Gen Z to GOP? Young People Are Fleeing From the “Demonizing” Democrats

“If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.” So goes the famous paraphrase of French politician Anselme Polycarpe Batbie (no, the line is not Churchill’s). Given this, what can we say upon learning of a surprising new phenomenon?

That is, young people are fleeing to the Republican Party.

Well, we don’t know if they’re brainy and heartless, and, in truth, they may not even always be “conservative.” For sure, however, is that they may have the smarts to realize that today’s Left has, well, left sanity.

But this gets at a central question: How much of this movement reflects substantive change? And how much is just attributable to youthful faddishness and rebelliousness?

A Sea Change

The Western Journal reported on this story recently, writing:

A Yale Youth Poll from the spring of 2025 … revealed that although young people between the ages of 22 and 29 favored the Democratic candidate in their home congressional district for the 2026 election by a margin of about six points, those aged 18 and 21 favored the Republican candidate in their home district by almost 12 points.

That’s a massive shift from years past, when younger voters in high school and college were virtually a lock for liberals. Has the left finally gone too far?

In a piece outlining the poll with various quotes from student leaders, The Washington Times wrote that the tide is indeed turning.

“The youngest eligible voters lean more conservative when it comes to other social views as well,” the story read. “They’re less likely to support transgender athletes in women’s sports and oppose more aid to Ukraine.”

This shift has already manifested itself in elections, too. The Democratic youth vote declined from 61 percent in 2020 to 55 percent in 2024, per data analysts at Catalist. Moreover, the party has lost 2.1 million registered voters (especially young men), while Republicans have gained 2.4 million. This reflects a devastating Democratic registration crisis in most of the country (30 states).

Conservatism Now Cool?

Looking at these numbers, you could think at work was a social media phenomenon: The “Turn Republican Challenge.” (Now, there’s an idea!) As The Washington Times writes, however, explaining the youth-related political shift:

“It’s starting to feel cool to be a conservative now,” 19-year-old Kieran Laffey said.

… “Younger people all over the country are kind of waking up,” said Mr. Laffey, a junior studying political science at George Washington University in the District of Columbia and chair of the GW College Republicans.

… “Everything we’ve seen for the past, even decade, people like myself, young, White male, we’ve been completely demonized and almost hated and told that somehow we’re wrong, we’re racist or sexist,” he said.

This helps explain why it’s young men in particular who’ve moved “right.” In contrast, young women have perhaps become even more left-wing, resulting in a historic intersex ideology gap. (Note, too, that women are, as a rule, more liberal in general.)

Misinformation?

Not ranking high in self-awareness, however, some liberals have a different take. They, the Times continues,

blame the emergence of young conservatives on the chronic use of smartphones and computers, where they say misinformation and disinformation run rampant.

“Technology is everywhere, right at your fingertips, with TikTok and all that stuff,” said Ryan Gaire, 19, president of the College Democrats chapter at Binghamton University in New York. “You can just see blatant misinformation, and it’s not called out anymore.”

Of course, this is untrue. All sorts of misinformation is called out by all sorts of people. That’s the nature of the internet; it’s rich in claims, counterclaims, lies, and Truth. Whether a given person possesses the discernment to separate the wheat from the chaff is a different matter.

In fact, the Truth is the opposite of Gaire’s assertion. It was far harder to call out misinformation in pre-internet days, when the “mainstream” media still was mainstream. (In the mid-’70s, the alphabet networks controlled more than 90 percent of the TV market. Now that figure is 19 percent.) Back then, they could completely shape the “narrative”; they controlled the flow of information itself. And how could you refute falsehoods? Write a “letter to the editor”?

No newspaper had to publish it; they published what they pleased.

Call in to your local radio or TV station?

They didn’t have to air your grievances, and they almost never did.

Today, though, vox populi can be broadcast at a button’s touch.

What’s more, the erstwhile mainstream media are no stranger to peddling misinformation. Has Gaire ever heard of the Hunter Biden laptop story? Has he heard of New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty in the 1930s?

Conservatism Won’t Always Be Cool, but Truth Will Always Be True

The reality is that, unlike decades ago, young people and others can access the internet and, if they’re sincere and discerning, learn where the Truth actually lies. And many are. “Truth” is the key word here, too.

It’s not surprising hearing Laffey say it feels “cool to be a conservative now.” For young people are known for rebelling against the establishment. And they are today rebelling against an establishment — media, entertainment, academia, etc. — that’s “left-wing.” A question arises, however:

What will happen if the establishment one day becomes “right-wing”? Will they again then gravitate toward “leftism”?

The point is that we shouldn’t “swing” from one party or ideology to another based on who’s “telling us what to do” at the moment. (This is how kids end up rebelling against both bad and good parents. It’s how we end up rejecting both bad and good advice.) Rather, we should oppose any establishment, or fringe, that advances lies. But to do this, to identify lies reliably, we must know Truth.

What can happen when you don’t? Well, the Democrats have been criticized in recent years for having no agenda apart from hating President Donald Trump and MAGA. They’re now ever and always rebelling based on hate, not building led by love. It brings to mind a G.K. Chesterton quotation, too.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,” he wrote in 1911, “but because he loves what is behind him.”

So be a true soldier. The only thing worth loving here, however, and the only thing that won’t be fickle and abandon you, is Truth. Center yourself around it, and you’ll know when to go with the establishment and when to go against it. You won’t always be a rebel — but you will always be right.