For today’s young men, it’s “cool” to be conservative.
In the 2024 election, 56% of young men voted for President-elect Donald Trump, a noticeable increase from the 41% in 2020 according to the Center for Information and Research On Civic Learning and Engagement.
While every voter is entitled to cast their ballot however they choose, the ideologies brought forward by this new age of the Republican Party have become alarmingly intolerant. In my experience, it seems that instead of voting based on policy, young men are voting for what Trump represents: a strong, aggressive, masculine presence. Why are these values so appealing to young men?
This “MAGA ideology” is present within a significant amount of online content aimed at young, male audiences. Whether it’s video games, sports, gym or comedy, a lot of this content is dominated by right-wing creators. They widely spread conservative talking points and conspiracy theories to a larger audience without fact-checking. Whether it’s because of a lack of media literacy or a wish to return to when “America was great,” viewers eat this content up without question.
Before the election, many of these creators hosted Trump on their platforms. In the case of Logan Paul’s podcast “Impaulsive,” these conservative issues were spread to his large audience, many of whom are below the voting age. Trump also appeared on Adin Ross’s live-stream, which peaked with half a million simultaneous viewers. Ross, who streams gaming content, showered Trump with gifts, including a Rolex and Tesla Cybertruck. Months later, when Trump appeared on one of the most listened-to podcasts in the world, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” he spread lies and fear-mongering to over 50 million viewers on YouTube. This gave Trump a soapbox to spread the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Young men see this content as a blueprint of what it means to be a man. They are told that if you do not believe in conservative values or embody the image of a right-wing conservative man, then you are not man enough. They watch what these influencers say about women, minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community and make these hateful values not just OK to believe, but to outright say in public.
Shortly after the election, a conservative influencer named Nick Fuentes posted a tweet to his over 400,000 X, formerly known as Twitter, followers saying, “Your body, my choice. Forever.” Fuentes further emphasized this point in a video directed towards women saying, “We will keep you down forever. You will never control your own bodies.”
While Fuentes is on the extreme end of this ideology, this rhetoric is becoming increasingly normalized. “Your body, my choice,” has gone viral across the internet and even made it on FGCU’s shared Snapchat story. It has seeped so deeply into the public consciousness that even young boys are using the phrase as a playground taunt.
When Trump received not just the electoral vote, but the popular vote as well, a mirror was held up to our society. Trump has been accused of sexual assault multiple times and has surrounded himself with known sexual predators such as Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump has spread countless racist conspiracy theories about people of color and threatened mass deportation mostly to immigrants from countries south of the border. He has crossed the line of America’s long-held tradition of a peaceful transfer of power and restricted the rights of women in our country.
Is this really what young men look up to? During this next administration, our country may lose decades of progress and these beliefs will only become more widespread and extreme. In this time, it is more imperative than ever to challenge our beliefs, ensure that they are supported by facts, and not fall to the perils of partisan infotainment.