A new Harvard Kennedy School poll released this week indicates that younger generations are rapidly losing trust in government institutions, and really, the hosts of “The View” understand why. Discussing it on Friday morning, the ABC hosts wondered why anyone would even expect otherwise.
The poll led the day’s Hot Topics, with each of the women sympathizing with Gen Z in particular. Host Alyssa Farah Griffin tackled the topic first, immediately reminding the table and the audience that Gen Z has grown up in the age of social media, a pandemic and more.
“For all the traumas Millennials went through, I am so grateful I didn’t have to grow up with an algorithm that’s meant to make me radicalized, and hate people around me, or to feel isolated and bad about myself,” she said. “It’s a very hard time to be a young person in this country.”
Speaking directly to the distrust in government, Farah Griffin argued that members of Gen Z have only seen a political world that is sharply polarized, because they’re too young to remember when things were more “normal.”
“They haven’t seen normal politics. They haven’t seen it modeled, so why should we expect them to trust our institutions or to trust our elected leaders?” she posed.
From there, host Sara Haines added that the cost of higher education and housing has skyrocketed, and due to lack of wage increases, Gen Z really has no purchasing power in the current economy.
“They are not going to be better off,” Haines said. “Parents raise kids to say ‘I hope I can give my kid a better life.’ This generation is not getting a better life. They are climbing a mountain right now.”
You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.
