Yep. Young male gamers are already at the height of their angst. They feel their position in society is slipping away (because it is, for a number of reasons).
When not presented with an adequate economic explanation of why their position in society has diminished, they will blame feminism, or wokeness, or whatever the buzzword of the day is.
As we’re seeing though, this angst can easily devolve into reaction. People like Trump and Vance have been willing to harness this reaction for their own fascistic aims.
Yep. Though I think that the idea that the position of young male gamers is "slipping away in society" is largely illusory. I have no doubt they
feel that way, but it's mostly not true. It's not like 20 years ago young male gamers were the kings of the world. Playing Warcraft didn't make you the most popular kid in high school in 2005. And to the extent there is any truth to the idea that some of these young men are falling away from their place in society, it's mostly self-causing; they are retreating into these toxic, male-dominated spaces not because they're forced to, but because they choose to.
But whatever the case, there's no doubt that the Trump campaign successfully courted these guys and turned them into passionate voters, at least for the time being. They successfully brought diverse figures from the Bro universe into their coalition - Musk, Adin Ross, Jake Paul, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, etc. They made the Trump campaign cool and approachable by meeting these guys where they were and speaking their language. Other than Rogan, who is a complicated figure to decipher (though he definitely took a hard right turn during the pandemic), I find the rest of those guys to be among the most odious, unprincipled, detestable grifters and scammers you will meet. But their audiences worship them and candidly it's hard to see what can be done to break that hold.
My initial reaction is that liberals and their allies have to just bite their tongues and try to break into those spaces. Rogan would be a good place to start; it was clearly a mistake not to have Kamala, or at least Walz who probably would have been a better fit there, go on his show. He's not a complete asshole like most of the rest of them, and his viewership is not as "Gamergatey" as the others. I'd love to see people like Buttigieg, Obama, Mark Cuban, etc go on Rogan over the next few months, if he'll have them. But long-term liberals have to find a way to get their own everyman-types into these spaces. Pod Save America is great for the liberal lawyers and wonks but has the complete wrong vibe for what we need here. Maybe the Kelce Bros can transition their podcast into a more general purpose one over the coming years?
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