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Young male voters are flocking to Trump – but he doesn’t have their interests at heart
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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I hate to say this, but you're probably living in a bit of a bubble. I know I was.
A lot of men, across all age ranges, tend to lean fascist. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the core problem is that progressive neoliberalism does a terrible job speaking to cis-het male anxieties, while fascism welcomes them with open arms.
It's all bullshit, of course, but at least they're being heard.
Progressive politicians really need to let the 1990s go. Third-way triangulation worked great then, but it's ineffective now.
This exactly. The destruction of third spaces under Reagan was either a genius move to radicalize lonely, isolated Americans or a hell of a coincidence that ended up helping the right.
I say it could be a coincidence because idk if Reagan's administration was looking quite that far ahead but... They were crafty and very intelligent people.
This process began long before Reagan. I think it started with the automobile manufacturers, and General Motors in particular, in their war on public transit.
The death of the streetcar brought with it the death of streetcar suburbs and mixed-use zoning, which was the foundation upon which most third places rested (neighbourhood pubs, cafes, and barber shops).
Anyway, definitely watch that video if you have the time. Compare the vast landscapes full of roads and parking lots with the old-fashioned neighbourhood of Riverdale, with its narrow streets and cozy houses huddled together on small lots. It’s easy to see which one is more conducive to community, civic engagement, and good government. The car-dependent landscape looks like some dystopian nightmare by comparison.
Would you mind expanding on this? The idea piqued my interest, but couldn’t find information on that connection when looking for myself.
Not the person who made the comment, but here's my understanding. A "third place" is somewhere you spend a lot of time when you're not at home (the first place) or school/work (the second place). Third places such as community centers were vital to the civil rights movement in the 60s, it was where much of the movement's meeting, debating and organizing took place.
The Reagan administration systematically defunded any of these politically active third places that were receiving federal funds, probably because they were worried that they'd be infiltrated by those scary communists. They were so worried about what the organized people might do in the future that they did everything they could to kick the financial struts out from under these community organizations. In many cases this destroyed some or all of the local community benefits that those organizations were actually providing.
This trend cut across the political spectrum too. The Clinton administration did its own wave of defunding, though I suspect that was more for economic (i.e. neoliberal) than political ideology. Combine the lack of community investment with the rise of the internet, and you arrive at the situation we have today where third places are becoming increasingly scarce. It's hard for communities to develop and maintain a cohesive identity when there's no longer any metaphorical "town squares" where the people in that community gather.
Terrible is a bit of an understatement. Men complain about bleak social and economic prospects only to be meet with insults that go right to the metaphorical jugular of every mans ego.
Except Trump voters were more likely to be small business owners.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/05/its-time-to-bust-the-myth-most-trump-voters-were-not-working-class/
How is it that the left isn't discussing inequality enough for these guys? That's a load.
https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-trump-voters
Staunch conservatives make up 31% and Free Marketers make up 25% of Trump voters, that's majority.
Further the high levels of social trust displayed by the staunch conservative set speak to them having successful lives. You don't end up with high levels of social trust if you are beaten down, can't find work, and people act like you just aren't trying hard enough. The staunch conservatives also deny climate change, which is harder for young people who are experiencing pollution and hot, dry summers to deny.
So the majority of Trump voters are older conservatives with comfortable lives.
By contrast, the "poor" group, American Preservationists, only clock in at 20% of Trump voters. This lie that they're all pushed to Trump by economics when the "poor" group is also the uneducated group you're gonna have a hard sell on proving to me that they even understand enough about economics to be upset about it. Or, barring that, whatever they're upset about they still don't actually understand with enough depth to really be making an informed decision.
Either the young men are truly in the minority or they are working long overnight shifts and not actually heading to the voting booth when they get off work. In the latter case, they aren't a meaningful political bloc if they don't vote.
I'd go a step further than that. It's not all bullshit.
If right at the moment that young men are starting to figure out, hey it's important to make some money, it's important not to be a coward, I think I'm gonna start working out and waking up early and keeping my house clean, hey I think at least some of these people I see who are downtrodden by life are at least partially responsible for their own situation and problems and I don't wanna be that way... if right at that exact moment all the left has to offer them is getting in their face and saying NO NO NO, FUCK YOU THAT'S ALL WRONG TRANS RIGHTS VEGAN CAT FOOD FUCK YOU ARARGBGLGLLGLGL then they're not gonna wanna join with the left. The left is going to seem stupid and crazy to them, and for a certain segment of the left, they'll have a point about that.
Trump like all fascism is a malicious lie which will bring them only misery. But just being conservative (like authentic conservatism) in your viewpoint isn't automatically wrong or "the enemy."
I really do think you nailed it. There is a certain contingent - most especially online, I think - that are just very toxic to any kind of reasonableness and are telling anyone that hasn't won a very specific set of Oppression Olympics that they need to sit down and just listen, that their opinion doesn't matter (unless it's just to parrot what is being said by this very radical fringe), that their experiences and feelings don't matter, only those at the top of the Oppression Olympics pyramid matter. They are also told there are no greater human experiences, everything has to be sliced up and subsegmented into things (vs. universal truths and universal conditions of humanity, etc. that unite us) and all the "old white man" canon is to be discarded, etc.
Again, I think this is mostly online stuff, but if someone is young and finding their way and especially if they are lonely, they are going to be online.
For a prime example of this, I've said this before, check out the comment section on Boing Boing. Boing Boing used to have a very fun and vibrant comment section. Yes, it was liberal. Now, it's bordering on oppressive. Don't believe me? Try taking a position that is one iota different than the mods and ringleaders on the forum now. If I was the impressionable and uniformed sort, I would see something like that and think all liberals/leftists are like this and seek some other groups out.
I think groups like that do more to create Republicans and Nazis than almost anything else.
Except the left isn't saying that. A handful of people are, but it's mostly a right-wing caricature of the left.
That's pretty fair and probably pretty accurate, what I will say is I live in a deeeeeep red state but most of my interactions are with post college gen Z so that almost certainly skewes it toward the left.
Yeah I try to explain this to people who aren't white males, it's definitely a big issue. I didn't mean to downplay this particular issue, and make no mistake I do view it as a major issue, but I do view this as a pretty fringe group % wise. Now that can definitely change very very rapidly but I personally haven't seen it trend towards that yet, I would say the white male -> fascist pipeline started in the mid 2010's and while it's grown gen Z seems to ,as a whole, still be very very progress.
Obviously this is all biased in my opinion and experiences which isn't a good indicator of reality but I do hold this opinion until I see/read something which can change that.