“A Profoundly Damaged Cohort”: Understanding And Saving Gen Z To Save America

Authored by Scott W. Atlas via RealClearPolitics,

Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, stands as a profoundly damaged cohort, scarred by ideological indoctrination, social media’s corrosive grip, marginalization of morality anchors like religion and families, and a narcissistic culture that breeds entitlement. Gen Z’s alarming psychological fragility – hypersensitivity to “microaggressions,” equating words with violence, and an obsession with censoring “misinformation” – amplifies their vulnerability to a perverse rationale for violence. This was starkly illustrated by the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, while he engaged in civil debate, essential to a free, peaceful society.

Gen Z’s fragility is shocking to those of us who grew up with brave parents who fought in world wars and who immigrated with nothing but a strong will to live free. Gen Z focuses on perceived harms from words, demanding censorship for protection, with 72% endorsing shouting down speakers and 34% justifying violence to suppress speech. Their cancel culture thrives, with 97% engaging in unfollowing or blocking, the online version of intolerant mob behavior. This betrays a psychological frailty that undermines resilience and prevents discourse necessary for peaceful coexistence.

Gen Z’s dysfunction is undeniable. They average nine hours daily on screens, over three hours on social media, eroding real-world connections. This fuels asocial behavior, surging loneliness, and poor mental health; only half favor personal over virtual interactions. Financially, they falter: 55% find homeownership harder, 44% struggle to secure jobs, and 55% see promotions as elusive, fostering underachievement. Employers note that 65% of recent college graduates feel entitled, 63% are easily offended, and 55% lack professionalism and work ethic. Mental health crises are rampant, with depression, anxiety, and hopelessness spiking, especially among liberal-leaning youth, driven by a victimhood culture amplified by social media.

Gen Z’s psychological frailty sets the stage for unique vulnerability to social contagion, suggested by the explosion of gender confusion. Transgender identification among young adults surged from 0.59% in 2014 to 3.08% in 2023 – a 422% increase – with non-binary identities up 1260% and transgender men quadrupling (309%), driven by social media echo chambers and peer pressure. Gallup’s 2025 poll shows LGBTQ+ identification at 9.3% overall, nearly triple 3.5% in 2012, doubling in five years, with over 23% of Gen Z (born 1997-2006) identifying as such. The Williams Institute’s 2025 poll estimates over 724,000 transgender youth. This confusion pushes youth toward drastic measures like mutilative surgeries and fuels mental health crises. Rising detransition rates underscore the error; tragically, only 13% of detransitioners receive support from LGBT organizations versus 51% during transition, a shameful abandonment of distressed young people.

To understand the remedy, we must first acknowledge the causes. Never forget that the COVID-19 pandemic mismanagement inflicted catastrophic damage on Gen Z, an epic loss of society’s moral compass that left Gen Z adrift. Professors, teachers, and doctors backed isolation, disregarding known lockdown harms even though Gen Z was at exceptionally low risk from COVID. Mental health crises exploded: self-harm in teens doubled to tripled vs. 2019, overdoses surged 40-120%, and anxiety skyrocketed. One in four college-aged kids contemplated suicide by June 2020. Few discuss that Sweden kept schools open and reported low damage to youth mental health.

Inflammatory rhetoric from America’s left has influenced this weakened generation and likely inspired violence. Is it only a coincidence that members of Gen Z assassinated Charlie Kirk, attempted to kill President Trump, shot up schools, and murdered United Healthcare’s CEO? Media bias is stark and quantifiable: from 2016 to 2025, “extreme right” or “far right” mentions outnumbered “extreme left” or “far left” 5:1 (~12,000, with ~6 billion views, vs. ~2,500 with ~1.25 billion views); some, like MSNBC at 18:1 and PBS at 42:1, were far worse. Extreme demonization of Trump or MAGA conservatives as “fascists” or “threat to democracy” – MSNBC’s ~10,500 segments (~5.2 billion views), The New York Times’ ~620 mentions (~310 million views), and President Joe Biden’s 2022 Philadelphia speech, where he declared that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” a message reiterated in over 15 major addresses from 2020–2025  – has legitimized violent action.

Gen Z is naturally influenced by professors, but today’s professors are steeped in extremism rather than a force for free debate. We should be alarmed at statistics like 95% of Stanford faculty voted Democrat in 2020 per Rabushka; 63% of students accept shouting down speakers, 34% deem violence acceptable to suppress speech (up from 20% in 2020), and 48% justify political violence.

Elite university leadership continues to abrogate its responsibility by ignoring Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Not a single Top 20 school offered any mental health support despite obvious on-campus impact, in contrast with extensive wellness outreach for their left-favored crises, including George Floyd’s death and both of President Trump’s elections.

Some call for legal, top-down interventions, but ultimately, it is individuals, not institutions, who will save freedom. Despite their damaged psyches, the durable solution is present in Gen Z itself. Charlie Kirk knew that and devoted his life to fearlessly engaging Gen Z in debate. That empowered his audience to think critically about liberty, morality, and truth. Charlie’s death sparked 50,000+ TPUSA chapter requests in six days – their thirst for dialogue is evident.

In that spirit, we must continue to challenge inquisitive students with ideas they may never have heard. And we should identify and mentor Gen Z’s bold, rising leaders in early careers who’ve shown a commitment to critical thinking and free speech, to accelerate their rise into leadership across business, government, media, and beyond.  Efforts like these demand courage – from us and from them – an attribute in short supply today. But as C.S. Lewis noted, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Scott W. Atlas, M.D., is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; co-director of the Global Liberty Institute; former advisor to the president and member, White House Coronavirus Task Force; and author of “A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID From Destroying America” (Bombardier Press).