What's Wrong with Young Men?

They look so innocent, don’t they? And no, it’s a stock photo, I have no idea who those guys are. But here’s what I know, statistically, about them.

Many of them suck. Not all, but a lot.

Let’s start with approval ratings. Overall, Shitler has an approval rate of about 39 - 40%, for all ages. You can see the state by state numbers here. For Gen Z 18 - 29¹, 66% disapprove, 34% approve. But, let’s look at the gender divide: Source. That’s right - it’s HUGE!

I have a theory on why so many young men are all-in MAGA. I’ve been working on this for a while, turning it over in my brain, trying to understand. I think I’ve got it, but PLEASE feel free to chime in.

Travel with me down memory lane to 2015. The Orange Menace was a new candidate, and he gave a lot of outdoor rallies. He hadn’t yet developed his hatred for the press, which indulged him because NO ONE THOUGHT HE COULD WIN, and that he was a joke, and so they broadcast his rallies, and had not only cameras on him, but cameras on the crowd.

I watched one of those rallies. Broadcast from Alabama. I listened to what he was saying, but I concentrated on the faces of the audience, most of whom were middle aged or older. Rapt attention, head nods, lots of smiles. What they heard was that the life they’d had, the lives they’d loved and understood: gone because of women and people of color. Finally, they had someone to blame².

The “life” was a man with a job making enough money to support a family, with a wife and kids at home. Idyllic. That whole white-picket-fence-and-Woodie-station-wagon-Ozzie-and-Harriet painting. A life that had been gone for a long time, and wasn’t then, and isn’t now, coming back.

In 2015, the oldest Gen Z people were 18, and most were younger. Trust me, they didn’t pay attention to the first term. But they knew Covid, and lockdowns, and lack of interaction, and rising prices.

Let’s rejoin current day.

I believe that each and every one of us has heard the expression: “When I was your age.” From parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles — or whomever raised you. And then what life was like, back then.

For a lot of these young men, they want, REALLY WANT, a prior life. Where they can get a job, a good job, get married, have kids, and live that TV existence. Some polling:

There are a lot of reasons that more men than women want kids. First, options. Women have far more options in 2015 than they did a generation or two ago. Foremost - they can get birth control, and in some states, abortions, thus giving them control over when and if they bear children. There is a HUGE outlook differential between whether a woman controls her fertility or whether she is dependent on whether a guy will agree to wear a rubber, or, <shudders> the rhythm method.

They can go to college, as another option. Since 1995, more women than men have matriculated and been graduated from colleges and universities. Currently, 47% of women have college degrees compared to 37% of men. Source. This disparity carries forward to post-graduate degrees. Source. Thus, women’s employment opportunities are more vast than they were in the past. As an aside, statistically, the more degrees one has, the higher one’s income. (We’ll come back to that tidbit.)

Second, women do more housework and childcare than men, even when both are employed. Source. Even when women earn more than their male partners, this disparity persists. And filter into that the cost of childcare, which is astronomical³, and thus there are financial considerations in having children.

I think, though, that the overarching desire on the part of young men for “days of yore” relates directly to power. When they talk about “masculine” they think (I believe) of “being in charge”. It used to be that, in hetero relationships, boys had power over girls, and it started young.

Who asked who out on a date? Boys asked girls - and while this has changed in the last decade or so, because there are more “group dates” - in times of yore, it was always the boys, except on Sadie Hawkins Day. Who drove the car? They boy. Who paid the check? They boy. Who “made the first move”? The boy. Who proposed to whom? The boy.

Further, in the past, men were the breadwinners in most marriages. If the wife worked, she generally had a job that paid less, and she’d lose out on promotions by virtue of having children. “Making more money” is again a power thing.

It’s my contention that these young men, often only with a high school education, want the “power” of being in charge, of having a “wife” (as opposed to an equal partner). And I’d add in the incel culture rampant in MAGA-world. These guys want what they cannot have.

My guess is that a lot of these young men feel powerless. I have tried to understand what it must feel like to feel “powerless”. And I can’t. I’m not built that way. But my guess is that they they view things as a zero sum game, wherein they can only win if someone else loses.

The MAGA attraction for these guys? I think it’s best expressed in this article. It’s about a man who is left of center who attends a religious retreat to help him “understand masculinity”. It’s a long article, but covers how men feel disconnected from one another, and techniques to use Christian teachings to be more connected. And here’s the conclusion:

At the weekend’s closing banquet, after the last exercises to reclaim my masculine soul, it seemed perfectly clear why so many of these Christian men had fallen for Trump while also championing unconditional love. The format of Trump’s offer to voters was identical to what the Crucible Project had offered me: We won’t tell you exactly what’s coming, but we’ve got some secret plans that have your well-being at heart. Trust us. We know best.

The idea (it’s a r-e-a-l-l-y long article) is that these young men are so rudderless, and so incapable of finding a path that involves self-awareness, drive, and ambition, that a promise of “something” is all they need for hope. And then, like sheeple, they follow what the cult leader tells them. They don’t question, they don’t think, they just assume it will be better.

When I was in private practice, I never asked patients if they wanted to get better, only if they were willing to do what was necessary to get better. With these young men, they think they would “feel better” if they had a good job, a wife to take care of them and the kids, and the power of being in charge (“king of the castle”). They are unwilling to do what is necessary to get that job⁴, to be an attractive package to a potential spouse⁵, to develop themselves, and become better men.

I think they are lost to a cult that says things will get better - and remember, cults eschew individual thought and critical thinking, only blind acceptance. And I don’t see any way to get them back. Sadly, I think they are lost and we should just accept that, and move on to the voters who we can get to the polls.

1. Yes, Gen Z includes people down to age 13, but they don’t get polled until they’re of voting age.

2. Yes, the wrong people to blame, but when you’re looking for solace, any port in a storm.

3. I don’t even need a source for this, if you have a kid, or know someone who does, you KNOW.

4. Go to college, go to vocational school, get an apprenticeship, work a job they don’t like that provides skills to move up the ladder, move to another part of the country where jobs are more plentiful, etc.

5. Most young women won’t even consider a date with a MAGA type - so they would need to adjust their political mindset, and align with the correct side.