Angry, intolerant, divided and priced-out: why I fear the Zoomers

To understand the man, you have to know what was happening in the world when he was 20

- BY ED WEST

I've thought about that quote, sometimes attributed to Napoleon, a fair bit recently.

I suppose for my generation, 9/11 was the formative event, which signalled the end of the triumphalist 1990s - although the extent to which it affected us is questionable. Perhaps of far greater importance was the financial crisis which unfolded at the end of the Bush-Blair era.

What about those born around the turn of the millennium, the so-called Zoomers? I suppose it would be the experience of being locked down for a year to protect an older generation whose wealth they could never hope to emulate.

An already bitter and disillusioned cohort, denied their patrimony by house price inflation, came to adulthood during a period of deliberate social isolation with only the internet at hand - a lockdown that was punctuated by weeks of millennial hysteria over racism.

When I read the thoughts and worldview of that generation, I feel a sense of dread about what's coming; perhaps even more so when it comes from the Right. When I was 20, most of the things I watched on television liked to poke fun at the prevailing morality of the older generation. Today it's only natural that young men should wish to offend woke scolds. But something darker might also be happening.

There is certainly polling to suggest that younger voters in the US are moving to extremes, if you believe polls. One found that "explicit antisemitic attitudes are now much more common among young voters", who are five times more likely to have an "unfavourable view of the Jewish people than 65-year-olds".