American Prestige Bonus - Protests Without Politics w/ Vincent Bevins (Preview)
Dec 21, 2025
Vincent Bevins dives into the complexity behind recent protests, challenging the common 'Gen Z' narrative. He critiques how labels oversimplify diverse dynamics and explains why material grievances often drive outrage. The discussion touches on the lessons learned from 2010s protests, highlighting a crisis of representation that fuels 'explosive mobilization.' They explore how tactical similarities don’t guarantee aligned outcomes, suggesting that opportunistic actors significantly influence post-protest scenarios.
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'Gen Z' Framing Is Misleading
- Labeling protests as "Gen Z" is intellectually lazy and explains almost nothing about their causes or forms.
- Daniel Bessner argues generations are a market-research shorthand, not a real explanatory framework for protests.
Surface Similarities Hide Deeper Differences
- Common features like youth, internet use, and grievances are trivial because they apply to almost every protest.
- Derek Davison says these three observations explain nothing about why protests unfold differently or what they achieve.
Train Station Collapse Sparked Serbia Outrage
- The Novi Sad train station collapse exemplifies how corruption sparks mass outrage when lives are lost.
- Daniel Bessner notes a crackdown and deaths then became symbols that enlarged the movement.