Why Gen Z and Millennials are Likely to Change the Future of Politics

While politics seems broken today, it has also started to undergo a significant transformation.

In recent years, if you have been following political trends like me, you may also have started to develop a growing sense that our politics, long dominated by the values, methods, and priorities of Baby Boomers, and then the emergence of a growing Generation X political class, has now found itself at a critical crossroad mostly marked by heightened polarisation and tribalism.

Such developments have arisen out of contrasting views and dogmatism on the big political issues of our day, such as immigration, identity, climate, and the economy. There are also various frustrations with our traditional political structures and institutions. It is a phenomenon playing out in different ways on both sides of the Atlantic.

In many respects, there is now a new fork in the road. Politically, it has become increasingly difficult these days to cooperate to get things done, and it seems that not all the passengers in the car want to continue driving in the same direction. To do so only appears to bring us to a dead end.

There are also concerns today about the current driver’s sense of direction and level of road alertness. It seems likely that out of fear for their safety, one of the younger passengers in the back will soon insist on providing the driver with new directions or maybe even get in front of the wheel themselves.

There are many factors to consider when analysing how we vote, including our socio-economic status, gender, race, religion, education level, and even geographical factors such as the regional issues that are impacting our lives. However, there is also a pattern in the particular values, methods, and priorities that drive different generational cohorts.

Sometimes, generations have similar values that blend into each other and evolve, but at the same time, they can also have priorities that are actually quite different. How they go about achieving their priorities can change over time. When we consider how our society evolves, I think a generational lens can also be quite insightful and should not be discounted.

Changing demographics and social values suggest that those politically engaged younger voters, who are most likely to set the political agenda in the coming years, are going to want to pivot, to drive in a different way and in an alternative direction. Frustrated or dissatisfied with what they currently have, they may also require a different or at least better-adapted vehicle for an alternative new road ahead.

Of course, with all of the current traffic noise, it is easy to become distracted and overlook the critical juncture we have arrived at. But if we can manage to tune out the noise, we can better see that while politics seems broken today, it has also started to undergo a significant transformation.

Politically engaged younger generations, particularly the tech-savvy and more diverse Gen Z and Millennials, are now emerging as key drivers who could disrupt and reshape our political journey over the long road ahead.

There is already evidence that they are doing so. These younger generations have already played a significant role in the 2022 U.S. mid-term elections, where, as it turned out, they voted heavily for Democratic candidates and exceeded their turnout from 2018. This is quite remarkable in a year when the same party holds the White House.

In Germany, a country that has for decades preferred political continuity rather than significant change, the Green party,  the most popular party in the run-in to the 2021 election among the young ‘Merkel Generation’, those aged 18 to 29 years old, went on to achieve its best-ever election result (15% of the vote) at that election. Many were disappointed they didn’t do even better. Today, both the Greens in Germany and the Democrats in America are now parties of government and were helped get there with the swing of younger voters.  

You could say there’s a sort of creative destruction emerging. The progressive values and priorities of the increasing number of younger generations of voters are clashing with attempts led by declining older generations of conservative voters to maintain the current speed, to keep things steady, or even take a U-turn and return us all to an earlier more traditional place and time where issues such as climate change and social justice mattered less, or not at all.

The large numbers of Millennials and the growing number of Gen Zs arriving at voting age will increasingly matter in determining the outcome of elections and public policy in the coming years, and likely change the future of politics. New economic priorities, social values, and different ways of doing politics could well replace the more established ones that have put us on our current road of political polarization, tribalism, or gridlock; the dead-end road to nowhere.

Today’s Political Leaders: Boomers and Generation X

Boomers, those born between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s, have had a good run in shaping their preferred political outcomes, and they continue to make up a substantial portion of the voting-age population in America and Europe. They also turn up on election day. Over the last number of decades, Boomers in politics have amassed extensive political experience, institutional knowledge, and economic power.

As a result, members of this generation have and continue to hold prominent leadership positions, particularly in Washington. Boomers have tended to be a mix of both progressives and conservatives. The current Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer (born 1950), is a boomer. The Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell (born 1942), is a marginal Boomer. Next year’s presidential election is likely to be a rematch between two boomers born in the 1940s, the sitting Democrat president, Joe Biden (another marginal boomer born in 1942), and, if he is not otherwise detained, the former Republican president, Donald Trump (born in 1946). This could be the last time a boomer runs for president.