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Jan
18
2019
Friday, January 18 2019

The Hill dropped a story based off a recent Pew Research study that could and should send chills up the spines of conservative Americans.  It revealed that young Americans born 1996 or after, the so-called Generation Z, are shaping up to be the most liberal generation ever.  Here’s what the study found:

On issues ranging from the treatment of racial minorities to climate change to diversity in society, the post-millennial generation — dubbed Generation Z by demographers — looks a lot more like the millennial generation than like their parents in Generation X or the baby boom generation, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

But Generation Z takes an even more liberal view of the role of government in society than do millennials. Seven in 10 members of Generation Z say the government should do more to solve problems, while just 29 percent say government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.

Part of this should be utterly unsurprising.  Travel to any major public university campus across America and you will find a shocking number of professors who either openly promote Marxism and socialism in their classrooms or they take a “nuanced approach” to communism and its advocates.  Concurrently, you will find a shockingly few number of professors who address anything positive, glowing, or admirable about American history and society.

It’s actually stunning when you think about it.  The most failed, miserable political systems in human history are not just held morally equivalent to America’s experiment in liberty, but they are presented as preferable.  How can anyone possibly be surprised that the helpless generations being raised in such an environment have nutty ideas? 

Is there any hope for conservatives looking to the future?  Of course there is.  In fact, in my experiences with young people for the last two decades, there is really one silver bullet that is almost guaranteed to unravel the designs of central-planning obsessed progressives.  It’s mankind’s yearning for freedom.

It’s hardly surprising that young people tell Pew they believe government should do more in society given that they’ve been taught that government is god – the only just and fair moral arbiter.  But when those same young people are reminded, or experience for the first time, that more government means less freedom for them, you can expect their opinions to change.

I used to be perplexed why so many seemingly independent-minded, idealistic young people were so willing to sacrifice their autonomy and invite the hand of big government into their bank accounts and bedrooms.  Why would college kids so resistant to authority beg for their parents and grandparents in Washington to run their lives for them?

The truth is they don’t want that.  They just haven’t made the intellectual connection that that’s exactly what they’re asking for when clamoring for progressive government policies. 

That why even though I disagree with him on some policy, Rand Paul has demonstrated a propensity to attract young people to his ideas better than any other mainstream Republican in years.  He advocates freedom – and that’s the only enticement the right can offer that has any hope of shattering the racket liberals have set up at collegiate re-education camps across the country. 

Want to win back young people and stem this tide the Hill references?  Shed the populism, drop the cronyism, and push freedom.

Posted by: Peter Heck AT 12:15 am   |  Permalink   |  Email