Generation Z’s gender gap on political and personal issues is “toxic and dangerous,” the Daily Kos story states. “…The manosphere and its influencers—a sprawling network of podcasts, YouTube channels, and social media accounts” are “feeding young men a steady diet of grievance… Radicalized young men are combustible—history shows that societies that fail to channel their energy constructively often end up facing violence, extremism, or even authoritarian movements built on their resentment. And we’re already seeing the warning signs in online threats, mass shootings, and the growing overlap between misogynist and extremist communities.”

This view, disturbingly common in progressive commentary, represents both a major misreading of the NBC survey and mischaracterizations of Generation Z men.

Gen Z men did not elect Trump

Far from being a right-wing vanguard, 2024 exit polls showed Gen Z men were the least likely of any male age to vote for Republican Donald Trump for president (49%, compared to 52% of men age 30-44, 59% of men age 45-64, and 55% of men age 65 and older).

This key fact is briefly acknowledged in the Daily Kos story, then discarded: The “hard-right—and often fascist—turn by many young men” is “one of the fundamental political challenges facing the left, and the trend line isn’t improving.”

To the contrary, the best information indicates young men’s minimal support for Trump may have dramatically reversed. An April 2025 Harvard IOP poll showed men age 18-29 disapproving of Trump by a stunning 34-59% margin. More recent surveys show young men’s disapproval of Trump continues to rise to over 60%.

A major error

Further, the Daily Kos’s dire warnings about the “gender gap” result from a faulty comparison NOT between Gen Z men and women, but between the Gen Z men who voted for Trump versus Gen Z women who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris. This misleading comparison has been common in media reports.

Again to the contrary, Table 1 shows that Gen Z men and women actually agree on crucial values.

Sources: NBC poll of 2,970 18-29 year-olds, September 2025; CNN Exit Poll, November 2024. “All” responses are weighted by the proportion of each sex voting for each presidential candidate.

For example, the results for all Gen Z men and women (left hand columns) show close agreement on their top four priorities – a fulfilling career, having enough money, financial independence, and using their talents and resources to help others. They also largely agree on five other measures of success, such as owning their own homes, having no debt, making their families and communities proud, being spiritually grounded, and being able to retire early.

Of the 12 issues surveyed, Gen Z men and women disagree the most on having emotional stability. Both sexes agree that getting married and having children are low priorities, with women ranking these measures lower than do men.

However, the real divisions are by politics. For examples, Trump voters of both sexes are 3 to 4 times more likely to see getting married and having children as important to their success than Harris voters, and large Right-Left divergences are seen on other priorities as well.

Of course, if a polarized comparison like the Daily Kos story’s is made only between Trump voters of one sex and Harris voters of the other sex, then yes, Trump-voting young men are far more traditional than Harris-voting young women on issues like getting married and having children (6% and 6% for Democratic young women, respectively, versus 29% and 34% for Republican young men). Similarly, Trump-voting young women are far more traditional than Harris-voting young men on getting married and having children (20% and 26% for Republican young women, versus 11% and 9% for Democratic young men).

So, yes, dating and marrying across political lines invites serious personal disagreements.

Are Gen Z young men “combustible” and “dangerous”?

This inflammatory assertion is also common in Left, center, and Right-wing media even though it runs counter to solidly documented social trends: the mammoth declines in violent crime, including homicide, gun killings, and all crimes by America’s young people, especially men under age 25, over the last three generations.

Over the last 30 years, as young people became more racially diverse, the violent crime rate among men under age 25 plummeted by a staggering 73%, including a 72% plunge in homicide and a 40% drop in gun killings, along with a 79% plummet in overall criminal offenses.

Today, men ages 30-34, followed by ages 25-29, display the worst levels of violence and crime. Where Gen Z’s reduced rates of crime and violence remain high, the driver is high levels of young-age poverty overwhelmingly afflicting young men of Color, not toxic “manosphere” attitudes.

In fact, men over 45, led by aging White men, our richest cohort, show the most far-Right politics. Young men are not driving the Right.

And while it is true that mass shootings (which account for fewer than 1% of America’s murders) have risen, the FBI’s latest report on mass shootings shows, “the 25-34 age category had the most shooters” and “the shooters’ average age was 39 years old.” Mass shootings, including school shootings, are frightening but extremely rare, in no way reflecting the larger attitudes of any age, race, or gender.

We have to be very careful before quoting today’s often-inflammatory political and media claims about the violence, since they often reflect only the narrow anecdotes those in authority are willing to talk about while ignoring much larger issues they ignore.