One of biggest stories from the blue-tsunami midterms was the massive political shift of young men. Donald Trump “won” in 2024 largely because men under-30 were in lockstep behind him. The Democrats won so many races in 2026 because men under-30 made a complete political volte-face in two years’ time. So what happened in those two years? A Slate writer has an answer: chud fatigue. As in, “Men Are Ready to Be Normal Again,” and they’re tired of this stupid-ass MAGA version of moron-masculinity. Some highlights from this excellent Slate piece:
How Trump won in 2024: How did Trump storm back into office? Or more to the point, how did he get there in the first place? Too many reasons to count, but one storyline reigned supreme in the wreckage of 2024: The president cultivated a coalition of disaffected bros, whom he expertly managed both at the ballot box and in the zeitgeist. MAGAdom enthralled all avenues of male interest and culture, infusing them with Trump’s unique brand of grievance politics. Sports media? That’s now dominated by Barstool oafs—in garish ballcaps—handing out doomed parlays in moldering basement podcast studios. Video games? YouTube is awash with a class of snarling incels warding consumers away from Grand Theft Auto VI because, surely, controlling a female protagonist with a joystick is evidence of a cuckolded mind. The list goes on and on. You can’t go see the summer’s hottest blockbuster because it is insufficiently deferential toward Western sovereignty. You can’t download a dating app because all women are conniving and evil—and furthermore, enjoying sex makes you gay.
How Trump capitalized on this: Trump alone did not engineer the rot eating away at American manhood—tremors of this generational backslide were already rumbling underneath our feet. But he capitalized on it with aplomb. That is why Logan Paul gets invited to the White House; that is why J.D. Vance retweets the white-supremacist World of Warcraft personality Asmongold; that is why we’ve all been propagandized with the faulty idea that Elon Musk—who has one of the strangest bodies the world has ever seen—is a Chad.
Chud fatigue: Then came the midterm rebuke, in which young men backed the Democrats by a 60 percent margin—moving further left than any other demographic—injecting fresh life into my flagging caucus. Innumerable factors contributed to the Republican demise—the skyrocketing cost of living, yet another Middle East adventure gone wrong—but when the dust settled, and the scale of the defeat became clear, some analysts floated the term “chud fatigue” to articulate what had happened. Chud fatigue is essentially the theory that voters were exasperated beyond repair by the figures who gained prominence on the back of the Trump wave. That maybe society was better off when a boring liberal consensus rested at the center of our nation. Undoubtedly, chud fatigue has existed for ages within the party’s most reliable constituencies—women and people of color, who never needed to grow tired of the Paul brothers in order to despise them. But at long last, it seems like chud fatigue has crossed over into the black box of the swing-voting white male. That means a new political dawn is upon us; men are ready to be normal again.
Slate saw it coming: Where was this prophecy unveiled? In one of the great melting pots of male culture: the Instagram comments for ESPN’s College GameDay… GameDay is genuinely beloved, more so than other pregame shows. If you are a man under the age of 50, there is a good chance you spent much of your youth watching Lee Corso rev up the Michigan State Spartans on an otherwise dreary campus in mid-November. However, in 2022, ESPN changed the nature of GameDay. The broadcaster turned over one of its marquee panel slots to Pat McAfee—an NFL punter turned sports-media mogul with a distinct MAGA-ish gestalt. McAfee isn’t explicitly partisan, but he does fit a chud-shaped mold. He is perpetually sleeveless, making many of his public appearances in a black tank top and a crimson sunburn. His artistic interests do not extend beyond WWE and remedial country music. And yes, he has run into several baffling political controversies that seem to indicate where he stands on the culture war, such as allowing Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback—and hardcore MAHA truther—Aaron Rodgers to promote vaccine disinformation on his show.
In 2026, the worm began to turn. If you scroll through the College GameDay Instagram posts featuring McAfee, you will find a ton of people trolling the host in the exact same way. Their thesis? McAfee is cringe, and his shtick is tired. This point is expressed through an online dialect that derisively mimics his brand of Barstool-tinged masculinity.
The lesson: Why is it all coming to a head now? For my money, I think men are simply tired of being treated like they’re idiots, which was the only thing the MAGA blueprint could ever offer. What do boys want? According to the White House, it is A.I.-generated anime ICE agents, and mashups of Iran war footage with Call of Duty iconography. It is Tony Hinchcliffe making low-effort jokes about Puerto Ricans, and RFK Jr. holding court with Russell Brand. It is a horrifically chintzy worldview that hems in all frontiers of the mind; one where you are assumed to retain the exact same taste you did as a high-schooler—where irrelevant ploys for your nostalgia, like a Legend of Zelda edit starring Donald Trump, are expected to leave you clapping like a seal. It is, most succinctly, Pat McAfee ripping off his shirt on the set of College GameDay. But last week, along with the rest of the country, young men rejected that vision.
There’s something to this, I think. Chud fatigue explains a lot, but it feels deeper than that too. Just before the midterms, I saw an interview with a college guy in the deep South, who looked like the MAGA ideal, you know? White, blonde, bro-y demeanor. But he started talking about how he was sick of Trump’s actual policies and politics and how the past two years radicalized him and made him feel like MAGA is a dead political movement. I feel like it’s that way for so many of those young guys who were, like, MAGA-curious or young and dumb enough to think Trump was briefly cool two years ago. Like, “okay, we tried it and it f–king sucks, what else is there?” At some point, we’re going to need to have the conversation about why all of those guys didn’t believe Democrats when we said all of this bullsh-t would happen in 2024.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images. Screencaps courtesy of ESPN.
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- Washington, DC President Donald Trump announced a $700 million investment in what he described as a “Beautiful, Clean Coal” initiative during an event in Washington, D.C. Pictured: Donald J Trump BACKGRID USA 5 JUNE 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Washington, DC President Donald Trump addresses construction workers during an event at the White House ballroom construction site, where he signs the final steel beam that will be installed as part of the new ballroom project in Washington, DC Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 4 NOVEMBER 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Washington, DC President Donald Trump addresses construction workers during an event at the White House ballroom construction site, where he signs the final steel beam that will be installed as part of the new ballroom project in Washington, DC Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 4 NOVEMBER 2026 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- President Donald Trump, right, participates in a Press Conference with Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer, Tesla, SpaceX and X (previously known as Twitter) and Administrator, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), left, in the Oval Office of the White House Featuring: Elon Musk, President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 30 May 2025 Credit: Francis Chung/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- United States President Donald Trump makes remarks during an event promoting maternal healthcare in the Oval Office of the White House. President Trump is meeting with healthcare workers as his administration launches Moms.gov to highlight resources for unexpected pregnancies. Featuring: President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 11 May 2026 Credit: Aaron Schwartz/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- President Donald Trump speaks to the press before departing from the South Lawn. Trump is traveling to Sioux City, Iowa to attend a campaign rally with Republican candidate for US Senate Ashley Hinson. Featuring: President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 22 Oct 2026 Credit: Bonnie Cash/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
Maybe they realized the MAGA men have no rizz.
Maybe their hand’s getting tired?
lolllll
🎯
Absolutely @thinking. They saw what losers the Maga bros were.
Let us not discount the fact, that for males, the complete forming of the frontal lobe is around 25-27 (generally speaking) and some say fine tuning continues into late 20s/early 30s.
Personally, and with no professional expertise to back this up, I feel it has been very much a case of FAFO. All these maga-brained men thought that all the selfish things they would do to run the country “better” would work, and simply found out that they didn’t. Lesson learned. Now they’re happy to let someone else clean up the mess. Thank goodness!
I saw a graph yesterday that broke down the youth vote, and relatively few R voters from 2024 switched to D this time. The big boost came from those who didn’t vote at all last time, with a helping of those who voted R last time but didn’t vote at all in 2026.
Which isn’t to say there isn’t chud fatigue among young men. But let’s also not give young R-voting men credit for what others did.
Salmonpuff This! 👆👏. Exactly. The hardcore magat base will never change fundamentally and will always vote for the lowest trash. They will buckle down and double down on their misogyny and racism regardless of how badly their fascist idol’s policies harm them personally. Sexism and racism are too powerfully motivating for the magat trash of all ages. We have to stay engaged and the Democrats elected this cycle have to been seen as making an effort to be progressive. Even if mango vetos everything and the Republikkkans in Congress refuse to help override the vetos, the Democrats have to make the effort and not pander. Contact your federal representatives! Say no to Jeffries and Schumer in leadership! The Democrats will lose every gain in an instant if they pander…. The magats have failed because Mango is more interested in making $$$ and debauchery than even pretending to govern. His insistence on being surrounded by yes men instead of competent people made him completely unable to govern. We will not be so lucky with the next fascist wannabe and we have to break this cycle before the next, more competent version of the orange fascist @#$% is elected.
Yup. Non-voters are a better electoral bet than swing or R voters.
I hope the Democratic Party is paying attention.
Yes, MAGAs superpower always was it got people who had almost never been voters before excited to come out and vote. Now that it’s clear they want everyone else to die, normal people are motivated to come out and vote.
I also don’t want to discount the death of someone last year on a college campus. He unfortunately had the charisma and ability to seem like he was smart (I don’t think he was particularly, but smarter than the other chuds? Yes). I hate to give him credit for a ton, but it really fractured and disaffected a big, young part of the coalition.
Because white patriarchal supremacist “culture” is no culture at all. It’s boring and stagnant.
And Pat McAfee is a creep. He said something gross about a female college athlete a couple years ago and tried to hide behind his young daughters: “As a girl dad…” Ugh, shut up, do not try and use your daughters as human shields for your creepiness.
They just didn’t give a sh*t how MAGA policies would affect everyone else and by that I mean us, women. They didn’t get that a little casual overreach by the executive branch or the bros on the court would leave women dying in parking lots, bleeding & septic, some of them leaving orphaned children behind. They didn’t think that far ahead, or if they did, they still thought there were more important things at stake.
The problem is, will someone more charismatic but equally toxic come and fill the void for these men?
Yup. My 22 year old son was infected by the “manosphere” for a hot minute leading up to the 24 election. He kept saying that trump was “charismatic”, while Kamala was a “charisma vacuum”. First, hard disagree. I found Kamala intelligent AND delightful. Second, no one “needs” an allegedly charismatic (!) leader who is going to set fire to the country; give me a dud any day who has good ideas and good morals.
But going into 26, he said that while he still liked trump’s “no filter” personality, he was tired of it, especially since he had done nothing to back it up and had gone back on all of his campaign promises. Better late than never…but it took you 2 years to see that? (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that it was 2 years, since he was only 12 the first time that orange fool ran for president, even though he heard me screaming at the television every time he came to spew his racist nonsense.)
Failing to mention Zelenskyy blowing up data centers and quieting the bots is a major oversight. Particularly as once those centers were destroyed, suddenly elections across the globe turned about face. There was significant electronic cheating going in 2016 and 2024. They had planned to steal 2020 as well, but the pandemic meant a lot more mail in votes. It’s why the orange one put DeJoy in as Postmaster General; to screw up the ballots. It didn’t work. All that to say, cheating was a huge variable in the equation until Zelenskyy stepped up for us all. Not to say there isn’t some truth to this article, but we now know most of the online noise was created by Russia.
I am totally with you on this theory.
I agree. Especially since Musk was actively trying to disable Ukraine’s connectivity (and ability to effectuate said bombing) in the days immediately leading up to our elections.
Absolutely in agreement with this theory. We owe Zelenskyy a huge debt. Let’s hope Ukraine can hold off Putin until the new congress is sworn in—even with Mango in the oval, there’s a decent chance 2/3 of each chamber would vote to override a veto.
McAfee is such a sellout and has totally destroyed College Game Day. No one wants to listen to his half-baked opinions, emanating from his obviously jacked brain.
I like to think young men got tired too. I suspect it’s the voters who didn’t vote in 2024 showing up to vote in 2026 and the MAGA dudes who voted in 2024 didn’t show up.
I watched a few YT videos of interviewers at college campus football games trying to get people’s take. Many white dudes declined to talk in front of the camera. The ones that did talk were excited at the prospect for CHANGE.
People wanted change. End to corruption and stupid wars, better economy, good playing jobs, lower prices. That mattered more. In my city full of young techies, the once mighty software developer/engineer braggadocio has been tempered as people face layoffs. It has been a hard reset for many. I think, like racism, the bro culture remains unchanged and there is a lot of resentment simmering away, maybe less obvious given the shifting political wind.
I mean, if the whole thing you sell them on is the power illusion of the traditional American patriarchal household, where women and minorities are naturally subservient, then you actually have to deliver that at some point. You can’t destroy the market and tell them to be happy with overpriced homes and inflation the same as everybody else.
And that’s before getting into the social toll of being utterly unf*ckable to the majority of women who aren’t right wing grifters. Who wants to be around angry, miserable men all the time? At some point, many were bound to grow out of it. Asmongold and his ilk can fetishize a return to homoerotic Roman hierarchical norms, but that’s well beyond everybody’s cup of tea.
“At some point, we’re going to need to have the conversation about why all of those guys didn’t believe Democrats when we said all of this bullsh-t would happen in 2024.” – Yes – but also, why didn’t they believe it in 2016 and 2020?
Because women were saying it. (Hillary and Kamala)
Agreed with the commenters saying not to give young (overwhelmingly white) men credit for what others did.
But also, a lot of young men have spent the last couple years seeing men being doxed and dumped for going maga while prices everywhere keep going up. Donald’s dumbass and his coterie of aging dipshit bros are increasingly revealed as inept fucking idiots who are only successful because they have enough money to rig the system in their favor. And while they’re raiding the government for their own gain, these young men are the ones about to be swerved up for war.
Only the incredibly stupid, racist and/or self destructive are still on board with maga.
Also, the destruction of the online bots revealed how slim the numbers of true believers were anyway.
No. No to all that crap written. It’s Anti Blackness and still is. The voting turned because they saw someone that LOOKED like them running and that is all they want.