This post was updated July 27 at 3:30 p.m.
Fifty-six percent of men ages 18-29 voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The numbers represent a complete flip from 2020, when 56% voted for Joe Biden.
Why did this happen? As tempting as it is to say that 56% of young men just like voting for the oldest, whitest guy in the race, it’s a little more complicated than that.
We are failing young men. Too many of us treat misunderstanding as closed-mindedness and dismiss people who are still open to changing as stuck in their ways. If we tell people their opinions are wrong or don’t matter without explaining why, those opinions will never change.
Research from UCLA has shown that until 25 years of age, young people are still developing reasoning skills and are more impressionable and malleable. Political and social influences are a massive part of this development.
If we ignore these young men and leave others to mold them, the people who do will be the ones we fear them turning into.
I have experience with young men voting for Trump. I was almost one of them.
I didn’t vote for Trump last year, nor was I particularly close to doing so. However, just a few years ago, I held many of the same views and consumed much of the same content that the young men of the Make America Great Again movement do today.
What originally drew me to conservative content was that I didn’t feel good enough. I felt that way because I was still a kid and had a lot of growing up to do. Nonetheless, I was sold a different reason.
The first part of the manosphere grift is convincing the viewer that the world favors everybody but them.
If girls don’t like you, it’s probably because, according to accused rapist and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate, you’re skinny, weak and poor as opposed to being “big, strong, rich and famous” like he claims to be.
You didn’t get the internship you wanted? It may be because diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives “force people into positions that they haven’t earned,” as Instagram-verified creator Dre Baldwin alleged in an Instagram reel.
With facts, logic and a healthy dose of ignorance, it’s very easy to blame your lack of success on a world that is supposedly anti-white and anti-male. That’s why a Reddit user felt compelled to share that they believed “discrimination against white males is not only legal but required now”.
The second part of the grift is telling the viewer that they can overcome that unfair world. The two manosphere creators I quoted earlier are great examples.
For just under $8,000, you can buy your way into Andrew Tate’s War Room, a network where he claims exceptional individuals can be freed from the constraints of a society they believe wants them to fail.
For a cheaper option, look no further than Dre Baldwin’s Work On Your Game University, where the creator tells the top 2% they can spend $97 a month on a program “that turns discipline into dominance.”
Manosphere creators are selling masculinity.
Maybe that’s the reason they’re often so connected to fellow salesman Donald Trump. This connection is usually unspoken, but it is there. Andrew Tate, who is facing charges of sex trafficking in Romania, was recently released from the country and took a private jet back to the United States, seemingly at the behest of the Trump administration.
The connection is unspoken, but it doesn’t have to be a direct endorsement to be an endorsement. If you tell people the world is unfair, getting worse and idolize a time when men epitomized traditional masculinity, it’s not hard to guess what party they’ll support.
These young men, much like the president they voted for, mistake diversity for exclusion and a plurality of voices for a silencing of their own. In response to a question posed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, on her Instagram page, one voter explained his preference for the current president simply by saying he “lets men have a voice.”
Men have always had a voice, but the mere idea that for four years they may not have the voice of the highest office in the country was simply too woke for some. Furthermore, by tricking themselves into believing they were losing that voice, Trump voters managed to use it for one of man’s favorite pastimes: silencing women.
I was vulnerable to these ideas once. Now I find them absurd. Why? I met people with other points of view. Misogyny isn’t masculine, and neither is violence.
Masculinity is empathy, understanding and compassion. Masculinity is having the strength to stand up for those who need it and the patience to sit back down when they don’t anymore.
For me, at its most simple, to be a man is to provide. It is to contribute to the lives of those you care about in any way that you can. My father has not worked since I was a little kid, but he provided more for my family than any paycheck would have. Every day, he got my sister and me to and from school, sports practices and everything else.
My father and the thousands of other men who provide in nontraditional ways are true men.
For Democrats to get back the young man’s vote, we must raise our boys to be true men.
We must raise them to recognize that they do have a voice and that more often than not, the best use of that voice is allowing someone else to talk.
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