No cap, Gen Z ‘influencers’: Your Biden skrrt is big yikes
Don’t be sus. Understand the assignment.
Jeffrey Denny
“Gen Z influencers who supported Biden in 2020 turn against him.”
So says a June 20 Washington Post headline on a warm hug piece by Millennial reporter Taylor Lorenz.
The subhead explains, “The Gaza war, lack of progress on climate change and a potential TikTok ban are spawning anti-Biden content — even among former supporters.”
Gen Zs are also meh that Biden’s an old cis white Western patriarch politician. He failed to erase student debt, lower rents, ease homelessness and poverty, or protect reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.
Lorenz quotes Gen Z for Change founder Aidan Kohn-Murphy, 20, schooling old Post readers about why his powerful youth coalition hadn’t yet endorsed Biden’s reelection.
“Biden is out of step with young people on a number of key issues,” he proclaimed. “[T]he frustrations of young progressive leaders [evince] a barometer of widespread dissatisfaction among Gen Z voters.”
All I can text is: yo bffr bruh
Youth advocates teach me to respect powerful youth voices, no matter how eyerolling from the generation that eyerolls like no other.
I try to be supportive, even coddling, to empower their self-esteem. You know, because of everything Gen Z is going through like nobody ever has. Even if coddling harms their ability to do life.
Like all inspired elders, I hear and heed their embryonic views on the political issues of the day. While recognizing and respecting 1) their historically low voter turnout because, say they, voting’s hard, they’re too busy, and politicians disappoint them by failing to deliver their demands; and, 2) how science says human brains don’t fully form until our mid-20s, yet we need to indulge their naivety and even crimes.
Yet I accept that as a Boomer, I couldn’t possibly understand today’s enlightened youth who care more about humanity than any generation in the 300,000 years of humanity.
But let me ask in the most sensitive way:
Why in the Samuel L. Jackson motherfuckin’ fuckidy fuck fuck would Gen Z “influencers” tacitly help reelect Trump because Biden failed to fulfill their utopian agenda?
Why would they haughtily and blithely be part of halting, even rolling back, everything they fervently protest about? And help destroy the democratic system they need and use to advocate for change?
Wake up, wokies! Voltaire and Spiderman’s Uncle Ben says with great power comes great responsibility!
Sorry real sorry.
Excuse my italics (the bendy text) and use of aggressive, intense, hurtful words and extreme punctuation like I’m yelling and disrespectfully talking down.
I don’t mean to be extra and do violence to anyone’s agency and make them uncomfortable or anxious because I question their truth.
But (using a soft, slow, patronizing preschool teacher reading voice) how can brilliant Gen Z influencers be so blind — sorry, “persons with vision impairment”— to not see how they’re playing straight into the hands of a proven criminal tyrant and danger to our nation who’s already planning his revenge, retribution and dictatorship starting on Day One?
And excuse me, my dear Mr. Kohn-Murphy, with all due respect, can you really speak for Gen Z?
As a privileged white male Harvard frosh, elite private Washington, DC, Georgetown Day School grad, Forbes “30 under 30” youngest celebrant, Aspen Ideas Festival speaker and precocious self-branding political leader delivering echo-chamber motivational rhetoric like a young Tony Robbins, are you really your generation’s Bob Dylan? Or an AI version? At least Dylan worked hard to write and perfect timeless songs.
Your Aspen fest profile, which you surely approved, says you need to get over yourself and embrace humility, stat. Starting with not boasting how your nonprofit advocacy coalition is “a leader in progressive politics” that includes “over 500 social media creators leveraging their platforms for social justice” and boasts “an audience of over a half billion.”
If my Texas Instruments pocket calculator is correct, your coalition audience is seven times the size of your entire generation of 70 million. And 50% bigger than the U.S. population of 336 million.
Also, yay to the yay, you “led partnerships with the White House, Fair Fight, Made to Save, the Biden campaign, Harvard’s Institute of Politics, March On, Climate Power, Accountable Tech, and more.”
Best of all, you boast that you and your coalition “have been featured by The New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, Vice, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, and MSNBC.”
Post reporter Taylor Lorenz lets Kohn-Murphy preen his power without challenge like no real professional political journalist would. Oh, and she’s also a privileged elite. Look her up.
From Columbia U. Hamas fellow travelers to Bernie anti-capitalists demanding free everything, Gen Z “leaders” are teaching Joe Biden a thing or two about making America even greater.
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, as Gen X parents will earworm from R.E.M.
But it’s also the end of the world as we know it, they’ll also say if Trump returns. Gen Z influencers should too.
Fam, before you take your ball and go home in a snit over Biden’s failure to meet your high expectations, think about the consequences:
· On the war in Gaza: Trump said Israel needs to “finish what they started,” which sounds not very pro-Palestinian.
· On the student protests: Trump said “it was a beautiful thing to watch” as police arrested Columbia U. occupiers (he’s big on law and order and justice except for him) and called for crackdowns on Gaza campus protests.
· On climate: Trump promised big oil campaign donors to “drill baby drill” and roll back Biden emissions, EVs, and other big environmental actions.
· On reproductive rights: After Trump’s 66% majority Catholic court stripped the Constitution of privacy rights so his government womb troopers can dictate when insemination occurs, the worst is still ahead.
· On women’s rights: Oh, please. Fuhgeddaboud it.
· On social justice: Also fuhgeddaboud BLM, LGBTQ+, Brown v. Board equal schools, DEI and the basic human right to food, shelter and healthcare in the planet’s richest economy. Trump says let them eat hamburders.
· On proper language: Forget the smug satisfaction of schooling less sensitive people — even Democrats such as your parents who funded your life and education — about the latest what to say or not say. With Trump calling Southern Border refugees “dirty animals” who “poison our blood,” we have bigger problems than debating “Latinx.”
· On capitalism: It’ll be harder to tear down the system. On the upside, if you’re among the elite, you’ll probably do better than the marginalized people you care about, so you can do more for them. This should nurture your self-esteem.
Message to Gen Z “influencers”:
You want to lead your generation to your promised land? Take a page from Gen Z Voters of Tomorrow, youth diving into the political process to boost voter turnout against Trump. It’s more work than dragging on Biden frfr. But hey, it’s your future periodt.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
