Different Generations, Different Visions Of America's Future
(Source: MIRS.news, Published 11/02/2026) (KALAMAZOO) – Mike Rogers stood in front of about 50 people, mostly older adults, to deliver his final message here last week.
At one point, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate was interrupted by someone in the front row. His comment was muffled, but Rogers heard him clearly enough to agree with him because "we're old."
Kristi Rogers also talked about an actor in the crowd who played the villain role in the movie Lawnmower Man, a movie that's 34 years old, which is older than some of Rogers' campaign staff who were scattered about.
At another point, Rogers brought up how his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, is connecting with younger voters, saying: "That's how they think they are going to win. They are getting all these college kids."
El-Sayed's popularity on college campuses and among younger voters isn't a secret. He's been packing university settings throughout the campaign.
The generational rift is showing up in polling. The recent New York Times/Siena poll shows El-Sayed leading among 18-to-29-year-olds, 64% to 27%, and among 30-to-44-year-olds, 64% to 25%. Among those 45 to 64, Rogers is up 53% to 44%. Among those 65 and older, it's El-Sayed 50%, Rogers 47%.
But age doesn't determine a voter's choice. Even broad generational preferences have limits.
Wearing a 2020 Make America Great Again hat at tonight's Rogers event in Rochester Hills was 19-year-old Monica Samano. She told MIRS this would be her first time voting in an election and allegations linking El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood were her main reason for supporting Rogers. El-Sayed has disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, but his 2012 support of their democratically elected leadership in Egypt is documented.
Samano said she thinks more young people support Rogers than people think, but they don't want to be public about their support out of concern for being attacked on social media.
Offering a different perspective is Bob Wood, 69, of Spring Lake, who was in the crowd supporting El-Sayed at one of his last rallies today in Royal Oak. The two met at a small Muskegon shop during El-Sayed's 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Wood has since watched El-Sayed's public support blossom.
He called El-Sayed a "generational talent" and said that he's never been more sure of a vote in his life.
Those choices show the limits of explaining the race by age alone. But political consultants and researchers see broader differences in how generations view economic opportunity, consume information and judge the institutions around them.
"America is going to look very different — it already does — but it’s going to be really different in 10 years and this is the first year I think our politics is recognizing that generationally, the perspective of what America even is, is completely different," said Mike Madrid, political consultant and Lincoln Project co-founder.
Madrid and academics put the rift line between 50 and 60 years of age, with the analog generations, who are able to navigate life without current technology, being made up of the older Gen X, Baby Boomers and the small remnants of the Silent Generation and the digital generations, or generations that don't know what it is like without the internet, being made up of Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
These rifts are playing out before our eyes in the political campaigns across Michigan and the United States in the 2026 midterm elections as the digital generation looks to wrest the levers of power from the analog generation.
He said what crystallized the stark difference between the generational thinking was a conversation he had with James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas.
Madrid, a member of Gen X, said younger politicians such as Talarico and El-Sayed see class, racial, ethnic and political constructs through a completely different framework than people from the analog generation. He said younger people feel everyone is in the same sinking boat.
"This is a generational moment. I don't care what color or gender, who you love, where you're from. We're all screwed, and it's those guys at the top screwing us. That's what's so resonant," Madrid said.
He described a shift away from identity politics and toward concerns about wealth inequality, a dynamic that played out in 1929 before the Great Depression, when the economy flipped to mass production.
Madrid said he's inspired by the youth. They were born into a world that looked like it was on fire, but decided to step up and try to change what was happening with corporations, nonprofits, labor unions and political systems.
He said the analog generations look at these things in a hierarchical system.
"None of our systems are hierarchical anymore, but we are still trying to run and make these things work, and young people are going, 'I wouldn't build any of this shit the way that you guys have created it,'" Madrid said.
Madrid said the left has embraced totalitarianism, just in a different direction.
"The partisan stuff is reflective of a social transformation. Everything you are saying about race and identity is a part of that crazy transformation where people are going, 'The Muslims are coming' and 'Talarico is a liberal.' Oh, my God," he said.
He said the fight for conservatives is to preserve a shared American culture.
"We sold ourselves on this mythology that as long as you come and buy into America, you can become an American. Nobody else does that," he said.
Madrid said nostalgia for a shared national culture, including the belief that Christianity is uniquely American, reflects a search for continuity in a country that has constantly changed.
Madrid said it is why there is an insistence that, despite the United States being a nation of immigrants, there is an insistence that your family be buried here or have fought and died for the land. It creates a sense of belonging and stability and gives people certainty.
He said it is where the unease comes from when a young progressive states the land was stolen from the Native tribes, or the land was built because of slavery or people were oppressed.
"What frightens me about young people is that they don't have a solution of what it looks like going forward. They're just like, 'Break it down,'" he said.
University of Florida Social Media Professor Andrew Selepak said social media and artificial intelligence have spread much faster than earlier technologies such as electricity.
The "Xennial" said mass adoption of television took about 20 years, smartphones took about 15 years and social media took about five years.
He said while older generations may not have been born into technology, they have adopted it, but are still reading printed newspapers and watching the local broadcast network news.
He said Millennials and Gen Z are getting their news from social media.
"I think the biggest divide is more from a media consumption perspective than anything else, and that has its own implications," he said.
He said the ability to curate and consume media is no longer a "haphazard stumbling" process or the shared cultural exchange of popularity that existed when there were four networks and a handful of cable channels.
He said in the past, people could bond or find a common ground over a movie, music or piece of literature, but he is shocked by the number of his Gen Z students who haven't seen highly rated movies like The Shawshank Redemption, which is 32 years old, or Goodfellas, which is 36 years old.
He pointed to Gen X being the bridge generation, yet being skipped over in the political power dynamic. Selepak noted that since Bill Clinton, every president has been from the Baby Boomer generation with the exception of Joe Biden who, born in 1942, was from the Silent Generation.
"There's not been a Gen X president … There might not be a Gen X president. We don't know," he said.
Selepak pointed to the media environments that dominated during the formative years of the various generations and how each generation was impacted by that environment.
He pointed to the 2008 financial collapse that had a major impact on the Millennials looking for their first job and the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on Gen Z who was going through high school or college.
Selepak said there are many in the workforce who were born after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, which students learn about in a history book, not through lived experience.
He said what he believes is causing the major rifts is the rapid expansion of technology, because throughout history, while there were changes, they had taken longer to be adopted and still saw massive shifts in generational thinking.
"AI and social media have had dramatic implications for the average person, and it's been in the blink of an eye," Selepak said.
Selepak also talked about the digitization of commerce and physical media. The newspaper headed online, streaming services like Netflix no longer having the physical discs for movies, Spotify taking over for albums and Wikipedia replacing the Encyclopedia Britannica.
"It's creating a lot more niche and independent communities and a lot more tribalism, because we don't have a commonality of culture. We're not all consuming the same things," he said.
People may assume others watch the same shows, even though they may not subscribe to the same streaming services, Selepak said.
"It prevents people from having casual conversations, and that's where you can kind of bridge other divides. We might feel differently about these political issues or these political parties, but you know what? We can talk about our favorite show," he said.
He said this has impacted work friendships, friendships outside of work, and exacerbated the political and social divides that exist in the United States.
He said people don't leave the house to go to bowling leagues or civic organizations. They are taking a blow from the lack of interaction. The digital algorithms push everyone into niche areas.
He said one of those bleak things taken from Millennials and Gen Z was the belief in the future of humanity that helps people take risks.
"They don't want that sort of unknown because there's already so much unknown in their lives that makes them scared and worried, and they blame that unknown on the older generations," Selepak said.
He said AI and robotics weren't going to help the situation either.
"The phase we're about to enter is going to make the problems we have right now seem quaint," Selepak said.
Western Michigan University Professor of Marketing Jennifer Bott, who has published research on generational diversity, said researchers need time to assess how technological changes affect different generations.
The Gen X professor said the first AI generation will be Generation Alpha, who already has taken the first steps with AI in their toolbelt, and the speeding of the generational shifts that are happening has exacerbated the unknown factor.
She said the reaction to the technology shift could be placed on this fear of the unknown and excitement over an untested technology. She remembered when email was first introduced that people said they should just throw away their phones because email would end phone calls. There was also a camp that said email was a fad that would never catch on and no one would ever use it.
She compared her email story to the same reaction that is happening now with AI. Those same conversations were had with word processing programs and even the digitization of the workforce into the personal computer environment during the late 1970s and 1980s.
Bott said digital connections do not necessarily translate into a stronger sense of community.
"There are no answers that we know, and so all of us are trying to make sense of things in those moments. We may refer back to our fallback on our generational preferences that were influenced by how we came through various technological transformations," she said.
AI is costing jobs and Gen X stands to lose more than most, Bott said.
"If laid off, that generation is having a harder time getting back into the workplace, which is pretty remarkable because age 50 isn't the age that we would think that people would have trouble finding a new career or new position," Bott said.
She said people are looking for stability in a turbulent time, but said she doesn't see that turbulence leveling out any time soon.
She said reaching out for personal connection and having conversations is a way for people to feel stable, but the tools of social media don't truly foster those connections or help build community in a meaningful way.
"We have generational differences, but all of us are experiencing a very similar sense of ambiguity and discomfort. That unites all of us, regardless of which generation you come from, and in those moments finding out we're not alone can be really powerful in making every day easier," she said.
She said people need to try harder to find that common ground or the connection to others.
"The simplest, most powerful tool you have is curiosity. How many times in a day do you stop, look someone in the eye and ask, 'How are you doing today?' Wait for the answer and maybe ask a follow-up question. It doesn't matter what generation you are from," she said.
She said regardless of what we are all experiencing, that if we aren't connecting to our neighbors or community those generational rifts will remain.
"Ultimately, when we know each other, when we understand each other, when we trust each other, everything goes faster at work. Everything goes more easily in our communities," she said.
Making it harder for the older generations is the way they process information, said Keegan Tatum, a political psychology content creator from California. Boomers, for example, trust what they read in the media. They may not have developed that skeptical eye.
By contrast, Millennials and Gen Z tend not to believe everything they see on TikTok or other social media platforms.
Economic opportunities are another big difference, Tatum said.
A lower-wage job in the '60s was enough to pay for a higher-end education, which inspired hope. He contrasted that with his generation watching 3,000 people die on live television, which set a very dark tone.
"I think that's a huge divide. Our politics were formed at the time of like 9/11, 2008 financial crisis and Trump. That's not to say that Vietnam wasn’t a horrible time for our country, but there was a lot more optimism at the time," he said.
He said it seems the older generations have crystallized an ideal time in their minds regarding what is comfortable and safe as a survival mechanism.
"It's that people will take the devil that they know over the devil that they don't know because the devil that they know is at least familiar, and it has the illusion of safety," he said.
Tatum said the younger generations feel they are being given the short end of the stick by the current economic situation.
The Californian said he calculated what the rent of a one-bedroom apartment was for his mother and the same apartment now, adjusted for inflation, would be about $2,500 for his mother, but $5,500 for him.
He said durable goods and things that were once thought to be luxury goods are also much cheaper now, but housing and education are more expensive.
He said older generations looking at something like a smartphone as a modern convenience or the increase in average life expectancy through medical technology are pointed to as things that have made the younger generations' lives easier.
"Motivated reasoning causes people to want to think that they had it harder because they overcame more, and that's part of the American ego. 'I worked hard. I overcame things. I earned everything I have. Don't tell me I was privileged,'" he said.
Tatum said environmental issues and climate change were the largest policy rift between the younger and older generations, with Pew Research Center backing up the claims.
"My ultimate hope would be that we would work towards a society based on everyone should be taken care of. There's a minimum standard that everyone should have healthcare, everyone should have housing," he said.
He said the online space is much more self-centered and people are more apt to be mean and nihilistic. He said some of that has also started to leak into interpersonal communications in the real world.
"It's like our country has stopped believing in the future," Tatum said.
He feels that comes from a combination of desperation and frustration. He pointed to a willingness to use violence to make a point rather than the nuance of an argument.
"I think a lot of that is social media inundating us with fame. It’s weird to think I have a little bit of internet fame. That feels just so weird to say that, and it feels arrogant, and I want to throw up in my mouth saying it," he said.
Retired Michigan State University (MSU) advertising professor Robert Kolt, a Baby Boomer, said he knows generations can't avoid each other.
"The problem is that often, they don't have the connection where they can talk to each other and work on the same issues or challenges ahead of them and I think there's some actual resentment now that young people have of older people in leadership," he said.
He said in the past, people in power would find promising newcomers and help mentor them while they were respected for their experience in years in leadership positions before stepping aside for the next generation.
Kolt said we can see it with the political inexperience of El-Sayed and in the campaigns of several other political figures.
"Seniors have this feeling that experience is valuable. Young people have a different perspective. 'I can do this job now,' and maybe they can, and maybe they should. It's something that seniors often refuse to realize," Kolt said.
He agreed that some of what is happening now with national politics is the Baby Boomers trying to return to past fights they never got around to dealing with and said the war with Iran is an issue that the youth question as being competency of leadership.
"What bothers me is that old people have to prove that they're competent and young people have to prove that they're ready and as these two Earths collide in orbit, we've got to work together, and there's a little lag in leadership transition," he said.
He talked about teaching at MSU and the components of source credibility, and said those people have a greater ability as opinion leaders. His students talked about online influencers as opinion leaders.
He said the idea of elected officials and popular celebrity has changed, and looking at someone with 1 million followers on a social media platform could put you in that same category.
Kolt said the idea of the American Dream has changed across generations. Instead of wanting a house, family and good-paying job from which they can retire, living in a "cool place" that is inexpensive to be able to socialize is more feasible.
"I think in the end the young people will win because old people will die," he said.
But that march of time comes for everyone, and Kolt said everyone who becomes a senior will need to embrace change, because it will always come, driven by the youth at the bottom of the pile.
"The best way to solve this generational problem is to ask young people to ask questions and listen," he said.
He said this also needs to happen from the youth. They need to listen to the shared experiences of seniors. He said that right now, it doesn't seem the youth are able to handle either listening or asking questions.
Kolt agreed that the online space was where the social interactions for Gen Z were taking place and that Facebook, while still widely used, quickly became an unpopular platform among younger users after grandma and grandpa arrived.
"What we have to do is push young people to ask questions and to talk, and since they really don't, older people haven’t, and so they haven't shared skills or shared experiences, unless it's a movie or a video or something like that," he said.
He said many of the institutions that society has created have been created to be helpful to the population, rather than hurtful.
Some of the disconnects he talked about were an advertisement from the people who support U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) calling Will Lawrence a socialist.
"I think older people will say, 'Well, I'm not a Socialist. I'm not a Communist, he's not like me.' But young people will say, 'Being socially conscious is a good thing.' So I'm more attracted to that guy," he said.
He said overall he's hopeful for society in general.
"I would just hope young people are not hostile about what they've experienced, because I don't think this, the society we live in today, was created on purpose by old people. It just is what it is," Kolt said.
He said being able to accept society for what it is and respect and communicate is what's needed.
"I just sense that there's this projection that some young people are mad because it's their time, and they don't have the same place they believe they should," Kolt said. "It's OK. Don't be mad. You'll get it. All right, just settle down."
