No country for angry young men

When one of Donald Trump’s strongest voting blocs starts to fall off after just six months of a largely successful second term, it’s time for some soul-searching.

Not just because the midterms loom or because 2028 is already on the horizon. The demographic in question — young men — will shape, defend, and lead this country well beyond the next election. If they’ve grown too cynical to bother, the rest of us may be left holding the bag.

When the past and present betray a generation, expect that generation to reshape the future.

Trump’s 2024 performance with 18- to 29-year-old men marked the best Republican showing since George W. Bush won that demographic in 2004 — the last time the GOP won the popular vote. Young men backed Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, then defected to Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Bush 43 pulled them back temporarily, but by the time Obama, Hillary, and Biden came along, Democrats had captured their hearts — and their votes.

Yikes. That’s no way to live. Yet today’s young men are angrier, more cynical, more disruptive — and more serious. They don’t want to “save” Social Security. They want to be saved from it. They aren’t starting out wide-eyed like the Boomers. They didn’t get the luxury of being idealists first and realists later. They started with realism, forged by debt, disillusionment, and betrayal.

These young men want a way of life back. They want accountability for the people who stole it from them.

The average 25-year-old white male is already more “based” than his Reagan-voting grandfather ever was or ever could be. And he’s not finding any comfort in Fox News. So the question is: Will anyone offer him a white pill before he plants the flag of “I just don’t care any more” at the 50-yard line of American life?

This generation won’t follow unless they’re given a mission worth sacrificing for. Trump’s brand won’t carry them forever. They can’t afford homes. They can’t find wives who aren’t steeped in feminist dogma. They can’t compete in a DEI-rigged job market. And now they’re expected to watch the people who ruined their future skate by without consequences?

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Young men like my son don’t want slogans. They want justice. They want our leaders to treat domestic traitors at least as ruthlessly as we’ve treated our allies in trade negotiations. They’ve seen enough memes. If the memes don’t end in prison time, they’ll see them as mockery. They want consequences — and they want them handed out with severe prejudice.

That’s the instinct of men who’ve been cornered for too long. Dread it, run from it — it’s coming. Unless we offer them something better, they’ll start making something worse.

Don’t count on them to keep voting Republican just because the Democrats are just that bad. That’s a losing bet. These young men reject the old paradigms — left, right, Reagan, Bush. Whatever. They’ve even begun questioning the biblical dispensationalism that guided American foreign policy for decades.

When the past and present betray a generation, expect that generation to reshape the future.

Our shot at shaping that future is now. If we fail to hold the deep state accountable yet again, then we’d better produce an economic boom big enough to distract from the urge to burn everything down.

We’ve convinced ourselves that soft, passive men define the modern male. But history — and nature — doesn’t work that way. Sooner or later, the animal comes roaring back — and a new generation rises, looking to settle scores.

Better get ready.