On election day, I caught the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Sitting across from me an elderly woman wore a T-shirt with the image of Trump pumping his fist in the air with the words “fight, fight.” A small “I Voted” sticker was pressed on to her lapel.
She sat with an easy confidence. There were no disapproving glances from other passengers. There was no tension. No conflict. It struck me that in 2024 it was now perfectly acceptable to express support for Trump in a deep blue (Democratically held) city. As I travelled to my destination I wondered: if one could support Trump this openly in New York City, what might support look like in the rest of the country?
A few hours later I attended an exclusive, well-heeled party. I spoke to various professionals who said they had never voted Republican in their lives, but had voted for Trump that day due to his support – in their words – “for the Jews”.
These Manhattanites told me that Kamala Harris was too sympathetic to the “pro-Hamas contingent” of the far Left, and at a time of rising anti-Semitism, they couldn’t bring themselves to support her.
This small group of cosmopolitans represented a contingent far-removed from the stereotypical MAGA voter. And yet listening to their views, it again occurred to me: if I could find such support for Trump in the middle of a Democratic heartland – what might it look like in the rest of the country?
When I arrived at my final stop of the evening – a private underground bar in the Lower East Side of the city – a celebratory atmosphere had begun to explode. The betting markets tipped a Trump win, and online supporters of Harris started to express acceptance of defeat. The beer here had already run dry. It was so bustling that it was hard to move, with young men in their twenties and early thirties outnumbering women by 2:1.
These men were diverse: white, black, Hispanic, Asian. A few wore Trump caps, but the aesthetic was more like a university dorm than a MAGA rally. “This is the counterculture” one party goer told me. “This isn’t just about Trump,” another said.
“It’s about Vance and Musk. It’s about American dynamism.”
In the coming days, much will be written about working class concerns – issues that have become familiar focal points for those seeking to understand Trump’s support. But while inflation and border policies will have no doubt played a role in the Republicans’ landslide victory, we might also want to look at the sentiments expressed by these young male voters – voters who represent a new and emerging contingent in American politics.
Nothing about the young men I spoke to appeared particularly conservative or “right-wing”. Yet it was easy for them to explain why they voted for Trump. And if we zoom out and look at broader cultural trends, it should be easy for us to understand too.
If we take a macro perspective, we see that such young men have never known a culture in which males are not routinely described as “problematic,” “toxic” or “oppressive”. Going to university, and working at modern companies, they live in a world of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies – many of which promote an insidious and pervasive form of anti-male discrimination. Yet to talk about it in public invites social ostracism. To criticise DEI is to risk being called a Nazi.
These young male voters know about theories of patriarchy and white supremacy, but they have never known a culture which celebrates the Great Man Theory of history.
Thomas Caryle’s nineteenth century framework for understanding the past is seen as an anachronism, not worthy of serious thought. Today we acknowledge historical figures not for their feats, but for their crimes. Whether it is due to slavery, colonisation, racism or sexism, we tear down the monuments of our past, while building no new heroes for our future.
The problem with this way of viewing the world is that it is alienating and self-defeating. It is also wrong. By any objective standards Elon Musk is a great man of history, who is influencing the course of human civilisation for generations to come. As one partygoer told me: “He caught a f..king rocket with mechanical chopsticks.” Yet despite these achievements, Musk is more likely to be scorned than celebrated by the Democratic establishment.
This tension between achievement and resentment explains much about our current moment. Musk builds space rockets and electric cars. Trump builds skyscrapers and golf courses. Both men represent what was once celebrated in American culture: the capacity of exceptional individuals to reshape reality through force of will. The young men I met that night in Manhattan weren’t just voting for Trump’s policies. They were voting for a different view of history and human nature. In their world, individual greatness matters. Male ambition serves a purpose. Risk-taking and defiance create progress.
This is why the Trump victory transcends conventional political analysis. It represents more than a rebuke of border policies or inflation rates.
It signals a resurrection of old truths: that civilisation advances through the actions of remarkable individuals, that male traits can build rather than destroy, and that greatness – despite our modern discomfort with the concept – remains a force in human affairs.
The elderly woman on the subway, the Manhattan professionals, and the young men at the underground bar all sensed this shift. They saw in Trump not just a candidate, but a challenge to the orthodoxy that has dominated American institutions for a generation. Their votes marked not just a political preference, but a cultural correction.
As the final results came in that night, it became clear that what I witnessed in New York was playing out across the nation.
The election wasn’t just a victory for Trump.
It was a victory for a way of seeing the world that many thought dead: one where individual achievement matters, where male ambition serves a purpose, and where great men still shape the course of history.
Claire Lehmann is founder and editor-in-chief of Quillette.
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