Generation Zohran: What Mamdani Reveals About The Next Generation

How does a 33-year-old lifelong do-nothing--a person who has never held a real job, never suffered a true challenge, been handed everything on a silver platter--turn into a mayoral front-runner in New York City?

How does a self-described socialist who despises capitalism become the leading candidate for the mayoralty of the world's financial capital? How does a man who nods at "globalize the intifada" and refuses to say Hamas should disarm--all while complaining that the real victim of 9/11 was a distant relative who was allegedly given an ugly stare by a fellow subway rider--become the most likely next mayor of the city in which 9/11 occurred?

The answer is simple and obvious: Zohran Mamdani represents a solid movement within Generation Z. In the latest Suffolk poll, which has Mamdani leading former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo 44% to 34%, Mamdani trails among voters aged 45+; he runs ahead 23 points among those aged 35-44. But among voters aged 18-34, Mamdani runs ahead by an astonishing 61 points.

That isn't a coincidence. It's a reality. It's not that Mamdani has hidden his leechlike career, or his long record of insane radicalism. He hasn't. He certainly allows his freak flag to fly, although he occasionally tucks it away during mayoral debates. That which older voters see as a bug, younger voters see as a feature. And that says something disastrous about America's up-and-coming younger voters.

Despite right-wing commentators hoping against hope that the next generation--Generation Z--will swing heavily to the right, poll numbers say precisely the opposite. According to YouGov, President Donald Trump's current approval rating among those under the age of 30 is 29%; according to a recent poll from Cato Institute and YouGov, 62% of Americans aged 18-29 say they are favorable toward socialism; a spring 2025 Yale Youth Poll found that younger voters are consistently far to the left of the general population.

What is the general philosophy of Generation Z? Ingrained victimhood. According to Harmony Healthcare IT, 46% of Generation Z has been diagnosed with a mental health condition; 37% suspect they have an undiagnosed mental condition; more than two in five feel that "their generation isn't set up for success." Fewer than half of all Americans under 35 believe they will ever have children.

This is astonishing, given that Generation Z is the richest and freest generation in all of human history. More Generation Z people hold degrees than millennials and Generation Xers did at their age; according to The Economist, "The typical 25-year-old Gen Z-er has an annual household income of over $40,000 more than 50% above baby-boomers at the same age." According to Bank of America, Gen Z will be the largest and richest generation in American history within 10 years.

We have spent years informing young Americans that their country is irrevocably flawed; that they have no path to success; that their future is loneliness and stagnation. We have destroyed the institutions that inculcate virtue and provide meaning; we have wrecked the shared communal spaces that used to facilitate friendship and purpose. 

And our political class has found extraordinary success telling Americans that their choices are not their own; that their failures are the fault of a vaguely defined system; that the best way to earn the pity of others and to justify your own shortcomings is to blame someone else, and to grant outsized power to tyrants masquerading as sympathetic do-gooders.

All of this must be reversed if America is to be saved. Because while Mamdani is a perfect encapsulation of the worst Generation Z has to offer, the problem isn't relegated to Mamdani himself: It's a deeper malaise that has sunk its roots into the hearts of an entire generation. And an America without hope--an America narcissistically addicted to a form of pseudo-victimhood that pales in comparison to true victimhood across time and space--is an America doomed to failure.

Originally published at The Daily Signal