iGen
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Figure 10.8. Percentage of 12th graders who agree that individuals or the government will need to take action to help the environment. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
Why would iGen’ers, so liberal on other issues, be more likely to oppose gun control, national health care, and government environmental regulation? Given iGen’ers’ reputation as a liberal bunch, these seeming anomalies in their political views beg for an explanation. How can this set of beliefs coexist?
But they do: in the Libertarian Party. Libertarians put the individual first and are opposed to government regulation. Just like iGen’ers, Libertarians support equal rights for everyone. They support legal abortion and legal marijuana on the principle that government should not restrict individual rights. For the same reason, Libertarians also oppose restrictions on guns and government regulations on the environment. The idea is: get your laws off my body, my stuff, and my guns, and let me do what I please. Libertarians favor the free market over government programs, so they are also opposed to a national health care system (and they go even further in their 2016 party platform, calling for the elimination of the income tax and Social Security). Although Libertarians once took no position on the death penalty, they now oppose it as an instance of government overstepping its bounds.
So across six political issues—legalizing marijuana, abortion, the death penalty, gun control, national health care, and government environmental regulation—iGen’ers are more likely than previous generations to favor the liberal position on three and the conservative position on the other three. But they are more likely than their predecessors to favor the libertarian position on all six.
This makes perfect sense: iGen takes the individualistic mind-set for granted, and libertarianism is as close to cultural individualism as can be found in the political arena. Liberals tend to be individualistic about equal rights issues (say, same-sex marriage) but collectivistic about social programs (government-sponsored health care). Conservatives are individualistic about social programs (thinking people should help themselves) but collectivistic about equal rights issues (thinking traditional roles often work out better). But libertarians are individualistic about both. As the 2016 Libertarian Party platform preamble states, “As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. . . . The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.” That’s cultural individualism in a nutshell. In 2017, 24-year-old conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren found herself at odds with her antiabortion employer The Blaze after she said, “I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government, but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies. Stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.” She responded to criticism of her seemingly contradictory views by tweeting, “I speak my truth . . . I will always be honest and stand in my truth. . . . I have moderate, conservative, and libertarian views. I’m human. I will never apologize, to anyone, for being an independent thinker.” Lahren’s views may not be consistent with either liberalism or conservatism, but they are completely consistent with individualism—and not particularly surprising for someone born in 1992.
There are two exceptions to iGen’ers’ libertarian, small-government philosophy, and they’re big ones: iGen’ers and the Millennials are more likely than older generations to want college education and child care to be funded by the government. Over-time data on this question are scant, so we have to rely on one-time polls that don’t separate age from generation. Still, the numbers are striking: 43% more iGen’ers and Millennials support free universal child care and prekindergarten programs than do Boomers, and 70% more support free college tuition (see Figure 10.9).
Figure 10.9. Percentage who agree that the government should fund education programs, by age group. Gallup Poll, April 2016.
When CNN interviewed college student body presidents in 2016, all said that tuition costs were students’ primary political concerns. “The biggest issue students face today deals with college tuition and student loans—it becomes unaffordable for students,” said Seth Ward, the student government president at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. “It keeps us from being able to continue college.” Ward doesn’t think college should be entirely free—“Students should have some money put into it, because when you put something into anything, you’re more willing and more likely to work harder for it.” Abraham Axler, student council president at the University of Virginia, said, “I think we need free education. Does that mean a four-year liberal arts college education for everybody? Probably not. [But] every student coming out of high school should be able to improve their skills past the age of 18.”
Free college tuition at public universities was one of Bernie Sanders’s main proposals during the 2016 Democratic primaries, likely a key reason for his strong support among young voters despite his own advanced age. There’s also a generational irony here: when Boomers were in college, public universities (for example, in California) were tuition free for residents. California introduced tuition slowly, starting with the imposition of “fees” during the 1970s after persistent efforts by the governor at the time: Ronald Reagan. In virtually every state, tuition at public colleges has far outpaced inflation, and Millennials and iGen’ers face hefty student loan balances.
However, even some liberals are uncertain about this iGen and Millennial view of “free stuff” from the government. On his show Real Time, liberal boomer comedian Bill Maher pointed out that young people today have no memory of the former Soviet Union and instead associate socialism with “images of naked Danish people on a month-long paid vacation.” He traces iGen’s attraction to socialism to what he sees as handouts from their parents (“We’ve accepted that the new normal is people in their twenties and even thirties still on their parents’ cell phone plans, health care plans, Mom and Dad still paying the car insurance”) and the everything-is-free nature of the Internet (“If you add up all of the free things the under-40 crowd is used to getting, from the quick jerk at work to being able to sit in Starbucks all day for the price of a scone, from music, to Wi-Fi, to birth control, it’s not such a jarring proposition that socialism comes along and says you are entitled to free stuff”). He ends with a variation on the classic grumpy-old-man “get a job” advice for young people: “I’m a baby boomer. I think the natural order of things is to pay for music I like. Not to do so doesn’t make you a revolutionary—it makes you the person who goes to the bathroom when the check comes,” he says. “That . . . must be why there’s this proliferation of websites like Kickstarter and GoFundMe. Go fund me? Go fund yourself.”
A headline-grabbing 2015 poll found that 18- to 24-year-olds were more likely to hold a favorable view of socialism than of capitalism (58% approved of socialism and 56% of capitalism). iGen’ers’ and Millennials’ support for Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, seems to confirm their comfort with the concept. Several observers theorized that this is because young people don’t know what “socialism” means—when asked instead if they favor a “government managed economy” (a definition of socialism), only 32% said yes.
iGen’ers’ and the Millennials’ attraction to socialism might be based in their youth—young people rarely earn much—or in their perception that the economic system is rigged against them (as we saw in chapter 7). As iGen’ers grow older and start to earn more, it will be interesting to see whether their libertarianism or their socialism proves to be the stronger influence. Although libertarianism and socialism are opposing political philosophies—one wants small government and the other large government—they tap two of the forces shaping iGen’ers: their individualism and their economic fears. iGen’ers’ financial fate may in the end determine their political views.
I Just Don’t Trust You, and I Don
’t Want to Get Involved
College student Breeon Buchanan sits in a booth in a Philadelphia diner in July 2016, talking to a CBS News reporter. He’s African American, wearing a red-and-navy-blue-striped polo shirt and sporting a beard. Like many iGen’ers, he has a lot of questions about the election. “What are we going to do to actually fix it?” he asks about the state of the country. “What will [the candidates] do by November that’s actually going to motivate [young people] to vote—to get them ready and excited? What’s going to push us? Because right now there’s a lot of indifference.”
Breeon is right—except that “indifference” might be an understatement. iGen is disconnected, dissatisfied, and distrustful of government and the political process—perhaps more than any other modern generation.
iGen is very dissatisfied with the state of the country. The percentage of 12th graders who say that institutions such as education, government, the news media, large corporations, and religious organizations are doing a good job reached an all-time low in 2014—lower than after Watergate, lower than at the peak of violent crime in the 1990s, and lower than during the Great Recession of 2007–2009 (see Figure 10.10).
Figure 10.10. Percentage of 12th graders who believe that institutions are doing a good or very good job. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
“I do not believe that the U.S. government is doing a good job—in fact I believe they are doing one of the worst jobs in history,” wrote Antonio, 20. “I look at political debates and congressional hearings and all I can see is people who do not care about our country and who are willing to act like foolish teenagers throwing a fit in order to make sure that the other side does not get what they want. It’s like a war zone to see who can make sure the other party fails faster.”
It’s not just iGen’ers: the same trend appears among adults of all ages in the General Social Survey. There, the percentage who said they had “a great deal of confidence” in thirteen institutions (including the press, education, medicine, and government) averaged 21% in 2014, the lowest in the history of the survey, which goes back to 1972, and remained low in 2016. That explains something about the crazy election year of 2016, doesn’t it?
iGen’ers don’t just believe the government isn’t working; many have also lost trust in government. High school seniors are less likely to say they trust the government, less likely to believe the government is run for the people (as opposed to the big interests), and less likely to believe that the people running the government are honest, with all three at all-time lows (see Figure 10.11). Trust in the government has been sliding for a while, which should put to rest persistent rumors that Millennials trust government more than previous generations did.
Figure 10.11. Percentage of 12th graders who trust government. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
An October 2016 poll found that young people who agreed with statements similar to these were less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton, perhaps another reason young people’s support for her was lower than anticipated. “I don’t really trust anyone in the government because it’s clear from even just this election cycle that pretty much every person who has any power or status at all in the government is bought and paid for already,” wrote Logan, 20. “No way would I ever trust someone to do something in government that doesn’t directly benefit them in some obvious way.” Brianna, 19, agrees. “Most politicians are barely better than criminals. They are in the pockets of lobbyists for campaign donations and could not give a single fuck about their constituents,” she wrote. “Just look at how many politicians become lobbyists themselves, using their connections to make more money! The fact that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the nominees this year just goes to show how rotten the system is.”
iGen’ers are also less interested in government than previous generations. That’s especially intriguing because confidence and trust in the government were very low in the early 1990s, but interest in government was high. GenX’ers in the early 1990s distrusted the government and didn’t think it was doing a good job but were interested in what was going on. iGen’ers’ combination of low trust and low interest in government is unique (see Figure 10.12 and Figure 10.11). Perhaps iGen’ers are so distrustful of government that they don’t see the point in being interested. Chandler, 21, feels that way. “I’m typically not interested in government affairs unless I have reason to believe it directly impacts my life,” he wrote. “I find that the corruption of politicians negates any interest I would have in the issue.”
Although iGen’ers are uninterested in government, they are a little more interested in social problems than early Millennials were. So iGen’ers have more interest in what’s going on in the world but less interest in government. The two attitudes usually rise and fall in tandem, but for iGen’ers they have become disconnected (see Figure 10.12). It’s yet another indication that they don’t want to have much to do with government. For iGen, change will come from individuals, not from the government. There are also some signs of life in the college survey, where students in 2016 rated the importance of “keeping up with political affairs” at the highest level since 1992 (see Appendix I).
Figure 10.12. Percentage of 12th graders who are interested in government and in social problems. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
You might think that iGen’ers’ heightened interest in social problems and political affairs would translate into action—writing to your representative to Congress, say, or participating in a demonstration. However, iGen’ers are actually less likely to take political action: political participation reached all-time lows in 2014 and 2015, with fewer saying they had written or would be willing to write to a public official, fewer saying they had participated in a demonstration, fewer who had worked for or donated to political campaigns (see Figure 10.13). Brianna says she does follow politics—but doesn’t get involved. “I just find politics fascinating, the way some people enjoy sports,” she wrote. “All the wheeling and dealing is fun for me. However, I don’t translate my interest into anything more than reading about it or posting on Reddit. I don’t protest or write my congressman and I don’t get actively involved in campaigns. I’m just here to gawk and complain.”
Figure 10.13. Percentage of 12th graders who have or probably will participate in political action. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
Earlier, we heard from Charlie, who explained why he’s a “proud liberal Democrat.” Yet, he said, “I have never written to a politician or got involved in politics because it is all a dirty game. Even those claiming to be liberals and democrats, they have agendas and propagandas. I think politics is all about money . . . . Life is too short to spend it worrying about politics and politicians.” Rob, the libertarian conservative who figured out his beliefs through online quizzes, mentioned another characteristically iGen reason for not getting involved: safety. “With all the crazy fighting in the streets of Bernie Sanders supporters and Trump supporters, I really didn’t feel like going to any events or rallies,” he wrote.
Many iGen’ers are deeply cynical about whether they can have any personal impact on politics and government—the political component of the more personal locus of control we discussed in chapter 7. The number of 12th graders who think that voting or citizen action groups can have any effect on government is near all-time lows. iGen’ers are more likely to think that nothing really helps, so there’s no point in getting involved. “I do not participate [in politics] because it does not really make a change,” wrote Justin, 21. “Look at how many people believed in Bernie Sanders. Mass amounts of people were out supporting him but Hillary still won the lead.”
But do they vote? Voting is a small commitment compared to political activism, so perhaps the trends would be different. For a long time, it was rumored that Millennials—those immediately preceding iGen—would raise youth voter turnout to unprecedented levels and transform politics. That transformation didn’t happen, though there was a slight uptick: the voter turnout of 18- to-24-yea
r-olds was 2 percentage points higher in the presidential election years when Millennials dominated that age group compared to GenX. However, Millennial presidential election year turnout was still 3 percentage points less than that of Boomers at the same age (see Figure 10.14).
Figure 10.14. Voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds, presidential election years and midterm election years. Current Population Survey, 1972–2014.
More concerning, youth voter turnout in midterm election years has steadily declined. 2014 was the first midterm election year in which iGen’ers could vote, and youth voter turnout, like so many other things related to iGen and government, reached an all-time low: 33% fewer iGen’ers voted in the 2014 midterm election than did Boomers at the same age voting in midterm elections (22% fewer than GenX’ers and 18% fewer than Millennials). Voting has not suffered the steep declines of other types of political participation, but iGen’s first outing at the voting booth in 2014 did not go well. Early results from 2016 suggest little change, with youth voter turnout about the same as in the previous presidential election year of 2012.
Not a Huge News Fan
So iGen’ers don’t want to have much to do with government and politics and don’t believe that getting involved will make a difference. Yet, as we saw in chapter 6, sometimes iGen’ers will at least talk the talk even if they don’t walk the walk; they will consume information even if they don’t act. After all, they have access to information from more sources than any previous generation, from the Internet to cable news channels to talk radio. Typically, “news junkies” get their news from more than one source: they’ll watch TV news, read stories online, and listen to the radio to get different angles on a story. Those who are highly interested in the news will also consume it more often. By these measures—the frequency and diversity of sources of news consumption—iGen’ers are considerably less informed than their predecessors. As the generations turned from GenX to Millennials to iGen, the number of 8th and 10th graders who got the news often and from several sources fell from three out of four to barely one out of two (see Appendix I).