The 2024 election didn’t go as planned for Democrats. Besides solidifying the working class and non-college-educated voters in President Donald Trump’s camp, the race exposed the degree to which young men are disenchanted with the Democratic Party. They have been steadily shifting away from Democrats over the last two decades, but most of this drop-off has happened since 2016, coinciding with Trump’s arrival on the political scene. Trump turned a predictable Generation Z gender partisan gap into a chasm. While 51% of young men used to identify as Democrat, now more young men identify as Republican, according to the Survey Center on American Life.
Since losing in November, Democrats have tried to figure out what drove young men away. Self-proclaimed bro whisperer Tim Walz recently consulted his son on the question. Gus Walz boiled it down to MAGA’s “entertainment” appeal and sports-like camaraderie, according to his father. Reducing to simpletons the very demographic their party is so desperate to court, the pair missed a more intuitive answer. Young men gravitated toward the party, and the person, that projected confidence and normalcy.
Statistician Nate Silver argued in a recent blog post that part of the Democrats’ problem with young men is that they’re seen as “neurotic, risk-averse, sticklers for the rules, always up in everyone’s business.”
In the last few months, it seems Democrats have done everything in their power to present themselves as basket cases. They sang songs on Capitol Hill to protest government cost-cutting, shouted down Trump’s joint address to Congress, and sat down with an alleged domestic abuser illegal immigrant for a photo op. They’re filled with political paranoia, which they tried to foist onto the public in 2024 but failed. Young men, especially, rejected neuroticism at the ballot box and chose rationality instead.
Speaking from my experience with Gen Z brothers, I know young men spurn scolds and dictates they deem nonsensical and constraining, whether they’re COVID-19 regulations or Black Lives Matter demands. Silver’s research found that men generally have higher risk tolerance than women and that younger people are more risk tolerant than older ones. The year 2020 was one of herd mentality, but young men resisted.
Amid the draconian Biden and blue state response to COVID, young men didn’t appear to panic as much as their female counterparts. Women were more likely than men to believe the consequences of the pandemic were serious, to agree with restraining rules, and to comply with them by 8.5, 5.6, and 4.9 percentage points, respectively, according to a paper from the National Institutes of Health. Women had a higher risk perception of the virus and demonstrated greater compliance with preventive government orders compared to men, according to an October 2024 scientific paper.
Men had a more positive attitude toward the vaccine than women, however, suggesting that young men were eager to apply what they viewed as the solution to the problem so they could resume business as usual. From the start of the pandemic, however, Walz expressed little interest in moving forward; in 2020, he launched a snitch program for reporting social distancing violations. Trump’s campaign resurrected this forgotten scandal to remind voters that Walz chose prolonged emergency, expecting neighbors to spy on neighbors, rather than respect people’s freedom and defer to their good judgement on a disease that could not reasonably be contained. That episode, and the fact that Walz delayed calling in the National Guard to quell the 2020 riots, showed many young men that he was a cowardly and incompetent leader.
On “Blackout Tuesday,” after the killing of George Floyd, the internet was flooded with images of black squares meant to show solidarity with the African American community’s alleged struggle against police brutality. Women were more likely than men to post the tags “#blacklivesmatter” and “#blackouttuesday,” at about 53% vs. about 47%, according to demographic data provided by LexisNexis. While young women have an inclination toward agreeability, young men care less about how they’re perceived by society at large. The racial justice craze continued well into former President Joe Biden’s term and former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign.
Trump promised to end America’s self-flagellation via progressive initiatives such as DEI and gender ideology, which teach that white men must repent for past evils by taking a backseat in society. The institutionalization of DEI prevented young men from competing fairly in the workforce and beyond. Trump merely being in office prompted the rollback of corporate DEI, which privileged minority candidates in hiring and was often accused of discriminating against men. As of early February, over a dozen companies had reduced or eliminated references to DEI in their 2024 annual reports to investors, including Pepsi, GM, Google, Disney, GE, Intel, PayPal, Chipotle, and Comcast, NPR reported.
This might be why young men, a previously troubled group that had struggled with mental health and disengaged from dating, work, and education, are bullish about the future under Trump. According to a CBS News poll earlier this year, 60% of voters said they felt generally optimistic about the new administration, but that figure rose to 67% among under-30s. There was a sharp sex split, too: 65% of men said they were optimistic, compared to 55% of women. The polls suggest that young men viewed Republicans’ comeback as a boon to their success and a reprieve from cultural shaming.
Before the vice presidential debate, a senior Harris campaign aide told CNN of Tim Walz: “People assume that he is a walking permission structure for rural, exurban, White male hunters …. Yes, for the 1 or 2 points of those we want to move.”
Men always had permission to vote for whomever they wanted. But that statement portrayed white men as natural-born bigots whose impulse for oppression could be disciplined by a model of reformed masculinity, such as trucker hat-wearing Walz or Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff. Such logic treated men like rubes who needed a running mate in a redneck costume to make them feel comfortable with a female president. By insulting their intelligence and acting like a docile, accommodating accessory to Harris’s radicalism, Walz likely just gave many young men the “ick,” to use a Gen Z term that means romantic repulsion. Perhaps young men ditched the Democrats because they pathologized them for being themselves.
Rhetorically and in physical presentation, Walz was also not commanding. Though he prepared his Minnesota “Mr. Nice Guy” persona for the vice presidential debate, Walz came off as meek and nervous and was trounced by a convicted, calm JD Vance. The former high school football coach and “big dad energy” never showed up, as Walz sweated and stumbled.
When cancel culture reared its ugly head, Democrats earned a reputation as word policemen who were obsessed with enforcing their ever-changing grievance politics. The irreverent, brutally honest Trump gave young men a refreshing alternative. Despite his checkered past, Trump was the archetype of unapologetic strength that resonated with many young men who felt disenfranchised by the broader DEI regime. Trump never minced words and regularly called out “radical Left lunatics,” a likely validating sentiment for many young men who felt that way but could never say it in academic or corporate company.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump and Vance appeared on multiple comedy podcasts where they came off as regular dudes who didn’t take themselves too seriously. Contrast that with Walz’s pitiful apology that he’s a “knucklehead” when he was caught lying about how many times he visited China and whether he was there during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Though he, like all politicians, has misspoken during his political career, Trump adhered to his classic business philosophy, and he never groveled.
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Humility may not be his best virtue, but after the Butler assassination attempt even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could not deny Trump’s courage, an age-old instinct that progressivism had buried. It didn’t take a mind reader to see on social media the way many young men were galvanized by the iconic fist photo of defiant Trump, who evaded a bullet in the head by less than a quarter of an inch. In a culture that had discounted the value of fortitude, Trump sparked something primal in young men as he shouted in solidarity during an active attempt on his life.
In the moments that mattered, Trump was not an overthinker. He was decisive, sometimes impulsive, but absolutely certain of his role and of his dedication to America and the country’s excellence. This past November, a new cohort of young men decided they didn’t want the guilt and the political insecurity. They wanted someone who was sure.
Caroline Downey is a staff writer at National Review and editor-in-chief of the Conservateur.