The Politico article, “The ever-widening gender gap,” sketches a more specific picture,

In 2004 and 2008…that gap was seven points. By 2012, that number increased to 10 points and it grew to 11 four years later. In 2020, it rose again to 12 points, powered by Trump’s 15-point loss among female voters — 57 percent to 42 percent. Polling ahead of the 2024 race shows signs the divide has widened even further…The most recent New York Times/Siena College poll in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin revealed that 55 percent of registered men support Trump compared to just 39 percent of women — a staggering 16-point difference. The Times/Siena poll conducted last week in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina likewise found the exact same difference.

The gap seems especially wide among Generation Z or those under 30 years old. The Brookings Institute reports, “In politics, we are seeing a gender gap amongst today’s youngest voters—aged 18 to 29—with young women being significantly more Democratic in their political leanings than young men.” Much of the young female vote is being driven by the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling, which reversed Roe v. Wade and returned jurisdiction over abortion to the states. Reproductive rights is now a passionate election cause.

Young men seem to be motivated, not so much by a specific issue, but by their resentment of the current culture. If true, the upcoming elections will express the “Breitbart Doctrine,” named after the late conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart. This doctrine states “politics is downstream from culture.” To change the politics of a society, you must change its culture because politics originates from culture which, in turn, originates from the values of individuals who constitute society. Simply stated, if a person’s values and culture are transformed, his politics transforms accordingly.

The culture surrounding young men is dramatically different from that of their fathers, and the change has not been kind. The Brookings Institute notes, “Young men increasingly feel as though they have been experiencing discrimination.” For decades now, prominent voices of political correctness, which is now called social justice, have blamed men as a gender class for a long slate of social wrongs. And, for young men, the past few decades constitute all of their lives. This means they have heard about their collective guilt since birth, and it would be natural for them to feel resentful for being castigated as a class for social wrongs. Such young men are reportedly turning to Donald Trump as a symbol of more traditional and proud manhood.

What grievances or sense of discrimination are young males likely to bring into the voting booths with them? The International Council for Men and Boys lists twelve:

1. Education. OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment’s states: “…boys are significantly more likely than girls to be disengaged from school, get lower marks, repeat grades, and play video games in their free time.” It also claims that, “Gender differences in achievement” are explained by “social and cultural contexts reinforce stereotypical attitudes and behaviours.”
2. Health. According to World Data, men in the US “will live to be 74.8 years old on average. On average, US women are 5.4 years older, reaching an age of 80.2.”
3. Child Labor. Globally speaking, International Labor Organization claims that, on a global level—of boys aged 5 to 17—11.2 percent are in child labor, compared to 7.8 percent of girls.
4. False Allegations, Violence, and Partner Abuse. An international survey by End to DV finds that men are the victims of most false allegations. An article in Cambridge’s American Political Science Review concludes that men experience more violence than women. For example, “Estimates across conflicts classify men as between 1.3 and 8.9 times as likely to be killed in war as women.” With Partner Abuse, most studies confirm that men and women are victimized at roughly equal rates, even though far fewer resources are available to male victims.
5. Parenting. In their work, Benevolent Sexism in Judges, a Cornell Law School professor and a Magistrate Judge detail the severe disadvantages divorced men face in family courts, especially regarding custody.
6. Crime. The results of the study “Does the Criminal Justice System Treat Men and Women Differently?” indicate that, “while men and women are treated differently by the criminal justice system, these differences largely favor women.”
7. Homelessness. Of the nations that keep sex-specific data on homelessness, Davia Research finds 76% of the homeless are men.
8. Work Place. Davia Research also indicates that men face 15 times the number of occupational deaths, compared to women.
9. Reproduction. A recent Newsweek article points out, “men are legally responsible to financially support any biological child, yet have never enjoyed the right” to refuse the responsibilities of legal fatherhood. Most women can choose to terminate their pregnancies.
10. Media. The International Council for Men and Boys offers the following stats on coverage: “Men: 69 percent unfavorable, 12 percent favorable, and 19 percent neutral or balanced.”

Whatever you think of the listed grievances, they may have power through young male voters.

Fortunately, the mainstream media is waking up to this issue and the need to address cultural alienation of men, which has too often been ignored or denied. No longer. The mainstream media is sounding an alert about how losing so much of the male vote could spell defeat for the Democrats. As early as 2020, USA Today discussed how male voters may have determined Biden’s election victory. Newsweek’s recent coverage of the issue, cited above, is an in-depth treatment of how male disillusionment leans into a Trump victory. A YouTube video inspired by a Wall Street Journal poll asked, “Why are young men turning Republican?” On CNN, left political commentator Michael Smerconish stated that men, especially white, working-class men, are the new swing voters. An Axios headline reads, “Boys vs. girls election intensifies.” The issue of male voters has received more attention in the last few months than it has in several years.

It is a sad reflection on society if push-for-power elections are the spark that brings the general gender gap to the forefront of attention. Men are doing badly, and it is partly because society has been structured against them in favor of women. This imbalance hurts women as well as men. Women need healthy and well-adjusted men to be life partners, loving family members, friends, good neighbors, co-workers, and the peaceful strangers you pass on the street. The last thing women need is to live beside a generation of resentful men who act on their resentment, especially if the feeling is justified.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

Since then, we have seen a chain of fresh stimulus policies implemented by developed economies, adding to the large fiscal packages already in place. Multi-trillion-dollar investment packages like the EU Next Generation Fund now include massive deficit spending plans. However, money velocity is not rising. All these programs only lead to secular stagnation. Government projects and current expenditures are consuming money at an unprecedented rate.

Developed economies cannot live without new and larger spending plans. The result is more debt, weaker productivity growth, and declining real wages.

In a recent report, Bank of America showed that the rise of unproductive debt has created a significant problem for the United States economy. For every dollar of new government debt, the gross domestic product impact has slumped to less than fifty cents. The United States is drowning in unproductive debt. However, at least the United States has some productivity growth. If we look at the euro area, the negative multiplier effect of new government debt is extremely evident. Despite enormous stimulus plans and negative nominal rates, the euro area has been stagnating for years.

Many of you may believe that bad policies and careless government spending are to blame, but I think this is intentional. It is a slow process of nationalizing the economy. Slowly depleting the middle class’s savings due to consistently declining real wages, the government expands its influence in the economy, garnering support from a substantial portion of the populace.

Market participants love this. A new stimulus plan means more money printing, which will bring more liquidity to markets and fuel multiple expansions regardless of weak economic figures. However, my esteemed colleagues should be wiser when hailing the next stage of financial repression. Discontent is rising among citizens, and one way or another, this will end badly.

Debt crises may not appear the same way as they used to. It is not a cataclysmic event but a slow boiling that leads to the same impoverishment.

Neo-Keynesians look at the past four years of the United States economy and claim victory. However, for many in the United States middle class, their impoverishment over the past four years has been like that of Greek citizens in 2009.

When central banks think of a soft landing, they are looking at a gradual erosion of the purchasing power of salaries and deposits. This is precisely what we are experiencing, compounded by the additional burden of higher taxes. There is no such thing as a soft landing. Only government bureaucrats and those who can conceal their wealth from money destruction can benefit from a soft landing.

This new increase in money supply may not bring a fresh burst of inflation because money velocity is not rising as well. However, that means lower investment, lower growth, and lower productivity. Market prices, multiple expansions, and bubbles may appear again, while families and small businesses find themselves in a tougher spot.

The back-to-back chain of stimulus plans shows the failure of Keynesian policies. We used to witness the introduction of a new spending and rate-cutting program a few years after the previous one. Now, governments simply add new programs on top of each other and claim that the economy is about to turn the corner.

Government spending consumes the majority of newly created money, leaving the productive economy with decreasing access to credit, declining currency purchasing power, and wealth confiscation through taxes and currency printing.

According to the most recent OECD report, inflation will be 3.5% with a global growth rate of 3.3% in 2025. The introduction of massive new spending and financial repression programs has resulted in 80% of OECD countries experiencing annual inflation that exceeds their central banks’ target. There is a global policy of absorbing productive and private sector wealth. A few years ago, someone dared to say, “You will not have anything, but you will be happy,” and most people understood the dangers of that promise. Nowadays, no one says it anymore. They’re just implementing it slowly. You will be poorer. Protect yourself from inflation and financial repression, or you will be a dependent subclass.