Real rating: 4.5* of five

The US presidential election is a few weeks away. Many of my Boomer peers are, I fear, going to be very angry, and the young men they've knowingly toxified will take to the streets.

It will be futile.

The long-term trend, "the arc of the moral universe," is not on their side. This book shows that the overall age cohort, absent the targeted and radicalized men we insultingly call "incels" and other dismissive and emasculating nicknames, isn't getting the authoritarian message. They aren't doing what we did, sitting down at our desks and shutting our mouths, because the stupid greedy oldsters at the top stopped "sharing" the wealth. (That our labor created, but never mind that for now.)

You take away people's stake in the system, you throw away the stick you can beat them back into line with. The Jesus freaks and their co-religionists in the control cult have realized this and gone full theocracy in response. And the grim truth is staring at them from every young person's eyes: "NO." The word they hate the most. Good for the youth, I say. Stonewall in 1969 was my signal that I could say no. George Floyd's murder, #BLM #MeToo Roevember are theirs.

But the money is still going to do its bloody, vicious, destructive best to stay on top. The Russians, with their collaborators the City men in London, are swimming in money. These are deeply illiberal people with A LOT TO LOSE. Read some Bill Browder and Jessikka Aro, study up on Alexei Navalny and his fate, look into the reason the felonious (thirty-four convictions!) Cheeto-dusted grifter got installed in government housing in 2016. Hoping that'll happen at a different Pennsylvania address again soon...preferably White Deer, Pennsylvania, this time...like me? Pay sustained attention to this existentially threatening election.

That said, there's a lot of work to be done to mend fences with this embittered cohort of people. As Psychology Today reports in their article on the topic that refers to the author and her findings, "Gen Z Americans are interested in addressing specific issues rather than defending a party position. Whether or not they identify as liberal or conservative, they agree on the need for effective government solutions to major social challenges. The disagreements over more or less government intervention that underlie the polarized American political landscape of today are less visible amongst them."

If that is not a blaring klaxon for oldsters to Pay Bloody Attention I can't imagine what else could be. The existence of the GOP and the Democratic Party are not divinely ordained. This sclerotic duopoly is not the only possibility of goverment organization for the young who have witnessed the venality and callousness of both sides to the burgeoning crises around the world. I have to take a half-star off for the author's choice to leave this tendentious conclusion out of the book.

I do not want to understate the stakes of 45's hand-picked Supreme Court's ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215. This last-ditch effort to reduce women's right to full citizenship, ie bodily autonomy, as a means of social control, is probably going to galvanize young women to vote in large numbers. Thank all those useless gods for that. Every other facet of this horrible travesty of justice is sick-making.

The diversity of the activism of this age cohort is ethnic more than gender-based. The efforts to undermine the intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are meant to reduce the access to voting of the most radicalized women in this generational cohort.

The young could save us from the vast right-wing conspiracy referenced by Hillary Clinton in 1995, the one determined to reinstall the convicted felon in charge of the most powerful machinery of coercion on the planet, achieving their aim. I'm hopeful they can. The obstacles put on the way of their ability to do so, the deliberate and carefully calculated efforts to hive off the angriest, thus most likely to take action, young men from the predominant attitudes of their peers, could work...but only if we ignore their reality.

Don't sleepwalk into 1933 Germany's fate The threat to democracy, flawed and fucked-up as it is, is real.

NB links to sources and explanations are in the blogged review

As an educator with many Gen Z students, I was especially interested in this book. I teach mostly creative writing to teens outside of their regular classes and we regularly talk politics, especially because it shows up in their writing in various ways. Much of what Melissa Deckman’s research shows rings true when I think of my students, both past and present. With one huge exception: the instance on using binaries when breaking down the populations (i.e., Gen Z Women, Gen Z Men; LGBTQ+ and Straight). My students would argue (strongly and effectively) that this breakdown does not adequately make room for the true range of queer, trans, and nonbinary people in the gender choices. I hope a future paperback edition will include an update on Gen Z politics following the Democratic nomination of Kamala Harris for President.

Much of this tracks with what I've seen from my students over the recent years. With so many more young people paying attention to politics, it's good to start thinking about how that might affect our politics and strategies.

THE POLITICS OF GEN Z by Melissa Deckman describes "How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy." Deckman, political scientist and the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, looks at voters born between 1997 and 2012 and their growing political participation. She cites interviews and research supporting the increasingly left-leaning activism of women and those concerned with LGBTQ rights; and also notes that young men in this age cohort tend to be more conservative. An entire chapter looks at "gendered spaces" in relation to issues like gun violence, climate change, and income inequality. Almost half of the book is devoted to an Index, Notes section, and an extensive Methodological Appendix which includes data, statistics, and numerous graphs. Deckman's text is an academic one that uses surveys, focus groups, and social science research to argue "the gendered political revolution is underway. Its roots are deep..." For an excellent overview and summary of her arguments, here is an interview with Deckman from PBS NewsHour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PmEqH9_oaE

This book was a very interesting read and is a great foray into exploring Generation Z as a population and as a political force - one I haven't seen previously attempted. The research is well-executed, and I had no issues with reading the various charts and graphs presented on my Kindle Paperwhite.

I loved the wide array of interviews with members of Generation Z that the author was able to compile and present in this book. Explaining their histories, projects they have been involved with, and how they have interacted with politics throughout their lives is a very compelling way to study this generation. In my opinion, the moments where she ties together interviews with specific members of Gen Z and focus groups, the insights she shares from those conversations, and specific data points are where this book truly shines. I wish there had been slightly better weaving between those narratives and statistics rather than a page of straight data followed by a page of straight narrative.

The first of two major struggles I had with this book is the breakdown of her populations - Gen Z women, Gen Z men, Straight Zoomers and LGBTQ+ Zoomers. When she starts referencing the data segmented into these populations, she does not make apparent which identity she takes into account first. For example, does the "Gen Z women" group exist entirely outside of the sexual orientation question (as in, sexual orientation data was not gathered)? Or are we only looking at the gender of the respondents and ignoring a question about sexual orientation? When you go to the appendix, she does explain how she got an overall LGBTQ population number for these sub-groups which makes things easier to understand, but it may not be instinctive for many readers to flip to the end of the book for the answer to a question that presents itself in the very first chapter. While it is important to parse out straight vs. LGBTQ Zoomers given what the author explains about Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ at much greater rates than previous generations, it's presented a bit confusingly.

The second struggle I had was with the dates of her two national surveys - 2019 and 2022. The vast change in circumstances between those two years (Trump vs. Biden presidency, pre-pandemic vs. pandemic, etc.) sometimes made it hard to make the mental leap from the timing of one survey to another. For example, she mentions that Gen Z women were engaging in political activities at a higher rate than men in 2019, but the difference was statistically insignificant by 2022. She notes that in 2019, it was still the Trump presidency and the pandemic had not yet taken place and those factors may have had an impact on political participation. For me personally, it was sometimes hard to parse out what was a true evolution of Gen Z as politically involved individuals and what was purely a product of circumstance. Those differences are important to consider, as the author does, the mental leap might just be jarring to a reader.

Overall, this book has a very intriguing premise with well-developed research. I would recommend this book to those interested in the political power of Gen Z, particularly in the election cycle we now find ourselves in (writing this in August 2024). The author notes Gen Z will show up to vote when they have something to show up for, and I can't help but wonder how that will come into play in November.

The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy by Melissa Deckman is a great, in-depth look at how the politics, drive, and engagement of the newest voting bloc can (and will) change politics in America. This is such a refreshing look at our country and government today. It is also one of the most applicable resources I can find to be able to speak to younger students in class on the importance and power of their involvement and vote. This is one that I will certainly discuss and use in class.

I really enjoyed this book, but it was not well adapted for ebook. There were so many charts of data that would have been quite compelling, but on a Kindle it was random numbers all over the page with no labels or axis. In having a data driven book, it needs to be cross-compatible otherwise so much of the information is lost.