March 29, 2023
Gen Z and Baby Boomers Need to Work Together
By Eleanor Buchanan
By forming intergenerational coalitions that focus on shared values rather than divisive stereotypes, young people can learn from the fights that came before them. “We are not the first ones to be engaging with these issues.”
Following the 2022 midterm elections, Gen Z were largely credited by Democratic politicians and pundits for stopping the red wave. “Young voters cancel out every single vote of those over 65. Under 30 and under 40 were the only age group to go to the Democrats and they went overwhelmingly to the Democrats,” said the student chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, Alan Zhang, in an interview with ABC News. “Without the youth vote, there was no firewall that stopped the red wave from taking over.” According to data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, about 27 percent of voters who cast a ballot during the 2022 midterm elections were under 30, making it the second-highest youth voter turnout in about 30 years.
But younger voters didn’t do it alone. Although findings from the Pew Research Center show that millennial voters highly favored Democrats, Generation X voters—those born 1965 to 1980—also tilt towards the Democratic Party, with 48 percent identifying as or leaning Democratic, while only 43 percent favored the Republican Party. Justin Meszler, the mobilization director for Voters of Tomorrow, a youth-led organization that aims to promote pro-democracy efforts among young people through social media and digitally organized events, said he often works with older volunteers—sometimes over 90 years old. “We are not the first ones to be engaging with these issues,” said Meszler, a first-year student at Brown University. “Our strategy and our work is not isolated from the work that has come before us. it is informed by the work and the expertise of our older volunteers, advisors and allies.”
Without the intergenerational coalition that they have built at Voters of Tomorrow, Meszler said they would not have been able to make millions of calls and texts following the Georgia runoff election. “Our phone banks, text banks are run by Gen Z, by 18-year-olds like myself, but we welcome all support,” he said. “We’re thankful for the passionate expertise that we’ve seen from our older volunteers and allies, because we are all fighting for the same future and for the same values.” In order to harness the power across generations, Meszler said, his organization focuses on utilizing the shared values between older and younger voters. In addition to supporting Gen-Z, these more experienced voters also continue to stay politically active, inspired by their own experiences as young adults.
