Gen Z Not As 'Stupid' As Kamala Thinks? They're Not Buying 'Popularity Contest' Dems Trying to Sell

One of the ways in which the internet is coming back to bite Kamala Harris is a resurfaced video from 2020, where she called 18-24-year-olds "stupid." She stated that that age group, collectively known as "Gen Z," "makes really bad decisions." Most of us will concede to more than a few ill-timed, ill-thought-out choices at that time in our lives. But both Democrats and Republicans are making sure to pay attention to young people this election cycle. And politically, young people in 2024 may be weighing the options of who to vote for a lot more closely than Harris is giving them credit for.

My name is Noah Formica. I am a Gen Z Republican from Pennsylvania.

So far this year I have registered 650 voters. My goal is to register 1000 by the end of the year. I am going to do everything I can to help turn Pennsylvania RED! 🔴 pic.twitter.com/2fnwrYxxug
— Noah Formica (@NFormicaGOP) April 15, 2024

Eann Tang is a 20-year-old student at the University of Illinois. Like a lot of young people, Tang once supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. But for Tang and a lot of his peers, those days are over. During an appearance on "Fox & Friends" on Sunday, Tang told co-host Lawrence Jones that Gen Z voters are "sick" of the Democrats' approach to winning young people's votes as just a "popularity contest." He and other voters his age are looking for substance this election cycle, he explained.

Tang stated that the TikTok campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and her rallies, where celebrities and pop stars are brought in to woo young voters, are just not working with young people who are increasingly worried about real issues like an economy that will only be detrimental to them.

Young people like me, we don’t just want to see these TikTok videos of politicians with celebrities. Young people today — we are no longer buying that because [of] what we have seen in the past three-and-a-half years by the Kamala administration, even though she’s acting like she’s not in charge of the fiasco that we’re seeing — but young people like me, we are just sick of seeing how — while, yeah, you’re a politician and it’s not a popularity contest — young people like me, we are no longer buying this popularity contest approach, and we are just appalled to see the state of the United States of America right now.

From NPR - “Young Black voters are becoming more conservative than their parents.”
https://t.co/6gIE0p1LWl
— Free (@KaladinFree) August 19, 2024

Eann Tang may have also given the generation he and his contemporaries will take care of a bit of microscopic hope when he stated that it is not just their financial futures that Gen Z is concerned with but also the shift Democrat policies are having on the culture. Democrats assume that young people are completely on board with the radical agenda of transgenderism, men playing in women's sports, and feminine products in boys' bathrooms. Tang stated bluntly what Democrats don't seem to get or are just ignoring is that young men are trending conservative because of such policies.

As a young voter myself, I’m just appalled by everything. I’m only 20 years old but it’s already heartbreaking for me to see America right now in ruins, that we are seeing the Left just going from extremism to extremism to extremism. And one key, big issue, like how we measure the economy, it’s not just the economy that we are concerned about, it’s the whole culture that’s been shifting, that’s been radicalized, in fact.

Tang stated that what brought him out of socialism is perhaps what other young people are beginning to do: a little research into just exactly what he was supporting. He added:

I came to realize that it’s just a blanket promise for votes. That these policies, that they are no longer afraid to call themselves "socialists." These socialist policies have just ruined countries, they ruin families, and they just put everything in shambles.

Obvious campaign gimmicks like student loan forgiveness may be enticing for some young voters in the short term, but many of them are finding out that it is not the easy fix Democrats touted it to be. A recent study of the household finances of student loan borrowers showed that, while their student loans might be paid off, they are accruing other forms of debt like car loans and credit card debt, essentially trading one debt for others. Not a good economic incentive for Eann Tang and other young voters to vote Democrat.

Kamala Harris might think Gen Z is stupid, but more and more of them are recognizing a defective product when they see one.