{"id":1734,"date":"2024-12-10T17:47:37","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T01:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2024-12-10T17:47:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T01:47:40","slug":"trumps-appeal-to-the-young-white-male","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/2024\/12\/10\/trumps-appeal-to-the-young-white-male\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s appeal to the young white male"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jocelyn Serlin<\/div>\n\n\n
Some of Donald Trump\u2019s political success in this year\u2019s election can be attributed to the loneliness felt nationwide by young white men who found refuge in his message and policies.<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump\u2019s message\u2014Make America Great Again\u2014has radicalized young working-class white men who long for the security and dominant status they once had when the \u201cgame was rigged in their favor,\u201d said Berkeley political scientist Cecilia Hyunjung Mo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoung men are lonelier than ever. Seventy-five percent or so say they are regularly stressed out about the state of the world around them,\u201d said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics in an interview with NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cloneliness\u201d is part of why presidential candidate and elect Donald Trump appealed to 26-year-old Mason Herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like everyone blames everything on straight white men nowadays. It\u2019s not my fault,\u201d said Herring. \u201cTrump, though, I feel like he gets us. And his policies are gonna benefit everyone, not just the minorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herring is not alone in feeling isolated as a white man in modern America. \u201cAccording to the White Men’s Leadership Study<\/a>, a study of white men and DEI, nearly 70% report feeling forgotten,\u201d reported the Worcester Business Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While he couldn\u2019t name specific policies he felt would benefit Americans, Herring said he resonated with Trump\u2019s ideologies that would \u201cunify and make America great again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mason Herring grew up in Newberg, Oregon, and is an electronics technician for the U.S. Navy. Though Oregon is a blue state, Yamhill County\u2014where Herring was raised and still lives\u2014leans to the right; 51.1% of Yamhill County residents voted for Donald Trump, and 45% voted for Kamala Harris<\/a>. He said his upbringing contributed to his conservative values, and Trump \u201cis honest about his promises\u201d to uphold those values with his presidency, said Herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy favorite holiday growing up was the Fourth of July. I mean, I\u2019ve always been all-American,\u201d said Herring. Though Veteran\u2019s Day was nowhere near second, he was raised to support the U.S.\u2019s troops \u201cthrough and through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKamala ran her campaign on the promise to restore women\u2019s rights. But what about the other half of us, huh? What about the issues that affect the rest of us, too, like immigration and the economy? That\u2019s what Trump promised us, so that\u2019s who I voted for,\u201d said Herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another young white male raised in Newberg was raised by a single mother. It was this, Paxton Feenstra said, that made him vote for Harris. \u201cI feel that I\u2019ve had my time to be, like, top of the food chain, and so I do support the other people, like women and members of the LGBT,\u201d he said. \u201cSo even though Trump may understand me more as a voter, I chose to not vote in self-interest, but for the other people who haven\u2019t had the amount of privilege I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today<\/a> said the share of young voters backing Trump was larger among young white men, even though young people as a whole backed Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we feel like the group we are in as a whole\u2014whether by race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and so on\u2014is being faulted for the actions of individuals within our group, we get frustrated,\u201d said psychologist Dr. Dana Iyer. \u201cOften this causes us to resonate with people and ideas that take that pressure off us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Iyer said that this election was a real-world example of that concept; young white men felt that they were being attacked for their amount of privilege, so it caused them to feel comfortable with the president-elect, a loud member of their privileged group with an immense amount of influence. Trump didn\u2019t make them feel like they were to blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was at home with my dad on Election Day. At the end of the night, when the results came out, we jumped for joy. Literally,\u201d said Mason Herring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of Donald Trump\u2019s political success in this year\u2019s election can be attributed to the loneliness felt nationwide by young white men who found refuge in his message and policies. Donald Trump\u2019s message\u2014Make America Great Again\u2014has radicalized young working-class white men who long for the security and dominant status they once had when the \u201cgame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","pmpro_default_level":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"top_category":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-election","pmpro-has-access"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jocelyn Serlin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/author\/jocelyn-serlin\/"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1736,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"top_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oregonjournalismlab.org\/Election24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/top_category?post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}