• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 30, 2024

Earlier this week, I made an endorsement for a reality based on facts, the Constitution, the rule of law and the kind of democratic ideals in the America I grew up with and have spent my entire life supporting. In a few days, we'll see if that still is the reality of this country, or if it has shifted to something else.

To be honest, I'm not that confident. In part, because I've been tracking a steady rise in public sentiment that those things don't matter anymore, especially among younger people.

The first time I started thinking about this was back in 2016, just after Trump was elected president, and some academic researchers released a study showing that only 30% of Millennials believed it is essential to live in a democracy. I wonder what it is today?

I ask that question, because this morning I received a copy of a new voter study from audience analytics and media activation agency fifty.io indicating a new generational shift may decide the outcome of this election, especially among young men.

"The shift of young men to the right might well decide this election," reads the report, which segments American voters int six "tribes," including one dubbed "Patriot Jocks" comprised of young American men who have swung markedly right in their political views, and are heavily concentrated in swing states such as Pennsylvania.

The Patriot Jocks, which are more than 20 million strong, consider Elon Musk one of their top influencers, spend their time on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok, and are characterized by the fifty.io team as "sports-obsessed tribe, following sports networks, athletes and influencers. Embodying an All-American spirit, the Patriot Jocks prioritize family identifying as ‘husband’ or ‘father’. The Patriot Jocks show an affinity to conservative and traditional values, engaging in moderately Republican-leaning media."

I know some of them, and while it confounds me that they don't seem to care about the kind of democratic ideals I was raised with, I don't blame them. They grew up in a hyper-fragmented world of media information choice, heavily into videogames, online porn and other dissociative media that are so different from the framework people of my generation were exposed to that I'm not surprised they've become politically rewired.

Don't get me wrong, there always have been a strong base of "young Republicans," but in the old days, they at least subscribed to the kind of democratic principles America was founded on.

I imagine another big factor for them is that there is so much distance between them and the Greatest Generation that fought fascists to keep America free that it probably seems like some kind of antique American nostalgia to them. Like American Nazis holding a rally in Madison Square Garden.

This generational amnesia isn't just influencing young Americans, it's part of a global trend that I've reported on several times, correlating the rapid rise of digital media and a corresponding decline in the world's population living in a democracy.

I don't think it's a coincidence, and I'm pretty sure some anti-democratic forces have been exploiting unfettered access of digital media to accelerate it.

I'm not 100% sure how to combat it, but I know that the ad industry has at least some role in it, because without the economic underwriting of advertising, much of the digital media platforms contributing to the shift wouldn't even exist.

I think it's ironic -- and sad -- that when the ad industry actually tries to come together to work against harmful content of that sort, someone like Elon Musk uses his economic might to shut it down. And that when an American regulatory agency -- the Federal Trade Commission -- tries to enforce rules prohibiting Musk from spreading disinformation (you know, the FTC was conceived to protect American consumers from deceptive commercial communications), the Jim Jordan's partisan House Judiciary Committee this week issued a report attacking the FTC's regulatory enforcement as "weaponization" harassing Elon Musk.

Recently, I had the good pleasure to vent about some of this during a podcast (listen below) with Tim Love, producer and host of the "Discovering Truth" podcast. Love is former vice chairman of Omnicom Group and has long since retired from the ad industry, but he devotes much of his time these days to spreading the truth, having conversations with and writing about people who also do.

He and his subjects are worth listening to.

Meanwhile, remember your vote counts. For now, anyway.