The 2024 election, perhaps more than any in history, was an election of identity politics. But unlike that that term usually implies—that we’re talking about women and/or racial minorities—this race was about a particular kind of masculine identity that increasingly crosses racial lines, and imperils women and men alike.
Donald Trump’s strategy of courting disaffected men was a risky one: After all, men are less likely to vote than women, and the disaffected don’t tend to be the most civically engaged citizens. With this election being the first since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision allowed Republican-run states across the nation to criminalize abortion, liberals and feminists understandably believed that it would be a referendum on misogyny. And it was. The problem is that it turns out the United States is pretty damn sexist—and a lot of men wanted this election to be about them. Their votes for Trump weren’t just about the economy, or crime, or immigration; their votes were about reasserting their dominance.
Sexism, of course, doesn’t explain everything about this election. Many voters are genuinely frustrated with high costs of housing and groceries, and remember lower interest rates and cheaper gas under Trump; many genuinely do see undocumented immigration as out of control, overwhelming the fragile support systems in their cities, and contributing to the kind of low-level disorder and dysfunction they find increasingly intolerable. Plenty of women voted for Donald Trump including, if exit polls are to be believed (and I’m looking at CNN’s), close to half of white women. Compared to 2020 and 2016, it looks like more Latina women voted for Trump this year too, even as upwards of 60 percent cast their ballots for Harris.
AdvertisementBut like in 2016, Trump’s 2024 victory was a largely male one and a largely white one. This time, though, he........