How Gen X Went from Raging Against the Machine to Swallowing Misinformation While “Doing Their Own Research”

There was a time when Generation X stood as the emblem of skepticism, the cohort that questioned authority and championed individualism. Born between 1965 and 1980, they were the latchkey kids, the grunge enthusiasts, the ones who navigated the analog world before the digital age took hold. Yet, in a twist of irony, this very generation has become a significant force behind the spread of misinformation, often under the guise of “doing their own research.”

The Shift in Political Allegiance

In 2012, Gen X voters leaned towards Democratic control of Congress by a margin of 7 points (48%-41%). However, a decade later, this preference shifted dramatically. In the 2022 midterm elections, Gen X favored Republican control by 12 points (52%-40%).[^1] This change wasn’t just a statistical anomaly; it signaled a deeper transformation in the political landscape.

By the 2024 presidential election, Gen X played a pivotal role in delivering a victory to Donald Trump. Voters aged 45–64, encompassing the majority of Gen X, gave Trump a ten-point margin over his opponent, with 54% supporting him compared to 44% for his rival. Notably, Trump secured 50% of the vote among those in their forties and 56% among those aged 50 to 64.[^2]

They Didn’t Drift — They Snapped

This was not a gradual, inevitable swing. It was a hard right turn, more abrupt than Boomers and more ideologically brittle than Millennials. It wasn’t age alone that pushed them. It was the convergence of resentment, detachment, and digital illiteracy that made Gen X such fertile ground for anti-democratic ideas and misinformation. In 2024, they didn’t just vote Republican — they became the bedrock of Trumpism.

White Gen X voters turned out at high rates and voted more for Trump than Boomers — a fact often ignored by media still stuck stereotyping them as the “chill” generation. They have become the ideological infrastructure of modern American conservatism.

The Internal Split Within Gen X

Also, there’s a definite divide between Xers whose formative years were in the 1980s and those who went to high school in the early 1990s — and that divide matters. The older cohort, shaped during Reagan’s peak and the tail end of the Cold War, absorbed the “greed is good” ethos, Cold War nationalism, and an uncritical faith in American exceptionalism. Their adolescence was about order, strength, and top-down narratives. In contrast, those who came of age in the early ‘90s hit adolescence during a recession, the rise of gangsta rap and grunge, and a wave of cultural disillusionment marked by Rodney King, the Gulf War, and Genocide in Rwanda shown on CNN. These younger Gen Xers were exposed to a more global, fractured, and cynical view of power. They didn’t grow up worshipping Reagan — they grew up questioning Bush and distrusting institutions after watching them fumble catastrophically. And yet, over time, the political lines between these sub-groups have blurred, as right-wing populism managed to unify them under a single banner of grievance, nostalgia, and digital misinformation.

The Original Digital Guinea Pigs

Gen X was the first generation to grow up with computers but not the first to grow up with internet fluency. That distinction matters. They came of age with dial-up modems, AOL chat rooms, and early forums — digital spaces that were social and chaotic, not informative. The internet wasn’t where you learned back then — it was where you escaped.

As a result, many Gen Xers never developed media literacy. They never had to rigorously fact-check because the sources they trusted (mainstream media, encyclopedias, teachers) were largely seen as stable and correct in their youth. When those institutions started crumbling — or rather, when social media trained everyone to distrust everything — Gen X’s cynicism made them vulnerable.

Cynicism Without Discernment

This is the generation that always assumed everyone else was lying. About Vietnam. About Watergate. About the Iraq War. About 9/11. And maybe they were right sometimes. But the consequence of a worldview built entirely on distrust is that once the truth becomes inconvenient, it gets thrown out with everything else.

They aren’t skeptical in a rational way. They are reflexively skeptical — assuming all institutions are lying unless proven otherwise by someone they already agree with. That’s not discernment. That’s a shortcut. It’s not that Gen X lacks critical thinking skills — it’s that they don’t apply them consistently.

Untested Tolerance and the Illusion of Progressivism

What appears to be a political shift in Gen X may, in truth, be an unmasking. This generation often saw itself as progressive — the one that embraced MTV diversity, danced to Salt-N-Pepa, watched In Living Color, and wore “coexist” bumper stickers like badges of enlightenment. But much of that supposed tolerance was never tested by proximity. It was cultural, not structural — appreciation at a distance. Many Gen Xers grew up in segregated suburbs, went to schools where queerness remained closeted, and entered workplaces where whiteness was still default. So long as diversity stayed on television screens or stage performances, it posed no threat. But as inclusion moved from media into leadership, education, housing, and policy — as queer people, immigrants, and people of color gained real power — that once-comfortable worldview began to fray. What had felt like openness revealed itself to be conditional. For many, equity felt like displacement. And when unexamined privilege is challenged, it can feel like persecution — even when what’s really happening is long-overdue balancing. The backlash isn’t universal, but it’s loud. Figures who once symbolized rebellion have drifted into reactionary politics. The comfort of being perceived as open-minded has collided with the discomfort of real structural change — and many Gen Xers are now showing they were never quite as progressive as they thought.

Pretending to “Do the Research”

Today, Gen X is overrepresented in conspiracy theory spaces online — from COVID-19 denialism to anti-trans panic. The phrase “do your own research” has become their rallying cry, but it’s rarely backed by actual research practices. They trust memes over medical journals, anonymous Facebook posts over investigative reporting.

They operate under the illusion that watching YouTube videos from political influencers counts as self-education. In reality, they’re consuming packaged ideology, regurgitating the same talking points under the belief that they came to those conclusions independently. This is intellectual cosplay. It’s pretentious and profoundly dangerous.

Why Trump Works for Them

Trump’s appeal to Gen X isn’t just cultural. It’s personal. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t cave to pressure. He mocks the same institutions they learned to hate. He speaks with certainty, even when he’s obviously wrong — and that bravado mirrors Gen X’s own posture of defiance.

Gen X once distrusted politicians. Now they distrust facts. Trump’s genius wasn’t that he flipped them. It’s that he reflected them. He gave them a version of authority that didn’t require reflection or nuance, just allegiance.

Even many of his Gen X supporters don’t love him — they love what he allows them to ignore: shame, contradiction, complexity. The very things that require moral work.

From Rage Against the Machine to Becoming It

Gen X was supposed to rage against the machine — now they are the machine. The generation that once blasted punk rock and sneered at institutions is now organizing violent insurrections at the Capitol and Facebook wellness groups in the same breath. They wear Lululemon and sip apple cider vinegar in the mornings while live-streaming conspiracy theories. They run smoothie bars and Reiki studios by day, and circulate QAnon memes by night. It’s no coincidence that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the most prominent anti-vaccine voices and grifters of the health disinformation era, i straddles the Gen and Boomer generation — the same goes for many of the influencers in the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) crowd. These aren’t just outliers. This is the shape of Gen X’s new rebellion: not against oppression, but against reality. They invoke “natural healing,” “clean living,” and “freedom of choice” as codes for rejecting science and rational discourse. They present themselves as enlightened outsiders — but they are deeply entangled in the machinery of misinformation, white grievance, and far-right ideology. What makes it especially dangerous is the double life they lead: posing as apolitical or wellness-focused while actively undermining democratic norms. Their politics are hidden under hashtags like #sovereignty and #wellnesswarrior, but the outcomes are the same as those marching in red caps.

Gen X prides itself on being independent thinkers — allergic to dogma, immune to trends, too smart to be fooled. But that belief in their own discernment has curdled into a kind of intellectual narcissism. The confidence that they can “figure it out” on their own has made many in this generation especially vulnerable to misinformation masquerading as insight. They don’t trust institutions, but they’ll trust a Reddit thread. They reject academic consensus, but they’ll cite a wellness influencer or a TikTok financial “guru.” This isn’t independence — it’s selective credulity disguised as skepticism. And it’s given cover to a generation that now traffics in conspiracies while still imagining themselves as the smartest people in the room.

The Pretension of Performative Liberalism

What’s increasingly clear is that Gen X harbors a uniquely sharp form of political pretension — one that cuts across professional lines and social identities. Whether it’s the stay-at-home mom reposting anti-mask memes between PTA updates, the tenured academic quietly rolling their eyes at DEI trainings, the suburban realtor with a boutique brand and MAGA sympathies, or the wellness influencer who decries “cancel culture” but pretends to support diversity initiatives — there’s a common thread: a deep cynicism toward government, a suspicion of collective action, and a belief that they alone can “see through” the noise. Many in this generation won’t admit they oppose addressing systemic racism, but their go-to label for such efforts is “race-baiting.” They scoff at terms like privilege and equity as if they’re frivolous, even dangerous in private but not often openly. Publicly, they posture as centrists and moderates — “just asking questions,” or trying to “hold both sides accountable” or saying that they’re “not political,” “common sense thinkers.” But privately, in voting booths and behind closed doors, they lean hard right. They don’t oppose DEI programs because of data — they oppose them because they see them as threats to their status, even when they know better. The hypocrisy isn’t an accident. It’s the feature. Gen X often masks conservative instinct with liberal aesthetics, especially in professional or creative circles, but the dissonance between what they say and how they vote is not only real — it’s measurable, and politically decisive.

The Cultural Hypocrisy

This is a generation that claims to love freedom of speech — until a drag queen reads a book. They claim to hate censorship — until a school teaches inclusive history. They claim to be politically independent — while voting predictably Republican.

Their cultural memory is full of flannel shirts, ironic detachment, and left-of-center aesthetics. But their political reality is now largely driven by fear: fear of being replaced, of being irrelevant, of being mocked.

It’s the same fear that animates the far right.

Who They’ve Become

They were once the slackers. Now they are the enforcers.

They call Millennials entitled, Gen Z soft, Boomers clueless. But they themselves are more likely to fall for misinformation, less likely to trust reliable news, and more resistant to changing their views when confronted with evidence.[^3] They are, statistically, the most conservative generation in America today — more so than Boomers.[^4]

This wasn’t inevitable. But it is undeniable.

Footnotes

[^1]: Pew Research Center, “Voter Trends by Generation,” 2022

[^2]: CNN Exit Polls, 2024 Presidential Election

[^3]: Harvard Kennedy School, Institute of Politics, Generational Misinformation Study (2023)

[^4]: Tom Bonier, TargetSmart, Analysis of Voting Trends, 2024