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When former Rep. Pete King and Jack Kingston sounded the alarm on Newsmax’s Wake Up America Weekend about a “propagandized” Generation Z, they weren’t trading in hot takes; they were naming a national crisis that has been quietly building for years. Conservatives have been warning that our institutions — especially schools and left-leaning media — are churning out citizens who know more slogans than substance, and that warning was front and center in the Wake Up America conversation.
The data backs up the outrage: the Nation’s Report Card shows abysmal results in civics and U.S. history, with only a small fraction of students reaching proficiency in these core subjects, a decline that should shame educators and policymakers alike. When young Americans can’t explain the separation of powers or name three branches of government, we don’t have apathy — we have a civic emergency fuelled by failing classrooms.
Worse still, multiple polls reveal that Gen Z is unusually receptive to socialist framing and even shows more favorable views toward collectivist labels than previous generations — a fact that should make every parent and patriotic citizen sit up straight. This isn’t spontaneous; it is the predictable outcome when a generation is raised on curated narratives and ideological curricula instead of rigorous history, civics, and critical thinking.
Social media accelerates the problem by creating echo chambers where sophisticated propaganda spreads in bite-sized, shareable pieces, and surveys of young Americans show deep distrust of institutions alongside high levels of political alienation. Harvard’s youth polling finds that many young people feel disconnected, pessimistic, and easily swayed by viral content — the perfect environment for ideological capture when real civic education is absent.
These trends are not academic; they have immediate, tangible consequences at the ballot box. Political strategists and analysts have repeatedly warned that youth turnout — when mobilized by emotion and framed by radical ideas — can tilt close races and reshape entire midterm cycles, which means conservatives cannot afford to shrug off the youth question.
Conservatives must stop treating the schools like a lost cause and start fighting for them like the future of the nation depends on it — because it does. That means winning school boards, pushing real civics back into curricula, supporting parent rights, and out-organizing the left on the campuses and on social platforms where young minds are being formed.
We should also be honest about messaging: lecturing Gen Z won’t work, but offering them dignity, opportunity, and a clear case for liberty will. The midterms will be a referendum on whether America still values free speech, free enterprise, and an education system that teaches children how to think, not what to think — if conservatives rise to the occasion, we can reclaim the narrative and the future.
