Thoughtcrime Flashback: The Fourth of July 2025

Where this was said

Jack on Gen Z's Pocketbook Revolt Against Foreign Policy

At 36:35 · chapter starts 35:30

Jack explains what he hears when he talks to actual Zoomers: they're not anti-Israel ideologues, they're exhausted citizens who can't afford food or rent and see their government pouring money into foreign conflicts they can't find on a map. ^{[1] — Jack "I just don't feel like I'm heard. I feel like I'm told to shut up. I feel like I'm told that, oh, I either need to pull myself up by my boo…" 36:35 Play} The TikTok footage of Gaza galvanizes them not because of ideology but because it arrives alongside their inability to buy a house. Being labeled antisemitic for asking basic budget questions makes it worse. Jack draws a line from USAID waste to pallets of cash to Iran to the trillions spent in the Middle East, arguing Trump's original power came from this same reservoir of frustration — and if those pressures aren't resolved, they'll keep fueling characters like Mamdani and Mangione.