This is kind of depressing but it’s important. Dan Pfeiffer took a look at the gender gap and it’s a large as ever. But the younger men of Gen Z are far more likely to vote for Trump this year than they were in 2020. And it’s a problem. If the current numbers hold, Trump will win the election:
In the NBC News Stay Tuned poll of Gen Z:
Now, in a Harris-Trump race, the gender gap among Gen Z voters is significant. Young women said they’re going to vote for Harris for president by 30 points. Young men also said they favor Harris — but by only 4 points over Trump.
The sample of men under 30 is too small to get a real picture of why. In focus groups of young men who previously supported Democrats but are open to voting for Trump in 2024 many cite dissatisfaction with the economy, tremendous cynicism with politics, distrust of institutions, and a sense of being left behind or undervalued by our current culture.
Young men are Trump’s top target in this race. That’s why his convention featured a wife beating MMA fighter introducing him and he entered the stage to the tune of “it’s a man’s world.”
Trump’s campaign advisers explicitly target young men — of all races. Specifically, the Trump campaign curated a group that Axios somewhat cringely deemed the “Bro Vote” — politically disaffected young men who spend a lot of time online.
Trump’s media strategy overindexes on outlets and influencers who have great sway with this group. In recent weeks, Trump appeared on podcasts with MAGA-friendly comedian Theo Von, former Navy Seal Shawn Ryan, and Lex Fridman — a favorite of Elon Musk. Each of these podcasts have large, mostly male audiences especially on YouTube; and the clips continually go viral on TikTok.
Trump also courted influencers like Jake and Logan Paul, Adin Ross, and the Nelk Boys. It’s possible — perhaps even likely — that you have never heard of these people (I wish I hadn’t) and depending on your TikTok algorithm, you may have never seen a single clip from these interviews. This strategy is also why Trump’s first TikTok was a video of him doing a “walk on” at a UFC match.
All of these interviews get one one millionth of the scrutiny of Kamala Harris’s much anticipated CNN interview even though they are arguably much more impactful, seen more people and certainly seen by more of the persuadable voters who don’t watch cable news (the median age of a CNN viewer is 67). Few political reporters covering Trump watch these interviews or write them up. Trump’s appearance on Shawn Ryan’s podcast has nearly three million views. His interview with Vonn has 13 million views. Less than seven million people watch the CNN interview.
This massive oversight betrays a naive, anachronistic understanding of the media diets of the voters who will decide this election.
The problem?
Biden won voters under 30 by 24 points. According to the NBC News poll, Harris is up only 16 points with this cohort.
Pfeiffer suggests that Democratic men go on some of these shows and mix it up a bit, at least giving this cohort some sense of the Democrats’ understanding of their worldview. These people are steeped in misogyny and violence and whether or not Harris wins this election, it’s bad for the country.
But I have to wonder if anyone can compete with this garbage, which is so grotesque that it literally made me want to vomit. It’s the entire subtxt of this election, started by Donald Trump himself who pushes the “Willie Brown” story every chance he gets. These pigs just made it explicit:
That isn’t just some cultural trope that we aren’t supposed to take literally. That’s about a specific woman who is running for president and Trump and his campaign, in a dozen different ways, are saying that she’s not just a childless cat lady who wants to destroy the country, what she really is, is a dumb whore. This is more explicit than Trump and his boys but not by much.
You can read a whole story about this in the NY Times from a while back (gift link) They don’t seem too concerned about it.