The United States has been divided politically practically since its inception — Democratic-Republicans often clashed with Federalists early on, the Whig Party and the Bull Moose Party were both relatively short-lived and replaced by more dominant factions, and the Democrats and Republicans are still at odds today. In fact, Democrats and Republicans seem to be at ever-increasing odds, especially since President Donald Trump launched his first successful campaign for the White House nearly 10 years ago and revitalized the Republican Party, invigorating a nationalist, populist sentiment long-dormant amongst the American people. But a newer, deeper political divide is now emerging, one which is poised to shape the future of American political and social life for generations to come.

In the weeks and months leading up to last year’s historic presidential election, which yielded a sweeping victory for Trump, much talk was devoted to the “youth vote,” with most polls showing young voters trending leftward and preferring Democratic candidates over the populist Trump, although by varying margins. However, it was noted that young men in particular were somewhat disenchanted with Democrats and skewed more towards Trump than towards his Democratic opponents. This became an especially thorny issue as Election Day neared, with the Democrats recognizing that their proffered candidates — the archetypal incoherently wine-drunk, liberal aunt and her bumbling, effeminate, emotionally-incontinent running mate — would likely cost them a sizable share of the male vote. They were correct.

With the election well over and Trump secure in the White House once again, data analysts have begun poring over voting results and exit polls, seeking to understand what happened in November and how. Their toil has not been fruitless, and one of the most surprising results has been the revelation of this new, deep political division: young voters, especially young men, have almost entirely abandoned the Democratic Party.

Blue Rose Research, a pro-Democrat campaign and election analysis organization based in New York, released a new report last month that found that young voters are far more conservative than their elder counterparts. According to their findings, majorities of white men and women and men “of color” under the age of 26 voted for Trump, while women “of color” under 26 were the only demographic to vote for the Democratic candidate. The majority of white men of all ages voted Republican instead of Democratic, although support for Democrats was highest (over 40%) among white men between the ages of 30 and 40 and 70 and 80. Among white women, the only cohort to vote Democratic over 50% of the time was white women between the ages of 26 and 32.

So far, so good, but the emerging division has yet to be revealed. Between white men and women over the age of 35, there is a fairly consistent gap of less than 10 percentage points, with women skewing more towards Democrats and men skewing in favor of Republicans. For example, just over 40% of white men and just under 50% of white women aged 40 voted Democratic last year, about 35% of white men and just shy of 45% of white women aged 50 voted Democratic, and so on. Among white men under the age of 30, though, support for Democrats has plummeted — sharply — but there has been no corresponding drop among white women in the same age range. Barely 25% of white men aged 18 voted Democratic last year, as opposed to over 45% of white women aged 18. In other words, the political division between men and women has doubled in size in the youngest of those who will shape the nation’s future.

It has long been acknowledged that men tend to vote Republican more than women do. Exit poll after exit poll from presidential election after presidential election has borne this out. Last year, for example, 55% of men voted for Trump while 53% of women voted for his Democratic opponent, according to CNN’s exit polls. NBC News published identical results. This is, somewhat, par for the course, with just over half of men and just under half of women voting Republican. But exit polls further elucidate the growing divide between young men and young women. According to NBC News, 49% of men aged 18 to 29 voted for Trump, as opposed to 48% who voted for his Democratic rival. Meanwhile, 61% of women aged 18 to 29 voted for the Democratic candidate, as opposed to a mere 38% who voted for Trump. If the current trend among young voters continues, the standard 10-point difference between men and women will shift drastically within the next few election cycles.

The real question is, of course, why are young men moving so sharply to the right, while young women have yet to catch up, if at all? One factor is, no doubt, the Democrats themselves, and especially their policy platform. The Democrats focused much of their messaging last year on abortion, which has consistently been rated as a higher priority for women than for men. According to a Pew Research Center study published last year, American women were not only more supportive of abortion than men, but devoted much more thought and feeling to the subject: 40% of women said that they have thought “a lot” about abortion, as opposed to only 30% of men. Additionally, men were more likely to support banning abortion in all cases than women were.

Support for radical transgender ideology also harmed Democrats in November, with more than half of voters believing that the party’s support for transgender policies — especially relating to children — had gone “too far.” Again, studies have shown that men place far less weight on LGBT issues than women do. Another recent Pew Research Center survey found that women are more likely than men to prioritize social acceptance of same-sex marriage and those who identify as LGBT. Blue Rose Research found that the majority of voters last year considered Democratic presidential candidates “more ideologically extreme than Trump,” which certainly contributed to Trump’s victory.

But aside from the political fumbles of the Democrats themselves, the very fact that young men are men has likely contributed to their rightward shift. There is a theory that suggests that women and low-testosterone men will tend to follow whatever the socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm is in almost any given circumstance. Of course, since progressivism has been enforced by schools, corporations, human resource culture, and practically every facet of media for generations, progressivism has been widely accepted as the norm, especially among young adults. Since women and low-testosterone men cannot exactly fend for themselves — and by this I do not mean that they cannot get high-paying jobs or do their own laundry or change a flat tire: I mean that they generally cannot physically defend themselves against a violent mob — they attach themselves to the “herd” for protection, accepting whatever the “herd’s” socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm is — in the case of American young adults, progressivism.

Men with normal or high testosterone, however, have more freedom to challenge the socially-accepted, socially-prevalent norm, since they have the force to follow through on that challenge. A young woman may be less inclined than a healthy young man to appear in public wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap or to defend Trump’s policies at a party with friends because she faces social ostracization and, at worst, assault, against which she will be far less able to defend herself than the healthy young man. Whereas men, especially those with normal or high testosterone, are more likely to assert what they know or believe to be right and true, despite the consequences. A 2011 study found a strong correlation between higher testosterone and a willingness to challenge or reject social norms in favor of what is deemed “right.”

For example, the study found that men were more willing than women and low-testosterone men to punish injustice, even at a personal cost. Research in 2015 also found that men with normal or high testosterone were more likely than women and low-testosterone men to take risks, oppose group consensus, and challenge authority figures if they believed the authority figure was in the wrong. Other studies have asserted that higher testosterone levels in men are related to resisting social pressure, pursuing instead paths and policies that men believe are right or beneficial. A certain degree of autism or Asperger’s Syndrome — which is significantly more common in men than in women — may yield a similar attitude, as with the analytical thinking and lack of inherent understanding of social norms enabling him not only to challenge those norms but even dismantle them, at least intellectually, with little regard for how such actions will impact his social status.

Another factor in all of this is empathy: women are generally far more empathetic than men. This fact is, in itself, not a bad thing at all and is actually part of God’s design for the family. Women are especially equipped for motherhood and that means that they must be attuned to both the physical and emotional needs of their children. Heightened empathy, coupled with the pursuit of virtue, serves a mother well in tending to her beloved children. Men are also especially equipped for fatherhood, and their lessened sense of empathy, again coupled with the pursuit of virtue, serves them equally well as they leave their families every morning and head off to work, enforce justice, and administer discipline in the home as needed, and defend the home when danger comes prowling.

However, when either that heightened empathy or that lessened empathy becomes unmoored from virtue, it becomes a danger. In particular, those with heightened empathy are more susceptible to emotional manipulation. Several studies have suggested that those with a higher degree of empathy are more vulnerable to having their emotions manipulated or weaponized than their less empathetic counterparts. This phenomenon can be readily seen in those who vote for Democratic policies — flooding the nation with violent third-world denizens is a small price to pay to spare an immigrant tears when she’s turned away from the border, ensuring that women have “choice” and “agency” is more crucial than sparing the life of an unborn child whose mother is walking into a Planned Parenthood, making confused little children feel “seen” and “validated” may mean carving up a few arms and thighs to make Frankenstein’s monster-style genitals, but what of it?

All of these factors — a radical and unpopular Democratic Party platform, social pressure, differences between men and women in terms of chemical and neurological makeup — certainly go towards explaining the marginal political division between men and women overall, but what specifically of the youth? How does one go about explaining why this specific group of young men has gone so far right? In 2022, the Survey Center on American Life posited that young men have simply been slower to accept or embrace liberalism than women of the same age. But this cannot be the case, as support for Democrats among young men is significantly lower than among previous generations; young men are not just failing to conform to liberalism at a certain rate, they are openly rejecting it. A 2024 survey suggested that young men were driven by “despair” to embrace right-wing politics, finding their economic prospects bleak under Left-wing politicians. This is nearer the mark, but still not it.

This sharp rightward shift among young men under the age of 26 is not only linked to but deeply rooted in the present era. Previous generations grew up in different worlds: the Boomers had a much safer economy, a much more open job market, affordable homes, and cultural homogeny; they ruined it. The Sexual Revolution, the racial extremes of the civil rights movement, Roe v. Wade, the pill — it was all a wrecking ball taken to the America that generations past had suffered, struggled, sweat, and bled to build. Generation X built on the errors of the Boomers, steeping the culture in nihilistic materialism; excess was the order of the day, and the economy was such that excess was not overly difficult to reach. Millennials inherited that broken world; while they may not have so openly embraced their predecessors’ materialism, Millennials did embrace their nihilism. Housing market implosions, rampant inflation, and increasing terrorist attacks around the globe all spawned the conviction that “nothing ever happens,” as a common internet expression puts it. It would be far more accurate to say that Millennials gave in to despair than to say that Generation Z has.

Rather, it is the young men of Generation Z who are rejecting despair, who are choosing not to sink into complacent conformity but to reject the lie that “nothing ever happens.” These young men have been born into a different world than their recent forebearers: a hard world. These young men have never known a world in which the slaughter of the unborn was not afforded legal protections at almost every turn — a world in which white men are also judged by the content of their character and their competency, instead of the color of their skin — a world in which pornography, homosexuality, and the mutilation of children’s genitals are taboo topics, while the proclamation of basic tenets of the Christian faith is socially acceptable — a world in which having and raising a family in safety and comfort is achievable on a single, fairly-humble salary, or in which having and raising a family is even lauded as a great achievement.

The American author G. Michael Hopf is credited with writing, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.” The good times ended some while ago. The hard times have reigned for many long years. Now, those hard times have created strong men, men who may just have the strength to create good times once more.