When America’s Young Men Look For Help - 12/2/24
Perhaps the most audacious gamble of Donald Trump’s audacious campaign was his outreach to young working-class men. For months before the election, Trump’s team believed that these low-propensity voters—men of all racial and ethnic backgrounds who did not attend college and had struggled economically since the pandemic—could be convinced to turn out in large numbers for the former president. Because those without college degrees tend to pay less attention to politics, and because men vote in smaller numbers than their female counterparts, this was considered to be a tremendously risky bet.
But Trump devoted immense amounts of time to podcasts that targeted these young men, far away from the mainstream media conversation. He attended numerous UFC fights, where he was greeted like a conquering hero. His campaign even purchased ad time on popular online video games, where gaming aficionados spend hours of time every day. On Election Day, these young men turned out for Trump by overwhelming margins, not just white men but record numbers of young blacks and Latinos as well.
Trump’s share of the vote among young men skyrocketed from 41% four years ago to 56% in 2024, which swelled his support among black and Latino voters to historic highs and arguably shifted the outcome in most of the key swing states that decided the election. The case can be made that young men without college degrees made Trump the next president.
The question is why they turned to him in such large numbers. Trump’s campaign adroitly recognized the podcasts and other platforms that allowed their candidate to reach these disaffected young men. But these opportunities still required a message that could reengage a community that had previously ignored politics until Trump’s outreach. To understand the depths of the frustration and resentment that have shaped so many young working class voters, it’s necessary to look beyond the traditional world of politics that many of them have rejected to the societal, cultural and economic forces that have shaped their lives throughout their formative years.
We know that young men are statistically much less likely to attend college and less likely to graduate if they do enroll. We know that as a result, their income levels in their 20s and 30s tend to be lower than their female counterparts. So it should not be surprising that any number of social pathologies—alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide attempts—are much greater among young men than young women. We have unintentionally created an entire generation of young male high school graduates who see no place for themselves in our changing society and technology-driven economy. Donald Trump spoke to them.
With the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, no contemporary American politician is as talented at speaking to the frustrations of the disenfranchised as Trump. Eight years ago, he used these skills to lure millions of working class factory workers and struggling rural Americans away from their historic home in the Democratic Party. Now he is talking to their sons, and is winning their support in extraordinary numbers.
Management consultant Peter Drucker famously said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. With a slight twist on that adage, we can assume that cultural and societal experiences can similarly consume and overwhelm even the best-laid campaign tactics. Young men have become alienated from politics because they correctly understood that most politicians were ignoring them. But that estrangement had deep roots in their academic, professional and social lives. The sources to whom they turn for encouragement and companionship—Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys and other “bro” podcasters and online personalities—consistently reassure these young men that they do not receive the respect they deserve and should therefore feel entitled to lash out at the institutional forces that they believe are holding them back.
Trump not only used Rogan and the others’ podcasts to talk to these young men, but he co-opted their message as well. Trump told them that it’s not their fault that they didn’t go to college, don’t have a better job and are not in a successful relationship. And he promises to elevate them at the expense of the wealthier and better-educated, against whom they have become so embittered. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris reminded these young men of the bosses, teachers and parents who criticize and patronize them. Trump’s victory made them feel better about their own lives and gave them hope that they could achieve triumphs of their own.