{"id":1546190,"date":"2025-07-10T01:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1546190"},"modified":"2025-07-10T01:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T05:20:00","slug":"is-gen-z-the-useful-idiot-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/is-gen-z-the-useful-idiot-generation\/1546190\/","title":{"rendered":"Is\u00a0Gen Z The\u00a0Useful Idiot Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Is\u00a0Gen Z The\u00a0Useful Idiot Generation<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>A sizable proportion of young Americans lean heavily to the left, often with limited understanding of history, moral grounding, or the foundations of Western civilization. Whether it&#8217;s the result of leftist indoctrination on college campuses or the intellectual decay sparked by endless hours on social media, the effect is apparent: radicalism is here to stay.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Penn, a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s, and Andrew Stein, who served as New York City Council President from 1986 to 1993, penned a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/the-useful-idiot-generation-z-young-people-politics-cd42f1ee?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAgd1vFCHLHzKR3pnHokPR62aNoZy1dGduw5azqL9RU1D2fhGfJW7rO8fRo8Xm0%3D&amp;gaa_ts=686e867b&amp;gaa_sig=IbJ1bqoYXPtPMkP2dfHfw48WzG_AD7I_01n9zFH8Il1F03642NY0jV-PVE3WStArdeLdVCp3uwggZDoGSTU9cQ%3D%3D\">Wall Street Journal<\/a> opinion piece <strong>calling Gen Z &#8220;the Useful Idiot Generation.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Their concerns about youngsters stem\u00a0from the Democratic mayoral nomination of Marxist Zohran Mamdani, who has proudly and explicitly stated he wants to seize &#8220;the means of production.&#8221; It seems some New Yorkers have forgotten the history of communism\u2014an economic system that has never worked and, in fact, has led to the deaths of tens of millions.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Mamdani&#8217;s promises of free bus rides and government-run grocery stores, among other initiatives, have been enough to attract some New Yorkers burdened with student loans and no savings.<\/p>\n<p>Penn and\u00a0Stein drilled into why a growing number of youngsters aren&#8217;t outgrowing leftist radicalism, which usually occurs after marriage and having a family&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>53% of 18- to 24-year-olds have attended at least some college, where left-wing ideology dominates.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Colleges often portray socialism as &#8220;free stuff&#8221; and teach students to blame capitalism for racism, inequality, and climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Gen Z lacks historical memory of Cold War-era socialist atrocities (e.g., Soviet Union, Maoist China).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Adulthood is delayed: median age of first marriage is now 30, nearly five years later than in 1985.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nearly half of Gen Z adults are not in committed relationships and often live communally or work from home.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>They spend over four hours daily on their phones, mostly consuming content from TikTok and Facebook, which reinforce existing beliefs.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Religion has declined: over one-third report no affiliation, and 60% didn&#8217;t grow up attending services\u2014contributing to moral disconnection.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/GuJvET6agAIkD1v.jpg?itok=PLmvO8pO\"><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Penn and\u00a0Stein noted:<\/p>\n<p><em>Put all this together, and it&#8217;s little wonder that about half of 18- to 24-year-olds tell pollsters they support Hamas over Israel. By and large these young adults aren&#8217;t hard-core ideologues; they&#8217;re merely ignorant. About half of young Hamas supporters say they don&#8217;t want to wipe out Israel and prefer a two-state solution. Call them the Useful Idiot generation, mouthing slogans and causes they don&#8217;t understand and from which they would recoil if they did.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The two said the older generations are to blame here:<\/p>\n<p><em>We created the environment that produced this unmoored generation. Socialism and antisemitism will continue to fester and grow if we don&#8217;t stand up and reform our universities, reinforce our basic values, and balance our social media.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our take\u2014one Penn and Stein didn&#8217;t mention\u2014is that leftist radicalism didn&#8217;t begin with Gen Z. Gen X led the political correctness movement, while Millennials served as foot soldiers in the woke crusade. Blaming Gen Z alone for their views misses the broader picture. This has been a long socialist march through institutions\u2014academia, corporations, and government\u2014spreading progressive ideology at every level and shaping younger generations into radicals.<\/p>\n<p>The good news? The Trump administration is now taking steps to roll back DEI and begin reversing the damage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Wed, 07\/09\/2025 &#8211; 21:20<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/gen-z-useful-idiot-generation\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/gen-z-useful-idiot-generation<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is\u00a0Gen Z The\u00a0Useful Idiot Generation A sizable proportion of young Americans lean heavily to the left, often with limited understanding of history, moral grounding, or&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1546191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1546190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6uey","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/07\/GuJvET6agAIkD1v-dX5waO.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1546190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1546191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1546190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1546190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1546190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}