Swiping Left on MAGA

Among the many evils the 2024 election released into the world was a renewed round of discussions of the woes of young men, and how we’re being failed by liberalism, or feminism, or the Democratic Party. This narrative has been around for some time, but has been slowly gathering momentum. It runs something like:

Unlike a narrative that centers economic desperation and poverty, this story (hereafter called the ‘masculinity narrative’) does at least have some supporting data: young people (of both genders) are seeing friends less in person, dating less, having less sex. Less quantifiably, there does seem to be a general malaise around gender roles, an ambivalence on whether a feminist society was really the right goal. And young men have definitely shifted right: Men under 45 have gone from supporting Biden by 8% in 2020, to supporting Trump by 8% in 2024. From a purely pragmatic point of view, the masculinity narrative’s proponents on the left (there are many) are correct to say we can’t simply eat a 16 point swing in such a big chunk of the electorate, especially if there’s no compensating gain among women. By and large, there wasn't.

But facts—even relatively incontrovertible empirical facts—don’t interpret themselves. We have to interpret facts, and build stories around them. I do not think the masculinity narrative is a good one. I do not think it interprets the above facts well. I do not think the implicit values it draws on are good ones. I do not think it helps us work out what to do going forward. 

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