red states where the changes to education hit the hardest it became identity politics, now the identity of an individual has become politicized, something that has only been exacerbated by our media. IMO that's why the events of Kyle Rittenhouse went down how they did, a child was politicized by their area and family and instead of being politically minded about it they made it about some identity that doesn't exist. And nevermind the societal changes they grew up with, as they're the first generation to grow up fully inundated with technology and the Internet, getting barrages of >1 min clips that can never tell the full story.

I agree with you overall in that millennial and gen Z are closer generations than most, but I do think there are some important distinctions that likely influenced how each of these generations grow up to interact with the world. I also think that it seems likely that these polls probably won't get as many responses from certain demographics due to potential lifestyles. Someone in a liberal city may not answer the poll because they've got the city life to live, whereas someone who gets the poll and they're done with their school day and the neighbors are 40 minutes away.. sure, nothing better to do let's fill this out. So I don't think Gen Z is entirely set to be conservative, however I do think their elders have been heavily gearing up to try and brainwash them with their archaic mindset. I don't particularly see a reason why a group of highschoolers would campaign for conservatives otherwise.