How Gen Z gender wars are reshaping America

The colossal divide, long suspected, between men and women of Gen Z – those aged 18 to 29 – has been confirmed by a recent NBC News Decision Desk poll. Beyond just a political split, young men and women have completely different ideas of what makes a successful life. From marriage and having children to prioritizing a lucrative career, they are further apart than ever. And this has enormous implications for the country.

A dizzying number of articles and think-pieces have been devoted to the enormous voting gap between young men and women in the 2024 election. Gen Z men overwhelmingly pulled for Donald Trump, women for Kamala Harris. The “podcast election,” as some dubbed it, reflects Trump’s multi-month media blitzkrieg wherein he appeared on some of the top, male-oriented podcasts in the nation. Trump proved he was relatable and one of the guys. Harris couldn’t get a male voter even if she bought them new F-150s.

Men’s top issues leading up to the 2024 election were typically jobs and the economy, while women’s were often inflation and abortion. As the sexes siphon off into different media spheres, competing narratives are shaping their worldview. Republicans are portrayed by left-leaning media as ruthlessly out to snatch away women’s “reproductive rights,” while the Right calls every Democrat a Bolshevik out to smash capitalism.

The aforementioned NBC News poll asked Trump and Harris-voting young men and women a series of questions to determine their hierarchy of values. Values such as “Having a job or career you find fulfilling,” “Having enough money to do the things you want to do,” and “Being married” were among the 13 they ranked.

The split could not be starker. “Having children” came in as the #1 priority for men who voted Trump, but nearly last for women who voted Harris. For young men on the Right, family is still the gold standard – the fulfillment of adulthood and the marker of purpose. For young women on the Left, children barely register, buried beneath goals like career, financial independence and self-fulfillment.

We see this split played out before us, too. Ella Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter, is the living caricature of the liberal Gen-Z girl. The artsy, boyish dog-mom is routinely fawned over in the pages of The New York Times and even has her new back tattoo gushed over by the press (it’s a big swan). At risk of sounding prejudiced, Ella Emhoff is probably not ranking marriage and children very highly.

Young conservatives like Charlie Kirk and freshman Congressman Brandon Gill point to a different path. Both are young fathers, modeling a successful life that cuts against the grain of a culture obsessed with chasing cash and status, though both men have an abundance of the two. The difference is that they advocate for and recognize marriage and family as being the highest, most fulfilling pursuits.

Not all conservatives are convinced of this, however. Even Trump-voting women did not rank marriage and children particularly highly. This may just reflect decades of feminist propaganda (a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle) – a cultural diet that convinced women that motherhood is drudgery and self-realization found only in doing spreadsheets in a cold high-rise. The poison took root, for generations.

The poll tells us what many already sense: money has replaced family as the central aspiration. Inverting the natural order carries consequences. When meaning is sought first in wealth, many will learn that the economic system, and in truth, no economic system, can deliver what they demand.

This is why young Americans now favor socialism more than capitalism. A recent survey found that over 60 percent of Gen Z has a positive view of socialism, and one-in-three have the same opinion about communism. In turn, half of all Americans disapprove of capitalism. The socialists are tigers crouching at the door. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, and the like are one market crash away from sweeping into power.

Even young voters who once backed Trump may, in time, sour on the economic system he champions. A growing number of nationalists already argue that unfettered capitalism undermines the common good. The European model – free markets coupled with expansive social programs – may not be far off, embraced by both the Left and the Right.

When family is treated as an optional lifestyle choice rather than that which gives life its purpose, the results are predictable: a surrender to the loneliness of life, expecting it to be placated by a slightly bigger apartment or that extra vacation to Europe. The pursuit of career and financial security fills the gap only briefly, and when it fails to deliver the deeper meaning provided by family, faith and community, the disappointment curdles into political anger.
In that sense, the poll is a reflection of the deeper disintegration of American life. A nation can recover from bad leaders or economic downturns, but it cannot survive eternal childlessness. Just ask Russia or South Korea.

If marriage and children remain afterthoughts, then the story of our time will not be one of renewal or making anything great again, but of decline, with politics reduced to fulfilling a spiritual void in a culture that has lost the will to carry itself forward.