Perhaps more than any other in history, the 2024 election will be an election of identity politics. But contrary to what this term usually means—that we are talking about women and/or racial minorities—this race was about a particular kind of masculine identity that increasingly crossed racial lines, endangering women and men alike.
Donald Trump’s strategy of courting disaffected men was a risky one: men are less likely than women to vote, and disaffected people tend to be the most civically engaged citizens. Since this election was the first since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that allowed Republican-run states across the country to criminalize abortion, liberals and feminists understandably believed it would be a referendum on misogyny. And it was. The problem is that it turns out that the United States is very sexist, and a lot of men wanted this election to be about them. Their votes for Trump weren’t just about the economy, crime, or immigration; Their votes were about reasserting their dominance.
Sexism, of course, doesn’t explain everything about this election. Many voters are genuinely frustrated by rising housing and grocery costs, remembering low interest rates and cheaper gas under Trump; Many see undocumented migration as out of control, overwhelming their cities’ fragile support systems, and contributing to a kind of low-level chaos and dysfunction that they find increasingly intolerable. A lot of women voted for Donald Trump, including nearly half of white women, if we believe the polls (and I watch CNN). Compared to 2020 and 2016, it appears as if more Latinos voted for Trump this year as well, even though more than 60 percent cast ballots for Harris.
But as in 2016, Trump’s victory in 2024 was a largely male victory and a largely white one. But this time, he peeled more men of color. For the first time, a majority of Latino men voted Republican. Trump’s support among white men, and his overwhelming support among white men without college degrees, has remained steady. As in 2020, nearly 20% of black men voted for him (in 2016, this number was less than 15%). The only group that turned significantly away from Trump were white, college-educated women: This demographic did not support Trump en masse, but nearly 60% of them voted for Kamala Harris, compared to 51% who supported Hillary Clinton.
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Gender was a major driver of Trump’s victory in 2016. Eight years later, pundits and analysts will be searching for a newer, fresher explanation. But sometimes a truth simply asserts itself upon repetition.
In 2016, Trump offered himself up to the disaffected working-class white man. He ran an outspoken campaign on gender and racial grievance. His rallies were marked by gross, almost cartoonish misogyny. He won, and political science researchers confirmed that although the feeling of economic displacement was real, racism and sexism were the fuel that lit Trump’s fire. It was not just that working-class white men were frustrated with their lot in life; They felt frustrated because they no longer easily outstripped women and ethnic minorities, and because they no longer lived in a country dominated by people who looked and believed like them.
In 2024 the playing field has changed a bit. Racial injustices remained, with illegal immigrants being labeled criminals and even people who “poison the blood of our country”; Puerto Rico has been described as a floating island of garbage, but it would have been better to put it in issue-specific terms. Misogyny also remained, but it also flared up. Rather than siding with the platitudes of “Trump the bitch” slogans, Trump and his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, promised men an administration that saw them, worked for them, sought to return them to power, and loved and respected them. they. They contrasted this with the Democratic Party, which not only forgot men, but was completely hostile to their nature. (In this narrative, when liberals criticize toxic masculinity, they’re only talking about men in general.) Yes, Kamala Harris has gotten more than her share of pro-Trump sexism and racism, painting her as a slut and a lowlife. They were IQ’s favorite insults — but the final argument Trump and Vance made for themselves was less “Don’t vote for that bitch” and more “Put someone in to get you into the White House.”
To that end, Trump has surrounded himself with his tech bros, his podcast bros, and his warrior bros. The men of the Christian Right and the architects of Project 2025 were also present, but they backed off a bit as Trump courted the kind of men who may no longer go to church as much but still want the respect traditionally afforded to men simply by virtue of being men. Vance has spoken about this directly in previous podcasts and fundraising appeals which may have hurt female support on his ticket but may also have piqued the interest of dissatisfied male listeners: He mocked single ladies and by extension the entire class of women who think that their lives are just as good (if not better) without men. Of it with them. The men Trump and Vance courted likely don’t think they hate women at all, despite voting against basic women’s rights. Many of them seem to desperately want female affection, approval, and, perhaps most important of all, respect – but they haven’t exactly earned it, having long been in existence for a period in which female respect was essentially mandatory.
Harris faced an impossible situation. I’ll give you a hint about what’s coming next. The Trump administration’s next crackdown on abortion will be fast, brutal, and, nationwide, the absolute last piece of advice you should listen to after the election Trump promised mass deportations. He couldn’t have done it without one group.
This is the America that Trump and Vance promised these men to bring back. Yes, this is an America where a (white) working-class man can earn a living wage – but the fantasy is not so much about the paycheck figure as it is about the ability to have a financially dependent wife who adores her, or to be able to be as violent, as crude, and as unrestrained as he is. One desires without social consequences. As much as pundits and voters point to the economy, immigration, or crime as the reason voters support Trump, the truth is that Trump has offered almost nothing in the way of actual policy on any of these issues. He offered instead the promise of male power and male dominance, and of the return of men to their rightful positions of power in the White House and in homes across America. He spoke to frustrated men and lost men, many of whom felt, despite all the evidence, mistreated and even discriminated against. He promised them a return to power.
This – the special treatment of men, and white men in particular – is the original American identity politics. In 2024, it put another man in the White House, the latest in an uninterrupted line of patriarchy that has lasted more than two centuries.
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