The BASED Zoomer: Myth and Reality
Men under 30 are more right-leaning than they were a decade ago, but that doesn’t mean they fit the image concocted by the Online Right
“You have no idea what’s coming” is a common refrain on X.
It gleefully predicts that the youth are extremely right-wing and ready to take action. The liberal boomer order will fall and we will soon live in the BASED utopia created by Zoomer men. Prepare accordingly, libtards
But it appears the people who love saying this phrase had no idea what was coming in the latest elections. Men under 30 voted overwhelmingly for left-wing candidates last week, scrambling the certainty that this demographic is super right-wing. Nearly 60 percent of men under 30 voted for CIA girlboss Abigail Spanberger in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Fifty-seven percent of men under 30 voted for Democrat Mikie Sherrill in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. And a whopping 68 percent of men in this category voted for theater kid socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race.
Granted, these are blue areas and this doesn’t account for the entire nation. But the New Jersey and Virginia races were supposed to be competitive. However, they were blowouts. Zoomer men played a role in these results.
There’s a lot of conservative focus on how young women voted overwhelmingly for the Left. For instance, 82 percent of women under 30 voted for Mamdani. This is an important thing to note, but it should also be mentioned that young men weren’t far behind. Conservatives are less eager to note this because they’ve built up a myth around this demographic and aren’t inclined to question it.
It is true that young men are much more open to voting Republican than they were a decade ago. Hillary Clinton won the youth vote by 20 points in 2016. In 2024, young men went for Trump by double digits. Their favorite podcasters endorsed the Donald and this demographic was favorable to the new administration in its first months. Zoomer men seem much less woke than millennial men were when they were the youth. This is indicated in social and cultural trends that show a noticeable rollback in wokeness and openness to Trump. Right-wing content is far bigger on social media than it was in the 2010s, a further sign of this change.
This change has made conservatives embrace an exaggerated image of Zoomer men. In their minds, the average Zoomer guy is into the traditional Latin Mass, intent on having a large family, eager for right-wing authoritarianism, extremely jacked, and fully aware of X political discourse. The favored image is that of a fully-suited bro rushing to get to mass, a G.K. Chesterton book in one hand and a Zyn container in the other, after he had just deadlifted at the gym. These BASED bros will also solve the libtard female Zoomer problem by winning them over and turning them into trad wives.
This image isn’t always adhered to. Older conservatives will shift to attacking zoomer men when discussing the young people in their office or the kids they interact with in the service sector. Con Inc. types will also denigrate the young men further to the right of them as incel losers if they argue with them. But the BASED and REDPILLED Chad who will save the West is the preferred image.
Some of this is a wildly exaggerated version of the young guys who voted for Trump. Some of it is rooted in the political preferences and mentality of the Zoomers who regularly consume right-wing media. A young guy under 30 who is really into conservative politics is likely to be BASED and Redpilled. As gleaned from the Young Republican group chat leaks, these guys are further to the right than Conservative Inc. They’re more likely to believe in the Great Replacement, be aware of the connection between race and crime, question U.S. support for Israel, and be less wedded to conservative platitudes than their elder peers. I don’t know if they would count as the epic bros beloved conservative discourse, but they are very right-wing.
However, this is a small fraction of their generation, even among Trump-supporting guys. The average Zoomer who cast his ballot for Trump is a FanDuel American, not the Chesterton-quoting gymbro of conservative imagination. For those who don’t regularly read Highly Respected, FanDuel Americans are young men who are not woke. But they aren’t reactionaries hankering for a counter-revolution. They’re cool with many of the social changes–such as greater drug use, porn, sports gambling (obviously), etc.--that the Right derides. They simply want to make money, have fun, and not have this taken away by woke apparatchiks. Hence, they’re inclined to vote Republican.
We can see their “centrism” in their views on immigration. Young people are the least supportive of Trump’s immigration policies, and it’s not just women who don’t like the ICE raids. Polls show men aren’t that enthusiastic for them either. The Right often claims Zoomer men are disappointed because Trump isn’t deporting enough immigrants. Data shows they’re upset because they believe he’s deporting too many. Bros are a non-existent presence at ICE protests, so this might not matter too much. But their actual views should throw cold water on the exaggerated image of Zoomer men.
It’s natural for political movements to proclaim themselves as the choice of youth. It makes them seem energetic and cool, as opposed to the staleness of political groups associated with the elderly. For many years, conservatism was seen as something only for old people, which hurt its public standing. Meanwhile, Obama-era Democrats were hailed as the future based on Barack’s tremendous youth support. We’re a youth-obsessed culture, so this association is a mark of virtue.
It’s politically advantageous for the Right to embrace the Zoomer myth to promote itself. It’s also popular due to the strange tendency of many middle-aged men within its ranks who insist that they are still young. Apparently sharing the same politics as the young bros reinforces this delusion.
Young men are more up for grabs than they were in the Obama era. But, as last week’s elections show, they aren’t guaranteed to be permanent Republican voters. Zohran shows they can be swayed by left-wing populism, especially if their economic prospects don’t improve.
It has to be remembered that however BASED College Republicans and TPUSA members are, they’re not the majority of their generation. This is a generation that is barely majority white. Zoomer women are still very left-wing. The Right can win the youth vote, as 2024 shows, but it’s not set in stone. The Zoomer men myth has its utility, but we shouldn’t allow it to distort what we see in the real world.
Based Zoomer here. Young men I know who are politically engaged are very far right. Everyone else is sports betting.
Oftentimes, an engaged minority is more important than the majority. Look at Missouri in the Civil War, for instance. The state remained in the Union, and most of its population supported the Union. Most Missouri troops fought in the Union Army. But it’s remembered as an effectively Confederate state, because the small minority of radical Bushwhackers fought so ferociously that they left their mark on the region and tied down thousands of northern troops throughout the entire Transmississippian Theater. The popular consensus during and after the war was that Missouri was a fire-eating Southern stronghold, even if the Bushwhackers never numbered more than a few hundred fighters at a time. And the stereotype was warranted, because Union troops stationed in Missouri could always count on those few Bushwhacker guerrillas giving them a very hard time.
Even if, say, 10% of white Gen Z men in the United States have hard-right, nationalist, etc. views, that’s a significant enough minority to characterize the wider demographic and earn them a reputation as a bloc that engages in a certain way. And that small minority can push the Overton window and shepherd the majority if they are loud and persistent enough, as we’re starting to see happen now.