It’s Fun to Stay at the M.A.G.A.

Among many other oddities, it always seemed strange that Trump rallies and celebrations were all punctuated by the gay anthem YMCA by the Village People. But it makes a little more sense when you isolate some of the lyrics. Young man, I was once in your shoes. I said, I was down and out with the blues. I felt no man cared if I were alive. I felt the whole world was so jive. That’s when someone came up to me and said ‘Young man, take a walk up the street. It’s a place there called the YMCA. They can start you back on your way.” If you replace YMCA with MAGA, things start to come into focus. “Many Americans are disturbed by President Donald Trump’s trampling of the Constitution and nuking of the federal government. But one group seems to love what Trump is doing: young men. New survey data show that support for Trump among this demographic has surged since the election.” Catherine Rampell in WaPo (Gift Article): Why Gen Z men love Trump’s reign of destruction. “On some level, the very things that disturb fussy establishment pundits like me —Trump’s strongman tendencies; his propensity to arbitrarily fire people and break stuff without regard to consequences — might appeal most to young male populists frustrated by a system they believe has abandoned them.” No short article can completely explain this trend. But this one offers a good place to start answering the confusion I felt last November when my blue state, teenaged daughter told me, “All the boys at my high school are rooting for Trump.” (At that moment, I too felt the whole world was so jive.)

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