Episode 16: Gen Z, Conservatism and AmFest 2025

This episode of The Reagan Faulkner Show, recorded live from AmFest 2025 in Phoenix, lays out why Gen Z is becoming a decisive conservative force in American politics. Reagan argues that Biden-era radical left policies, unchecked illegal immigration, DEI and gender ideology, and attacks on police, education, and free speech have deeply alienated young Americans who simply want safety, stability, and honesty from their institutions. She cites data on Gen Z’s growing approval of Donald Trump and stresses the generation’s desire for America First policies, protection of children, and a return to the family-centered culture their parents and grandparents described between World War II and the Cold War.​

She also shows how lived experience—COVID lockdowns, crime spikes, campus censorship, student debt, and a bleak job market—has shattered the “go to college and you’ll be fine” promise for many young people. Out of that frustration, Reagan describes a surge of Gen Z organizing on campuses, the rapid growth of conservative clubs, and the power of social media and podcasting to build a bold, unapologetic movement. AmFest, with roughly 20,000 young conservatives and dozens of top speakers, becomes the backdrop for a generation determined not just to complain, but to build real solutions and ensure that conservative voices who have been harassed, canceled, or even assassinated did not sacrifice in vain.

Transcript

0:03

What's up, guys, and welcome back to the Reagan Faulkner Show. So as you can see, we've got a brand new set again. I am currently in Phoenix, Arizona for AmFest 2025, and I am so, so excited to be here. And if I stumble over my words or anything today, I apologize. I've been on a plane for like five hours, and I think I got like an hour and a half of sleep. So bear with me here. But today we're going to be talking about Gen Z and why Gen Z is really the generation that's going to make or break America. You know, we've seen a lot of things happening currently in the news, a lot of really tragic things that have been happening. And we've been seeing a lot of just different ideologies and more radical left pushes since the Biden administration. And it's really a turnoff for Gen Z. It's something that Gen Z isn't interested in. It's something that Gen Z no longer wants to be a part of. And it's going to influence and already has influenced their voting patterns. We've seen more and more conservative values on display within this generation of Americans. And it's this generation is made up mostly, well, not mostly, entirely. Gen Z is composed of those who were born between 1997 and 2012. And just a little bit of data for y'all, close to 50% of those aged under 20 years old voted for Trump in 2024. And then Trump actually gained significant approval ratings in his 2024 run. And in those gains, he got 52.7% of Gen Z approval compared, and that was in 2024, compared to 36% in 2020. And this is according to a report from Harvard Kennedy School titled the 2024 presidential election, the broken bond between youth and democracy. So what is important to Gen Z right now? If they're going to be this huge voting base, what is important to our generation and why is it? And this isn't necessarily things that I've done research on. This is just more me speaking from the heart on what I've observed, what I've experienced, and what my peers and my friends have told me when we've been having discussions about our political beliefs. So one of the biggest topics, as y'all have definitely, definitely heard, one of the biggest topics facing Gen Z right now is America first and the America first agenda. We've moved from make America great again. I feel like we're really, we're saving America. Trump has done a lot of really great things with trying to improve the economy and things like that. Some not so great things like the 50 year mortgage that I'm hoping that he will go back on and find a better solution to. But overall, he has been doing great bringing America back from the dark ages of the Biden administration and we're seeing a shift to more of this America first policy. And I think we have to go back in time and think about what our parents taught us in order to understand this America first mentality and why it's so appealing to Gen Z. So I can tell you that what my parents have told me about growing up is, it was a time when they said the Pledge of Allegiance in class every single day. They were allowed to pray in class and would say the Lord's Prayer. We go back and think even back to our grandparents and great grandparents about this period between World War II and the Cold War where there was happiness and prosperity and patriotism. Where Americans were able to buy homes. They were having tons and tons of kids. They were having jobs. Men had jobs and women actually were able to stay home because you didn't need a two income family. They could stay home and raise their kids, but they had rights. They had the right to vote. They had the right to drive. They were able to have opinions and things like that. It was this very stable period in American history between World War II and the Cold War. And we see just this huge kind of value system of small neighborhoods and allowing kids to go outside and play with each other. We've all heard our parents and grandparents talk about, you get sent outside and you can't come back until the lights come on, the street lights come on. And I think that's something that as Gen Z we really missed out on. Like some of us got to play outside, some of us didn't. COVID took a lot of our freedoms away when we were in an age where we were supposed to gain more freedom, but we actually lost more freedom. And I think that this has really made kind of the nostalgia of what our parents and grandparents talk about really, really appealing in a way where we think about the American dream. And then we also, when we talk about America first, we think about this period before both World Wars when we were focused on the domestic homeland. We were focused on funding that went to America and that went to Americans, that went to our military, that went to our infrastructure. And that wasn't going to foreign aid and forever wars and just random groups like what, I think it was USAID. Like all these random initiatives that they're giving money to and dumping money into just the absolute, just holes and pits of money that Doge found at the beginning of this year. Like Gen Z doesn't want that. We want the money that we earn. The money that we earn is very, very important to us. And we don't want to see it going to foreign groups and going to lobbyists that don't have the American people at heart, that have some sort of ulterior motives. So that's another huge value system within the Gen Z voting bloc right now. And we want America first. We want our kids to be able to go outside and be safe. We don't value gentle parenting. We don't approve of it. We've seen how absolutely rabid Gen Alpha kids have become and that's not something that we value. We don't value just forcing a two parent income where our kids are being absolutely indoctrinated by the government from preschool all the way through college. These aren't the values that Gen Z has right now. The conservative base within Gen Z does not have these values. Obviously, the Gen Z individuals that are more left leaning utterly and completely value socialism and they value protecting foreign entities like Palestine and like Ukraine and getting involved in some of these forever wars. But the Gen Z conservative base is not interested in any of this. 100% not interested. And right now what we're seeing, what our generation has seen growing up, is more of an America last philosophy. It's something we've seen through Obama, excuse me, Obama-Biden administration. We saw this really beautiful four years under Trump where I think a lot, I remember those were some of my happiest years. I was in middle school and high school and it was great. And then we went back to Biden and I was in 10th grade and everything kind of went downhill from there in my personal belief, up until Donald Trump took office back in January. So we've seen this America last agenda and what I mean by that is first and foremost, unchecked immigration. We have just seen an open border that has allowed millions and millions of individuals to come into our country. We don't know if they're violent. We don't know what their intent are. They're supply and demand. And when you have a larger demand for things like houses and groceries, then the supply dwindles and things get more expensive. And we've seen that. It's not all from illegal immigration, but some of it is from that simply because of supply and demand. Some of it's from bad economic policy from the Biden administration, but some of it is from this just rampant unchecked immigration. And Matt Walsh actually has a really, really amazing episode all about how unchecked illegal immigration has just lowered the standard of living. And just raised the cost of basic goods that regular everyday Americans feel that we should be entitled to as Americans. So that's one example. Another one is that we've grown up watching just the LGBTQ ideology destroy schools, destroy sports and destroy science. We started in preschool where things were relatively normal and as we progress through middle school and high school, these gender ideology, teachings and concepts and theories were really being pushed on a lot of Gen Z students in public schools. I was lucky enough that during that period of time I was in Christian private schools or I was homeschooled, but I know a lot of people that talk about how it was pushed on them and how it just wasn't true, the science wasn't there. And specifically when I'm talking about the science, it's science courses teaching students that sex is how you're born. It's your anatomy, but gender is fluid and you can choose your gender based on your feelings and based on your interest. So if a girl likes to play trucks, but she was anatomically born, she was anatomically born as a female, then her sex would be female, but she could change her gender to male because she likes trucks. Or she likes playing outside or climbing trees, where in our parents time, that just means that she was a tomboy and that was completely fine. Nobody had to change their gender over that. You just, you liked playing in the dirt and climbing trees and that's completely fine. So just this rabid change in ideology and philosophy and parenting and gender, all of that has started moving more Gen Z individuals to the conservative base. We've also watched crime skyrocket, which is extremely scary when a Gen Z base is getting ready to go to college or has gone to college. And we see this crime skyrocketing, we don't wanna be the victim of crime. I hate to say, yeah, I personally don't go downtown very often, but people my age do go downtown. They don't wanna go downtown and be the victim of some violent crime. And we've seen people like Irena get stabbed to death in Charlotte, North Carolina on the light rail. We've seen Lake and Riley murdered by an illegal immigrant. And we've watched Christians specifically be targeted in just violent crime and mass shootings at places like Lakewood Church and Annunciation Catholic Church. These violent crimes are happening more often and it's, in my personal opinion, it's the result of BLM and police not being able to do their job and being afraid to do their job. And others knowing that police won't do their job or that they don't really have the authority to do their job or that some police forces have been defunded. So really, these are the main concepts, the main ideas, and the main experiences that Gen Z has gone through over the past, what? That would be 1997 to 2025, that's 28 years, I think, if I did my math right. In the past 28 years, these are the things that we've seen and that we've experienced and just the rapid, rapid changes that have been going on. And we've also just seen radical left wing rhetoric destroy education, socialization, and free speech. And we've seen this primarily on college campuses. Conservatives on college campuses have been spit on and yelled at and harassed for their beliefs. Just go and look at Libs at TikTok on Instagram, go and watch videos on YouTube, watch some of Charlie Kirk's past speeches. And you'll see how disrespectful people are to conservative students. And it's also a turn off, when you're just constantly disrespected, it's going to push you further right. And I think I heard on a different podcast, and it's also just basic common sense that when people constantly call you something over and over and over again, at some point, you're either going to be like, well, I have no reason not to be that, or you're going to start believing it. And that's really, really unfortunate. And that's also driving people further right. A lot of Democrats even have expressed a semi-conservative point of view. And then their far left friends will tell them, call them names, belittle them, be ugly, and it pushes them further and further right. And that's really what we're seeing with Gen Z, as they have tried to come out and express their opinions on all of these topics. And then you also see comment sections on social media that harass and threaten conservatives in their opinions when they make posts or they comment on posts. And this just goes back to my last point, that those comments and people just being mean pushes people further and further right. Or in the opposite, sometimes it can push them further and further left. But right now we're seeing the push further and further right. So another point is the victims of COVID, that was our generation. We were the ones that didn't get to go to school. We were the ones that didn't get to see our friends. We were the ones that didn't get to see our grandparents or extended family. And our memories of that are still there. We remember those regulations. We remember how authoritarian and totalitarian they were. And we never wanna go back to something like that. We never wanna deal with that again. We never wanna be forced to wear masks in order to go to school or to be punished for not wearing a mask or to be unable to hang out with our friends and just become dependent upon the Internet. You could say these things were not enjoyable for our generation. And specifically conservatives do wanna be more social. We're not really interested in spending all of our time on the Internet and in online communities. And COVID really pushed a ton of Gen Z individuals further and further to the right. And lastly, we're force fed DEI and gender ideology in our schools and falsified science like we've already talked about. That is just part of the left wing rhetoric within our education. We're force fed these things and our teachers and our professors are biased. They use that bias when they're creating assignments. They use that bias when they're lecturing. They use that bias when they're grading and we're sick of it. We are sick of indoctrination over education. We are sick of not learning the truth of American history and learning a slanted point of view about it. And Gen Z students, Gen Z conservatives want to see the education system revised. We want to actually see an America where students are being taught what they're supposed to be taught and not some sort of radicalized and skewed perspective on science or history or any of the other subjects that you learn. And it's really, really frustrating. And I think that going through the school system has just been a huge reason that conservative Gen Zers have woken up and have noticed what's going on and have said, no, we're not doing this. We are going to go to the right and we're gonna stay there and we're gonna advocate for these conservative policies. And then lastly, we were promised a system where if you excelled in high school, you went to college. And if you did well in college, you graduated from college, you would get a decent paying job. You would pay off your debt, you would buy a house, you would get married, everything would be great. And what we're seeing is a job market that's bleak and really just not great. I was told that last year in the MSA program at UNCW, there was only one student that graduated that couldn't get a job. And this year they're seeing 20 graduates that can't get jobs. I'm not sure how big the class size was in either of those, but that's huge to see one person unable to get a job after a master's degree versus 20. And that's a lot of money. That's a lot of expense to not be able to get a job. And that's really hard on 22, 23 year olds that are trying to make their way in the world, they're trying to move forward and get married and have kids and have a decent life and one day retire, do something that they're passionate about. And Gen Zers are really, really upset about this. And additionally, the total student debt in the US, for those of you that don't know, is about $1.3 trillion. That is absolutely astounding for student debt because we were promised that if we went to college, we would be making six digits just immediately. And it's not true because once everybody gets a college degree, there's a surplus and then the demand is reduced. There's not enough demand for the surplus of college students. So a whole nother issue on top of this is that first time homeowners are 40 years old now, so based on this promise, we thought we'd pay off our debt and get a house and a family, like I've said, I think three times now, but now you're gonna be 40. Like, where's the motivation? Where's the passion? Where, why shouldn't Gen Z be disappointed in this and be upset that this promise turned out to be an utter and complete lie? And why wouldn't Gen Z want to change things and advocate for different policies that would stop this from happening for future generations and that would salvage our decision to go to college and find some way for us to be able to make some sort of livable income and start a family? That's really the basis for why Gen Z is moving to the right. It's a bad economy. It's wanting America first and to stop sending our money to foreign countries. It's wanting basic family values that we saw between World War II and the Cold War, and it's being sick of indoctrination over education. It really is that simple. We don't want conservatives that have been harassed, canceled, and even assassinated to have gone through all those challenges and risked everything in vain either. After Charlie Kirk's assassination, we've seen a huge shift in outspoken conservatives versus the silent majority, because we don't want to see these people go through that in vain. We want to do something about it, and we want their legacy to live on. So now we see a Gen Z that is more and more right leaning, and we are seeking to actually resolve these problems instead of just talking about them, and we see that when conservatives in high schools and colleges around the country are creating these clubs and founding these clubs and starting these chapters of various conservative clubs at an extremely rapid rate, and they're doing stuff with them. They're not just starting them and leaving them alone. They're doing stuff with them, and conservatives are becoming more outspoken, and they're using social media to their advantage, and they're going on podcasts, and they're speaking out on their beliefs, and they are being intentional about it. And just to go off of this, I'm currently at AmBest, like I've said, and I'm extremely excited to be here with about 20,000 other young conservatives. Think about that, 20,000 people that are Gen Z, maybe younger millennials have gone out of their way at the brink of Christmas, left their families to come all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, just to be able to spend time with like-minded conservatives and to figure out how to solve these problems and take them back to their states and advocate for change. Students from all over the country have gathered to listen to some of the most prominent conservative speakers, politicians, podcasters, and faith-based warriors as they talk about current events and how we can make a change. We have a thirst for knowledge, and we have a passion to promote American values and America first solutions to the problems that are facing our nation. And I'm so, so excited to be here and to talk to these different students and to hear from these wise individuals that have been doing it for longer than all of us and to actually find these solutions that we can bring back home, that we can bring back to our campuses, that we can bring back to our various forms of media and social media or our podcasts or whatever we may be doing. And throughout the week, I will be delivering content all across my social media platforms from TikTok to Instagram to X and Facebook, just so that y'all can get a taste of what's going on here in Phoenix, Arizona. And so that y'all didn't have to fly all the way here to listen to what they have to say. So I'll be live streaming the entire event on Rumble. So be sure to look out on our social media for links to that so that you can watch some of the biggest speakers. Tucker Carlson's gonna be here. Matt Walsh is gonna be here. Riley Gaines is gonna be here as those are some of my top three. J.D. Vance, but over 50 mainstream people will be speaking and it will be conservative. It will be freedom based. It will be faith based and it's going to be really great. So stay tuned for those links that y'all can watch it. And then I'm also going to be doing interviews with young Americans and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully some big name speakers, fingers crossed. But we're hoping to do man on the street type interviews with some of the young students that are here so that we can get a perspective on what brought them here, their beliefs and what they hope to take back home when they leave AmFest on Sunday. So I'm so excited to be here and I'm so excited to be with y'all whether you join in person or join virtually and follow our journey on social media. So thank you all so much for joining me on today's episode of the Reagan Faulkner Show. I hope you enjoyed the content. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about my perspective and the perspective of my friends and members of our local college Republicans chapter about why Gen Z is moving further and further to the right and what they hope to accomplish through that migration to a more conservative agenda. Now, be sure to keep in touch with us at the Reagan Faulkner Show on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. We will be pushing out so much new content in the next four days, all about AmFest. Be sure to follow us on X at ReaganF25. I will be doing updates all throughout the day for the next four days. So you'll definitely, excuse me, definitely want to be checking us out there. And be sure to follow us on the same platforms, X, Instagram, Facebook, not TikTok at the Wilmington Standard. They will be covering some of our events as well. And if you want additional content or any other media that I've been featured in, be sure to check us out at reaganfaulkner.com. And check out merch for the show at thewilmingtonstandard.com. I'm so, so excited to be bringing y'all this amazing AmFest content. And I really, really hope that y'all enjoy it. So I'll see y'all on the next one, or I will see you on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or X.