RFK Jr. has a distinct appeal when it comes to young male voters

Last summer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a workout video to his account on X (formerly Twitter). Shirtless, bench-pressing and pounding out pushups at Los Angeles’ famed Gold’s Gym, the aspiring presidential candidate was the model of virility, his rippling pecs and abs visible over faded Levi’s. Although hardly a young man at age 69, RFK Jr.’s image strikingly contrasted with the octogenarian front-runners in a plodding race that often elicits an understandably uninspired reaction from many young people.

Kennedy’s video ultimately racked up over a million views, left a Fox anchorman swooning at its “sheer masculinity,” and helped launch a long-shot Democratic primary challenge that has since morphed into a third-party bid for the presidency. Once best known for his famous family and crusading environmentalism, Kennedy has more recently become infamous for his overheated anti-vaccine rhetoric and doting celebrity wife.

But six months later, younger voters in particular are giving this candidate a very serious look: In December, a Quinnipiac poll found Kennedy getting 40% of the 18-34 vote, compared to 11% of the 65-plus vote. He leads both Trump and Biden among registered voters under 45 by 1%. His lead is consistent across race and gender, but his appeal to young men especially bears careful scrutiny; Kennedy’s popularity is concentrated in the podcasts and blogs that make up the “manosphere” — a medium he has committed to dominate — at the same time growing evidence indicates young men are gravitating rightward politically and feeling disaffected socially.

This does not mean we have lost this generation forever. At least not yet. But probing the origins of this generational unease and Kennedy’s appeal as its antidote might just hold the key to redirecting us toward a future where these young men choose civic participation over conspiracism, and find inspiration in collective action rather than atomized self-improvement.

Younger millennials and members of Generation Z of all genders have been raised amid ongoing war, increasing inequality, and impending climate catastrophe. The forced social isolation of Covid-19 hit just when they would have been independently exploring the world. This is to say, they should be given some grace for viewing politicians skeptically. Young males seem to be faring especially badly amid this tumult, as many have noted. “Men are lost; here’s a map out of the wilderness,” cried Christine Emba in The Washington Post last summer. “Andrew Tate is the symptom, not the cause,” wrote Heather Stewart for The Guardian. Even the Financial Times warned of the “far reaching consequences” of a “great gender divergence” transpiring among American youth. This young male disaffection is not just coincidental with Kennedy’s rise; the two are inextricably intertwined.

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‘My head was spinning’: Reporter reacts to RFK Jr.’s conspiracy theories September 28, 2023 / 11:23

“Americans are angry at being left out, left behind, swindled, cheated and belittled by a smug elite that has rigged the system in its favor,” Kennedy declared when he announced his run as a third-party candidate last fall. This resentment is a common talking point for him on podcasts hosted by the likes of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, personalities who have amassed millions of mostly male followers by channeling and amplifying such sentiments that have swirled with particular intensity since 2020. Kennedy’s message is perfectly pitched for these messengers: Covid lockdowns are tantamount to Nazi totalitarianism; vaccines are a ploy by profiteering Big Pharma execs who callously afflict children with autism; “taking people’s guns away” with policy is futile, dangerous government overreach; “wokeness” has corrupted both capitalism and campus discourse. A chorus of endorsements from billionaire tech bros and celebrity athletes who unironically celebrate Kennedy’s championing of “the common man” and steely resolve only solidifies this sense of specifically male outrage.

But we believe there is still hope. After all, his young fans have not embraced Trump’s brazen moral bankruptcy, or opted out of the electoral project entirely. Rather, it could be a signal that young voters are looking for something different to latch onto. Kennedy’s campaign embodies a potential way station on the quest for purpose for anxious young men who might begin with enthusiastically following wellness bros and otherwise end in a full-on embrace of extremist groups such as the Proud Boys.

Kennedy’s core brand is crusading idealism — it was his campaign to rid the Hudson River of pollutants that was the foundation of his career. Men’s Journal dubbed him a “hero” for suing corporate giants for poisoning wildlife and local inhabitants. The real harm caused by his anti-vaccine activism has rightly eclipsed these earlier plaudits, but even his detractors acknowledge that his latest antipollution efforts against microplastics are uniquely on point. Kennedy’s focus on fitness is not only about his SoCal context or carrying on his uncle John F. Kennedy’s famed presidential physical education policies, but is of a piece with this commitment to a sort of “natural” health; exercise is a concrete, preventive measure any responsible person can take to protect against illness and its frequent attendant descent into pharmacological dependency.

This appetite for self-efficacy and purpose animates Kennedy’s broader attractiveness as the embodiment of a sort of American dream that young men feel is increasingly elusive, and thus even more enticing. Kennedy has prestigious degrees, a meaningful career, a mansion in Beverly Hills and a mountain house, a bunch of dogs and a blended family including a glamorous, accomplished wife who stands behind him and his most quixotic ambitions. Of course, his membership in one of the nation’s most influential political clans has been integral to these achievements, but the fact remains: Despite a past heroin addiction and notorious womanizing, he was still able to do it all. His run is emblematic of masculine success, including — especially — second chances.

Economic and cultural circumstances have converged to make this kind of life feel impossible. Men have declining prospects in education, in the workplace and in marriage. Combined with student loan burdens and rising interest rates, these factors place homeownership and the broader breadwinner ideal, once a hallmark of male achievement, effectively out of reach.

“The central fulcrum of the American dream was that if you worked hard and you played by the rules, you could finance a home, you could raise a family, you could take a summer vacation, and you could put something aside for your retirement on one job,” Kennedy said to a Nebraska crowd late last year. “There is nobody in (the younger) generation who believes that that promise applies to them.” Progressive and Democratic labor, housing and health care policies are focused on remedying precisely these inequalities, but a vocal strand of the left’s cultural messaging — decrying “toxic masculinity,” dismissing any talk of “a crisis of masculinity” as overwrought, or even declaring “men are trash” — only serves to scold young men for these aspirations, and to make the liberal left seem impervious to their ambitions and anxieties.

While GOP policies have arguably only intensified this alienation, the far right has seized the role as the savior of “real men” from the clutches of feminists and nanny-state liberals. Trump’s 2016 win was powered by men’s right’s advocates like Mike Cernovich, who were at the front lines of misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton, but began their careers blogging about self-improvement for men, interspersed with rapey dating advice. Frenzied fears about #MeToo overreach drove Tucker Carlson into such a panic about emasculation that by 2022, he was hawking testicle tanning and proclaiming “The End of Men.” Libs aren’t just man-haters, right-wing troll Matt Walsh announced in his viral documentary “What Is a Woman?” They want to attack the very idea that men, or women, are even real. Years of this drumbeat have had an effect: 68% of Republicans and 27% of independents believe the Democratic Party is hostile to “masculine values.”

Kennedy sees this yearning and he puts cause to the void, affirming a male sense of betrayal while avoiding the overtly hateful rage common in much of the manosphere. His campaign against private equity companies for limiting the stock of single-family homes since the 2009 housing crisis is one such example. “So they can outbid you, and they can outbid your children. Our families are now competing against these companies, which are trying to buy every single-family home,” Kennedy said last fall, typically muddling crucial details to fit his particular morality tale. The Washington Post called it a “conspiracy theory,” but for millions of men who equate home ownership with the core identity of breadwinner, they had a villain to blame for their failure, and validation for their frustrated aspirations.

Kennedy’s brand of masculinity sits at the nexus of virtue and delusion. His salutary focus on exercise and self-improvement can slide seamlessly into the anti-science denialism of anti-vaxxers, and from there it’s a short trip into other, equally noxious sensibilities. Since hitting the campaign trail, he has downplayed these more virulent ideas, but they remain integral to his worldview, and visible despite a more respectable veneer: Solidarity with steelworkers quickly skips into conspiracism about globalists planning for the Great Reset. Concern about profit margins for pharmaceutical companies during a pandemic morphs into vilifying health care workers and sowing distrust of the government. Worry about foreign intervention in American politics becomes racist fantasy about a Jewish and Chinese plot to spread the coronavirus.

A virtuous inclination toward protection and self-sufficiency powers Kennedy’s appeal, but in equal measure so does a paranoia that invites fascism in the name of fighting authoritarianism. Our charge is to meet young men at this nexus and convince them to stay on the side of rationality, purpose and collective progress. They’re constantly being lured to burn everything down — or reinstate an old order, as some would like. In order to secure the future of pluralistic democracy, we must provide a counternarrative that acknowledges the frustrations and harnesses the aspirations of young men in a pro-social way. If our attempts to defeat this spoiler end up allowing the icons of the manosphere to chart their path, we will likely watch these young people slide from a fascination with fitness to become followers of fanatics.

The words of first gentleman Doug Emhoff, with which 73% of both Democrats and Republicans agree, are an inspired starting point: “We’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man. … You’ve got this trope out there that you’ve got to be tough and angry and lash out to be strong. It’s just the opposite. … Strength is how you show your love for people. … And how you stick up for other people and [push back] against bullies.” Failing to take seriously what Kennedy represents could give us another four years with the biggest bully our nation has ever known — and that is only the most immediate consequence of such ignorance.