This finding demolishes a central assumption of contemporary political analysis. Those young working-class whites, as well as young Latino and Asian men, that everyone assumes are driving reactionary politics? They’re more progressive on race than boomers, Gen X, and even college-educated elder millennials. Many commentators have highlighted “educational polarization,” the growing gap between college and non-college voters on partisanship and attitudes about race and culture. But the generational gap completely overwhelms this education divide that supposedly defines modern American politics.
The progressive shift appears across every demographic slice you can imagine. Young men and women are moving together, becoming less racially resentful over time. The pattern holds across regions, religions, and urban-rural divides. Despite endless discourse about young men being “lost to the manosphere,” the data shows them progressing alongside their female peers.
Gen Z men are unique in one way: They just can’t seem to catch a break in our political discourse. Republicans spent years attacking them as “woke” snowflakes who needed safe spaces. Now Democrats dismiss them as “red-pilled” misogynists. Both narratives are wrong. They’re simply more progressive on race than their fathers and grandfathers, continuing a pattern that has held for generations.
