One year into Democratic control of the U.S. government, adults under age 40 have a decidedly negative view of the current and future states of the nation, regardless of party and race, according to a new survey.
Two-third of respondents, who include millennials and Generation Z, have a pessimistic view of the future of the United States, according to polling by Civiqs for the Alliance for Youth Organizing. That includes 62 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents. Only 13 percent said they were optimistic.
Sixty-eight percent of white respondents said they were pessimistic, slightly higher than Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (67 percent), Latinos (63) and Black people (60).
A significant portion of the negativity aligns with a belief that the federal government is not addressing issues important to the under-40 crowd.
More than 90 percent of young Americans are either frustrated (56 percent) or angry (37 percent) with politicians in Washington. More Democrats are frustrated, while Republicans are mostly angry, with independents nearly evenly divided.
Almost half of all respondents (48 percent), including 59 percent of independents, said the Biden administration is not working on “policies that positively impact your life.” Only 5 percent said leaders in Washington, D.C., are focused on young people and students, although 40 percent said there’s no difference among the age groups.
But three-quarters of all respondents, slightly more than half of Republicans, said politicians in D.C., are focused on wealthy people.
(Young Americans are somewhat more positive about state and local governments. Approximately one-quarter said they are “satisfied,” with only slight variations by party and race.)
“If politicians in D.C. don’t change course and start delivering on the issues that young people care about most — health care, student loan debt, climate change, and more — they risk losing the trust and support of this crucial voting bloc,” said Carmel Pryor, senior director of communications for the Alliance for Youth Organizing.
When asked to name the their top three policies for elected officials to address, respondents most often said:
- Increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy (30 percent).
- Transition to 100% clean and renewable energy (25 percent).
- Replace private insurance with Medicare for All (23 percent).
- Restore protections against racial voter discrimination (21 percent).
- Cancel student loan debt (20 percent).
The pollsters also asked about their top two priorities for voting and elections. Nearly one half of respondents prioritized ending partisan gerrymandering (47 percent) and 39 percent selected stopping voter suppression/protecting voters from racial discrimination.
“Political leaders must engage and win the trust of GenZ and millennial voters — particularly youth of color — because young people are crucial to the path to victory for any candidate running this year,” said the group’s executive director, Dakota Hall.
But respondents put much of the responsibility for getting more out of politicians on themselves. One-third said the best method is for more young people to run for office with another 22 percent saying they need to increase voter turnout among the age cohort. Republicans were a bit of an outlier. While they agreed that running for office is the best method, 18 percent countered that politicians are already doing enough for young people. Just 9 percent said to focus on turnout.
In 2020, 57 percent of citizens ages 18-34 cast a ballot, an 8-point increase from 2016 and the biggest jump of any age group.
With control of the House and Senate up for grabs this November, young voters could have a significant say in which party controls the agenda on Capitol Hill.
Data-based rankings produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, housed within Tufts University’s Tisch College, shows which Senate races can be most impacted by the youth vote.
Pennsylvania tops the Youth Electoral Significance Index, given its above average youth voter registration and turnout rates. According to the CIRCLE, President Biden garnered 127,000 more votes among the youth than Donald Trump in a race decided by fewer than 35,000 ballots.
The remaining top 10 Senate races are in: Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Colorado.ci
The survey, conducted Jan. 2-6, polled 1,936 people ages 17-39.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.