The kids might be alright, but they are also pissed.

They don't believe Democrats fight hard enough or for the right causes

I’m listening to the kids these days—or at least my kids and their cousins. They’re pissed that the government is trying to ban TikTok. They believe that Luigi Mangione is being treated unfairly. They don’t understand why the right gets a pass on being so militant, carrying guns, making threats, and attacking the Capitol. They are angry and scared about the slow approach to dealing with climate change. I’m seeing the seeds of an anti-establishment, populist movement that defies the traditional left-right orientation.

My son, in particular, is pissed. He gets most of his information from TikTok, YouTube, and other social media. He’s never seen the 6 o’clock news and never read a newspaper. He periodically texts me to ask if something is true or not. Most recently, he asked if Donald Trump really forced the Gaza deal. I sent him an article from The Atlantic. I don’t know if he read it.

I’ve not paid enough attention to the recent upheaval on social media, but my instinct is to agree with my son. I don’t like the idea of China mining information or pushing disinformation on a platform, but I like the idea of the U.S. government telling us what we can read or watch even less. I also don’t think the government should be pressuring Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms to censor content. If people are prone to believing conspiracy theories or other nonsense, they are going to get it from somewhere else. If people don’t like the way a platform is operating, they can leave. That’s freedom. Just ask the folks at Bluesky.

My nephew argues that banning TikTok is not going to stop China from mining information. They will get it one way or the other. Essentially, he argues that TikTok has become a scapegoat and that a ban is like plugging one hole in a dam full of leaks.

Before the disinformation on the internet, there was the National Enquirer and the supermarket tabloids. They printed gibberish and splashed it across the page in huge headlines. Plenty of people believed them or at least were influenced by them. They held sway over public opinion for a certain segment of the population. Countering bad information is going to take building new standard bearers that earn the trust that the traditional media has lost. In other words, more information, not limiting information.

The kids are also pissed at the way the government treated Luigi Mangione, the guy who killed the United Healthcare CEO. Throughout the manhunt, my son was asking why they were putting so many resources into pursuing the killer of an insurance executive when other murders in New York were essentially being ignored.

When they arrested Mangione, he sent a meme that showed the accused killer surrounded by about a dozen police officers with bulletproof vests and assault weapons next to a photo of a couple of overweight cops leading Dylan Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston, into the courthouse. He argued that Roof killed nine innocent people while Mangione killed one man complicit in a health system that’s leaving people to die. He says that the CEO might not have deserved to die, but he wasn’t innocent, either. He believes there are plenty of people who are more of a threat to our society than Mangione and that law enforcement behaved as if CEO Bryan Thompson’s life was more important than those of other murder victims.

My son also thinks the left are wimps. The right walks around with guns, threatening people who disagree with them. When right-wing extremists violently attacked the Capitol, nobody pushed back. When they kill protesters, they get pardoned and hero’s welcome. There’s no penalty for political violence on right.

Now, Democrats are hoping that the system will protect a Supreme Court seat that Republicans are trying to steal. If the situation were reversed, he doesn’t believe Republicans would be waiting for the process to play out and he doesn’t believe they would pay a price for whatever action they took. He also doesn’t believe that if Trump had lost there would have been a peaceful transfer of power. He believes the right would have stopped it.

Finally, he’s really pissed about climate change. In particular, he’s upset about the loss of species and habitat. As he says, he expects that by the time he’s a grandfather, most large species mammals will only exist in zoos. He’s furious that protecting the planet is not more of a priority.

My nephew sums it all up pretty well. He says that his generation believes Democrats are trying to protect a bunch norms and institutions that no longer have a function—or at least have little relevance to their lives. They think that Democrats expect the system to protect them while the right is burning it down. Liberals and progressives aren’t waging effective battles for what matters to the generation that’s coming of age today.

In our conversations, I push back on a lot of points, but it’s the emotion that comes through from them. I’m making rational arguments, they’re pissed at what they perceive as a government out of touch with their lives that doesn’t understand how they communicate. They believe Republicans and conservatives fight harder than Democrats and progressives. They don’t believe the institutions or norms can save the country.

I think they see a country that’s heading into dangerous territory without the leaders who understand the battlefield. They want a standard bearer who reflects their world view and knows what’s important to them. Maybe we should get out of their way.