Generation Z: done with democracy?

"It's deeply peculiar," said Zoe Strimpel in The Sunday Telegraph. The younger generation could hardly be more woke, with their demands for safe spaces and noisy concern for every kind of injustice. But they seem also to be "increasingly authoritarian". A shocking new survey by Channel 4 found that 52% of Gen Z (13- to 28-year-olds) are in favour of the UK becoming a dictatorship, while 33% think we would be better off "if the Army was in charge".

Yet if you think about it, their responses make sense, said Sam Ashworth-Hayes in The Daily Telegraph. Gen Z have grown up in a democracy "that seems unable to deliver its basic functions", with wages stagnant, living standards falling and the median house price more than eight times the average income. Given the world they've inherited, the real surprise "is that the numbers are so low".

Raised during austerity and "blighted by Covid", Gen Z have certainly had a rough ride, said Alison Phillips in The Observer. This has left them receptive to ideologies that bring a sense of "certainty" to their world of "insecurity" – and in the digital world, "populist, authoritarian" points of view are all too easy to find. Almost three-quarters of 18- to 24-year-olds use TikTok.

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And boys, in particular, can quickly be drawn into an online world where "Pied Pipers" such as Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson and Jordan Peterson provide a toxic brew of machismo, ultra-reactionary politics and "incessant railing against wokeism". To turn the tide, we liberals need to leave our "echo chambers of complacency" and defend democracy with the same passion as the populists: we need to be "more emotional and more combative".

I'd take this survey with a pinch of salt, said Polly Toynbee in the same paper. It's probably more "a spasm" – a reflection of the general gloom now pervading the country – than a thought-out view of how society should be organised. In fact, I'd see it mainly as proof that Labour should "accelerate its manifesto pledge to give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote". That would incentivise politicians to address Gen Z's needs, while giving the younger generation a bigger stake in their future. Young people "need more democracy, not less, and soon".