Generation Z Doesn’t Remember When America Worked

“Frustrating” was one word a young progressive activist named Annie Wu Henry used to describe today’s Democratic establishment.

In her mind, Wu told me in an interview, Democrats are falling short in terms of addressing the country’s affordability crisis, eliminating student debt, protecting the rights of immigrants and LGBTQ Americans, and ensuring access to abortion. Worse, she said, they seem to have no viable strategy for accomplishing what they promise, let alone what the country needs. “We tell them our ideas, and they tell us their plans,” Wu said, talking about the strategic differences she sees between the left and the right. “While we can be very upset that the Court overturned Roe, nobody should be surprised. The right has been talking about this for decades, as well as telling us how they are going to do it.”

In her frustration with the Democrats, Wu, a 26-year-old Pennsylvanian who works as a digital and communications strategist for progressive organizations and campaigns, is hardly alone. Young voters are not just more liberal than any; they are more liberal than any other cohort of young people has been in . But these voters have soured on the Democrats, stoking fears within the party that low turnout among them might help Republicans retake the House and the Senate this fall: Joe Biden’s approval rating