As the generational divide in politics has gotten deeper, with over-45s tending to vote Republican and under-45s voting Democratic, more and more conservative conversation is devoted to what’s wrong with kids these days. I have heard a fair amount of such commentary just in the last week. So it’s refreshing to read a conservative who has given some serious thought to the circumstances that have shaped young Americans’ view of the world.


Philip Klein’s short book Fear Your Future: How the Deck Is Stacked Against Millennials and Why Socialism Would Make It Worse argues that the dissatisfaction of young people with the status quo, and the prospects it has given them, has a rational basis. As that subtitle suggests, though, he thinks a lot of them have channeled that dissatisfaction in politically self-destructive ways.

The book includes two responses to the main essay, one by David Harsanyi and one by me, along with the author’s reply.