Saturday, March 15, 2025

Young men even more likely than old men to fall for the far right?

I've seen some polls lately indicating that young men are even more likely than old men to have far-right political views and support "strongman" dictators and such. 

I think young guys are easy targets for the pied pipers of the far-right because they are EXTREMELY insecure about masculinity, status, and sex-appeal. They have all sorts of superhero / super-stud / billionaire fantasies coupled with overblown fears of being too nerdy / wimpy. 

This isn't a new thing - I definitely went through it myself in my teens and early 20s. The issue is that when young men should be evolving / being guided out of that phase and learning to be humble, decent, and mature, the unscrupulous influencers / marketers / propagandists prey on their insecurities and divert them off into right wing macho fantasylands. 

What I'm not sure about is how to counteract that, like how to show that the real rewards of being a good person are better than the false promises of "alpha male" glory. I suspect that a lot of the macho jerks like Trump who brag about having it all are actually still miserable and insatiably insecure, so if that could be revealed somehow it might dispel the myth that lads are being lured by.

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