In many ways, we should have all seen the recent election results coming, and chief among the missed signs is how cooked some of Gen Z's brains are.
Though the majority of the age group voted for Kamala Harris, a staggering proportion voted for Donald Trump at a far higher percentage than is typical for the youth vote where Republicans are concerned.
An October conversation between Gen Z political influencers Dean Withers, a progressive, and Emily Wilson, a far-right MAGA conservative, is a prime example. Dismissed as an aberration a month ago, Wilson's comments now feel eerily like a missed harbinger of the election results.
Because Wilson, you see, is a full-grown Gen Z adult who thinks states should be allowed to legalize slavery if they feel like it—and is so certain she's right she's willing to be on record about it for the rest of her life.
The comments came during a debate about abortion rights between the two influencers on the One Night With Steiny podcast back in October. Withers questioned Wilson's support for Trump and her position on the abortion issue, saying:
"I legitimately don't see how you, as a woman, could stand for someone that overturned Roe v. Wade, sending the right to get an abortion back to the states."
Wilson then replied with the standard "states' rights" boilerplate that pretty much every conservative who isn't great at critical thinking uses in these debates.
"I think if everyone in a state wants something, go ahead and have it."
To point out the holes in this logic, Withers responded by asking Wilson a question seemingly designed to determine if she has any red moral lines whatsoever. Turns out not so much! He asked her:
"So if everyone in Alabama wanted slavery back, you'd be okay with that?"
Wilson immediately shot back:
"Sure. If everyone in the state wants it, go ahead. What do I give a sh*t?"
Cool story, Emily. We'll just go ahead and assume you'd have that same laidback view if it were, say, performative white women who've never known a day of struggle in their lives being forced into slavery, too.
But don't worry—Wilson's comments weren't just abhorrent, they were also brain-meltingly stupid. When a shocked Withers tried to nail down her batsh*t views further by talking about the Confederacy, Wilson replied:
"Like, I live in LA. I'm not some crazy right-wing person."
Oh okay, phew. The fact that you literally just endorsed slavery had us doubting you for a minute there!
And, of course, like every well-trained right-wing lapdog, she quickly moved on to dismissing the conversation as a "gotcha moment," as if her own words were some kind of trick or something.
As you can imagine, Wilson's gross and stupid nonsense didn't go over very well with people online.
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We wish Wilson luck in the future when her influencing career eventually flames out and she has to find a regular job besides being a troll on the internet.
Trump may have won, but most people in the world aren't going to look the other way at a woman being eternally on-record about liking slavery.
Add that "gotcha moment" to the list of things you're gonna learn the hard way in the next few years, Emily.
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