C (3:42)

Yeah, and thank you, Sam, for that introduction because I agree, I think these topics are incredibly sensitive and they were for the participants in this listening session that I held last night. So at the up and up, which is the Gen Z community and research firm that I have, we have ambassadors who help us in terms of recruitment for listening sessions and sort of getting the pulse of how people are feeling in their communities, whether they're on campuses or they're in cities or communities across the country. And so after the attack in Michigan at the synagogue there last week, I felt like it was time to talk to our community again. We've had conversations like these over the past few years about how they're feeling about a rise of anti Semitism in their communities and also just about hate, bigotry and their own safety in the US More broadly. And last night in this listening session, I heard from current students who are on campuses across the country that yes, these topics are very pronounced for them on their campuses that they definitely see a rise of antisemitism in their communities. There were members on the call who are Jewish and others who are not. And the ones who are Jewish said that they have felt ups and downs when it comes to antisemitism and its prevalence since October 7th. And then for the ones who are not Jewish, they said that they've seen this from their friends or with, with their friends too. And so the biggest theme overall was just that the anti Israel sentiment and anti Semitism have been totally conflated and kind of the high level quote that I felt was Just the most, both shocking but also telling was from a 22 year old who's at Georgetown who said that it's now considered just kind of a based take. And we can talk about what that means in a second, but a base take to be anti Israel and therefore to then be anti Jew. And I think, you know, we look at a poll like the NBC poll, and this is, this, this is pervasive and it's felt by students. And I think that's really important to talk about because, yes, we've talked a lot about campuses and students and the way that the Israel, Palestine situation has played out on their campuses since October 7th, but I think now, again, with the Iran war, this is just only becoming more of a prominent conversation on campus.

B (6:16)

What struck me about that and the base take is basically like, you know, you kind of signal to your peers that it's like you're a free thinker, basically, if you say anti Semitic stuff or say insulting stuff about minorities or something like that. But what struck me about some of these responses is that they believe they're in a climate more or less where they have been liberated. I mean, this is just me channeling what they're saying where they have been liberated, or it's signaled to them that they can just act this way, you know, that, that you are, you know, one of them called it the death of Vocals, but others were talking about how, you know, using dehumanizing language now seems like it's utterly tolerable. And one of them was, you know, talking about how, you know, the election of Trump after Barack Obama meant that you could have a backlash against PC culture and it was fine and acceptable and if not encouraged. And I guess it raises this kind of depressing secondary question, which is, was this stuff always in us? And we just kind of held it back because social norms said, you can't say that, it's awful, it's wrong, you'll be in trouble. Or are we getting signals from authority figures that in fact you should say this because it's a way to signify that you are edgy and based. Maybe both.

C (7:38)

I think both of those are a little bit true. I think that first, I've written a lot about this idea of the two Gen Z's and that our generation was split down the middle based on how old you were at the time of the pandemic, but also different technologies that shaped your upbringing, whether it was Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or whatever. But there's a difference in How Gen Z acts and how Gen Z 2.0 acts. And part of that was the sort of counterculture during their adolescent time growing up, going through puberty, all of that when you're really forming your political beliefs and also your sense of individuality. And so For Gen Z 1.0, that's what I'm a part of. We were, you know, considered to be so progressive, to be leading the charge on social movements, whether it was the March for Our Lives or Black Lives Matter or climate strikes or reproductive healthcare access, all of it. And then Gen Z 2.0, I think, and this came up last night in our conversation, looked at that activism and said, where did that get us? Like that didn't really change anything. And so they don't, they kind of have swung. And I don't want to say that Gen Z 2.0 is all to the right because I think that was a big talking point around the time of the 2024 election. And it is a part of why young people did swing towards Trump in 2024. But it was kind of that countercultural swing and not so much that all of a sudden they're all MAGA or Republicans. But the reason why I bring this up is because I think that Gen Z 1.0, you know, was peak woke and Gen Z 2.0 rejects that. And so just to be clear on this call last night, you know, the, in the listening session, the students weren't a fan of the way that this was going. They, they don't believe that any of this is right, but they do see a normalization amongst their peers of some of this outspoken, more bigotry. Like they said that, that the R word is being thrown around in a way that it never would have been 10 years ago. And they recognize that.

B (9:36)

Sure. Well, and well, first of all, that gives me a little bit of hope that there's a backlash to the backlash coming. But secondarily, I mean, it makes sense that they see it and they respond to it because the biggest voices are the ones who are pushing it. Right. I mean, so we talked about Trump a little bit and he obviously is anti woke and he's, you know, said incredibly racist and hurtful things around minorities. But then you look at Candace Owens who has this immense audience and she is spouting anti Semitic bile day in and day out. And, and yeah, I mean when you have that type of audience and you're reaching that type of cohort, people are going to pick up on that. I think she came up in one of these conversations that you're having.

C (10:18)

Yes, she did. I mean, people are well aware of where this is coming from. I think also, you know, they pointed to the fact that there are prominent figures like Candace Owens who are spewing anti Semitic rhetoric, but they also talked about the way that it's not just Jews who are being targeted right now or who are being talked about in this, this awful, hateful way, but that there's anti immigrant rhetoric and there's rhetoric against trans people and other minorities. And I think it just feels like kind of this tipping point where it is very much in the cultural norm right now to be able to be outspoken where you are, you know, like I said, bigoted in, in any of these ways. And it kind of feels like it's either going to get worse or it has to get better. But it's not like you can't say at this point cadence that it's at right now. I think that's what I mean by a tipping point. And they feel this, and I think they talked about too, the fact that they see it very much coming from the top down and the result that that has. And also, if you think about it, and I feel like I make this point over and over again, but if you're in Gen Z, you've literally only known a political ecosystem dominated by President Trump. And so this type of language and rhetoric has been the norm for the entire time that they've existed in politics in their life.

B (11:35)

It's hard to sort of overstate how important that is, to have that as kind of your, your anchor around which you look, you view political rhetoric. But the, I mean, there's been other obviously seminal moments for this generation and then we'll get to one another one in a second. But the one I want to talk to right now is obviously October 7th, because what happened on college campuses after October 7th, you were dealing with the ripple effects today. Obviously each campus was different, and I don't want to say everyone's experience was the same, but, you know, it was clearly for Jewish students on campuses, difficult. And you talk to one of them here who literally felt for the first time in their lives, a sense of discomfort because they had a very recognizable Jewish surname. Explain that.

C (12:25)

Yeah, so there were actually two young women in this session last night who talked about feeling a certain way because of their last name and worrying about being perceived basically because they come across as Jewish, not necessarily by the way they look, but by what their last name is. And if someone knew what their last name was. And so we had One student who told me that she for the first time, really after October 7th, had to think twice about wearing her Judaica. And this was a conversation that she was having with her friends. This is something I've heard plenty of, you know, and even experience this myself since October 7th. And then there was another student who said that she very openly, outwardly disagrees with the actions of the state of Israel, but that she worries that she will be perceived a certain way by her peers because she's Jewish. And the way that there is that conflation of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. And I found that there was a lot of nuance in the way that these young people that we spoke to last night talked about their relationship both, you know, when it comes to they might disagree with actions taken by the government of Israel. This one young woman in particular is very critical of the government but yet still understands that it is very dangerous to blame Jews for the actions of the State of Israel. And that's been something that Jewish students in particular have had to grapple with regardless of where they stand on the spectrum of how they feel about the actions that the Israeli government has taken.

D (13:58)

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B (15:55)

You have two sort of countervailing trends here. One is incredible antipathy, if not outright anger towards the state of Israel. You saw it in the NBC poll. I mean, those numbers, they're like, shocking in terms of how bad young people view the state of Israel. And, you know, this is. Obviously the poll was done right around the start of the war, but, you know, you have to imagine those numbers. Numbers are even worse now and then. Secondarily, you have a real sense of concern among Jewish students on college campuses, including among Jewish students who, as you know, don't necessarily agree with the actions of the state of Israel. And these two things are getting conflated in which these Jewish students are being targeted for acts of the Israeli government. That's what we saw with the Michigan Synagogue as well. The last thing I want to talk about, though, which in, in a way, I mean, all this stuff is pretty chilling, but in a way, this kind of actually affected me the most was how this generation has basically become desensitized to both the rhetoric, but also acts of violence. These, these. How old were these kids when Parkland happened?

C (17:06)

They were all in middle school. So we talked about that specifically. They. Because we were talking about gun violence and they were all in middle school.

B (17:13)

Yeah, and just expand on that. I mean, some of them were just sort of like, yeah, you know, I'm not really moved by hate rhetoric and acts of violence because I live it every day.

C (17:23)

Yeah, it's very numbing. There's been a numbing effect because of how common this has become and also because there has been no action taken. So, you know, think about it. If you were in middle school during the time of Parkland and even before that was Sandy Hook, and you've grown up in an environment where you're doing active shooter drills, where that's just literally the norm, and yet you're not seeing any government action when it comes to gun safety. And someone in the conversation last night also brought up the fact that this is very obviously not. Even though that this gun safety has been championed by the left. Gun violence is something that has very prominently affected Republicans. In fact, President Trump was shot and Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And so they, they talked about the fact that, like, this clearly shouldn't be a partisan issue because it's affecting people on both sides. And yet it obviously is. There's been no action. And the fact that there's been no action, it keeps happening over and over again. And they're witnessing on. They. I talked about this a lot, actually, after Charlie Kirk was killed, because everyone watched that video in real time. And you could be scrolling and you could be watching a meme about something completely unrelated. You could be watching something from pop culture, you could be watching a sports highlight reel. And then all of a sudden you see a video of someone being shot, and. And then you scroll past and the next thing pops up on your feed. And so for young people who have seen this play out time and time and again, and also they're watching war play out time and time and again and then just scrolling past it, it's very numbing. And the young people on the call last night, we had one student who said that she sees a lot of friends who decide they're just gonna be apolitical because they can't take it anymore and they want to tune out. And I think that's really dangerous. And because, you know, if. If all of a sudden young people feel like this. It's not all of a sudden. This has been obviously going on for a while, but if they feel like it's too much, that they don't want to even partake in the political process anymore because there's just no point. That is not. We are not having a representative democracy at that point.

B (19:24)

Am I allowed to read the quote or is that forbidden here?

C (19:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (19:28)

Okay, I'm going to read one of the quotes because this is the one that really stopped me. It said, when I hear about kids dying, yes, it's sad, but for a lot of these things, like, I think it's sad, but then I kind of move on because if I got heartbroken over every single thing that happened, I wouldn't be able to live right. This is a 19 year old. I mean, that's just. That shakes me a little bit. And I'll just add to your point. You scroll and you see the gun violence, and then you scroll and you keep seeing the war, and then you scroll and you see Candace Owen say Israel's responsible for all this, right? And then it's like at certain point it becomes kind of a uncontrollable fountain of, you know, horrible imagery and conspiratorial thinking. And I don't see how you break through that. I mean, I'm not trying to blame it all on the algorithms, but I think a lot of it has to do with the algorithms and what, what we're being fed on a day to day basis.

C (20:25)

Yeah. And it's just not just the algorithms. You know, we had a young woman last night who made the point that not only do you have people like Candace Owens who are saying that, but then you actually have the current administration saying that they got into this war because of Israel. And so it kind of justifies these conspiracies and justifies the fact that, you know, that there, there is this belief that Israel is just, I mean, that America is just doing Israel's bidding. And that doesn't help. That doesn't help Jews who are facing this on campuses. That was directly what they told us last night. That they feel like that only conflates the issue even more when the US is, is, you know, saying they're doing this simply to protect this ally and, and not because of any interests of our own.

B (21:14)

And let me be clear, I mean, I don't think that all that explains why young voters are turning on Israel. Right. Like is the Israeli government has made proactive decisions around what happened in Gaza and certainly what's happening in Iran that have caused people to recoil at the state of Israel. What I do think is obviously problematic is when people equate Jews everywhere with the state of Israel and take them on with anti Semitic acts or rhetoric, because that's the definition from anti Semitism is conflating all Jews with Israel. This is a really important study, I guess you can call a study. What do you call it? It's a focus group. It's, it's important reporting. It's a listening session. I appreciate it. And for those who listen to this, we appreciate your, your viewership and your understanding of how sensitive this conversation is. Like I said at the top, you know, these are difficult topics to talk about and oftentimes they're ones that elicit some of the most our responses and commentary. And we appreciate that you should be engaging with us and we like hearing from you. We hope that you appreciate that we tried to deal with this with the sensitivity that it deserves. Rachel, thanks so much. It's such, it's so great having you as a contributor here. I'm looking forward to the next listening session. Hopefully it can be a little bit more uplifting than this one. We can do good content too, optimistic content, as well as negative ones. Okay, I appreciate that. Let's try to get one on the books that's a little bit more uplifting than this. For those who are watching, thank you for subscribing to the Bull. Appreciate that as well. We'll talk to you soon.

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