Young People, Uncertainty, and Instability

2016. 2020. 2024. Pivotal years marked by uncertainty and instability. As a young person involved in politics, I often get asked, “How do we turn out other young people?” I do have some ideas (keep reading!), but I do have important context about my generation that we need to consider as we talk about Gen-Z and politics.

This context is important in understanding our lived experiences with government, institutions, and more. And it may explain some of the polling about Gen-Z!

Instability

I started high school in 2016, and I have two distinct memories from that campaign cycle. I remember my school broadcasting Trump’s inauguration. I also remember my brother calling me scared, as I am a young Native woman in Trump’s America. At that time, I was not active in politics. I was worried about my grades, extracurriculars, and college applications. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school and my government class that I was able to connect my values to politics, and from then on, I stayed engaged.

Fast forward a couple of years, it is March of 2020. I am in my final semester of high school. 2020 was a difficult year. Not only was 2020 marked by protests and necessary, yet difficult, conversations following the murder of George Floyd but also these conversations and protests took place in the middle of a pandemic. It was unsettling to watch Donald Trump lead a smear campaign to undermine science, which jeopardized the health and safety of my family and created public uncertainty about science. Outside of my family, I imagine it was a difficult job market to go into after graduating high school, and for those who went on to college, what a tumultuous, uncertain transition.

My first year of college was marked by COVID-19 tests, isolation, and remote/hybrid classes. In 2023, the Covenant Elementary School Shooting and subsequent expulsions in the TN Legislature of Representatives Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson happened in Nashville, TN. I then graduated from Vanderbilt in 2024, which was another crazy election year.

I graduated from Vanderbilt University into a tumultuous election cycle.

I’m not here to give my whole life story, but I share my story to highlight how some of the most formidable years of my life were marked by global instability. Institutions, including our democracy, were not as stable as they once were.

This tumultuous environment has definitely impacted my generation’s politics. Polling shows that 18-26 year olds have a distrust in political institutions. Perhaps, this polling is a result of our lived experiences.

Older generations have seen a stable democracy and have seen the government be a force for good (i.e. the passage of the Affordable Care Act). Young people have not had the same lived experience.

As you go about conversations about Gen-Z, this context cannot be ignored.

What can we do about it? Read more here.

Written on 11/19/2025