Jake Tapper, CNN host, says left-wing indoctrination efforts turning students more conservative

CNN host Jake Tapper said a backlash to leftist indoctrination in schools is driving skeptical Gen-Z students to become more conservative.

“Just my experience knowing Gen Z kids — my kids and their friends and whatever — I sense much more skepticism. I think it is a reaction to Gen X-ers and millennials forcing on them progressive views in school,” Mr. Tapper said in a podcast interview this week with Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie.

Mr. Tapper’s remarks on the state of education and America’s future leaders came toward the end of the roughly hourlong interview with the libertarian outlet, in which he also promoted his new book on al-Qaeda terrorism and touched on the shortcomings of legacy media during the Biden administration.

He said he anticipated “quite a division” between those now in their 30s and 40s and the younger generation coming up behind them.

“My impression of millennials is that they are fairly — obviously there are exceptions — but they are fairly progressive,” Mr. Tapper said of the loosely defined generation born between roughly 1981 and 1996.

“I think Gen Z is gonna be a lot more conservative,” he added, referring to the current group of teenagers and young adults whose birth year loosely corresponds with the years from 1997 to 2012.

Gen Z is the first generation to grow up in a world dominated by social media and smartphones, which has afforded them unprecedented access to information on demand.

That has led them to be more discerning about the accuracy and veracity of information, whereas prior generations relied on a smaller number of trusted sources, including schools and the legacy media.

Their upbringing also coincided with the George W. Bush and Obama presidencies, which saw a downturn in bipartisanship as the political left grew more aggressive about, in Mr. Obama’s phrase, “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Mr. Tapper acknowledged that President Trump’s 2024 campaign saw a surge in younger voters, traditionally a reliable left-wing constituency. Many have attributed it to the unpolished authenticity of his rhetoric and style.

“Trump did not win young voters, as he constantly says he did, but he did do better with them than other previous Republicans, and I just think that it’s not just that he is reshaping and remaking politics and normalizing things that weren’t normal 10 years ago,” Mr. Tapper said.

“I also think it is a reaction to the failures of progressive movements to achieve what they wanted to achieve, whether it’s Bernie Sanders, whether it’s Black Lives Matter, whether it’s #MeToo,” he added. “I think it’s COVID. I think it’s a lot of progressive politics being forced down their throats in school. I think there’s a lot of stuff going on.”

The Trump administration has made efforts to reform the education system a top priority, exerting pressure on both public and private universities that receive federal funding to stop forcing radical politics into the classroom and campus culture.