The widening gender divide is fueling far-right extremism

The gender gap is a political chasm. 

In the 2024 election, President Donald Trump won men by 12 points, 55-43, while Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won women by 8 points, 53-45. That’s a full 20-point gender gap. 

And among voters aged 18-29, the divide was even sharper: Trump eked out a 1-point win with young men, 49-48, while Harris crushed with young women by 23 points, 61-38. That’s a 22-point gulf.

This widening gap is more than just a number; it reflects the rise of the manosphere and the hard-right—and often fascist—turn by many young men. I’ve written about it here, here, and here. It is one of the fundamental political challenges facing the left, and the trend line isn’t improving.

A recent NBC News Decision Desk poll underscores the cultural roots of this split. 

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For young men, 34% said that having children is important to their personal definition of success, with another 29% saying that of being married. For young women, the number was just 6% for each. 

Both men and women highly value financial independence and a fulfilling career, but women—with higher educational attainment—are increasingly competing for and winning those opportunities. That leaves a generation of men who want families and children—while their female peers don’t—struggling to secure careers in increasingly competitive fields.

Enter the manosphere and its influencers—a sprawling network of podcasts, YouTube channels, and social media accounts feeding young men a steady diet of grievance. The core message is always the same: Men are owed women—women to bear their children, keep their homes, and provide sex. 

If they don’t get it, someone else is to blame. Feminism, liberalism, and “woke culture” are cast as corrupting forces that have tricked women into abandoning their supposed biological destinies. It’s a worldview that tells men that they’re victims, denied what is rightfully theirs.

That resentment finds fertile ground in the cultural divide we see in polling. One-third of young men say that marriage and children are central to their idea of success, while only a tiny fraction of young women agree. Men are setting expectations that their peers don’t share, then running headlong into disappointment when reality doesn’t match the script. 

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The manosphere thrives on that dissonance, telling frustrated young men that the problem isn’t them—it’s women who have been “brainwashed” to pursue independence and careers instead of family.

The most prominent figures package this poison in different ways. Andrew Tate flaunts wealth and hyper-masculinity, telling young men that dominance over women is proof of success. Nick Fuentes and his followers—dubbed “Groypers”—wrap their misogyny in white nationalism and “traditional values,” railing against women’s independence as a symptom of Western decline. 

Others in the ecosystem dress up their message as self-improvement advice, but the pivot is always the same: True masculinity means reasserting rigid gender hierarchies—by any force necessary.

It’s toxic and dangerous. These ideas don’t just encourage resentment; they legitimize violence. When men are told that society has “stolen” their futures, it doesn’t take much for frustration to turn into radicalization. 

We might even find that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was influenced by these circles, particularly the Groypers, who have feuded with Kirk for years in what they call the “Groyper War.” The difference between the two alt-right groups? To the Groypers, MAGA conservatives aren’t Nazi enough. 

That kind of alienation and nihilism isn’t just a threat to the left. Disaffected young men could just as easily turn their anger against Republicans if they feel betrayed or ignored. Radicalized young men are combustible—history shows that societies that fail to channel their energy constructively often end up facing violence, extremism, or even authoritarian movements built on their resentment. 

And we’re already seeing the warning signs in online threats, mass shootings, and the growing overlap between misogynist and extremist communities. The stakes aren’t just electoral—they’re societal.

I don’t write this to mock or dismiss. Their concerns may strike us as absurd, but to them, they’re real. Ignoring this problem only puts us at risk of making it worse.

Solutions are tough, but we do have them.

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