A Dartmouth University professor complained Monday that young Americans are noticeably absent from protests against President Donald Trump, a trend he says could undermine resistance to the president’s policies.
According to Fox News, Brendan Nyhan, a Professor of Government, wrote in a New York Times essay that Gen Z has not mobilized the way older liberal voters did during Trump’s previous term.
He called this absence both a “problem and a warning,” arguing that confronting what he describes as Trump’s “authoritarian speed run” requires engaging a wider swath of the population.
“The absence of young people from conventional protests is both a problem and a warning. The opposition to Mr. Trump’s authoritarian speed run requires new strategies that will engage a wider swath of the population,” Nyhan wrote.
Nyhan pointed to recent protest activity, including the nationwide “No Kings” demonstration in October, which drew an estimated five million participants. However, he noted that only a small percentage were young people.
“Only 8 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 say they took part in the protests in October, compared with 13 percent of those age 65 and older, according to YouGov. Students are most conspicuous in their absence,” he wrote.
The professor contrasted this with the 2020 George Floyd protests, when young people made up 13 percent of participants. Nyhan argued that demoralization and prior disappointments play a role in current disengagement.
“The racial justice movement that peaked in 2020 ended in disappointment and backlash. The Gaza protests provoked intense conflict without delivering clear political or policy victories for their organizers. Maybe most important, Mr. Trump himself is back in the White House,” he said.
Nyhan also criticized the Democratic Party for failing to inspire younger voters, labeling it a “decadent gerontocracy whose elites were more likely to attend a wedding in the Hamptons than a No Kings protest on the same day.”
Ultimately, Nyhan’s essay frames youth disengagement as a warning signal for the opposition, suggesting that without new strategies to mobilize young Americans, large-scale resistance to Trump may remain limited.
