Donald Trump is facing a sharp backlash from young voters, with new polling showing his approval rating among Generation Z has dropped to one of its lowest points yet.

The latest YouGov/Yahoo poll, conducted between June 26-30 among 1,597 adults, shows that among Gen Z voters, his net rating has deteriorated sharply, falling from -23 points in May to -41 points in June.

Net ratings do have a tendency to swing much more than a simple approval rating. Still, the president’s approval rating in June is low, at 27 percent. The margin of error is at plus or minus 3.2 percent.

Lucas Walsh, a youth political behavior expert and professor at Monash University, told Newsweek that Trump’s falling support among Gen Z voters may reflect how young people “respond to issues rather than party allegiances.”

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      The polling numbers after the election were horrifying. GenZ are like the Hitler Youth of today. Not just voting Trump because their parents were Republicans and influenced their political outlook, but enthusiastically embracing Trump because of memes and TikTok, not actually considering the consequences carefully.

      It’s shameful, because even though most GenZ kids were not old enough to vote, they were almost old enough to vote back in 2016 when Trump took office the first time. It’s not like they are looking back at the early years of politics from their childhood fondly, they were definitely old enough to be able to see how destructive he was.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Gen Z was explicitly not taught how to read properly. It’s very difficult to not be conspiracist and think it was on purpose. Phonics was thrown out entirely for years. Teachers spoke up about it not working, and were forced to work the programs anyway.

      • Vespair@lemmy.zip
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        11 hours ago

        Nah, right wingers have been actively targeting young people for decades, and still do now. They’re literally playing Roblox with your children.

        Want to know why there were so many conservative Gen Zs? Gamergate.

        We can’t pretend this is just passive, from the parent kind of stuff. The right has and continues to actively target children in their spaces in ways that us on the left just have too much integrity to. I’m not saying we should start counter-indoctrinating children, but we need to be realistic and honest with ourselves about the situation.

        • Wytch@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          That movement has done so much damage, there isn’t a hole deep enough to throw manosphere influencers into

          • WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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            4 hours ago

            I love that there’s one single limp-dicked subhuman incel piece of shit impotently downvoting this whole situation. 😅

            Off yourself, shithead.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              Combine them with fracking, use them as “tampons” to plug the wells, sop up the pollution

            • P1k1e@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Well the oceans already pretty bad. How bout we chopper them out to the plastic island and they can live on its surface, choking on old coke bottles for sustainance?

      • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        What the fuck is wrong with kids listening to their shitty parents?

        /I know a lot of people get raised wrong in households that teach them wrong things and it takes a lot of effort to get better, but… it’s pretty astounding to me to imagine someone listening to their parents tell them that Donald fucking Trump is a Cool Guy.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          13 hours ago

          Kids have little in the way of influence outside of their parents up until they’re in their teens, and they take stuff at face value without questioning it too much.

          On the one hand, this is great because a kid can ask a question, get an honest answer, and accept it as fact. This is why every generation seems more socially progressive than the last. You tell a kid that men can love other men, women can love other women, and that sometimes people are born in the wrong body, and they go “Oh, okay. That makes sense.” And now that’s part of their understanding of how the world works.

          On the other hand, if a kid is surrounded by their MAGA parents and their parents’ MAGA ride or die friends, they’ll grow up thinking that Trump is right and everybody else is bad. Conservative households especially foster a cult-like mentality it seems, where questioning the beliefs hoisted upon them by their parents is out of the question, and I feel that that has something to do with the conservative mentality. They always accuse progressives of brainwashing and indoctrinating the youth because that’s their relationship with their own kids. My dad grew up in a very conservative household and it wasn’t until he went to college and both got away from his parents as well as met people who grew up in different circumstances than he did that his beliefs completely 180’d.

        • CorruptCheesecake@lemmy.world
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          24 hours ago

          I bought into my dad’s Fox News talking points at like 15, but I grew out of it. The idea that a grown adult is still parroting their parent’s political views is so weird to me.

    • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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      I think people forget that the 19 year olds voting for him were 10 when the “Grab ‘em by the pussy” shit happened. Not that it’s an excuse to not pay attention but a lot of the people who voted for him didn’t have the benefit of hindsight and spent the entire pandemic alone in their rooms listening to Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate.

      • Charapaso@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Yeah, and it also feels “forever ago” when you’re that age. Literally half their lives. So I could understand them thinking it’s “old news”, but when you’re an old and crusty 40 year old, you know that a 60 someone saying heinous shit means that person is deeply twisted.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      I was just at lunch, the table next door had a bunch of Trump gear on, even the teenagers. I overheard bits of conversation and it was totally normal stuff, which makes me wonder what attracts people to such a gross person

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        21 hours ago

        If you’re just watching the evening news and not looking into things further, Trump is not painted in such as light as we see in say articles linked here on Lemmy. Abrego Garcia? Well that was just one mistake. Mistakes happen right? I’m sure they’ll fix it. Then you move on with the rest of your life without giving it more thought. I think that is how seemingly “normal” people buy into this.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            Last night I had a three hour call with my conservative brother where he explained an entirely different world than what I live in. Many of their choices are not as horrible if you accept their alternate facts. That’s the real problem, alternate reality.

            Although here’s a wholesome tale for the Lemmings …… he was complaining about the parents and grandparents, the boomers in my family, believing in all this “woke nonsense”. I don’t know how he thinks I’d sympathize with his reality

        • can_you_change_your_username@fedia.io
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          17 hours ago

          There’s also a degree to which conservative media and conservative culture teach their people to act like they are more inline with the mainstream. There’s old stuff that’s been going on forever like using coded language so they talk about an “urban problem” instead of openly saying that black people are the problem or they’ll talk about “New York people” instead of openly saying that Jewish people are the problem. If you haven’t been exposed to that then some of what they’re saying can sound somewhat reasonable.

          Then there is the “respect” thing. Conservative parents are big about emphasizing how you say something over what you say. So they’re fine with saying that disabled people should just die as long as it’s not phrased that way. It should sound more like “It’s sad that some people are sick but there are only so many resources and we need to put them where they’re most productive. Hopefully their family can take care of them.” It’s more etiquette than real respect but they make a big deal out of it.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      Gen Z was around 12-27 years old during the election. I think part of it could honestly be due to brain development.

        • MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works
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          21 hours ago

          Supporting the conservative party which seeks to undo progress and maintain the status quo as a form of “rebellion” is so goddamn typical of idiot kids. The elderly and young people agree on one general stance: “idk wtf you’re talking about and I absolutely don’t like it or want it.”

          The shrink of our memories and attention spans will have been our undoing. It’s probably already over, and it’ll be another 50 years or so before people realize it. Idk if we can ever recover from all of this, so I’m just gonna drink and play video games between chores today instead of watching for current events.

          It’s important to take breaks from the doom and gloom. We can take a day off from rearranging deck chairs once in a while. We owe it to ourselves.

          • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            13 hours ago

            They’re not doing it to be contrarian. They’re doing it because the Republican party has spent more time than they’ve been alive establishing themselves as the anti-establishment party as well as the victims, and the good ol’ fascist play of giving young men disillusioned with the bad things in their lives an easy target to blame rather than blaming the people who are actually at fault - the Republicans.

            There are 40±year-olds who were surprised when Rage Against the Machine didn’t support Trump. What machine did they think they were raging against? The Democrats of course, well known for being the party of the establishment and the status quo. Not like those scrappy Republicans, looking out for the common man while the Dems look down from their big-city ivory towers with disdain.

            • PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world
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              11 hours ago

              “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.“ It also revolves around this aspect too.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The memes were legit funny.

      You have to realize the joke is your country for the memes to be less funny.

    • peregrin5@piefed.social
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      When you’re young you want to rebel against the establishment. They are being told the establishment wants rights for women and gays and men’s rights are being taken away. So they are going the opposite direction to be contrarian. Unfortunately young men at that age have very little empathy for anyone else. They have to know what’s in it for them.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      21 hours ago

      Didn’t his son turn him on to TikTok, where I assume he got a bunch of Gen Z voters? I assume all these q-tips in Florida aren’t on there.