Why young men went to the right
and how liberals can get their balls back
Young men tilted the election to Republicans. This newsletter is about why.
To quantify the vibe shift, 35% of young men in 2016 identified as Republican. By 2023 it was 48%.
This makes young men swing voters, and for this election they swung in huge numbers to the right. The Wall Street Journal found that between 2022 and 2024, young men shifted from supporting Democrats to to supporting Trump by 13%.
What’s driving the shift?
There are lots of theories why:
Some people lament that Democrats don’t care about men. If you look at the Democratic party’s “Who We Serve” section, they list 16 different identity groups like women, LGBTQ+, Black people, veterans, even “ethnic Americans.” The list totals 76% of the population, leaving out men and white people.
This correlates with a lack of Democratic outreach.
The Young Men’s Research Initiative finds that Republican aligned groups have outspent Democrat aligned groups on ads targeting young men by 8 to 1 since September.
Democrats also tend to exclude male-aligned audiences in ads. A recent analysis on Facebook and Instagram spending found that Joe Rogan, Barstool Sports, and Elon Musk are in the top 10 lists of excluded audiences for Democratic campaigns.
source: youngmenresearchinitiative.substack.com/p/dems-are-excluding-rogan-and-barstool 
Others point to the media landscape. The popular progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker talks about how every major interest that young men have - sports, wealth, and health - the online content is right leaning.
This leads to a lot of hand wringing over young men becoming Hitler youth.
I find this to be liberal fear-mongering.
Yes, there is a backlash among young men against the term “feminism.” But on questions of gender equality for young men, we see it getting closer to women’s views, not farther. Richard Reeves from the American Institute for Boys and Men goes through examples here and explains how young men’s policy preferences are getting closer to women’s views, not farther, here.
What men want
So what’s driving the bus? My favorite take on this comes from Scott Galloway. What will determine this election, he stated, is “which campaign puts forward a more aspirational vision of masculinity.”
In other words, it’s vibes. Young men want to feel good. They currently feel like shit. How does each party dig them out? I see three parts to this.
The good life. Young Republican men are very clear on what “the good life” looks like. It looks like this:
Young Democrats do not have an equivalent vision. Is making money a part of it? Is getting fit a part of it? Not really. Culturally, the focus tends to be anti-poverty programs and subsidized healthcare - not becoming your best self.
Not being mired in an endless tarpit of shame. Off the back of the Me Too movement and cancel culture, young men are mired in shame. It doesn’t help that when liberals want something to change, they default to shame. When Barack Obama wants Black men to vote, he shames them. When liberals hear language they don’t like, they shame. When liberals want more people to wear COVID masks, they shame.
And shame shows up in a thousand indirect ways as well. When the Democratic Party wordsmiths a platform to appeal to 16 different identity groups, it feels soft and careful. Or when candidates like Harris wax on about hot button issues like Israel-Palestine, and you’re still unsure where they land, it feels evasive. There’s a want to ditch the smart and agreeable schtick. Bring back big, dumb sentences.
Shame is the left’s primary tool of control, and young men don’t like feeling controlled. It’s also useless at getting someone to change. It’s an energy vampire that inspires more depression than good decisions. So young men seek content from those who promise a different path. Nearly every influencer who does is conservative. Chief among them is Donald Trump, who has turned shamelessness into an art form.
Role models. MAGA world has role models young men care about: Elon Musk, Dana White from UFC, and Bryson DeChambeau (professional golfer).
Democrats don’t. At best, there are interesting and powerful guys who don’t like Trump, but do not embrace the Democratic Party. These are men like Mark Cuban, Scott Galloway, and Charlemagne Tha God.
Meanwhile the men who are closely aligned with the party like Tim Walz, Doug Emhoff, and Pete Buttigieg, have big Responsible Dad energy. Most dudes don’t get off on being Responsible Dads - it’s an image curated more for women than men.
Can liberals get their balls back?
I talk sometimes about how the #1 question dudes ask themselves, consciously and unconsciously, is “How do I get my balls back?” It comes up in men’s groups across age, race, and class all the time. Any influencer who can answer that question gets major points from men.
And it doesn’t need to sound crass or cruel. There are versions of being self-confident, wealthy, and healthy that we all agree are good. It’s called having agency. We all like that and should encourage it.
But for Democrats to embrace this requires a vibe shift. Men want to feel that seeking strength is good. They want to feel that authenticity is appreciated more than apologies. As of now, this is uncomfortable territory for liberals.
The other option is for Democrats to just focus on women. That may be the easier shift to win elections. Young men and women trust each other less and less. Culturally, both sides seem convinced the path to a better future is in spite of, not because of, the other gender. It may be easier for a party to focus its appeal to one gender, and not to both at the same time. But the cost of that path is that the gender wars get more stark and weird. I don’t want that.
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I'm almost 50 and feel all of these things. It's not just young men, it's men in general and not just white men given the increase in support from Black and Latino men. Also have a son who was a teenager in the days of Me Too and all the shame you speak of has been a part of his formative years. And yes, he has swung farther right based on his experience.