Memes matter, ten years of impressionable Internet connected youth seeing memes of Trump as some sort of good guy has both normalized his damage and elevated him. It’s fucking gross.
Honestly, I think it might not be that, but the absurd rise in what I’ve been calling the “Neo-Ubermensch”. Everyone thinks they are soooo fucking special, and they’re just temporarily unimportant and broke an not the millionaires they know they are at heart.
This allows them to fit in with the mentality held by the likes of Joe Rogan guests, right-wing fascists parroting all this “Us v Them” bullshit, and makes them feel like they actually aren’t worthless, but are being taken advantage of by lefty politicians.
Example: Harris is only going to make them normal, but they’re SO SURE they are special, and destined to be GREAT, that all of the nonsense promises by the lying liars on the right seems more exciting than just being average. Conspiracies are more exciting to these people, frankly.
This is just self proclaimed labels…
So it makes sense we’d see 50% “moderate” and then around 25% for the other two:
Reality check: The youngest age group still appears to favor liberal positions on some issues as much as those ages 25 to 29, Anil Cacodcar, the student chair of the Harvard Youth Poll, noted.
In a poll earlier this year, the younger group was just as likely to say basic health insurance is a human right and government should spend more to reduce poverty.
They’re still progressive on issues.
The scary possibility to me, though, is that conservative voting has decoupled from policy. It is no longer correlated to conservative support on issues.
If indeed these young people become Trump voters, it’s extremely likely they will be doing so despite it contradicting their own policy issues and self-interest (like a huge percentage of non-young blue-collar Trump voters).
I’d say that this is the fundamental cornerstone of the conservative - being more likely to obey a leader or an authority, even one you disagree with. As per https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533/
So yeah, it’s a huge problem. Identifying with the tribe becomes more important than voting on the issues - and potential progressives don’t vote for progressive platforms but for the perceived leaders of the tribe.
I was young and dumb once too. I can see how the “alpha male” bullshit would resonate with young men. Especially young white men seeing the relative ease their fathers and grandfathers were able to navigate life. They never had to worry about the feelings of others. Now that equality is working its way through society, they might have seen these same role models have a hard time reckoning with that fact and left them frustrated.
This isn’t surprising. I was born long enough ago people still remembered a DNC that “tried” and “did things” as opposed to trying to be Rainbow Flag GOP for Her. If you were born in 2000, the DNC you’ve known your entire life has never DONE anything for you (or been caught trying) other than passing a further right version of Mitt Romney’s health plan. They’ve never SEEN anyone even make the left wing argument except AOC and Bernie, who have been kowtowed into neoliberal lapdogs, while the only group of people making any argument things CAN get better is the MAGA crowd with their Handmaiden’s Tale shit. If you never make a case, don’t be surprised when people vote for people who are at least making one.
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https://www.axios.com/2024/09/28/gen-z-men-conservative-poll?utm=axios_app