Fire at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela's largest military complex, is seen from a distance after a series of explosions in Caracas on January 3, 2026. | AFP via Getty Images

There was an underrated storyline of the 2024 election, one that’s increasingly starting to resurface now, as President Donald Trump goes on a foreign policy crusade, threatening to upend longstanding geopolitical norms between the United States and our allies (*cough, acquiring Greenland, cough*): Gen Z really doesn’t want to go to war.

In my work as a researcher, this is something I heard in focus groups and on campus quads at the time. Yes, economic issues mattered the most, but a surprising number volunteered that they were worried about the US being dragged into conflicts — and what it would mean for the generation that would be tasked with fighting them.

“I think Trump ran a good campaign to young people on stopping war,” Nicholas, an 18-year-old from Arizona, told me in a December listening session. “That was one of the main kind of slogans, that he went off of as being pro-peace.”

I’ve been thinking of these voters this week, as the president’s approval rating plummets with young Americans. Nicholas, for example, pointed out that the war in Ukraine still remained active. By the time I organized my next listening session in January, Trump had already ordered a dramatic raid in Venezuela, made noise about follow-up action elsewhere in Latin America, threatened fresh strikes in Iran to support protesters, and escalated his pressure campaign over Greenland.

George, a 19-year-old Republican from New York, said that while he has been optimistic about Trump’s foreign policy because he believes the United States should “make the world a safer place,” he’s skeptical of the administration’s recent suite of military operations and standoffs.

“It feels like it’s very ‘make it up as you go,’” he said. “And then when it comes to Greenland, I feel like it’s sort of, ‘What are we doing here?’ It’s not being the good guys on the world stage.........

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