This article appears in the October 2024 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
Signs have been mounting that, for the first time in recent decades, Democrats may lose majority support from young men in 2024. The risk to Democrats is that this is not just a one-time fluke but an indication of growing trouble with men in coming elections. Democrats can celebrate the support they are getting from young women, but they also need to take the disaffection of young men seriously, engage them directly, and respond to the visions of manhood and masculinity that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are offering.
Although men overall have moved toward the Republicans over the past half-century, the youth vote has given Democrats grounds for hope that the losses among men have been transitional, a reflection of an older generation’s difficulties in adjusting to more equal gender relations and a changed economy. Young men’s support for Democrats reached a high point in Barack Obama’s victories. According to exit polls in 2008, Obama won 62 percent of 18-to-29-year-old men as well as 69 percent of women that age. By 2020, the gender gap among young voters had widened, but Joe Biden still received the votes of 52 percent of young men along with 67 percent of young women. As recently as the 2022 midterms, Democrats won 54 percent of young men as well as 72 percent of young women.
But 2024 may be different. According to New York Times/Siena polls, the Democrats’ deficit with young men had already emerged when Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. In four national polls from December to June, Trump held an edge among 18-to-29-year-old men averaging 11 points, while Biden’s margin among women that age averaged 28 points. In August, with Kamala Harris as the nominee, the gender gap among young voters was higher in a poll of six swing states, but nearly all the difference came from a surge of support for Harris among young women to a 38-point advantage. Trump’s margin among young men, at 13 percent, was just two points higher than in the earlier national polls.
In other words, the Democrats’ problem with young men did not originate with Harris, and ultimately it is not about her. Although the picture is mixed, a variety of sources indicate a long-term trend favoring Republicans. According to Gallup data compiled by Daniel A. Cox of the American Enterprise Institute, 48 percent of young men in 2023 identified as or leaned Republican, up from 38 percent ten years earlier. It is too early to say how significant and durable the shift among young men is, but it is not too early to think about how to respond to young men’s attraction to right-wing politics.
The contemporary political gender gap, with men to the right of women, is a widespread pattern in high-income countries that has been roughly a half-century in the making. In the United States, the differences in voting by men and women were minimal until 1980, when more men than women began voting Republican. In Europe, men traditionally voted more for the parties of the left and women for parties of the right until the emergence in different countries at different rates of the “new” or “modern” gender gap. Women have moved left, while the vote for far-right parties in Europe, like the vote for Trump, has come disproportionately from men.
According to Gallup data, 48 percent of young men in 2023 identified as or leaned Republican, up from 38 percent ten years earlier.
The breadth of this political realignment suggests that the underlying causes are changes in the structure of the advanced economies that have reduced the advantages that men once enjoyed. These include the decline of manufacturing jobs and diminished ability of men with less than a college education to support a family, while women have made gains in education and the postindustrial labor market. This shift has coincided with the rise of feminism and support from left-of-center parties, including the Democrats, for gender equality and LGBTQ+ inclusion. To some extent, parties of the left have taken the blame from men for an economic and social transformation that did not have partisan origins. But as Thomas Edsall has pointed out in The New York Times, the gender gap in voting has recently become a “gender gulf” in the United States and some other countries. The shift among young men is part of that heightened polarization, and its causes may be both economic and political.
The economic causes may lie in growing disparities in life chances between young men and women as the men fall behind women their age in education and college completion. (A college degree is now generally associated with more liberal views.) A variety of other measures—employment, earnings, mental health, “deaths of despair”—tell a story of rising distress among young men. The acceleration of these problems has occurred in an era when the word “masculinity” has been continually paired with “toxic” among liberals and progressives, and young men could easily get the impression that Democrats see them as nothing but trouble. Politically, the result could be the reverse of the optimistic theory that only older men, stuck in their ways, were moving to the right in response to greater gender equality. If younger men follow that path too, the political implications would be enormous.
Democrats cannot and must not go back on their feminist and LGBTQ+ commitments. Yet neither can they ignore the rightward political drift among young men, dismiss it as an inevitable by-product of social change, or say to them, “Just get with the program.” Democrats need to find ways both to uphold their commitments to gender equality and to bring young men around from Trump and Vance.
The Democratic Party has not given this challenge much attention. “Democrats don’t speak to men,” my son, who is in his thirties, said to me as we talked about these issues at the time of the Democratic National Convention in August. If the convention made any attempt to address young men, I missed it. Democrats haven’t thought it necessary to speak specifically to men in the way they have singled out other groups.
Should Democrats “speak to men”? And if they do, what should they say? The answer, I think, is that they need to engage Trump and Vance directly on how men can lead a good and worthy life today. And today’s Republicans have given them a magnificent opportunity to do that.
TRUMP AND VANCE HAVE MADE THE RECRUITMENT of young men a key part of their campaign and deliberately put masculinity at the center of the election in the hope of reaping a harvest of new voters. While representing somewhat different strains of reactionary gender politics, both Trump and Vance defend traditional masculinity in over-the-top, extreme forms. That exaggerated masculinity is a source of both their appeal and their weakness.
Trump offers young men a fantasy of manhood as an unapologetic assertion of dominance. It’s a vision that celebrates fame and power, aggression, and sex without obligations—the fantasy behind Trump’s taped Access Hollywood line, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” Trump’s efforts to identify himself with fighting sports, like Dana White’s mixed martial arts Ultimate Fighting Championship, are part of his carefully cultivated image of dominance and toughness. His first public appearance after his criminal conviction in New York was at a UFC event. White introduced Trump for his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and the former wrestler Hulk Hogan stirred up the crowd for him, calling Trump a “gladiator.” Trump entered with “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” playing in the background. He may be shrewd, but he is not subtle.
Vance’s hypermasculinity is more closely tied to social conservatism, an exaltation of the old male-breadwinner family and sharp, biologically given distinctions between men and women. He is now famous for his mockery of “childless cat ladies,” his view that women should de-emphasize careers and have more babies, and his suggestion that people with children should have more votes than those without. In a 2021 podcast interview, he said that when women prioritize careers over children, it “causes them to chase things that will make them miserable and unhappy.” Presumably, men should chase those things because that is what they are meant to do according to their inherent, God-given nature. But, in Vance’s view, the elites today are trying to “suppress” masculinity, an insidious plot to undercut male vitality and turn boys into girls.
Neither of these visions of masculinity is new. Trump’s has its origins in Hugh Hefner’s 1950s Playboy, which the adolescent Donald no doubt read or at least ogled. His understanding fits with much of today’s manoverse, grown into a formidable influence on young men through Joe Rogan’s podcasts and Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports. The vision of manhood in that world is primarily about men’s freedom to say and do what they like, not about family obligations.
ANTHONY BEHAR/SIPA USA VIA AP
Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan introduced Donald Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
In contrast, Vance’s celebration of the family and distinct gender roles is a rehash of the campaign for “traditional family values” of the 1970s and 1980s, with its roots in the Christian right. It fits with the evangelical celebration of a “militant masculinity” and “sweet submissive femininity” that Kristin Kobes Du Mez describes in her 2020 book Jesus and John Wayne. Zack Beauchamp at Vox refers to Vance as one of the “neopatriarchs,” along with Elon Musk and Sen. Josh Hawley, author of a recent book, Manhood, pointing to the Bible as the guide for the revival of male virtues. Substantively, there isn’t much “neo” about them, but Vance personifies a coming together of tech bros and the Christian right in support of gender traditionalism. That alliance lends a veneer of novelty to old ideas that now have a political champion on the Republican ticket.
No doubt substantial numbers of young men respond to these appeals to gender traditionalism. In different ways, they raise the possibility for young men of being the boss at home in the way their grandfathers could have been. But neither Trump’s model of unrestrained male dominance nor Vance’s call to revive the old male breadwinner ideal bears any relation to contemporary realities. Neither represents a successful way to be a man today, much less a practical way to help young men. In contemporary America, where women are doing better at school and are overrepresented in the most rapidly growing occupations, Vance’s prescription for women to return to the home is as much a fantasy as Trump’s unapologetic male domination. Young men are facing genuine problems, but the Republicans have nothing to contribute to the solution.
That’s not to say Trump and Vance’s appeal to the manoverse will fail politically. In 2016, the gender gap increased not because more women voted for Hillary Clinton than had voted for Barack Obama in 2012, but because more men voted for Trump than had voted for Mitt Romney. As research subsequently showed, Trump had an appeal for men with the most sexist attitudes that mainstream Republicans did not have. He brought men to the polls who might not have voted at all. In his efforts to mobilize the manoverse, particularly through his appearances on shows with audiences of young men, Trump is trying to do that again. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Trump’s allies are financing a $20 million voter registration drive focused on young men, first announced on a podcast by two stars of the manoverse, the Nelk Boys, at the beginning of an interview with Vance. Democrats need to figure out a response.
ALTHOUGH DEMOCRATS DID NOT ADDRESS YOUNG MEN or issues of masculinity directly at their convention, they do have a potential messenger in vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz. As a football coach, teacher, and officer in the National Guard, he has had long experience in working with young men. He could take up the challenge of engaging Republicans directly on what a worthy life is for men today. By going on the podcasts and YouTube shows with male audiences, he could reach out to the young men who have heard from Trump and Vance but not from the Democrats.
In late July, two weeks before Harris asked him to run on the ticket, Walz changed the national conversation about Trump and Vance with five words, “These guys are just weird.” What Walz said immediately afterward connected that weirdness to Trump and Vance’s hypermasculinity: “They’re running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something, that’s what they go at. That’s not what people are interested in.” Together, those attention-catching lines have the kernel of what Democrats ought to be saying to young men—one part a counterattack against Trump and Vance; one part positive statement about the Democratic alternative and the genuine interests of young men.
There is something weird about Trump’s way of relating to women and Vance’s bloviations about “childless cat ladies.” They aren’t offering models of a normal masculinity that makes sense today. Relations between men and women are more equal because, in the economy, men and women have become more equal. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her 1983 book The Hearts of Men, women used to need men more than men needed women. A man could get by on his own, whereas a woman “would be hard pressed to make a living on her own at all.” Traditionally, what was at stake in marriage for women was “a claim on some man’s wage.” In the words of the feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was born in 1860: “The female of the genus homo is economically dependent on the male. He is her food supply.” That world is the source of Trump and Vance’s ideas. It still exists in some traditional quarters of our society, but it’s remote from the life most men and women lead. The “tradwife” is a luxury most young men will not be able to afford.
More young men grow up today without any regular contact with their fathers and in schools with few male teachers.
In making their case, Democrats do not have to be highly original, any more than Trump and Vance have been. They can rightly claim to be the ones who are talking sense about how men and women normally relate today, not as boss and underling but as members of a team, as “Coach Walz” might say. Gender equality does not preclude a vital masculinity, any more than teamwork on a playing field does. The masculine virtues are still virtues on a team, and no, masculinity is not a pathology. Men and women complement each other. They need each other.
A major part of the message that Walz could carry to the online audiences of young men concerns the Democrats’ economic program, including their commitments to expand housing construction and aid for first-time homebuyers, forgiveness of student debt, child tax credits, and policies aimed at bringing back manufacturing jobs that pay well and don’t require a college degree. Democrats shouldn’t expect to win the competition for young men with policy proposals, but the odds are that young men haven’t heard about their proposals, which convey a message that Democrats want to make a practical difference in their lives. Democrats don’t have to pull back on abortion rights to win their support; there’s no evidence that young men have turned right on abortion—they just don’t vote on it.
In talking about the issues affecting young men, Democrats ought to listen to Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, who has been arguing for “a positive view of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality.” Obama listed his book as one of his recommended readings for summer 2024 even though Of Boys and Men came out two years earlier, a sign of growing interest in what Reeves has been saying. Some Democratic lawmakers such as Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who has been especially concerned about loneliness and mental health issues, have called attention to Reeves’s research. Reeves rejects the idea that feminism has “gone too far” in empowering women and insists that “paying more attention to boys and men does not mean backing off the cause of women … A world of floundering men will not be one of flourishing women, or vice versa.”
Class and racial differences are a key part of the story that Reeves tells. He emphasizes that the problems afflicting young men in school, at work, and in their mental health have been especially severe in low-income communities of color. More young men grow up today without any regular contact with their fathers and in schools with few male teachers. The share of male K-12 teachers, he notes, has fallen from 33 percent in 1980 to 24 percent today. Just as the women’s movement has rightly insisted that girls need positive models to look up to, so many young men need models today of successful manhood. He’s right that we need more men in K-12 teaching as well as more investment in vocational education and technical high schools to give young men who may not go to college the chance to make a decent living. “The future cannot be female,” Reeves says. “Nor, of course, can the future be male. The future has to be for every single one of us.”
When I talked recently with Reeves, who runs a nonpartisan think tank, he said that Democrats have a “political opportunity to honor and recognize young men without dishonoring women.” But they have to get out of the “zero-sum trap,” the assumption that any recognition of men’s problems diminishes concerns for women. It would help Democrats if Harris and Walz gave young men “a simple message of welcome … Guys, we see you. We’re on your side as well.” And because Republicans “performatively” side with young men but don’t follow that up with policies, Democrats can gain an advantage by backing up rhetoric with substantive ideas that work for young men. It wouldn’t kill them to point out to young men that the infrastructure bill Biden passed is creating lots of good-paying jobs for them.
Young men aren’t wrong to be concerned about manhood and to respond to political leaders who address it. It’s a legitimate concern for young men who are finding their place in the world, and it’s legitimate for Democrats to respond to them. If Republicans are the only party talking to them about manhood in a positive way, Democrats are going to be in trouble. One theme of the civil rights movement, represented in the slogan “I am a man,” was the defense of Black manhood. Democrats ought to be addressing these issues today because it is a right and necessary thing to do; the floundering of young men is an obstacle to the flourishing of us all.
David Hogg, a founder of the gun control group March for Our Lives, tweeted in early September, “I hope I’m wrong but if we lose in November I think the main reason why will be the number of young men of all races that are no longer Democrats.” I don’t know whether that is true, but the drift of young men to the right isn’t just dangerous for Democrats in this election. Large populations of angry young men are a recipe for long-term political instability and violence. We ignore them at our peril.
