Why Gen Z Stopped Believing America Is the Good Guy | Let's Do Something on College Campuses

A generation is quietly deciding America might be the villain—and nobody asked them to explain why. Bucky Apisdorf did. The CEO of Let's Do Something takes his questions straight to college campuses. Find out how a generation lost the plot, and whether it can be found again. Hear how a shared set of facts quietly collapsed and what "suicidal empathy" means. Essential for parents who'd like to understand their kids before the algorithm finishes raising them.  Gen Z's are between the ages of 14 and 29.

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Transcript

Is America the Good Guy?

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 0:00

People don't fundamentally believe that America is a force for good in the world. We talk about Iran having nukes. The general response you'll get is well, America has nukes. Why shouldn't Iran have nukes too? They're being force fed thousands of pieces of content every single day. And they're being told that if they don't have the right opinion on that, they are a bad person.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 0:20

This episode is for

A Must-Listen Episode For PARENTS

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 0:22

parents. We send our kids to universities hoping they get an education grounded in actual history and critical thinking. Many of us are discovering that something is going on on college campuses in America in particular. Facts are being changed, historical context is being stripped away, and social media is the jet fuel, resulting in a generation forming its understanding of history on, let's just say, perhaps not facts. This is where my guest comes in. Welcome to the Israeli Trailblazer Show. I am your host, Jennifer Weisman. We are speaking with Bucky Apisdorf, the CEO of

Let's Do Something College Campus Campaign

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 1:00

an organization called Let's Do Something. This kind of reminds me of what Charlie Kirk was doing on college campuses. Welcome, Bucky.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 1:10

Thank you, Jennifer.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 1:12

What does Let's Do Something actually do on a college campus?

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 1:16

What we've noticed is the polarization that's going on in America right now has really gotten to a boiling point. And these people are all essentially talking to themselves. What we've seen in the time we've spent on campuses, which I think is essentially more than most people in the world have over the past two years. We're talking 30, 40 campuses, months and months on end. And this is really everything in America, it's become camps. You mentioned

No Speaking To Each Other

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 1:41

Charlie Kirk, right? Charlie Kirk did amazing work for the conservative movement, an incredible proponent for free speech. And you have people within turning point chapters and, you know, young Americans for freedom and other groups on the conservative side. And then you have the same exact thing going on on the liberal side, whether it's Democratic Socialists of America or other groups. So what we're creating as a space on campus is we essentially bring these groups together and we try to make sure that they can have conversations and they can hash things out in the world on social media. Even though we walk down the same streets, we may be living on different planets. And we try to make sure that those things come together a little bit.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 2:15

Walk me through what happens when you get onto a college campus.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 2:18

We'll

How the Campus Program Works

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 2:19

run a couple different formats. One is called answer three questions when $100, where we'll have questions across the history of America or the history of the world. And we answer these questions with students. If they win, they get $100. And then this opens up into a political conversation. Another thing we do is called finding common ground, where we have two beanbags, we set up a production on campus and we have students from the right and the left sit and they talk about things from gun control to freedom of speech to political violence to Israel-Palestine. The idea behind all these concepts is creating a space where they're both comfortable to actually be talking and they're working towards a goal. We don't just want people talking at each other, we want people talking to each other. So in this finding common ground series, if at the end of a topic, let's say that's really, really intense, like gun control, if they could find a shared value and a shared action

How Students Learn to Find A Shared Value

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 3:08

item for the future, we'll reward them with $20, $30, something like that. And that is teaching them to work together because that's what America is about. You don't have to agree on everything, but when you disagree, you still need to work together. As you can imagine, sometimes they do get heated. We try to bring in a fact check and remind these people that we are on the same team here. They forget so much are Americans before they are liberals or before they are conservatives.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 3:32

What's the outcome? What do you see when you've got different groups sitting around a table?

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 3:37

We used to have a shared fact set, right? And then we could disagree within that range. During World War II, FDR would get on the radio every night and give an update, or people would go see the reels at the movie theater. Now the world we are living in is really your own algorithm.

Students Living in Their Own Algorithm

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 3:53

So what's so tough sometimes is people are coming from these completely different worlds. So that's why I think actually meeting and talking these things about them in person, and not just this person is the enemy, but hey, my reality is meeting your reality. It's not always clean, it's sometimes messy, but it's also so important because in the end of the day, when it's a human being in front of you, when you're sitting down and there's a cup of coffee and you're gonna hug it out afterwards, you notice that no matter how much they try to demonize the other side, it's just another human being just like you.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 4:22

Give me an example of what you did at University of Michigan and what the outcome was.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 4:27

We had a kid from the Turning Point USA chapter, and he had a friend who was second generation immigrant from Syria who sat more on the left. And I kind of sat there in the middle. We had the three of us, and then we had a concept up that

"Pitch Your Solution" | University of Michigan

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 4:39

was pitch your solution, essentially. So we had literally at this table a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew. And it's just say, hey, bring it forward. And then what happened was it opened up these four-way conversations, which were really cool. And we are used to a world where people can no longer sit at a table and talk. And when that happens, things go wrong. So I think modeling these things for the students that this could happen, but also make it interesting and fun for them is so important.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 5:02

So, Christian Muslim Jew, University of Michigan, what was the outcome?

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 5:06

I learned a lot. This kid's father who moved from Syria in the 1950s was telling me about the history, where that country came from. And it opened up my perspective. And I think I was telling him a lot more about where Israel came from. And he learned a lot more. And even more than that, I think the most was just the students who participated, saw, modeled the conversation where the three of us were able to have these conversations and sit together and talk about Israel-Palestine. And we disagreed on a lot of these things, but we're still able to sit at a table and respect each other. And I think serving that lesson is so important.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 5:37

So you're not out to change minds.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 5:40

Yeah. You know, someone says, Why are you committing a genocide? And then someone else says,

Not Out to Change Minds

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 5:44

you know, it's not a genocide because of this. And then they say, Well, I saw that. I think what it's about is opening people's eyes and make them think. The majority of Americans are being pitted against each other in a sense. Russia, China, and Iran,

Russia, China & Iran | Dividing Americans

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 5:57

they have huge incentive. They cannot beat America kinetically, but they can divide us. And when they divide us, we're weak. And I just want to open up students to that understanding because Russia will fund the KKK just as quickly as they'll fund the Black Panthers. It does not matter to them. They want to sow chaos. And when there is chaos being sowed, America loses and other people wins. And essentially, for them, it's just hey, reminder what side you're on and what we're working on.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 6:21

You're talking now about a much bigger agenda with you, didn't mention Qatar, but we could throw

Outside Influencers Like Qatar | Sowing Chaos in America

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 6:27

Qatar in there too, especially when we're talking about funding universities. In all of the universities that you've been to and seeing these different programs, student to student, are you seeing a change, a softening about America's role in the world and even Israel's role in the world?

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 6:44

There's been a complete change. People don't fundamentally

Many Gen Z's Fundamentally Don't See America as the "Good Guys"

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 6:48

believe that America is a force for good in the world. We talk about Iran and Iran having nukes. The general response you'll get is, well, America has nukes. Why shouldn't Iran have nukes too? I forget the name of the person, but he talked about suicidal empathy.

Suicidal Empathy | Gad Saad

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 7:04

I believe strongly to the core. It is a moral. If you do not care more about your family than you care about me as a stranger. And you need to have those levels of importance. And you should care about your own. That is not a bad thing, that is a good thing. That doesn't mean you don't care about others, but there is an order of operations. People are missing a basic moral knowledge and understanding. And that makes their viewpoint on the world very, very confused.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 7:30

And why do you think that is? In a world that has become infinitely more complex, the simplest thing to do is just choose a team.

Are Gen Z's Just Picking a Team to Have the Correct Opinion

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 7:39

So I think as an overreaction, people go for the simplest narratives possible. I'm white and that person's dark. So this is bad and that's good. All of these types of things is essentially a way of dealing with the complexity in the world because frankly, it's not fair to an 18 or a 19-year-old to be able to understand that much. These are complex topics. I barely know what's going on. You barely know what's going on. They barely have a developed brain. They're being force-fed thousands of pieces of content every single day. And they're being told that if they don't have the right opinion on that, they are a bad person. Let's talk about social media because that is the jet fuel,

Social Media is the Jet Fuel | What Can We Do?

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 8:17

right? What can we do to stop or even slow the spread of misinformation, primarily about Western values? Yeah. And I'm gonna throw Israel into the mix here.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 8:29

You cannot slow down an arms race because you're in a race. The only thing you could do is participate and win at that race. And that is what America needs to do, which means we need to invest, we

Invest in the Race

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 8:40

need to get better at creating this content. Qatar, shore, and a lot of these other players have been working on this as a strategy for a long time. We are waking up now, and America has always woken up slowly. If you look at their industrial base during World War II, it only woke up after Pearl Harbor attacked. In a way, I think we're seeing a kind of social media version of that. And yes, we wake up slowly, but once we wake up, I think we can do something. The pendulum swings, and I will say this from talking about experience on campuses. I have a lot of hope because reality is where ideology goes

Reality is Where Ideology Goes to Die

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 9:13

to die. And these kids are essentially becoming a product of an ideology and they're getting sick of it over time. And I think they're starting to see that. And then when they're sick of it, they will start doing something about it.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 9:28

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Violence is Justified?

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 9:57

And I'm wondering if you see that changing on college campuses.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 10:01

There's almost this nihilistic, self-hating aspect of the psyche these days, which is really, really dangerous. These shifts are young versus old. And I think in the end of the day, to get past that over time, there are a lot of things going on in the world that really scare these kids. They cannot

What Gen Z is Worried About

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 10:19

afford a home anymore. That is a legitimate thing. AI is changing the world faster than ever. They're having a very hard time finding their place in the world. So when you have angry, upset people who cannot find their place in the world, that is a dangerous situation. It's best not to look at these people as the enemy, but as victims that need help because that's really what they are. So we need to help these people in that sense.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 10:43

I love that. I absolutely love that. My last question to you what is let's do something and what is the origin of that? Founded

Origin of Let's Do Something | Nova Festival

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 10:51

by myself and a couple of friends on October 8th, I lost my very close friend David Newman at the Nova Music Festival. He was there partying with his girlfriend, having fun, because that's what David loved to do. And he was killed because of hate. That was the only reason he was killed. And there are a lot of ways I could have reacted to that. And initially it started with what's going on with anti-Semitism in the world. But what I saw underneath that was this bigger problem in the world. And we need to solve that problem. And that

How to Solve the Angry Gen Z Issue

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 11:19

problem is happening with the youth. The way to reach the youth is on social media, it's on campus, and they engage in this stuff in a completely different way. So we need to meet them where we are, and that's what we're doing. We have hundreds of students across hundreds of campuses. We've built it up to hundreds of thousands of followers, and we need to just keep growing that to reach these people and have conversations with these people. I think it's absolutely amazing what you're doing. And I love that you're going after this younger generation because these are the future leaders. This is it.

Guest, Baruch Apisdorf 11:46

Yes.

Host, Jennifer Weissmann 11:46

So, A, they've got to be motivated and B, they've got to be educated about the right priorities in life. By the way, I'm sorry about your friend David. I think the fact that you turned this into something so powerful is incredible. Charlie Kirk was a hero of mine, and I'm happy to see someone trying to step into the next role on campus. We need it. Parents need to know this. We need to stop the polarization. We have to get past legitimate issues that Gen Zs feel. And we have to meet these kids where they are. Doing all of this is what Bucky is all about. And Let's Do Something is an incredible organization making changes on college campuses. This is the Israeli Trailblazers Show. I'm your host, Jennifer Weisman. Until next time. Thank you, Jennifer.