Free Republic

Existential crises tend to arrive when the gap between how life feels and how we thought it would feel becomes too wide to ignore.For a growing number of Americans, 2026 hasn’t just been hard. It’s been disorienting. A Talker Research survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found that one in three people (32%) say they’re currently experiencing an existential crisis, with younger adults far more likely to feel that way than older generations. Nearly four in ten (37%) say their entire lives feel out of their control... A separate survey of 5,000 Americans, conducted by Talker Research for Current in December...

At a time when secularization has long been treated as an irreversible trend in Western Europe, new data indicate that a significant segment of Spanish youth may be rediscovering religious identity... Preliminary findings from the forthcoming “Spanish Youth Report 2026,” produced by the SM Foundation and based on data collected in 2025, suggest that 45 percent of young people in Spain identify as Catholic. The figure marks a notable increase from 31.6 percent in 2020... Several dynamics appear to be at work. One is demographic: religious families... tend to have higher birth rates and transmit faith more consistently. Immigration also...

The president of Turning Point USA’s University of Georgia chapter says the organization has strayed from the mission it had under the leadership of Charlie Kirk. Caroline Mattox wrote on Instagram that she could not in good conscience stay with an organization that has “strayed so far from its original purpose and principles.” Mattox is not the first TPUSA chapter president to express dissatisfaction with the organization’s current direction. The University of Arkansas chapter cut ties with TPUSA last month. Former President Dino Fantegrossi also expressed the sentiment that TPUSA had strayed from its original mission.

More Americans are choosing to walk away from difficult relationships instead of working through them, a new survey has revealed. Nearly two in five Americans — 38% — say they have gone "no contact" with a friend or family member in the past year, according to a survey of 2,000 adults conducted in March by Talker Research for the therapy platform Talkspace... Younger Americans were far more likely than older generations to report cutting someone off. The survey found that 60% of Gen Z respondents had gone "no contact," compared to 50% of millennials, 38% of Gen X and 20%...

A curious GenZ BRIT talks about why GenX is missing from all of the talk...

“For Americans who came of age before the Iranian revolution, the defining event regarding Iran was the hostage crisis of 1979-1981, in which 52 of their countrymen were held prisoner for over a year at the captured U.S. Embassy in Tehran...” “That crisis dominated news in the United States for an extended period. It even spawned a nightly television program (which became ABC Nightline)..." American children who came of age in as late as the 1970s and early 80s will likely recall the Iran of their childhood as an infamous adversary, much in the same vein as the Soviet Union,...

Here come the morality police: About 1-in-3 people under the age of 30 say being extremely wealthy is “morally wrong.” Just 19% say it’s acceptable, and another near-50% don’t think it’s an issue one way or another. That data comes from the latest Pew Research Center poll on morality. Compare Gen-Z to Boomers, and data becomes even more stark. Only 10% of those over 65 say it’s morally wrong to be extremely wealthy. But that checks out. Those over 65 have enjoyed one of the greatest growth engines in human history, post World War II America. Cheap education, cheap homes...

After complaining for years that Gen Z grads are difficult to work with, bosses are no longer all talk, no action: Now they’re rapidly firing young workers who aren’t up to scratch just months after hiring them. The numbers are stark. According to a survey, six in 10 employers admitted they had already sacked the Gen Z workers they had hired fresh out of college. Intelligent.com, a platform dedicated to helping young professionals navigate the future of work, surveyed nearly 1,000 U.S. business leaders. It found that the class of 2024’s shortcomings are shaping how bosses hire next—and it’s not...

to add more frustration to Gen Z’s plate, there’s the growing realization that for most jobs, a college degree isn’t even useful. They spend thousands of dollars, time, and resources at a university only to enter the workforce completely unprepared. Or the tasks are so mundane that basically any high school grad off the street could handle them with zero problem.

Experts from Tempcover surveyed youngsters about the common motoring tasks they find the most daunting. Changing a flat tyre was the biggest fear, while parallel parking, hill starts, and merging onto a motorway were also found to terrify hundreds of young drivers. The findings will come as no surprise to many Gen Z, who regularly post about their driving phobias on TikTok. Gen Z's biggest driving fears Changing a flat tyre (36%) Jump-starting the car when the battery is dead (36%) Parallel parking (24%) Checking the tyre pressure at a garage and topping them up with air (22%) Hill starts...

The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of “Nones,” those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging...

Super Bowl commercials reportedly aim to target a less traditional audience ahead of the NFL title game on Sunday. Though the league's championship game has often been associated with older men, major companies are using the game to reach out to both Gen Z and female viewers with their latest advertisements. "[I]f we had made something that didn’t speak to Gen Z or didn’t appeal to women, I think we would have been missing the mark," Laura Jones, chief marketing officer of Instacart, told Variety on Wednesday. Super Bowl ratings reached record levels in 2025 with approximately 127.7 million people...

For many years now we have all been agonising over the fertility crisis. Why aren’t the kids having kids? It’s become a sort of parlour game, the swapping of the various theories. Is it the cost of living? Micro-plastics? Eco-anxiety? Tight underwear, I heard the other day, and snorted with scorn even as I tipped my son’s stretch-cotton pants into the bin. But now another, rather more fundamental explanation for the baby shortage has emerged. It’s not just that younger generations aren’t having babies – it turns out they aren’t really having sex at all. The Atlantic was first to...

Managers across industries are terminating Generation Z employees at a pace that is starting to reshape early career norms. Instead of the traditional multi‑year ramp, many Gen Z hires are being cut within months, as supervisors point to recurring behavior patterns and a widening gap between expectations on both sides. The trend is forcing companies, and young workers, to confront what is really driving these rapid exits and how much of the problem lies with individual conduct versus outdated systems. At the center of the tension is a perception that Gen Z brings fresh energy but also a different relationship...

Gen Z right-wing influencers like Nick Fuentes have suggested they may not support Vice President JD Vance if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 and have praised California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. Why It Matters The 2028 election is years away, but talk about who could run for higher office has already begun. Vance is viewed as the frontrunner on the Republican side. The Democratic primary is likely to be more competitive if current polling stands, and Newsom is viewed as a leading candidate. He has cast himself as a staunch rival of the Trump administration. The...

Generation Z is taking over. In the rich world there are at least 250m people born between 1997 and 2012. About half are now in a job. In the average American workplace, the number of Gen Z-ers (sometimes also known as “Zoomers”) working full-time is about to surpass the number of full-time baby-boomers, those born from 1945 to 1964, whose careers are winding down (see chart 1). America now has more than 6,000 Zoomer chief executives and 1,000 Zoomer politicians. As the generation becomes more influential, companies, governments and investors need to understand it. Recent “research” from Frito-Lay, a crisp-maker,...

PHOENIX—All eyes were on Gen Z this weekend as more than 10,000 students gathered at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, where speakers and panels discussed the issues motivating Gen Z heading into a pivotal election year. After making impressive inroads with young voters in the 2024 presidential election, the conservative movement is vigorously debating how to address young voters’ concerns heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. From the main stage to The Daily Signal’s interviews with students in attendance, one issue rose above the rest: affordability. Affordability Is Everything “Probably the most important economic issue of our...

One of the most important cyclical events in my life as a data analyst of American religion is the semi-regular release of the General Social Survey.... I was more than pleased that the Association of Religion Data Archives had already managed to upload the 2024 General Social Survey to their website... I wanted to do a really tight “zoom in” on the changes in the religious composition of the GSS before the pandemic and then in the 2024 data. So, here’s how things have shifted since 2016.... You can see some really significant swings in these figures from 2018. For...

Key Points and Summary – For a generation, America’s biggest weapons programs have delivered more delay than deterrence. -The M10 Booker, Zumwalt-class destroyer, Littoral Combat Ship, and Constellation-class frigate all started with clear operational needs and bold promises, then sank under shifting requirements, immature technology, and an overstretched industrial base... -As China cranks out ships and missiles at scale, Washington’s acquisition system is struggling to field replacements for aging platforms. -Unless the Pentagon is forced to simplify, stabilize, and speed procurement, the U.S. edge will erode. Why Can’t America Build A Military?.. he M10 Booker light tank, the Zumwalt-class destroyer,...

The number of Gen Z college freshmen who are entering universities without high school math skills is skyrocketing — as SAT scores are plummeting, a stunning new report has found. Even more shocking — many of the students can’t even do middle-school level math, meaning their skills are fifth grade or below. Experts say this phenomenon, combined with steadily rising high school graduate rates, show that the country is suffering a massive grade inflation problem. The University of California San Diego, for instance, has reported a staggering 30-fold increase in the number of students unable to do basic arithmetic over...