renta-todd gen zz

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--> GENERIC FOR YOUNG TRUMPERS

TRUMP? 2024 KEY SHIFT/FLIP? 40 PT SWING 11 26 BLU TSU?

sorta alt rt 4?

see anti-greta

KIRK PRAGER FUENTES GROYPER

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8 22 1st dem gen z wins primary? 28 yo?

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MMA

Former Project 2025 Director Paul Dans: "We have to let young white men take the wheel again of the American economy...this is their birthright, their country"

11 26

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RWW

Madeline Peltz @ Talking Points Memo: ‘Theobros’ Want to Strip Women of the Right to Vote—But Only After They Vote Republican in the Midterms

With Trump’s approval ratings at a record low, the cult personality they’ve staked their name on is now more of a liability than an asset. The young men they were credited with recruiting into the winning 2024 coalition are now telling the mainstream press they’re disillusioned with the MAGA movement. Conservatives are already pointing fingers at each other in anticipation of losing control of Congress.

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AN 9 26

There’s been plenty of attention on Gen Z voters since they swung right in 2024, but apparently assumptions were a little too premature, says Gen Z culture analyst Rachel Janfaza. They’re not the “red-pilled MAGA hardliners” they were sold to be.

“In 2020, as Gen Z voters came of age, the culture war was at its peak and it felt like every candidate, race and issue was a reflection of our values,” wrote Janfaza. “But today, young voters’ concerns are more material and far less ideological. There’s a common set of issues unifying Gen Zers across the political spectrum: the cost of living, inflation, AI, war, corruption.”

To get a sense of how young voters — including 8.5 million potential first-time voters — are feeling about the 2026 midterm elections, Janfaza and company spoke to them in a series of focus groups. And what interviews with 70 young people aged 17 to 33 in 28 states and Washington D.C. revealed was that they were not MAGA’s future as earlier reported.

“They care a lot less about being woke and a lot more about being able to get a job and pay their rent — let alone buy a home. And they’re looking for candidates who get that,” said Janfaza. “Gen Z voters really just want their politicians to be good, honest people, who work hard for their community and country. That means tackling the cost of living, working on government programs like SNAP and WIC, embracing social policies when it comes to healthcare, jobs, education, and regulating AI. It’s not that complicated. And it’s party agnostic.”

The generation doesn’t identify easily with the two political parties, but they certainly don’t identify with MAGA. In fact, according to interviews, when young voters support socialist candidates or say they favor socialism writ large, it’s really because they feel the status quo isn’t working.

“Life feels totally unaffordable, but young people believe that it doesn’t have to be this way. They want the government to provide Americans with a social safety net and endorse policies like universal or at least affordable health care, affordable housing, a higher minimum wage, affordable education, paid family leave, taxes on corporations, etc.,” Janfaza said.

And unlike other movements rotted in the past or worse, Gen Z appears to have “a hunger for forward looking policies.”

Call it “Hopemaxxing,” said Janfaza, but it means Gen Z wants to hear what a candidate’s plan is to fix the status quo, rather than preserve it. And don’t bother coming at them with the intent to “just blame the other side,” they say. This generation is “looking for candidates to inspire.”

Want to know how New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani cut inroads with the generation? He talked “pothole politics,” complete with on-the-ground repair policies for infrastructure and other endeavors.

And while MAGA isn’t about to benefit from this particular state of mind, Janfaza said Democrats shouldn’t rest easy on their laurels either. This is a results-minded generation.

“How people vote in the midterms will be all about the cost of living, but if young people don’t believe that any of the candidates can make a difference, they may not even show up,” she said.

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Study confirms what many suspected: the 2024 election was rigged

U.S. President Donald Trump places a hand over his heart during a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., November 11, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

:{Thom HartmannJuly 10, 2026

It sure looks like tech billionaires and foreign dictatorships gave us Trump in 2024. This is as bad as the massive Russian bot presence on Facebook and Twitter back in 2016, which Robert Mueller documented gave Trump the presidency that time.

A peer-reviewed study released Thursday in Nature, the world’s most prestigious scientific journal, has finally put hard numbers to what a lot of us suspected the moment the 2024 election was called for Trump (and Republicans in Congress) by the big networks: the algorithms that control our largest social media platforms intentionally and explicitly tilted the playing field, and they tilted it for Donald Trump and the GOP.

Researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi created hundreds of “sock puppet” TikTok accounts in New York, Texas, and Georgia (via VPN), uploaded to them either pro-Democratic or pro-Republican videos to show their political leanings, and then watched what TikTok’s algorithm fed back to them every day over the 27 weeks leading up to Election Day.

Across more than 280,000 recommendations, Republican-seeded accounts received about 11.5 percent more “party-aligned content” than their Democratic counterparts, while the pro-Democratic accounts were force-fed 7.5 percent more attacks from the other side. As Professor Talal Rahwan put it:

“The algorithm wasn’t just giving people what they want; it was giving one side more of what the other side says about them.”

The pro-rightwing bias was even more dramatic when researchers looked at how the candidates’ own accounts did. Candidate Trump’s official TikTok videos were pushed to Democratic-leaning users 27 percent of the time, while Kamala Harris’s videos only reached Republican-leaning users just 15.3 percent of the time.

Translation: Leading up to the 2024 election, TikTok was working overtime to expose Democrats and lefties to MAGA’s most persuasive messaging, all while shielding rightwingers, independents, and Republican voters from Harris’s voice.

Making it even more astonishingly consequential, studies show that TikTok matters enormously to young people; roughly half of TikTok users under 30 say they use the app to keep up with politics and news, and that TikTok-engaged demographic shifted a mind-boggling full 10 percentage points toward Trump between 2020 and 2024 following this exposure.

Young men, for example, flipped from voting 56 percent Biden in 2020 to 56 percent choosing Trump in 2024, the kind of swing that decides battleground states.

Even more troubling, other research shows that TikTok isn’t an outlier. It’s one piece of a much larger algorithm-run social media ecosystem, and that system is now the main way a plurality of Americans engage with politics. Pew Research, for example, found that 42 percent of US social media users consider these platforms “important” for getting involved in political and social issues, and almost none of them have any idea how the top-secret social media algorithms decide what they see.

Sometimes it’s so obvious that it’s surprising it’s not a bigger news story.

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology found a “structural break for Musk’s metrics around July 13th, 2024,” the exact day Elon Musk endorsed Trump. Overnight, algorithm-driven view counts on Musk’s own X posts jumped 138 percent and retweets exploded 237 percent, far above what any other major account experienced.

And it wasn’t just Musk’s own posts that got the boost; other pro-MAGA, pro-white supremacy, pro-GOP right-wing accounts across X were also systematically amplified. A separate peer-reviewed field experiment published this year in Nature randomly assigned active US users to either an algorithmic or chronological X feed for seven weeks. The result — what could only be called successful brainwashing of those being fed posts by the X algorithm — was astonishing.

The scientists noted that those on the algorithmic feed shifted “towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump, and views on the war in Ukraine.”

And once people are initially convinced of a worldview, changing their mind is a huge and usually unsuccessful undertaking, which is why rightwing billionaires were so eager to fund Charlie Kirk and other programs to indoctrinate schoolkids. Switching back to a chronological feed didn’t undo the damage.

This was on top of the roughly $277 million Musk personally spent electing Trump and Republicans, $239 million of it through his America PAC, making him by a wide margin the largest individual donor of the 2024 cycle.

Then there’s Mark Zuckerberg. After spending a decade telling Congress that Meta was politically neutral, Zuckerberg watched Trump win, metaphorically dropped to his knees, and immediately killed the fact-checking systems on Facebook and Instagram that kept identifying and calling out Trump’s and Republicans’ lies and misrepresentations.

Like a loyal puppy (or a terrified rabbit), Zuck called Trump’s reelection “a cultural tipping point,” wrote a $1 million check to Trump’s inaugural slush fund, replaced his head of global policy with longtime Bush-era Republican Joel Kaplan, and then announced he was moving Meta’s trust-and-safety operation from California to Texas. Meta’s institutional pivot toward Trump and MAGA wasn’t even subtle.

YouTube — also largely owned and run by right-wing billionaires — isn’t innocent either. A UC Davis audit using 100,000 sock-puppet accounts found that right-leaning users get systematically funneled into channels pushing rightwing extremism, conspiracy theories, and hard-right “otherwise problematic content,” while left-leaning users see nothing comparable.

A separate Brookings analysis found that YouTube’s algorithm tugs every user, regardless of where they start, “in a moderately conservative direction.”

I’ve been around digital media since the very beginning. My business partner Nigel Peacock and I were running forums on CompuServe back in the early 1980s, when “going online” meant a 300-baud modem screeching into your phone line and a connection bill that could put a small business under in a month.

The platforms were primitive, slow, and gloriously pluralistic; gatekeepers were a handful of sysops who worked with Nigel and me (CompuServe paid us) trying to keep the message boards clean and useful. Things were civil, the feed was chronological, and there was no anonymity; even political arguments were reasonable.

None of us back then imagined that one day a few billionaires would be able to flip a switch in Beijing, San Francisco, or Austin and successfully shift the political mood of an entire continent overnight. But that’s exactly where we are today, and it appears to have been the tipping point that brought us Trump and all the horrors that accompanied him.

The closest historical parallel is the era of William Randolph Hearst and the Yellow Press at the turn of the 20th century. Hearst’s chain of newspapers reached more readers than any information outlet in human history up to that point, and when he decided it would be in his interest for America to have a war with Spain in 1898, he largely manufactured one with wild, sensationalist coverage of an explosion in the boiler room of the USS Maine in Havana harbor, casting it as an attack against America.

He’s said to have cabled his illustrator in Cuba, “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” And, sure enough, within just a few months, America was at war.

The difference between Hearst and the men running today’s platforms isn’t moral; it’s mechanical. Hearst had to print on physical paper and ship it on physical trains. Musk, Zuckerberg, and the executives at TikTok and Google/YouTube can rewrite the political information environment in which hundreds of millions of people are marinating in real time, with no editor, no copy desk, and — unless things change — exactly zero public accountability.

So what do we do about these men effortlessly swinging our elections invisibly and without spending a penny of their own money? Three things are at the top of the list that Democrats in Congress and Democratic candidates need to make priorities.

First, Congress needs to require algorithmic transparency, as I suggested in The Hidden History of Big Brother in America. Senators Markey and Blumenthal have introduced excellent bills demanding that platforms disclose how their recommendation systems weight political content and forcing them to submit to fully independent audits. Given the political power these platforms and their billionaire owners command and how they’ll fight to hang onto it, none of these types of bills will pass without sustained public pressure.

Second, we need to repeal or substantially reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act so that algorithm-driven platforms are treated legally like the publishers they are, rather than like the telephone wires they used to travel over.

Third, the Justice Department’s antitrust division needs to be unleashed against the handful of companies that now control the political conversation in America. Standard Oil was broken up in 1911. AT&T was broken up in 1984. There is nothing about Meta, X, or Google that makes them more sacred that these behemoths that preceded them.

Call your senators today through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell them you want algorithmic transparency legislation and Section 230 reform. Make sure your voter registration is current at vote.org, check on your state-level legislators at openstates.org, and start telling everyone you know that science has now proven that the 2024 election wasn’t a free and fair contest of ideas.

It was — based on this new research — a rigged information environment run by a handful of billionaires that put a corrupt, predatory fellow billionaire in the White House and helped install billionaire-friendly Republican lickspittles in Congress and state houses across the country.

We can fix this mess. But only if we stop scrolling and start demanding change.

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DUCK 5 26

- [rawstory.com

Researchers expose algorithm skew that boosted Trump in 2024

2 days ago

](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2676859361/)

- [truthout.org

TikTok Algorithm Favored Conservative Content in 2024 POTUS Race, Study Suggests

23 hours ago

](https://truthout.org/articles/tiktok-algorithm-favored-conservative-content-in-2024-potus-race-study-suggests/)

A NEW study examining the algorithms of the social media site TikTok appears to suggest that content users received on the platform skewed more politically conservative during the 2024 presidential election, regardless of a user’s personal preferences.

Researchers Talal Rahwan and Yasir Zaki at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus created over 300 “dummy” botaccounts tomimic real-life users during the 2024 race. The bots “lived” in Democratic-leaning New York, Republican-leaning Texas, and the “purple” state of Georgia.

After creating the accounts, the researchers trained some to follow and react positively to Democratic messaging, while others were trained to support Republican content. Afterward, the researchers monitored the accounts’ “For You” pages for 27 weeks during the campaign, analyzing over 280,000 videos that were suggested by TikTok.

For the Republican bots, the outcome was predictable: the algorithm resulted in an 11.5 percent higher chance that they’d see more Republican-leaning content than Democratic-leaning posts.

But for the Democratic bots, it was different. Those accounts were 7.5 percent more likely to see Republican posts than Democratic ones.

News

Human Rights

TikTok Restricts Gaza Journalist Bisan Owda’s Account Mere Days After US Deal

Owda’s account had 1.4 million followers, she said.

By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutJanuary 29, 2026

“Our findings show partisan imbalances in political information exposure on a platform dominated by algorithmic recommendations, with implications for platform governance and democratic discourse,” the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in *Nature*this week.

“The question arises whether the partisan content recommended on TikTok is skewed towards one party over the other,” the authors added.

TikTok responded to the study’s findings, claiming that its conclusions were largely incorrect. In a statement, the company stated:

This artificial experiment with fake accounts does not reflect how people actually use TikTok. In reality, people discover and watch a wide variety of content on our platform which they continuously shape and can control through more than a dozen tools the authors seem unaware of.

But the study’s authors defended their conclusions.

“Our finding isn’t just about reinforcement; Democratic accounts were shown significantly more anti-Democratic content than Republican accounts were shown anti-Republican content,” Rahwan said, speaking to *The Guardian* about the study’s findings.

“The algorithm wasn’t just giving people what they want; it was giving one side more of what the other side says about them,” Rahwan added.

How social media sites design their algorithms — and whether they are skewed toward one political party over another, accidentally or purposefully — could have real repercussions for elections and the political direction of the country. Indeed, according to data collected from Pew Research, 57 percent of Americans used digital devices “often” to get their news in 2024, higher than any other media, including television (33 percent) and the radio (11 percent).

“In an environment where margins are thin, systematic differences in the kind of political information recommended to tens of millions of young voters are worth taking seriously,” Zaki said.

TikTok Algorithm Favored Conservative Content in 2024 POTUS Race, Study Suggests | Truthout

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Nature

https://www.nature.com › articles › d41586-026-01314-0

TikTok's algorithm systematically skewed to the right during the 2024 ...

2 days agoAn audit of TikTok's recommendation algorithm using hundreds of automated 'bot' accounts during the 2024 US presidential election finds that the 'For You' feed of the platform steered ...

## Videos for **TIKTOK 2024 ELECTION STUDY

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Scott Galloway on TikTok, Musk, and the Radicalization Pipeline | Best of Lincoln Square

959 views Premiered 3 hours ago #politics #lincolnsquare #democracy

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RWW

03/12/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Michelle Goldberg @ The New York Times: I Went to Florida to See the 31-Year-Old Candidate Thrilling Gen Z. We’re in Trouble.

Last Tuesday, James Fishback, a 31-year-old running for governor in Florida, was speaking to a packed house at the Queens Harbour Yacht and Country Club in Jacksonville. Every one of the room’s almost 100 seats was taken, and people were standing several rows deep around the perimeter, with more listening from the lobby outside. The crowd was mostly male and very young; several attendees told me they were in high school. A few wore the “America First” baseball caps popular with followers of Nick Fuentes, the influential white nationalist troll.

Aleja Hertzler-McCain @ The Roys Report: Over 100 Latino Christian leaders say Trump adviser Samuel Rodriguez’s reach is misrepresented

More than 100 Latino Christians leaders signed a statement saying Samuel Rodriguez, an evangelical adviser to President Donald Trump and a go-to voice for Hispanic evangelical perspectives, and news media have exaggerated the size of Rodriguez’s reach as president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Sam Adler-Bell @ New York Magazine: The Young Women Leaving the New Right

Defectors say the movement has dropped the pretense of protecting women and is now openly “cruel and fickle.”

Malcolm Ferguson @ The New Republic: Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power

They’re saying the quiet part out loud now.

Samuel Benson @ Politico: Furious MAGA allies lobby Trump to keep deporting migrants

The new Mass Deportation Coalition is pushing the White House to continue with its deportation operation — just as the White House tells GOP candidates to back away from that message.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: In second week of the Iran war, the White House emphasizes ‘fun’ and meme videos

The president and his team have embraced a cavalier, anti-humanist attitude to matters of life and death.

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AN 1 26

'No rizz': Gen Z Trumpers are rejecting 'no charisma' Republicans

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AN 8 25

During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump not only rallied his hardcore MAGA base — he also reached out to independents, swing voters, the Manosphere, Latinos and Generation Z, making inroads with all of them. That approach didn't give Trump the "landslide" victory he claims it did, but it was enough to get him past the finish line in a close election and defeat Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the national popular vote.

But according to 18-year-old journalist Eli Thompson, Trump's inroads with Gen-Z are in danger thanks to his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Thompson, in an op-ed published by USA Today on August 6, explains, "Going to an all-boys high school, where I graduated this spring, I understand why many young men voted for President Donald Trump. But now, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein might have changed that, ushering in a major shift in how older members of Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, vote in the next election."

Thompson stresses that the Gen-Z voters who supported Trump in 2024 weren't necessarily staunch Republicans but rather, viewed Trump as an outsider and found that appealing.

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"My peers are not your rich country club conservatives," the Gen-Z journalist argues. "They are scrappy guys who liked Trump because he wasn't polished or predictable. To them, he was a rebel outsider who would fight 'the swamp' with all he had. I remember heated lunchroom debates where they'd argue about whether or not he could truly upend our system and its backers."

Thompson continues, "Even if he couldn’t remake Washington, they said, Trump would at least cause the unseen power brokers to sweat by releasing the Epstein files and making public the names of the disgraced financier’s clients. Fast-forward to now, and that looks like a fever dream."

Trump's handling of the Epstein case, according to Thompson, "has left" his Gen-Z friends "wondering" if Trump is "just the swamp" or a "swamp creature."

"This isn't a small hiccup in Trump's presidency," Thompson stresses. "It’s a signal of something bigger: Young male conservatives, like my friends, are starting to wonder if their anti-establishment hero has joined the swamp he swore to fight. They’re wondering if he is giving harbor to the people he promised to expose…. They wonder: Is Trump just a showman who lied to us and deceived us this whole time? I hear many of them saying that their president has now cozied up to the establishment and abandoned people like them in the process."

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an 5 25 no gfx

Revealed: Young Americans' support for freedom of speech in steep decline — as they drift to the right - Alternet.org

Revealed: Young Americans' support for freedom of speech in steep decline — as they drift to the right

The Conversation

May 12, 2025

For much of the 20th century, young Americans were seen as free speech’s fiercest defenders. But now, young Americans are growing more skeptical of free speech.

According to a March 2025 report by The Future of Free Speech, a nonpartisan think tank where I am executive director, support among 18- to 34-year-olds for allowing controversial or offensive speech has dropped sharply in recent years.

In 2021, 71% of young Americans said people should be allowed to insult the U.S. flag, which is a key indicator of support for free speech, no matter how distasteful. By 2024, that number had fallen to just 43% – a 28-point drop. Support for pro‑LGBTQ+ speech declined by 20 percentage points, and tolerance for speech that offends religious beliefs fell by 14 points.

This drop contributed to the U.S. having the third-largest decline in free speech support among the 33 countries that The Future of Free Speech surveyed – behind only Japan and Israel.

Why has this support diminished so dramatically?

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Shift from past generations

In the 1960s, college students led what was called the free speech movement, demanding the right to speak freely about political matters on campus, often clashing with older, more censorious generations.

Sociologist Jean Twenge has tracked changes in attitudes using data from the General Social Survey, a biennial survey conducted by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.

Since the 1970s, this survey has asked Americans whether controversial figures – racists, communists and anti-religionists – should be allowed to speak. Support for such rights generally increased from the Greatest Generation, born between 1900-1924, to Gen X, born between 1965-1979.

But Gen Z, those born between 1995-2004, has reversed that trend. Despite the fact that the Cold War, which pitted the communist Soviet Union and its allies against the democratic West, ended more than three decades ago, even support for the free speech rights of communists has declined.

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Political drift and cultural realignment

At the same time, some data suggests that young Americans may be drifting rightward politically.

A Harvard Institute of Politics poll in late 2024 found that men ages 18–24 now identify as slightly more conservative than those ages 25–29. Another Gallup survey showed that Gen Z teens are twice as likely as millennials to describe themselves as more conservative than their parents were at the same age.

This shift may help explain changes in speech attitudes.

Today’s young Americans may be less likely to instinctively defend speech aligned with liberal or progressive causes. For example, support among 18- to 29-year-olds for same-sex marriage, generally considered a liberal or progressive cause, fell from 79% in 2018 to 71% in 2022, according to Pew Research.

Attitudes toward hate speech

The Future of Free Speech study found that younger Americans are especially hesitant to defend speech that offends minority groups.

Only 47% of those ages 18 to 34 said such speech should be allowed, compared with 70% of those over 55.

Similarly, tolerance for religiously offensive speech was 57% among younger respondents, down from 71% in 2021.

This concern over harmful or bigoted speech is not new. A 2015 Pew survey found that 40% of millennials believed the government should be able to prevent offensive speech about minorities.

More recently, a 2024 report by the nonpartisan free speech advocacy group FIRE found that 70% of U.S. college students supported disinviting speakers perceived as bigoted. Over a quarter said violence could be acceptable to stop campus speech in some cases.

Broader implications

Why does this matter?

The First Amendment protects unpopular speech. It does not just shield offensive ideas, but it safeguards movements that once seemed fringe. Whether it’s civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights or anti-war protests, history shows that ideas seen as dangerous or radical in one era often become widely accepted in another.

Today’s younger Americans will soon shape policies in universities, media, government, tech and the public square. If a growing share believes speech should be regulated to prevent offense, that could signal a shift in how free speech is interpreted and enforced in American institutions.

To be sure, support for free speech in principle remains strong. The Future of Free Speech report found that 89% of Americans said people should be allowed to criticize government policy. But tolerance for more provocative or offensive speech appears to be eroding, especially among young people.

This raises questions about whether these changes reflect a life-stage effect − will today’s young people become more speech-tolerant as they age? Or are we seeing a deeper generational shift?

The data suggests Americans across all generations still value free speech. But for younger Americans, especially, that support seems increasingly conditional.

Jacob Mchangama, Research Professor of Political Science and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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an 4 25

A new survey has found that American teenagers who were stuck at home due to lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic have now become Republicans.

Five years ago, when children aged 13 and 16 were stuck indoors, they used social media more frequently than they had before the pandemic. These individuals, who are now 19 to 21 years old and can vote, gravitated to the Republican Party. The Yale Youth Poll was highlighted by Bloomberg in a report published Wednesday, which noted that these youngsters were deprived of experiences critical for social development and emotional flourishing during the pandemic.

"Turns out, they weren’t too happy about it. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that this group has gravitated to the GOP, the political party that ultimately opposed pandemic lockdowns and belittled precautions like vaccines and masks," the report said.

ALSO READ:'It was culture': Gen Z activist details how 'unhinged' Trump won his 'nihilistic' generation

The report further noted that unusual exposure to social media allowed these teenagers to encounter conservative figures such as Charlie Kirk and well-known podcasters like the Nelk Boys, whom they might not have come across otherwise.

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"These kids are students who have grown up in a different media environment, in a different world — basically — than their peers,” Jack Dozier, deputy director of the Yale Youth Poll, told Bloomberg.

“They’re significantly more conservative and while they still have some tendencies to lean towards progressive social issues, their economic issues and, at the end of the day, their party choice is significantly more conservative," he added.

The poll was conducted between April 1-3 and surveyed 4,100 respondents aged 18-29.

ALSO READ:'Bring Kamala back': This influencer bought Trump a Rolex — now he’s lost '8 figures'

The pollsters found a significant contrast between voters aged 18 to 21 and those aged 22 to 29: The older group intends to support Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections with a margin of 6.4 percentage points, while the younger group favors Republicans by 11.7 points.

Many commentators have pointed out that the GOP's messaging is resonating with Gen Z. Earlier this month, activist Cameron Kasky said during an appearance on CNN that young white men think Democrats are "leaving" them out and MAGA is able to manipulate them into thinking the party's steps towards equity for women and minorities are "being taken at our expense."

Kasky, 24, is the cofounder of the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group Never Again MSD. He co-hosts a podcast on Gen Z politics and culture.He said President Donald Trump was able to garner support from Gen Z, but not due to his policies. "It was culture," he said.

The activist said Trump is speaking in a language that resonates with them "and is pompous and aggressive enough that people respond to it."

ALSO READ:'A pipeline to MAGA': How this Christian podcast is selling young women on Trump’s agenda

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had to go harder rt (with young ppl?) b/c groyper spat?

an 12 22

Christian nationalist **U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene**‘s remarks at the New YorkYoung Republican Club’s Saturday night gala have elicited massive response – and condemnation – from many after she insisted had she been “in charge” of the January 6, 2021 insurrection the rioters “would’ve been armed” and they “would have won.”

“I want to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed,” Greene, a Republican from Georgia, told the group (video below). Some of the rioters and attendees were armed.

In addition to Greene and Bannon, Donald Trump, Jr. and far-right agitator Jack Posobiec were also in attendance, as was disgraced former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The Southern Poverty Law Center described the New York Young Republican Club’s gala attendees as a “collection of radical right figures including white nationalists and ultranationalist European leaders” and noted the “group’s president declared ‘total war’ on perceived enemies.”

Some are questioning how Greene can retain her congressional seat given the oath of office she swore to, which in part reads: “I, __, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Former Democratic U.S. Senator from California Barbara Boxer tweeted: “If you’re in Congress and swore to protect the Constitution & you’re asked if you had anything to do with 1/6 insurrection, you say something like: I would NEVER partake in violence against America. You wouldn’t say something like: if I did it I would’ve been armed!”

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) quoting Greene, tweeted that winning is “overturning an election,” and “Being armed = using force to do it.”

Congresswoman Greene “represents today’s Republican party and defines a coup as ‘winning,'” she stressed.

“This is un-American and dangerous,” Escobar added. “And Republican silence is complicity.”

Veteran journalist and SiriusXM Progress host Michelangelo Signorile called Greene’s remarks, “Treason out loud.”

“Marjorie Taylor Greene tells extremist confab that if she organized Jan 6 ‘we would’ve won’ and ‘we would’ve been armed.’ Take it as a plan for the next assault on democracy, which Trump is right now inciting,” he warned.

Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action observed this is a “Member of Congress fantasizing about killing her colleagues.”

Former Obama White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod, now the director of the non-partisan University of Chicago Institute of Politics, quoted Greene and called her one of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s “new top apparatchiks.”

Watch the video via Kyle Mazza below or at this link.

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/nick-fuentes-vows-to-raise-up-an-army-of-soldiers-to-take-over-government/

uses macho mil lang about politics

10 22 rww

Fuentes, the racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, America-hating, Christian fascist leader of the white nationalist America First movement, declared during a livestream Tuesday night that he is going to spend the next two years raising up an army of thousands of far-right “soldiers” who will be ready to take over the government should former President Donald Trump be reelected in 2024.

Fuentes, who has openly advocated for a “white uprising” in which Congress is disbanded and Trump is declared a dictator for life, said that while many who worked for Trump during his time in the White House held the correct political views, they simply did not have fanaticism needed to burn the existing political and social order to the ground.

Those who filled the ranks of government under Trump, Fuentes griped, were too concerned about their own lives and the welfare of their families to be willing to sacrifice it all for the cause, and Fuentes has committed himself to raising up an army of devoted “groypers” who will be willing to do just that.

“We need to raise an army of soldiers, not an army of pussies that have the right opinions,” Fuentes. “We need to raise an army of soldiers, and if you’re meek or weak or you’re a bitch, you need to hit the bricks because it’s finished, that movement is dead.”

“This is my mission statement,” he continued. “My mission for 2024 is to raise an army of at least 1,000 groypers that will infiltrate Capitol Hill and the Trump administration as staffers and bureaucrats. I’m putting myself to work, and I believe this will be the work of the [America First] Foundation and the work of this show and the movement going forward.”

“I’ve recognized my role,” Fuentes said. “I’ve got an audience of young people.I’m respected. I’m a role model, and I’ve got an audience of energetic,zealous Christian American patriots. My exclusive mission in the next two years is to get as many of them as possible trained, vetted, testified, fortified, tested, and plug them in to Washington, D.C., or various other institutions, plug them into Capitol Hill, plug them into the White House, and to go to work every day making real advances in this political struggle.”

“It’s our job to create an entire generation, a true movement,a cadre of 50,000 people to take over the government and create a lasting MAGA institutional revolution at every level of government,” Fuentes proclaimed. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve, and nothing less.”

“We got to come back in ’24 with the vengeance,” he declared. “Not care what the media says, not care what your friends and family say, not care what anybody says. It’s got to be, ‘Trump 2024: Make America Great Again Or Else.’ Like, at all costs. ‘America First At Any Cost.’‘Make America Great Again At Any Cost.’It’s got to have the suffix on there of we will take up the cross and be willing to be crucified for what we’re doing, and our sacrifice will pave the way for a new generation, a new country."

[vid]

fuentes has long tried to appeal to disaffected young white men, with former followers and allies of Fuentes accusing him of leading his movement like a cult and of threatening to destroy the lives of young members who don’t show him absolute loyalty.

In 2020, Fuentes brought scores of America First followers to so-called “Stop the Steal” rallies to contest the 2020 presidential election. This September, five members of the America First movement were arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/right-wing-organization-today-america-fueling-extremist-network-young-conservative

a network of Gen Zers operating under the nonprofit Today is America is working to spread right-wing ideology online, using social media platforms — especially Instagram — with the explicit goal of bringing their peers' politics further to the right.

Media Matters has identified over 70 individuals on Instagram affiliated with Today is America, a social media marketing project and right-wing nonprofit with connections to extreme far-right groups. While their accounts range in following and messaging, many push extreme and far-right rhetoric through their content. Several Today is America affiliates have promoted the false claim that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election and other far-right conspiracy theories, while some have connections to white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes and other extremist groups, including the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.

Today is America promotes right-wing content through influencers, ambassadors, and creators on TikTok and Instagram,as well as through other accounts that are “powered by” Today is America. It is run by Influencing America, a conservative digital marketing agency founded by brothers Liam and Cam Rafizadeh in 2021 that “specializes in Gen Z and young Millennial marketing.” According to Influencing America's website, its other projects include work for Turning Point USA, the Leadership Institute, and TikTok account the Republican Hype House.

The Rafizadeh brothers founded Today is America in 2020 with the goal of utilizing conservative influencers “to sell Trump gear and patriotic merchandise,” but it quickly morphed into a nonprofit dedicated to creating a community of right-wing Gen Zers. Many of its influencers were involved in the Republican Hype House, which was banned from TikTok in October 2021 after repeatedly using the social media site to spread misinformation and to provide a platform for far-right influencers. According to an Instagram post from Today is America founding member Aubrey Moore, the Republican Hype House Instagram account was turned into the Today is America account in December 2021.

Today is America supports a network of young right-wing influencers on Instagram and TikTok

Today is America claims to support “over 320 influencers,” a number which is difficult to verify in a sea of conservative personalities with a variety of both disclosed and undisclosed affiliations. Media Matters has identified at least 70 accounts belonging to these influencers, who have a combined total of over 1 million followers.

While it is unclear exactly what financial support Today is America provides to its creators, the group does offer a “Creator Fund” to provide the influencers with equipment, edit their videos, and help them “build brands & unique voices.”

Today is America influencers have posted content containing extreme or false rhetoric, much of which seemingly violate Instagram’s community guidelines:

Isabella Riley, a Today is America representative, and has over 41,000 followers on Instagram and another 150,000 followers on TikTok. According to her LinkedIn, Riley is affiliated with Turning Point USA, conservative firm Arsenal Media, and PragerU.On Instagram, Riley has claimed that she would “rather have COVID than be fat” and said that “there is no such thing as a trans child” unless the child is “actually being groomed” by an “older influence that is preying” on them.
[twt]

bunch of twts]

Today is America ambassador lucas_the_abstract claimed to their over 13,000 Instagram followers that “President Trump did not loose the election in 2020. The American people elected President Trump twice.” The account has also promoted Dinesh D’Souza’s movie 2000 Mules, which features false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, in a post calling the Biden administration “illegitimate.”

A screenshot of a post claiming that Trump did not lose the 2020 election

A screenshot of a post promoting 2000 Mules

Instagram user TokenBlackGuyUSA, who also goes by Joël, is an ambassador for both Today is America and Turning Point USA with over 22,000 Instagram followers. Joël has repeatedly promoted 2000 Mules, along with other conspiracy theories. He has also posted a tweet to his Instagram account that claims that women’s reproductive choice occurs when “they open their legs.”

A screenshot of a post saying that women’s reproductive choice occurs when “they open their legs.”

Instagram user Lance Johnston, who posts on social media as “LanceVideos,” is a Today is America representative. Lance has over 28,000 followers on Instagram and almost 5,000 on TikTok, where he had an audience of over 140,000 on a former account prior to being banned. (The hashtag for Johnston’s old TikTok username has over 118 million views.) According to Johnston’s LinkedIn, he is a productions coordinator for Turning Point USA and is currently “Lead Generation Specialist” at Today is America. He frequently posts hateful rhetoric on Instagram, including sharing a tweet calling the overturning of Roe v. Wade “9/11 for whores,” deadnaming reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, and reposting his own content using ableist slurs, which appears to violate Meta’s hate speech policy.

A screenshot of a post from Lance using an ableist s

A screenshot of a post in which Lance deadnames Caitlyn Jenner

A screenshot of a post from Lance where he refers to the overturning of Roe v. Wade as "9/11 for whores"

Many Today is America influencers have also pushed the long-debunked myth that LGBTQ people seek to “groom” children for sexual exploitation. Notably, Instagram has confirmed that the use of the word “groomer” to attack LGBTQ people violates its hate speech policy.

A post from The Rhino Show account stating that pride month = child groomer month

Influencers associated with Today is America also post extreme content on TikTok:

Kaylee Campbell hosts What's Your Point? -- a show affiliated with Today is America. On TikTok, she has shared content stating that mass shootings are planned for political use.

A screenshot of a TikTok from Campbell saying that mass shootings are planned

Kandis Esposito, who is a Today is America ambassador according to her Instagram bio, has posted on TikTok claiming that the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was carried out by people who “came to fight for our country” and that “it was beautiful.”

A post from Kandis calling the January 6 riot "beautiful"

Today is America also “powers” several niche right-wing Instagram accounts

In addition to the network of Today is America influencer accounts, Media Matters has identified at least 7 accounts that are “powered” by Today is America, along with at least 3 that are connected to the organization despite not clearly stating so. These accounts powered by Today is America include:

The Instagram account Basic Facts Matter is hosted by Today is America President Xaviaer DuRousseau, who is also affiliated with PragerU, Turning Point USA, Blexit, and the Alameda County Republican Party. The Basic Facts Matter account has over 13,000 followers and appears to mimic the Black Lives Matter organization’s account while claiming to be “highlighting truths that media hides” from an “anti-victimhood” and “anti-excuses” perspective. The account has smeared victims of police violence, such as Breonna Taylor, and spread racist anti-abortion talking points.

Video

a screenshot of a post about abortion rates among black women

Tusk News is also a Today is America-powered Instagram account, which has over 13,000 followers and primarily reposts headlines from right-wing outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Wire attacking Democratic politicians and pushing conservative talking points.

A screenshot of Tusk News' Instagram bio

Lbrtyusa, an account powered by Today is America, appears to have formerly been the Instagram account of the Republican Girls -- a part of the Republican Hype House TikTok collective. The account is centered around right-wing women and posts images with anti-abortion slogans and memes along with anti-lockdown content and other conservative narratives. This account has over 40,000 followers.

A screenshot of a post from lbrtyusa saying that "killing babies isn't a woman's right"

Memelotics is another account “powered by” Today is America; it posts right-wing memes and has nearly 16,000 followers.

A screenshot of a meme from memelotics ]

On Instagram, Today is America influencers and Today is America-powered accounts have earned over 3.2 million combined interactions so far this year according to data obtained from CrowdTangle that excludes Reels.

Today is America has deep connections with other right-wing groups and far-right extremists

Many of the Today is America influencers also work with other right-wing ambassador programs, such as PragerU and Turning Point USA. According to a January 5 report in The Verge, former Turning Point USA ambassador and current Today is America director of political strategy Joe Basrawi indicated that there is no formal partnership between the two groups, though they regularly support each other’s content. Turning Point USA has a history of violating platform policy with influencer campaigns that have been likened to a “troll farm.”

Additionally, several of Today is America’s advisers have connections to right-wing organizations, including Project Veritas Director John Garvey; actress Samaire Armstrong, who has starred in content for the right-wing groups The Daily Wire and PragerU; and right-wing influencer Lindsey Graham, who recently praised violent far-right group the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters militia group on Alex Jones’ Infowars.

Today is America also has links to figures involved with the America First movement-- a white supremacist and Christian nationalist group led by Nick Fuentes, who attended the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally and has been a vocal supporter of the “Stop the Steal” movement. During his recent America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in Orlando, Florida, Fuentes praised German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Today is America representative Lance Johnston reportedly appeared at AFPAC in 2021. Kai Schwemmer, a known affiliate of Fuentes who also attended AFPAC and has promoted the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, was previously a member of the Republican Hype House and appeared at a 2021 Turning Point event as a part of the Today is America “team.” Today is America content host Blake Kresses, who was also a member of the Republican Hype House and a Turning Point USA ambassador, was scheduled to speak along with Schwemmer at 76Fest -- a right-wing youth retreat that was supposed to take place in August 2021 but was ultimately canceled. Kresses now hosts a YouTube show along with Today is America members Kaden Lopez and Gabe Victal, which has featured Schwemmer as a “favorite, good friend” and promoted his streaming content on Fuentes’ website.

In October 2021, Liam Rafizadeh commented on an Instagram post from Matt Evans, another associate of Fuentes. In the caption of the post Evans states, “petition to make me a TIA ambassador,” to which Rafizadeh replied, “If I get to become an AF ambassador.”

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/turning-point-usas-america-fest-aims-to-reach-:{gen-z:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}:-with-christian-nationalists-conspiracy-theorists-and-country/

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec wants you to hang out with him at Turning Point USA’s “America Fest,” billed as the “biggest event in the conservative movement” in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec 18-21. At least that’s what hesays on Twitter, where he offers a promo code for the event and insists it “makes a great Christmas present.” Joining him will be TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and Donald Trump Jr.

The event brings together right-wing Congress members, Christian nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and even right-wing activist athletes. A flashy promo video shows young conservatives dancing at what looks like a concert—and indeed, the event promises full concerts from a handful of younger country music stars, “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood, and Dee Jay Silver.

While the promotion makes the event look more like a party, Turning Point USA is an organization that trains and mobilizes right-wing college students. This summer, that mobilization focused ontargeting public school boards for allowing schools to teach about racism in U.S. history and implementing LGBTQ-inclusive policies. The group has raisedtens of millions of dollars, peddled disinformation about President Joe Biden’s win in 2020, and stoked fears about COVID-19 vaccines. TheAssociated Press writes that Kirk, who has called George Floyd a “scumbag,” “exploits the racial divide to reach Gen Z.”

Kirk has increasingly partnered with Christian nationalist forces, and the “America Fest” speaker attendee list reflects that.Religious-right activist pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills will be in attendance as willreligious-right activist musician Sean Feucht, who hastoured the country protesting pandemic-related restrictions on public gatherings. Feucht launched a projectto mobilize conservative Christian millennials after his unsuccessful run for U.S. Congress in Northern California.

The speaker list includes some newer (and younger) Congress members: 26-year-old Madison Cawthorn, who released a ferventlyChristian nationalist ad urging Christians to “take our country back” and in another speech called on parents to raise their sons to be“monsters”; Lauren Boebert, whose extremist rhetoric includessuggesting Rep. Ilhan Omar is a terrorist; and Matt Gaetz, who is facing a Justice Department investigation into whether hepaid women for sex and, separately,whether he slept with a minor and transported her across state lines.

:{Rep. Louie Gohmert and Rep. Andy Biggs, the latter of whom Ali Alexander said helped plan the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, are also scheduled to speak. The attendee list also features athletes and gun aficionados of the right-wing movement: with appearances from Michael Chandler, a Trump-supporting mixed martial arts fighter with the UFC; professional bow hunter Cameron Hanes; and John Lovell, better known as}:{, who offers trainings on tactical pistol and rifle use and small unit tactics as well as his vision of a “bold and dangerous masculinity.”}:

The event’s speaker list indicates the right’s vision for the future.

Posobiec, who peddled the far-right Pizzagate conspiracy theory, is a contributor to TPUSA and, judging from his promotion of the event, will likely be a main feature of it.

He recently teamed up with Kirk to interview18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three and killed two protesters at a Black Lives Matter protest last year. Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges last month andbecame a hero, first in the eyes of the far-right and then the broader right-wing movement. The interview opened with Kirk expressing personal affinity: “Kyle, from the first moment I saw you in the news and saw video of you defending yourself, I felt we had something in common.”

Tags: Charlie Kirk Donald Trump Jr. Jack Posobiec Kayleigh McEnany Lauren Boebert Louie Gohmert Madison Cawthorn Matt Gaetz Sean Feucht Tucker Carlson

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/maga-lgbtq/ maga kids

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/qanon-trump

amanda

Trump's attempts to steal the election are fruitless. His legal theater is going nowhere, and it's becoming apparent that this is more about shaking down credulous supporters for cash than about actually overturning the election results. Michigan pounded another nail in Trump's coffin Tuesday, when two Republicans who were blocking the vote certification in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, relented in the face of public outrage. It's all over but the grifting, which will likely continue as long as Trump keeps getting people to give him money for his "legal defense" — money that is being funneled through a PAC and likely straight into Trump's pocket.

Yet the Republican establishment is still tiptoeing around Trump, coddling his fragile ego by refusing to admit he lost the election. Some are going a step further, such as South Carolina's Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been exerting pressure on state officials to toss out legally-cast ballots. Why are all these Republicans so afraid of Trump, who will no longer be president in 63 days?

The main reason appears to be that Republicans really are worried about their electoral prospects after Trump. The record Democratic turnout in the 2020 election — President-elect Joe Biden turned out 14 million more voters than Hillary Clinton in 2016 — caused many Republicans down-ballot from Trump to sweat their re-election prospects. Luckily for them, however, Trump also turned out an eye-popping 10 million new voters, which was enough to save the skins of many GOP candidates, even as Trump lost by slender margins in swing states.

Trump is a turnout machine for Republicans, who have been desperately casting around for years now for a way to save their party despite demographic changes that make the Democrats more popular among voters. The question of whether there will be Trumpism after Trump now dogs both Republicans who want to replicate their electoral successes under the reality TV president and Democrats who dearly hope this whole disaster was an anomaly.

"[S]ome conservative opinion leaders are already looking forward to a post-Trump future where the viable things about the 45th president can be neatly separated from his troublesome persona," Ed Kilgore writes for New York.

He cites "a representative fantasy" by right-wing writer Kristin Tate at The Hill, who longs for a "Republican with the political positions of Trump, but without decades of tabloid fodder," proposing that candidate might avoid "the bandwagon effect of suburban voters eager to show their public disapproval of his latest action."

Kilgore explores the various hopes that Republicans have for a "new Trump." Will it be Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Bible-thumper straight out of "The Handmaid's Tale" who has some crossover appeal for his occasional swipes at corporate America (though mostly for its perceived degeneracy)? Or Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who brings the racism and militant neofascism of Trump, but without the gleeful sleaze of a shameless sexual assailant?

These choices expose why Republicans fear that there may be no way to have Trumpism without Trump. Those guys and other contenders are all missing the secret sauce that helped Trump recruit so heavily among non-voters and infrequent voters. And no, it's not his so-called charisma.

What Trump really has going for him is what I call the "crackpot factor." Trump speaks to voters who share the racism and sexism of typical GOP voters, but who often don't vote because they think politics is boring and are awash in conspiracy theories about how the system is "rigged." Those voters saw a kindred spirit in Trump, a man who speaks fluent conspiracy theory and who got his start in politics by promoting claims that Barack Obama wasn't a native-born U.S. citizen.

Before the 2020 election, the team at FiveThirtyEight took a deep dive on the views of people who vote infrequently or not at all. There's a lot of reasons for non-voting, such as a belief it doesn't matter or the obstacles that make voting difficult, but one important factor was a lack of trust in the system. For some voters, especially nonwhite voters or liberal-leaning voters, this is unfortunately a realistic assessment of the situation, where social progress often feels glacial and voting doesn't seem to make much difference.

But for right-leaning voters, I suspect a lot of this distrust flows from a conspiratorial mindset, born from a steady diet of misinformation that has been made all too readily available by the internet. These are the types that populate the audience for Joe Rogan and Alex Jones. These are people who hate Democrats but also feel alienated by the religiosity and elitism of mainstream Republicans, and turn to "alternative" sources of information that are thick with paranoid conspiracy theories. Trump, who indulged the same "alternative facts" that they enjoy, stirred something in them that other Republicans simply couldn't.

In 2014, Pew Research, using extensive data, developed a political typology that sorted Americans into six groups. Two of the Republican-leaning ones are incredibly familiar to political observers, the "steadfast conservatives" and "business conservatives," or, respectively, the religious right and the rich folks who are in it for the tax cuts.

But they also detected an emerging group, which they deemed "young outsiders," who "do not have a strong allegiance to the Republican Party" and, in fact, "tend to dislike both political parties." These voters registered as "socially liberal," insofar as they don't support bans on abortion or gay marriage and, importantly, aren't especially religious.

But the "young outsiders" do share the racism of traditional conservatives. They are easily riled up by the demonization of social spending programs like Obamacare or food stamps They approve of programs, like Medicare, that are viewed as benefiting white people. They're in favor legal marijuana but oppose gun control. And they vote far less often than other conservatives.

I personally believe that the Pew research failed to capture how sexist this group is. The usual proxy questions to measure sexism, such as attitudes towards abortion, simply aren't adequate in this context. I suspect this group, while not as opposed to abortion as other conservatives, is angry about other feminist concerns such as the #MeToo movement, where men's privilege to mistreat women are being attacked.

These are, I suspect, the Gamergaters and the alt-right types who flocked to Trump in the years after this survey. They gobble down internet conspiracy theories like QAnon, which creates engagement with right-wing politics for those who aren't religious conservatives or business elites. They like to imagine that embracing more authoritarian attitudes is an "edgy" revoltagainst liberalism. They are overwhelmingly white (though 14% are Hispanic), and under 50 years old. While more than half of those defined as "strong liberals" are college graduates, three-quarters of the "young outsiders" don't have college diplomas.

Trump got a whole lot of those people who don't usually vote to do so, turning out more non-college-educated white voters in 2016, for example, than Mitt Romney did in 2012. These voters overlooked his alliance with the religious right and were instead fixated on his playboy persona, his over-the-top sexism and racism and, of course, his sweeping embrace of nutbar conspiracy theories of all kinds.

Over the past four years, everything that Trump's opponents hate about him — his grossness, his cruelty to women and people of color, his rejection of the polite norms of D.C. politics and, of course, his conspiracy theories — likely generated even more enthusiasm from this subset of voters that other Republicans have had trouble capturing or motivating.

That's why it's reasonable to be skeptical about the likely success of the current crop of wannabe Trumps. Hawley's religiosity and culture-war rigidity won't play well with these Trump Republicans who are just fine with premarital sex and legal weed, even if they're not fond of women having the right to file sexual harassment complaints. Cotton may roll out fascist fantasies that appeal to the QAnoners and the alt-right, but he's a stiff and, I suspect, won't appeal to those who enjoy Trump's wrestling-heel gift for insulting and degrading people. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who also wants to be the next Trump, has intense weenie energy that makes it hard for him to win these people over.

Trump speaks to the great American crackpot, especially the younger set that was otherwise more interested in perusing conspiracy theory websites or "pick-up artist" forums than in voting. These folks won't be moved by Hawley's promise of a handmaid in every bed or Cotton's promise of stormtroopers on the streets. In the face of the growing Democratic majority, Republicans need this subset of crank voters, who don't care about old-school culture-war fights over abortion or evolution, but sure do love QAnon. Without Trump's demented tweeting and his willingness to leave empirical reality behind, it's not clear how the GOP can keep the crank vote going.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Across the South, Climate Change Divides Democrats and Republicans

In the South and across much of the United States, one way to try to tell a Republican from a Democrat is to invite a discussion about climate change.

Pew Research Center polling in Februaryfound that a growing number of Americans say tackling climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. But that change in views is mostly among Democrats: roughly 4 out of 5 say dealing with climate change should be a top priority, compared to just 1 out of 5 Republicans, Pew found.

Climate change wasn't always so divisive.

:{:{In 2008, for example, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, famously sat on a couch in front of the U.S. Capitol,} they both agreed the country needed to take action on climate change}::{. And they did it for Al Gore, the former vice president and global warming evangelist from Tennessee, who became conservatives' climate-change punching bag}:

Today, young climate activists, led by Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement—a grassroots youth climate action group that formed after Trump's 2016 election—are the defiant voice for the climate, calling for a transformation of the global economy. They are carrying out global student strikes and persuading mayors to declare climate emergencies.

The demographics of climate politics are shifting, said Ed Maibach, professor and director of the George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communications.

While young Democrats and their parents and grandparents are "more or less all apoplectically concerned" about the climate, he said, a newreport from the George Mason center and the Yale Program on Climate Communication identifies how young Republicans are becoming emboldened by the issue. In contrast to older Republicans, they have become more accepting of the human causes of climate change, rejecting the climate science denial that has taken hold in the party, Maibach said.

"The more young Democrats get involved in the issue, the more young Republicans get pulled along," he added.

Both parties will have plenty to debate this year as voters in November decide whether to give Trump and his fossil fuel agenda another four years. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the former vice president, has described the Green New Deal as "a crucial framework" for climate action as he tries to convince climate voters he's a true believer.

A Market Approach to Climate Change Mitigation

TheAmerican Conservation Coalition was founded in 2017 by Benji Backer, a 22-year-old from Appleton, Wisconsin, who was already a veteran in national political circles.

:{In 2014, at 16, Backer} a fiery speech at the influential American Conservative Union conference, defending former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker's bitter and successful battle against unionized teachers and declaring it "OK to stand up to those on the left that would scream us into quiet submission."

But in September, hetestified before Congress with Thunberg, arguing that "we cannot regulate our way out of climate change."

The group and its climate contract have supporters ranging from natural gas lobbyists and libertarians to conservation and energy efficiency groups.

One of them is the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based clean-energy think tank founded by physicist Amory Lovins. The institute's Paul Bodner, who worked on energy and climate in the White House for President Obama, is on the coalition's advisory board. He hopes he can help the young conservatives find their voice on climate issues.

The institute, he said, agrees with the Green New Deal's "call to action" and shares its vision of "radical decarbonization of the U.S. economy," but also agrees with the coalition's "focus on unleashing market forces."

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington based think tank, also supports the young conservatives.

"When we see historically controversial policies that are pushed through by one party in a very politicized or polarized manner, those policies are more at risk of being undone, or vilified, at some point in the future," said Sasha Mackler, the center's director of energy projects. "For policies to be enduring over the long term, which is really what we need for a climate solution to be effective, bipartisanship is essential."

'We Would Rather Not Get Caught up in Debates'

The young conservatives' contract makes no mention of the 2016 Paris climate agreement, with its goal of limiting rising global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Nor does it share the sense of urgency expressed by scientists, who, in 2018, concluded that the world had about 12 years to get on a path toward zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Instead, the contract merely acknowledges the need to "move towards the goal of global net-zero carbon emissions by 2050."

The Green New Deal envisions a rapid transition to a carbon-free economy, promising jobs and economic security and explicitly supporting an economic transition in communities that have long lived on incomes from fossil fuel industries.

By contrast, the contract modestly calls for "targeted investment and regulatory streamlining;" increasing clean transportation; creating a more energy-saving electrical grid; maximizing carbon storage in forests and farms; planting trees; supporting nuclear power; and establishing private-public partnerships.

"We would rather not get caught up in debates on targets that are too much for one side of the aisle or the other," said Danielle Butcher, chief operating officer of the American Conservation Coalition. "We view this not as a silver bullet to climate policy."

The contract also does not recommend acarbon tax, which some moderates and Republicans have begun to embrace as a way to put a price on carbon and steer the economy toward a lower-carbon future.

"We want to focus on the steps we can take right now," Butcher said.

The contract's modest scope is its failing, critics counter.

Fighting climate change and economic injustice go hand-in-hand, said Sophie Karasek, a spokeswoman for the Sunrise Movement, which has rallied around the Green New Deal.

"A lot of young people have grown up with the fear of the climate crisis, and we already lived through the great recession, and remember what that felt like," Karasek said.

What's needed are "bold solutions from the government at the scale of the problems we face, and right now (with the Covid-19 pandemic) we are facing a great depression while also staring down the barrel of climate change," she said. "We don't have time to talk about private-public partnerships, or whatever."

Mitch McConnell Has Been Setting the GOP Agenda on Climate

In Tennessee, Sage Kafsky, a 23-year-old volunteer with the American Conservation Coalition, echoed her young colleagues' calls for market based, limited government solutions. But she also declared an admiration for Thunberg, the Swedish teenager whose defiance before the most powerful business and political leaders on the planet became the face of a new generation fighting climate change.

"I 100 percent believe in climate change," Kafsky said in a telephone interview from her home in Ducktown, Tennessee, in the southern Appalachian Mountains, where she works as a paraprofessional in an elementary school. "I believe in people like Greta, who are having their voice, saying this is a major issue, and we need to fix it."

But, she went on to say, "how to get there gets lost in translation" amid political polarization, even though "we have similar goals in mind."

In Washington, D.C., it has been McConnell, 78, the coal-friendly Senate Republican Leader since 2006 and Majority Leader since 2015, who has, in effect, been setting the Republican legislative agenda on climate.

For example, he led the opposition to Obama's climate and coal policies, thenbacked Trump on pulling out of the Paris agreement. Last year McConnellwent out of his way to force Democrats to make a premature and what he hoped would be a politically damaging vote on the Green New Deal, while not offering alternative climate legislation.

McConnell is up for reelection to a seventh term in November. A spokesman declined to comment on the young conservatives' efforts, except to say that the way to address climate change "is through technology and innovation."

But words alone may not be enough for the GOP's new generation.

Butcher, of the conservation coalition, said the group has met with White House and McConnell staff to find policies that will reduce emissions and create economic prosperity. "Given the overwhelming consensus among young Republicans that climate is a top priority, we expect they'll increasingly engage on the issue, and if not, we'll push harder," she said.

Myles, the libertarian-climate activist from the University of Louisville, came to see climate change as an issue the GOP couldn't ignore or deny. "Getting into college and seeing how many other people care about it made me realize this is going to be a major issue and something that has the ability to affect all of us," he said. "The GOP is moving on some issues, as more and more young people get involved. Climate change should be one of them."

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