As seen in a clip that has gone viral — racking up more than 700,000 views in 72 hours — I traveled to the Santa Monica Pier last weekend to ask young women one question: Would they rather have the right to an abortion or the right to vote? Every girl I spoke to opted for the former. 

As a young conservative, I couldn’t help but ask another question: Can my generation — Gen Z — be saved? 

It certainly won’t be easy, but conservatives can win back Gen Z. In the midterm elections, Gen Z broke for the left more than any other age demographic, favoring progressive candidates nearly 20 points more than conservatives. On Twitter, far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hailed this milestone — describing it as a “generational shift” in politics and pointing to 2024, when Gen Z and millennial voters will “outnumber voters who are Baby Boomers and older, 45/25.”

What happened with Gen Z in last year’s midterms wasn’t a glitch; it was a feature — a product of decades of indoctrination at the hands of higher education, the mainstream media and a popular culture taken hostage by wokeism. 

My generation sits in classrooms throughout America as we’re lectured to about the vices of America: about how racist it is, how sexist it is and how homophobic it is. And if those students have the “unfortunate” luck of being straight, white and male (though white women don’t entirely get a pass), they receive not just a lecture but an indictment, due to their supposed culpability for all of the aforementioned. 

The indoctrination doesn’t end in the classroom: It’s reaffirmed on social media — by our favorite celebrities, influencers and athletes and amplified by the corporate mainstream media. 

In the face of all this, it might be easy for those on the right to lose hope and cast my generation aside as simply another collection of young people who have found themselves led astray. 

But I implore you not to go that route. It would be political malpractice if we did.

We just can’t afford to. AOC is right: Young voters will outnumber older generations’ share of the electorate by 2024. 

And while Gen Z may be lost, I refuse to believe that it cannot be found. 

Salena Zito was optimistic about Gen Z in a 2017 New York Post piece, “Why the Generation After Millennials Will Vote Republican.” She argued the generation’s inclined toward free enterprise, strong national security and limited government.

Keystone College professor Jeff Brauer confirmed Zito’s theory, citing election results from 2012 to 2016 and a dropoff in youth support for progressive politicians: “It is much more likely the precipitous drops were due to the more conservative Generation Z being able, for the first time, to express their political inclinations, especially in the economically hard-hit swing states.” Another writer made the case in Forbes the same year: “Why Democrats Should Be Losing Sleep Over Generation Z.”

In my view, these predictions were not just wishful thinking but more an example of what could have been. 

What could have been if conservatives had made a concerted effort to engage my generation before the midterms. What could have been if conservatives didn’t put their heads in the sand when it comes to tackling the culture war that has engulfed my generation nearly whole.

While we can blame the left for decades of indoctrination, targeting the hearts and minds of our youth, we can only blame ourselves for our unwillingness and seemingly disinterest in putting a stop to it. It’s a shame that organizations like PragerU and Turning Point USA are few and far between. 

But I still have hope. Every single day, we hear the stories of young people deciding to push back on the radical-left agenda.

From Selina Soule — a former high-school athlete who refused to stand by as she watched a sport she’d dedicated her entire life to be overtaken by biological males — to the million-plus followers conservative TikTok accounts like the Conservative Hype House accrued before being banned, more and more young people are slowly but surely beginning to wake up. 

Why, you might ask? Because my generation loves freedom — more than you think. Because we know what it’s like to lose it. 

Many in my generation came of age during the COVID-19 pandemic. We experienced the lockdowns, the mandates and everything in between.

But — perhaps most impactfully — we experienced the canceled graduations, proms and day-to-day social interactions that made being a kid a kid. 

We felt the pain of tyranny firsthand, and we hated it. Even The Atlantic acknowledged this in a 2021 piece, “Gen Z Is Done With the Pandemic.”

For too long we have allowed the left to define conservatism in the eyes of young people as the ideology of racists, sexists and bigots.

Now it is time for us to define ourselves — as the ideology of freedom, liberty and limited government. 

That is how we win the hearts of young people. That is how we save not just Gen Z but America.

CJ Pearson is an on-air personality for PragerU.