Another Night in Any Town

The young wait for the dawn in this dark age.

The president has now said it from every big stage. At the inaugural: “The golden age of America begins right now.” At the State of the Union in February — one hundred and eight minutes, the longest ever delivered: “This is the golden age of America.” And on the eve of the 250th, at Mount Rushmore: “This is only the beginning of the golden age of America.” The promise keeps escalating in proper proportion to the disbelief it generates. And the lie is not sustainable.

Because the verdict has just been delivered, and it arrived early from the people with the most years left to live inside this promise of new prosperity. Thirty-one percent of Gen Z Trump voters now say they regret the vote, and their approval of him — 33 percent — is the lowest of any age cohort in the country. The Yale Youth Poll puts disapproval at 68 percent among voters 18 to 22 and 72 percent among voters 23 to 29, with those cohorts breaking D+23 and D+30 for November. NBC’s April surveyfound 76 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds disapproving, the highest of any group, and 80 percent saying the country is on the wrong track. In 2024 this was the demographic that embarrassed the forecasters by swinging right. I do not think they will repeat the mistake.

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This new golden age from the bottom of the ladder, which is where the young are standing, is looking fraught. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 5.7 percent, against 4.1 for the workforce as a whole. Stanford’s canaries-in-the-coal-mine study keeps finding the same thing: the AI buildout is eating the entry-level rung first, in exactly the occupations young workers use to climb, while older workers in the same fields go untouched. Harvard’s youth poll describes a generation for whom the cost of living — housing above all — has become the defining crisis, with faith in the system itself going with it. Globally, the ILO counts 67 million young people unemployed and one in five neither working nor in education.

On the other hand, there is a golden age in the numbers. It is a golden age of fraud — golden for the balance sheets financing the buildout and the counties hosting it, leaden for the generation told to wait for the dawn. A golden age that begins by sawing off the first rung of the ladder is making a specific claim about who the gold is for. The young have received the message.

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In the span of a year, Generation Z has filled the streets of Kathmandu, Antananarivo, Rabat, Lima, and Istanbul, toppling governments in several cases — and in New York City, electing a democratic socialist mayor. Nepal’s government fell; the country is now led by a 35-year-old. Madagascar’s president fled the country. The emblem of the whole wave is a pirate flag from a Japanese anime, a straw-hat Jolly Roger flying over barricades on four continents. Another night in any town: somewhere tonight the young are in the street again, and the flag is the same.

Journey cut “Only the Young” from Frontiers and gave it to a coming-of-age film in 1985, deep inside Morning in America — the last time a Republican salesman assured the country it was dawn. It went to No. 9 and was heard, mostly, as an anthem. It is better filed as a field report. The young in the song are unimpressed. They have heard the promises, they can name the lies, and the question the adults keep fumbling — heaven or hell — they have already answered.

The flag is already sewn, and they know very well.

Another night in any town
You can hear the thunder of their cry
Ahead of their time
They wonder why

In the shadows of a golden age
A generation waits for dawn
Brave carry on
Bold and the strong

Only the young can say
They’re free to fly away
Sharing the same desires
Burnin’ like wildfire

They’re seein’ through the promises
And all the lies they dare to tell
Is it heaven or hell?
They know very well

Only the young can say
Only the young can say
Only the young can say
Only the young can say

— Journey, “Only the Young” (1985)

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Go Deeper into the Circus

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