"A new trend has emerged in American politics: The very youngest voters — 18-to-24-year-olds — say they’re more conservative than the cohort that’s just older,” according to the latest Harvard Youth Poll.
“This new trend — which is true for both genders and emerged only in the last few years — is especially pronounced with men.”
I have wondered a similar question… Is the trend that young men who are raised in a republican environment / family / culture aren’t leaving it at the same rate as their predecessors? Or is it that more young men raised in a liberal / apolitical environment are being captured by the right wing internet pipeline?
I would guess that in previous generations, kids are raised about 50/50 to match their parents beliefs (who are roughly 50/50 conservative or liberal) and the significant dominance of liberal youth vote was attributable to kids leaving that ideology behind as they form their own beliefs, reenforced by peer effects. But I’ve wondered if tiktok and other new social dysfunction of current generations has made it easier for kids raised in that 50/50 to just “stay” where they were raised.
Perhaps it could all be explained by the weakening of the ability of peer effects to influence young people’s political beliefs. Young men feel they have more community in online conservative spaces than they do in their more egalitarian real world social environments, so instead of ditching their parents beliefs to match their real world friends they ditch their real world friends that don’t match their beliefs.