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Trump’s Gen Z Breakthrough

Posted on Thursday, November 21, 2024
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by Andrew Shirley
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8 Comments
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Over the past few weeks, athletes across the country have embraced a new, viral victory dance: The Trump. The dance, an imitation of the shimmy President-elect Donald Trump frequently broke out at his famous rallies, has become a sensation, with everyone from NFL stars to UFC fighters marking their victories with an endearing nod to the 45th and 47th president.

The trend has also spread on social media as part of a weeks-long virtual celebration of Trump’s victory from an unlikely group: Gen Z.

Trump built an astonishingly broad coalition of voters to fuel his electoral victory. But one of the most crucial groups with which he made inroads – both for this contest and the future vitality of the Republican Party – was young voters.

While some states are still counting ballots, Trump clearly made significant gains among this generally liberal voting cohort. According to the nonprofit America 2100, Trump made gains with “every single Gen Z demographic – men and women, white and nonwhite.”

While Trump’s gains with young women were significant – he won 41 percent of women aged 18-29 compared to 33 percent in 2020 – his gains with young men were even more impressive. After 41 percent of men aged 18-29 voted for Trump in 2020, 56 percent voted for him this year, an astonishing 15-point swing.

Among voters aged 18-44, Trump also gained four points with white men, five points with white women, 15 points with nonwhite men, and nine points with nonwhite women. While women in particular were supposed to be a strength for Kamala Harris, she lost significant ground compared to Biden’s performance four years ago.

Policy issues clearly drove Trump’s gains. Voters were primarily concerned about inflation, immigration, and crime. On all three issues, Trump consistently outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris in the polls.

But beyond hard policy, Trump’s larger-than-life persona, charisma, and innovative campaign strategies also undoubtedly played a major role in his breakthrough with young voters. On social media site TikTok, several of Trump’s speeches went viral as dance songs. His comments about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, “eating the cats” and “eating the dogs,” spawned a hit remix and viral dance that garnered millions of views. Similarly, the inflection he used to describe Harris attending a “dance party with Beyonce” spawned another viral dance mix.

Trump’s virality was also due in part to the unique and now iconic mementos from his campaigns – the famous red “Make America Great Again” hats.

When Trump unveiled the hats in 2016, the media derided them as gimmicky and silly. In October of that year, a Washington Post story revealed that “Donald Trump’s presidential campaign spent… $3.2 million on hats.” Pundits pointed to this as an example of the unserious nature of his candidacy. Only after Trump emerged victorious was it revealed that those hats earned the Trump campaign $80,000 per day on average.

The hats and the movement they represented had deep purchase with American voters. In that first election, many Trump supporters were hesitant to wear them publicly for fear of backlash from friends, family members, and employers. This year they have exploded into public view, with entire college fraternities hosting events at which the MAGA hat was required attire. Four days after the election, an X user posted a video of seven women in downtown Los Angeles wearing MAGA hats at brunch.

Trump’s campaign was also replete with incredible viral images that clearly resonated with young voters. Trump’s mugshot photo after his controversial New York case went viral with Democrats and Republicans for far different reasons. Liberals touted the image as “victory,” while Republicans used it as a rallying cry against relentless lawfare that was so egregious that a former federal prosecutor considered the case “the outer boundaries of the law and due process.”

Additionally, Trump’s day of work at a McDonalds drive-through was viewed millions of times on social media. The photo of the president waving out the window also garnered over half a million likes on X. His stint riding in a garbage truck similarly took on a life of its own as a popular social media meme.

Yet nothing proved more iconic than the photos from Butler, Pennsylvania, when a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear. The image of Trump, covered in blood, with the American flag at his back, raising his fist in defiance, will likely be remembered as one of the greatest political photos in history. As Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg put it, “Seeing Donald Trump rise up after being shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Trump’s emergence as the “cool” candidate in this year’s election was not supposed to happen. Democrats, thanks to their control of the media and Hollywood, typically have the benefit of those institutions portraying liberals as fresh and hip while portraying Republicans as stuffy and out of touch.

That was especially supposed to be the case with Kamala Harris, who supposedly represented a new generation of leadership that understood the needs of younger Americans. In the days after Harris became the nominee, her campaign employed catchphrases like “Kamala is brat,” “coconut army,” and “vibes” to manufacture hype around the vice president. While these efforts appeared to engage young voters early on, Harris’s rehearsed lines and empty slogans quickly became stale with voters young and old.

For the first time since the 1980s, young people are beginning to see Republicans as the party of hope, opportunity, and fun. The oppressive woke culture of the left, with its endless social justice purity tests, trigger warnings, and microaggressions drove millions of young people away from the Democrat Party. In Trump, they found a breath of fresh air and, more importantly, hope that the best years of this country are ahead of them, not behind them.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.

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Joearcher
Joearcher
16 days ago

AMAC, I wish an ADMIN would oversee and block the haters on OUR website. We conservatives have so little compared to the MSM and the Hollywierd elites that are the mouthpieces for the Dems. Mike Z and his hateful comments needs to go.

Truth
Truth
16 days ago

Those who didn’t vote for President Trump were deceived by the lies of the left of both Kamala and the biased media!!!

Leslie
Leslie
16 days ago

Welcome young voters to the party that actually cares about you getting economically set up for a great life! Hopefully they will start following X (now that so many ultra liberals have bailed) and other conservative news outlets so they can learn just how long they’ve been lied to. I was around 30 when I went back to a VERY liberal UCSB to finish my BA and I had already been “converted” around that age, because my eyes were wide open. I believe I converted a few liberals while attending that college for 2 years. With common sense and life experience and simply by asking them questions.

HocasPocas
HocasPocas
16 days ago

All American Citizens, young and old, have had a belly full of the evil brought to them by the demonic rats. It just took some longer to wake up from the woke bs. We will not be gaslighted by the evil any longer

anna hubert
anna hubert
16 days ago

Democrats are stale , stuck in the mud, regurgitating same old ad nauseum not seeing this is 2024 not 1824.Same old doctrine Marx is their idol, it does not bother them that he who blathered about the worker never worked a day in his life himself. When things were shaky his comrade Engels came to rescue.He spewed his poison from his study ,kept in comfort by maids. A little petty bourgeois blathering about the struggle of working man.But that is exactly what they are, no idea of work is. Thank God there are those who can see and think for themselves. They are the future of the country I wish them all the best.

Alicia
Alicia
16 days ago

The state of our country does reside in the hands of an upcoming generation. I will remain positive about what is coming. Today’s focus is on change, a foundation and belief that life is what we make together. Let us Unite, keep an open mind, and use our talents to improve this nation. We need more leaders like Trump, who has a passion to keep America Great, but it definitely takes all of us working together.

Richard
Richard
13 days ago

Here’s my opinion: young people between 18 and 29 are seeing their debit cards diminish when they are paying $12 for a fast food meal, $6 for a cold brew at a coffee shop, and $1500 a month on a one bedroom apartment. I don’t think I could of afforded this if I was 28 years old today.

A row of supercomputers running simulations of quantum cryptography algorithms to test their efficiency and effectiveness
President Joe Biden, son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden walk across the South Lawn of The White House on July 28, 2024 in Washington, DC. President Biden is returning from a weekend trip to Camp David. (Photo by Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images)
President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Dana White during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City.

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