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And many other respondents were disillusioned about their future. In the past, kids would move out of their parents' house at 18, go to college or get some kind of training, find a job, get married, buy a house, and have kids. Now, only a quarter of 34-year-olds have done all of those. The median age of first-time homebuyers is now 40. Some interviewees thought they might be able to buy a house some day, whereas previous generations assumed that would be possible. In a recent Harris poll, two-thirds of the people making $100,000 said they were just barely getting by. Many think AI will take away jobs they might have gotten.

The mood was glum and "doomerism" has taken over with many young people. Only 13% of 18-to-29-year-olds think the country is moving in the right direction. These feelings are flashing warnings for Trump and the Republicans heading into the midterms. The kids are angry and don't want "more of the same." Charlie Kirk was tuned into this, which is why he was so popular with some young people. In one of his final interviews, Kirk accused the Republicans of being blind to the suffering of young voters. Kirk also said that if the Republicans continued to repeat their "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" philosophy, the Party would squander its hard-won advantage among young voters. It is already happening. In the Harris poll, by a 13-point margin, young voters want Democrats to control Congress after 2026. Only half of young Trump voters definitely plan to vote in 2026 (vs. 66% of Kamala Harris voters).