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more likely to <em>reduce</em> rather than build trust in scientific and political authorities."/><meta property="krux:title" content="COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right - The Atlantic"/><meta property="krux:description" content="Research suggests that pandemics are more likely to <em>reduce</em> rather than build trust in scientific and political authorities."/><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/"/><link rel="image_src" href="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/m6hOOdcDNYEjJ9eQbEsdE4mUAD4=/0x57:2696x1461/1200x625/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg"/><meta name="author" content="Derek Thompson"/><link rel="ia:markup_url" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/facebook-instant/article/681705/"/><meta property="article:publisher" content="https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/"/><meta property="article:opinion" content="false"/><meta property="article:content_tier" 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than build trust in scientific and political authorities.</p></div><div class="ArticleHero_byline__iFT6A"><div class="ArticleBylines_root__IBR5V"><address id="byline">By <a class="ArticleBylines_link__kNP4C" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/" data-event-element="author" data-flatplan-author-link="true">Derek Thompson</a></address></div></div></div><div class="ArticleLeadArt_root__nRSLU"><figure class="ArticleLeadFigure_root__Bj81R ArticleLeadFigure_standard__20Izv"><div class="ArticleLeadFigure_media__R1npW" data-flatplan-lead_figure_media="true"><picture><img alt="Young man sitting in the back of a pickup truck, checking his phone, with a Trump campaign sign and the American flag behind him" class="Image_root__XxsOp ArticleLeadArt_image__HZS4B" sizes="(min-width: 976px) 976px, 100vw" srcSet="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/bTeFhzAzbUVrEgTvMWk1WGCqaHU=/0x0:2700x1519/750x422/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg 750w, 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class="ArticleAudio_link__bjoip" href="https://newsoveraudio.com/?offerId=atl_reader_exclusive_jks1kjl"> News Over Audio (Noa)</a> using AI narration. Listen to more stories on the Noa app.</p></div><section class="ArticleBody_root__2gF81" data-event-module="article body" data-flatplan-body="true"><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">For decades, America’s young voters have been deeply—and famously—progressive. In 2008, a youthquake sent Barack Obama to the White House. In 2016, voters ages 18 to 29 broke for Hillary Clinton by <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://circle.tufts.edu/2016-election-center">18 points</a>. In 2020, they voted for Joe Biden by <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://circle.tufts.edu/index.php/2020-election-center">24 points</a>. In 2024, Donald Trump closed most of the gap, losing voters under 30 by a <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://circle.tufts.edu/index.php/2024-election#youth-vote-+4-for-harris,-major-differences-by-race-and-gender">51–47 margin</a>. In one recent<a data-event-element="inline link" href="http://cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-2025-2-9/"> CBS poll</a>, Americans under 30 weren’t just evenly split between the parties. They were even more pro-Trump than Boomers over 65.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">Precisely polling teens and 20-somethings is a fraught business; some surveys suggest that Trump’s advantage among young people <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/51589-donald-trump-popularity-democrats-response-elon-musk-doge-gaza-israel-palestinians-february-9-11-2025-economist-yougov-poll">might already be fading</a>. But young people’s apparent lurch right is not an American-only trend.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">“Far-right parties are surging across Europe—and young voters are buying in,” the journalist Hanne Cokelaere <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-young-people-right-wing-voters-far-right-politics-eu-elections-parliament/#:~:text=In%2520Belgium%252C%2520France%252C%2520Portugal%252C%2520Germanyyoung%2520people%E2%80%99s%2520political%2520preferences%2520suggest">wrote</a> for <i>Politico</i> last year. In France, Germany, Finland, and beyond, young voters are swinging their support toward anti-establishment far-right parties “in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters.” In Germany, a 2024 <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/studie-jugend-100.html#:~:text=Es%20sei%20der%20AfD%20gelungen%2Czugelegt%2C%20die%20Regierungsparteien%20enorm%20verloren">survey</a> of 2,000 people showed that young people have adopted a relatively new “gloomy outlook” on the future. No surprise, then, that the far-right Alternative für Deutschland has become the most popular party among Germans under 30. Like most interesting phenomena, this one even has a German name: <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.thelocal.de/20240619/german-word-of-the-day-rechtsruck"><i>Rechtsruck</i></a>, or rightward shift.</p><p id="injected-recirculation-link-0" class="ArticleRelatedContentLink_root__VYc9V" data-view-action="view link - injected link - item 1" data-event-element="injected link" data-event-position="1"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/covid-deniers-anti-vax-public-health-politics-polarization/681435/">Read: Why the COVID deniers won</a></p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">What’s driving this global <i>Rechtsruck</i>? It’s hard to say for sure. Maybe the entire world is casting a protest vote after several years of inflation. Last year was the largest <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.ft.com/content/e8ac09ea-c300-4249-af7d-109003afb893">wipeout</a> for political incumbents in the developed world since the end of the Second World War. One level deeper, it wasn’t inflation on its own, but rather the <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.wsj.com/world/global-politics-conservative-right-shift-ea0e8d05">combination</a> of weak real economic growth and record immigration that tilled the soil for far-right upstarts, who can criticize progressive governments on both sides of the Atlantic for their failure to look out for their own citizens first.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">There is another potential driver of the global right turn: the pandemic.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">Pandemics might not initially seem to cash out in any particular political direction. After all, in the spring of 2020, one possible implication of the pandemic seemed to be that it would unite people behind a vision of collective sacrifice—or, at least, collective appreciation for health professionals, or for the effect of vaccines to reduce severe illness among adults. But political science suggests that pandemics are more likely to <i>reduce</i> rather than build trust in scientific authorities. One cross-country <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/politics/the-political-scar-of-epidemics-why-covid-19-is-eroding-young-peoples-trust-in-their-leaders-and-political-institutions#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20we%20find%20that%20individualsgradually%20and%20persist%20for%20at">analysis</a> published by the Systemic Risk Center at the London School of Economics found that people who experience epidemics between the ages of 18 and 25 have less confidence in their scientific and political leadership. This loss of trust persists for years, even decades, in part because political ideology tends to solidify in a person’s 20s.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">The paper certainly matches the survey evidence of young Americans. Young people who cast their first ballot in 2024 were “more jaded than ever about the state of American leadership,” according to the <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://theharvardpoliticalreview.com/declining-youth-trust-in-american-institutions-shows-no-signs-of-stopping/#:~:text=Trust%20in%20American%20Presidency%20Declinesin%20Last%20Three%20Years"><i>Harvard Political Review</i></a>. A 2024 <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018e-ee5d-d3bc-adfe-fe7dafb20000">analysis</a> of Americans under 30 found the “lowest levels of confidence in most public institutions since the survey began.” In the past decade alone, young Americans’ trust in the president has declined by 60 percent, while their trust in the Supreme Court, Wall Street, and Congress has declined by more than 30 percent.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">Another way that COVID may have accelerated young people’s <i>Rechtsruck</i> in America and around the world was by dramatically reducing their physical-world socializing. That led, in turn, to large increases in social-media time that boys and girls spent alone. The Norwegian researcher Ruben B. Mathisen <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://osf.io/preprints/osf/7z2va_v1">has written</a> that “social media [creates] separate online spheres for men and women.” By trading gender-blended hangouts in basements and restaurants for gender-segregated online spaces, young men’s politics became more distinctly pro-male—and, more to the point, anti-feminist, according to Mathisen. Norwegian boys are more and more drawn to right-wing politics, a phenomenon “driven in large part by a new wave of politically potent anti-feminism,” he wrote. Although Mathisen focused on Nordic youth, he noted that his research built on a body of survey literature showing that “the ideological distance between young men and women has accelerated across several countries.”</p><p id="injected-recirculation-link-1" class="ArticleRelatedContentLink_root__VYc9V" data-view-action="view link - injected link - item 2" data-event-element="injected link" data-event-position="2"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/11/gen-z-woke-myth-election/680653/">Read: The not-so-woke Generation Z</a></p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">These changes may not be durable. But many people’s political preferences solidify when they’re in their teens and 20s; so do other tastes and behaviors, such as musical preferences and even spending habits. Most famously, so-called Depression babies, who grew up in the 1930s, saved more as adults, and there is <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/126/1/373/1901343?login=false">some evidence</a> that corporate managers born in the ’30s were unusually disinclined to take on loans. Perhaps the 18-to-25-year-old cohort whose youths were thrown into upheaval by COVID will adopt a set of sociopolitical assumptions that form a new sort of ideology that doesn’t quite have a name yet. As <i>The Atlantic</i>’s Anne Applebaum has <a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/trump-populist-conspiracism-autocracy-rfk-jr/681088/">written</a>, many emerging European populist parties now blend vaccine skepticism, “folk magic” mysticism, and deep anti-immigration sentiment. “Spiritual leaders are becoming political, and political actors have veered into the occult,” she wrote.</p><p class="ArticleParagraph_root__4mszW" data-flatplan-paragraph="true">New ideologies are messy to describe and messier still to name. But in a few years, what we’ve grown accustomed to calling Generation Z may reveal itself to contain a subgroup: Generation C, COVID-affected and, for now, strikingly conservative. For this micro-generation of young people in the United States and throughout the West, social media has served as a crucible where several trends have fused together: declining trust in political and scientific authorities, anger about the excesses of feminism and social justice, and a preference for rightward politics.</p><div class="ArticleBody_divider__GpNxD" id="article-end"></div></section><div data-event-module="footer"><div class="ArticleWell_root__fueCa"><div data-event-module="author footer" class="ArticleFooter_authorFooter__5NsdY"><div class="SectionHeading_root__3GnqT"><h3 class="SectionHeading_heading__iNkek">About the Author</h3></div><div class="ArticleBio_root__ua8zj"><address id="article-writer-0" class="ArticleBio_author__6pDyl" data-event-element="author" data-event-position="1" data-flatplan-bio="true"><div class="ArticleBio_content__O0ZVF"><div class="ArticleBio_topContainer__QYRU4"><a class="ArticleBio_headshotContainer__Am2nR" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/" data-event-element="image"><img alt="" loading="lazy" class="Image_root__XxsOp Image_lazy__hYWHV ArticleBio_headshot__6Aykd" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/X_1bfJ1Wyog_MgZ0yvyRliDMEbI=/300x0:1068x768/120x120/media/None/Derek_Thompson_grey/original.png" width="60" height="60"/></a><div><div class="ArticleBio_bioNameMulti__gvg_b"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/" data-event-element="author name">Derek Thompson</a></div><div class="ArticleAuthorFollow_root__Oyvdr"><button class="ArticleAuthorFollow_followButton__0_Sod" aria-haspopup="true" aria-controls=":Rkt8pb32qm:" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Open Author Newsletter Signup" data-event-verb="followed" data-event-element="follow button"><div class="ArticleAuthorFollow_buttonIcon__ofx09"></div>Follow</button></div></div></div><div class="ArticleBio_bioSection__Hef4P"><div class="ArticleBio_bioSection__Hef4P" data-flatplan-bio="true"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/" class="author-link" data-label="https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/" data-action="click author - name" >Derek Thompson</a> is a staff writer at <em>The Atlantic </em>and the author of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/sign-up/work-in-progress/">Work in Progress</a> newsletter.</div><div class="ArticleBio_moreStories__LKpwT"><p class="ArticleBio_contentHeading__cmbmT">More Stories</p><a class="ArticleBio_storyLink__xuRiU" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/musk-terror-reign/681731/" data-event-element="more stories" data-event-position="1"><p>DOGE’s Reign of Ineptitude</p></a><a class="ArticleBio_storyLink__xuRiU" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/tom-brady-mascot/681604/" data-event-element="more stories" data-event-position="2"><p>Why Tom Brady Could Be Worth $375 Million in the Booth</p></a></div></div></div></address></div></div><div class="ArticleTags_root__zS_pT"><div class="ArticleTags_tagTitle__WjjAt">Explore More Topics</div><div><span class="ArticleTags_tagLink__SZysG"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/barack-obama/">Barack Obama</a>, </span><span class="ArticleTags_tagLink__SZysG"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/general/covid-19/">COVID-19</a>, </span><span class="ArticleTags_tagLink__SZysG"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a>, </span><span class="ArticleTags_tagLink__SZysG"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/hillary-clinton/">Hillary Clinton</a>, </span><span class="ArticleTags_tagLink__SZysG"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/location/white-house/">White House</a></span></div></div></div></div><gpt-ad class="GptAd_root__pAvcS ArticleInjector_root__I7x9v s-native s-native--standard s-native--streamline" format="injector" sizes-at-0="mobile-wide,native,house" targeting-pos="injector-most-popular" sizes-at-976="desktop-wide,native,house"></gpt-ad><div class="ArticleInjector_clsAvoider__dqIAm"></div></article><div></div></main><div></div><div></div></div></div><script id="__NEXT_DATA__" type="application/json">{"props":{"isLoggedIn":false,"hasPaywallAccess":false,"hasAdFree":false,"pageProps":{"id":"BlogArticle:681705","isTnfCompatible":true,"layout":"standard","hasMeter":true,"url":"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/","dateModified":"2025-02-18T12:17:29Z","__typename":"BlogArticle","notFound":false,"urqlState":{"757930693":{"data":"{\"article\":{\"__typename\":\"BlogArticle\",\"id\":\"BlogArticle:681705\",\"authors\":[{\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/\",\"displayName\":\"Derek Thompson\",\"__typename\":\"Author\",\"id\":\"Author:1608\",\"isFollowable\":true,\"biography\":{\"default\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/\\\" class=\\\"author-link\\\" data-label=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/derek-thompson/\\\" data-action=\\\"click author - name\\\" \u003eDerek Thompson\u003c/a\u003e is a staff writer at \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic \u003c/em\u003eand the author of the \u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/sign-up/work-in-progress/\\\"\u003eWork in Progress\u003c/a\u003e newsletter.\",\"__typename\":\"Biography\"},\"headshot\":{\"width\":120,\"height\":120,\"srcSet\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/X_1bfJ1Wyog_MgZ0yvyRliDMEbI=/300x0:1068x768/120x120/media/None/Derek_Thompson_grey/original.png, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/TodL3j0uF-TVbPbqjX7-YqLtZ7o=/300x0:1068x768/240x240/media/None/Derek_Thompson_grey/original.png 2x\",\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/X_1bfJ1Wyog_MgZ0yvyRliDMEbI=/300x0:1068x768/120x120/media/None/Derek_Thompson_grey/original.png\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"river\":{\"edges\":[{\"cursor\":\"MjAyNS0wMi0xOSAxMjowMDo0NXw2ODE3MzE=\",\"node\":{\"id\":\"BlogArticle:681731\",\"title\":\"DOGE’s Reign of Ineptitude\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/musk-terror-reign/681731/\",\"__typename\":\"BlogArticle\"},\"__typename\":\"PromoEdge\"},{\"cursor\":\"MjAyNS0wMi0xOCAwNzowMDowMHw2ODE3MDU=\",\"node\":{\"id\":\"BlogArticle:681705\",\"title\":\"How COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/\",\"__typename\":\"BlogArticle\"},\"__typename\":\"PromoEdge\"},{\"cursor\":\"MjAyNS0wMi0wOSAwNzowMDowMHw2ODE2MDQ=\",\"node\":{\"id\":\"BlogArticle:681604\",\"title\":\"Why Tom Brady Could Be Worth $375 Million in the Booth\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/tom-brady-mascot/681604/\",\"__typename\":\"BlogArticle\"},\"__typename\":\"PromoEdge\"}],\"__typename\":\"RiverConnection\"},\"slug\":\"derek-thompson\",\"socialMedia\":[{\"platform\":\"TWITTER\",\"url\":\"https://twitter.com/dkthomp\",\"__typename\":\"SocialMedia\"}]}],\"authorContext\":\"\",\"categories\":[{\"slug\":\"high-converters\",\"__typename\":\"Category\"},{\"slug\":\"top-40\",\"__typename\":\"Category\"},{\"slug\":\"top-60\",\"__typename\":\"Category\"}],\"content\":[{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"For decades, America’s young voters have been deeply—and famously—progressive. In 2008, a youthquake sent Barack Obama to the White House. In 2016, voters ages 18 to 29 broke for Hillary Clinton by \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://circle.tufts.edu/2016-election-center\\\"\u003e18 points\u003c/a\u003e. In 2020, they voted for Joe Biden by \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://circle.tufts.edu/index.php/2020-election-center\\\"\u003e24 points\u003c/a\u003e. In 2024, Donald Trump closed most of the gap, losing voters under 30 by a \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://circle.tufts.edu/index.php/2024-election#youth-vote-+4-for-harris,-major-differences-by-race-and-gender\\\"\u003e51–47 margin\u003c/a\u003e. In one recent\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"http://cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-2025-2-9/\\\"\u003e CBS poll\u003c/a\u003e, Americans under 30 weren’t just evenly split between the parties. They were even more pro-Trump than Boomers over 65.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Precisely polling teens and 20-somethings is a fraught business; some surveys suggest that Trump’s advantage among young people \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/51589-donald-trump-popularity-democrats-response-elon-musk-doge-gaza-israel-palestinians-february-9-11-2025-economist-yougov-poll\\\"\u003emight already be fading\u003c/a\u003e. But young people’s apparent lurch right is not an American-only trend.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"“Far-right parties are surging across Europe—and young voters are buying in,” the journalist Hanne Cokelaere \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-young-people-right-wing-voters-far-right-politics-eu-elections-parliament/#:~:text=In%2520Belgium%252C%2520France%252C%2520Portugal%252C%2520Germanyyoung%2520people%E2%80%99s%2520political%2520preferences%2520suggest\\\"\u003ewrote\u003c/a\u003e for \u003ci\u003ePolitico\u003c/i\u003e last year. In France, Germany, Finland, and beyond, young voters are swinging their support toward anti-establishment far-right parties “in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters.” In Germany, a 2024 \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/studie-jugend-100.html#:~:text=Es%20sei%20der%20AfD%20gelungen%2Czugelegt%2C%20die%20Regierungsparteien%20enorm%20verloren\\\"\u003esurvey\u003c/a\u003e of 2,000 people showed that young people have adopted a relatively new “gloomy outlook” on the future. No surprise, then, that the far-right Alternative für Deutschland has become the most popular party among Germans under 30. Like most interesting phenomena, this one even has a German name: \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.thelocal.de/20240619/german-word-of-the-day-rechtsruck\\\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eRechtsruck\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, or rightward shift.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleRelatedContentLink\",\"idAttr\":\"injected-recirculation-link-0\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/covid-deniers-anti-vax-public-health-politics-polarization/681435/\\\"\u003eRead: Why the COVID deniers won\u003c/a\u003e\",\"index\":0},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"What’s driving this global \u003ci\u003eRechtsruck\u003c/i\u003e? It’s hard to say for sure. Maybe the entire world is casting a protest vote after several years of inflation. Last year was the largest \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.ft.com/content/e8ac09ea-c300-4249-af7d-109003afb893\\\"\u003ewipeout\u003c/a\u003e for political incumbents in the developed world since the end of the Second World War. One level deeper, it wasn’t inflation on its own, but rather the \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.wsj.com/world/global-politics-conservative-right-shift-ea0e8d05\\\"\u003ecombination\u003c/a\u003e of weak real economic growth and record immigration that tilled the soil for far-right upstarts, who can criticize progressive governments on both sides of the Atlantic for their failure to look out for their own citizens first.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"There is another potential driver of the global right turn: the pandemic.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Pandemics might not initially seem to cash out in any particular political direction. After all, in the spring of 2020, one possible implication of the pandemic seemed to be that it would unite people behind a vision of collective sacrifice—or, at least, collective appreciation for health professionals, or for the effect of vaccines to reduce severe illness among adults. But political science suggests that pandemics are more likely to \u003ci\u003ereduce\u003c/i\u003e rather than build trust in scientific authorities. One cross-country \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/politics/the-political-scar-of-epidemics-why-covid-19-is-eroding-young-peoples-trust-in-their-leaders-and-political-institutions#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20we%20find%20that%20individualsgradually%20and%20persist%20for%20at\\\"\u003eanalysis\u003c/a\u003e published by the Systemic Risk Center at the London School of Economics found that people who experience epidemics between the ages of 18 and 25 have less confidence in their scientific and political leadership. This loss of trust persists for years, even decades, in part because political ideology tends to solidify in a person’s 20s.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"The paper certainly matches the survey evidence of young Americans. Young people who cast their first ballot in 2024 were “more jaded than ever about the state of American leadership,” according to the \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://theharvardpoliticalreview.com/declining-youth-trust-in-american-institutions-shows-no-signs-of-stopping/#:~:text=Trust%20in%20American%20Presidency%20Declinesin%20Last%20Three%20Years\\\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eHarvard Political Review\u003c/i\u003e\u003c/a\u003e. A 2024 \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018e-ee5d-d3bc-adfe-fe7dafb20000\\\"\u003eanalysis\u003c/a\u003e of Americans under 30 found the “lowest levels of confidence in most public institutions since the survey began.” In the past decade alone, young Americans’ trust in the president has declined by 60 percent, while their trust in the Supreme Court, Wall Street, and Congress has declined by more than 30 percent.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Another way that COVID may have accelerated young people’s \u003ci\u003eRechtsruck\u003c/i\u003e in America and around the world was by dramatically reducing their physical-world socializing. That led, in turn, to large increases in social-media time that boys and girls spent alone. The Norwegian researcher Ruben B. Mathisen \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://osf.io/preprints/osf/7z2va_v1\\\"\u003ehas written\u003c/a\u003e that “social media [creates] separate online spheres for men and women.” By trading gender-blended hangouts in basements and restaurants for gender-segregated online spaces, young men’s politics became more distinctly pro-male—and, more to the point, anti-feminist, according to Mathisen. Norwegian boys are more and more drawn to right-wing politics, a phenomenon “driven in large part by a new wave of politically potent anti-feminism,” he wrote. Although Mathisen focused on Nordic youth, he noted that his research built on a body of survey literature showing that “the ideological distance between young men and women has accelerated across several countries.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleRelatedContentLink\",\"idAttr\":\"injected-recirculation-link-1\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/11/gen-z-woke-myth-election/680653/\\\"\u003eRead: The not-so-woke Generation Z\u003c/a\u003e\",\"index\":1},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"These changes may not be durable. But many people’s political preferences solidify when they’re in their teens and 20s; so do other tastes and behaviors, such as musical preferences and even spending habits. Most famously, so-called Depression babies, who grew up in the 1930s, saved more as adults, and there is \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/126/1/373/1901343?login=false\\\"\u003esome evidence\u003c/a\u003e that corporate managers born in the ’30s were unusually disinclined to take on loans. Perhaps the 18-to-25-year-old cohort whose youths were thrown into upheaval by COVID will adopt a set of sociopolitical assumptions that form a new sort of ideology that doesn’t quite have a name yet. As \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c/i\u003e’s Anne Applebaum has \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/trump-populist-conspiracism-autocracy-rfk-jr/681088/\\\"\u003ewritten\u003c/a\u003e, many emerging European populist parties now blend vaccine skepticism, “folk magic” mysticism, and deep anti-immigration sentiment. “Spiritual leaders are becoming political, and political actors have veered into the occult,” she wrote.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"New ideologies are messy to describe and messier still to name. But in a few years, what we’ve grown accustomed to calling Generation Z may reveal itself to contain a subgroup: Generation C, COVID-affected and, for now, strikingly conservative. For this micro-generation of young people in the United States and throughout the West, social media has served as a crucible where several trends have fused together: declining trust in political and scientific authorities, anger about the excesses of feminism and social justice, and a preference for rightward politics.\"}],\"editorialProject\":null,\"primaryCategory\":{\"__typename\":\"Channel\",\"displayName\":\"Ideas\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/\",\"slug\":\"ideas\"},\"reviews\":[],\"embeds\":[],\"preview\":null,\"tags\":[{\"name\":\"adolescence\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"adolescence\"},{\"name\":\"Barack Obama\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/barack-obama/\",\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"barack-obama\"},{\"name\":\"COVID-19\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/general/covid-19/\",\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"covid-19\"},{\"name\":\"Donald Trump\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/donald-trump/\",\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"donald-trump\"},{\"name\":\"pandemic\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"pandemic\"},{\"name\":\"Hillary Clinton\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/person/hillary-clinton/\",\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"hillary-clinton\"},{\"name\":\"politics\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"politics\"},{\"name\":\"election\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"election\"},{\"name\":\"society\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"society\"},{\"name\":\"survey\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"survey\"},{\"name\":\"The Atlantic\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"the-atlantic\"},{\"name\":\"trust\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"trust\"},{\"name\":\"United States of America\",\"url\":null,\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"united-states-of-america\"},{\"name\":\"White House\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/tag/location/white-house/\",\"__typename\":\"Tag\",\"slug\":\"white-house\"}],\"layout\":\"standard\",\"secondaryByline\":\"\",\"dek\":\"Research suggests that pandemics are more likely to \u003cem\u003ereduce\u003c/em\u003e rather than build trust in scientific and political authorities.\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/\",\"shareText\":\"“In a few years, what we’ve grown accustomed to calling Generation Z,” writes @DKThomp, “may reveal itself to contain a subgroup: Generation C, COVID-affected and, for now, strikingly conservative”:\",\"shareTitle\":\"How COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right\",\"title\":\"How COVID Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-18T12:00:00Z\",\"editorsNote\":null,\"leadArt\":{\"__typename\":\"LeadArtImage\",\"image\":{\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/kzy_nwPiaSeXL84It0IFRdEe9Mw=/0x0:2700x1519/960x540/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":540,\"srcSet\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/bTeFhzAzbUVrEgTvMWk1WGCqaHU=/0x0:2700x1519/750x422/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg 750w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/ML0xsMSb4-huYFBymAJ38b1qF-k=/0x0:2700x1519/828x466/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg 828w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/kzy_nwPiaSeXL84It0IFRdEe9Mw=/0x0:2700x1519/960x540/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg 960w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/EGxhh3d6hmwdCg7FeHDTkiP_mtU=/0x0:2700x1519/976x549/media/img/mt/2025/02/2025_02_14_youngmen_040-1/original.jpg 976w, 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