American males in the 18-29 age group favor Donald Trump disproportionately. In today’s United States, that shouldn’t be a surprise.

In a way, Trump represents everything that most young males want – money, the ability to have their way with women, the apparent ability to tell the government to stuff it, the ability to avoid adult supervision, and the ability to put down women, especially strong women, at will, all without repercussions – not to mention the ability to complain endlessly about how everyone is against him.

I’m certainly not the only one who’s made that connection. There was a New York Post story earlier this week about Trump’s “unabashed machismo vibe,” and its effective appeal to 18-29 year-old American males.

But the appeal goes beyond that. Too many men are still boys. As they get older, their toys just get bigger, and more expensive. I see it all the time – small houses with powerboats almost the size of the house, families with multiple ATVs and multiple trail bikes, but who plead poverty and can’t or won’t provide health insurance or help their children with college expenses. Male students driving late model cars or pick-up trucks who claim they can’t afford textbooks.

When men complain that their wages haven’t kept up with inflation, and that housing is too expensive, I have to wonder. The mortgage rates they complain about are lower than any mortgage I was able to get for more than forty years. The only time they were lower was after we’d slaved to pay off the house, but as an adult, you have to realize that matters don’t always go your way, no matter how long and hard you work (the odds are just far better if you do)…and that most women get tired of boys who never grow up (which might help explain why more women oppose Trump).

Back in 2016, Donald Trump said, “I love the poorly educated.” That was after polling showed that less educated voters contributed to his winning the Nevada caucus during his 2016 presidential primary campaign. Voters who are poorly educated about the facts of key issues — including inflation, immigration, and violent crime – are much more likely to vote for Trump than Democratic rival Kamala Harris, according to new research released last Thursday by Ipsos’ political tracking team.

Analysis shows that voters’ primary media sources strongly determine their voting preferences. The primary news sources for less educated Americans are the Fox News Channel and other conservative media outlets – and/or conservative social media. Followers of such media sources were and are markedly more likely to incorrectly answer fact-based questions about inflation, the stock market, FEMA’s hurricane aid, violent crime, and illegal immigration.

The irony of this is that the primary purveyor of false (factually incorrect) news in the United States is Fox News and the greatest beneficiary of that false news is Donald Trump, who is trying, and often succeeding, in convincing Americans that the more accurate news sources are peddling false news.

It’s fair to say that Donald Trump and Fox News are a marriage of convenience and misinformation, because neither Trump nor his supporters are in the slightest interested in factual news that conflicts with their views.

As I cited earlier, a recent Gallup poll found that while 85% of respondents reported that they were doing well, only 17% of those same respondents thought the United States was doing well. This apparent irrationality permeates the entire electorate, but especially the Trump supporters.

Donald Trump has declared bankruptcy something like six times, been found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud, been found guilty of tax fraud, increased the national debt by $8.4 trillion (compared to $4.3 trillion for Biden), stiffed contractors who worked for him, and fired people who worked for him on a whim, yet almost half of the United States thinks he’ll do better with the economy than a woman who has risen from nothing to Vice President… and never declared bankruptcy.

Trump has called the 1,800 Marines killed at Belleau Woods in WWI “suckers,” stated that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was better than the Congressional Medal of Honor because most of the Medal of Honor winners got killed, declared that Senator John McCain, after 5 ½ years of being tortured, “was not a war hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured,” and avoided military service during the Vietnam era through deferments and “bone spurs.” He later stated that “Only suckers went to Vietnam.” He impugned many of the high-ranking officers who served under him when he was president and declared that “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had, people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” He even said that if the election didn’t turn out the way he wanted, he’d use the military to set things right (apparently forgetting that on election day, he wouldn’t be in charge of the U.S. military forces).

Yet far too many people are willing to elect Trump as Commander-in-Chief, conveniently ignoring his long history of belittling the military, from the lowest-ranking soldiers and sailors to the most senior officers, and his total lack of understanding of military capability and culture.

SO WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS SUPPORT THIS IRRATIONALITY?

Because technology and globalization have destroyed the comparatively higher-paying semi-skilled jobs of the 1950s and 1960s, and American industry can’t afford those pay rates for semi-skilled work in a global economy, and nothing will change that.

Because, for every bright and capable woman who gets a high-paying job, too many Americans believe there’s a man who doesn’t (ignoring the fact that he’s less capable).

Because, for every minority who struggles and succeeds, they believe there’s some white male who likely doesn’t.

For every woman who wants control of her body, there’s a man who doesn’t want her to have that control.

For these reasons, and quite a few others, a significant segment of U.S. society wants to destroy or drastically cut back the current system, and they see (consciously or unconsciously) Trump as the way to do it. But Project 2025 is effectively a blueprint for restoring white wealthy corporate dominance, not for restoring a past that never was.

Trump won’t totally destroy the system; he’ll only make it less fair, less fiscally sound, more fragile, and far more accommodating to the rich and powerful… and, in the process, increase the hate, anger, and polarization while blaming everyone else for doing so.

But his supporters don’t care… and won’t or can’t listen to facts or logic. In the spirit of the old movie Network, they’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore, even as they try to burn down the nation around them.

A significant number of Donald Trump’s supporters cite the state of the economy and the need for fiscal sanity. I understand the concern about fiscal sanity. But for the last twenty years or so, regardless of which political party has controlled the Legislative Branch, Congress has continued to spend more than it receives in tax and tariff revenues.

However, in recent years, the Republicans have actually spent more than the Democrats, astounding as that sounds. Both Harris and Trump have promised more “tax relief,” but Harris has actually promised far less than Trump and her promises are targeted more at the middle and working classes, while Trump offers far more “tax relief” for the wealthy.

Prior to this past week, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculated that the costs of Vice President Harris’s plan could range from having no significant fiscal impact to a debt increase debt of $8.10 trillion through 2035, while Trump’s plan could increase debt by between $1.45 and $15.15 trillion. In other words, Trump’s plan is far worse than that of Harris.

The Washington Post just ran an analysis of Trump’s plans for Social Security, which shows that under Trump’s plan, in six years Social Security would be unable to pay full benefits.

And those costs don’t include Trump’s newest proposed tax cuts — to make car loan interest fully tax-deductible and an additional tax cut for Americans who live abroad.

Now… some will say, “That’s just Trump’s rhetoric. He won’t or can’t do all of that.” And they’re probably right. But if that’s the case, attacking Harris’s spending plans is not only hypocritical, but also deceptive and lying, because Trump again won’t keep his word while attacking someone whose plans are more fiscally sound than his are… and yet almost half of the United States feels (I can’t say “think” here, for obvious reasons) Trump is more financially sound, despite all the calculations to the contrary.

The latest tactic by the Republicans is, whenever Kamala Harris proposes something, especially something that makes obvious sense, to say, “You had four years. Why didn’t you do this already?”

Unfortunately, this simplistic question resounds well with simplistic minds, who don’t seem to understand either the Constitution or the structural limitations of the office of the vice-president.

The simple and accurate answer is: Because the Vice President has NO power to do anything like that. The President is in charge, not the vice-president.

Harris is in the difficult position of wanting to change things, but if she says that she in any way disagrees with the Biden Administration, then she’ll be attacked as ungrateful and a traitor of sorts.

All she can do is to present her plans and let people see what they are and decide on them.

She can present an immigration reform plan, as she has, but the Republicans immediately shout, “Why didn’t you do that already? You had four years.” Of course, that ignores the fact that Donald Trump scuttled immigration reform, by persuading Republicans in the House and Senate to kill the reform plan so that Trump could run on that issue. Trump already had four years and couldn’t get an immigration law passed when he was in charge, but that’s conveniently overlooked.

Blaming Harris for problems in the Biden administration is like blaming Mike Pence for Trump’s flaws and failures or pinning on Dick Cheney the blame for the sub-prime mortgage financial crisis that occurred in the second Bush administration.

Not that the far right has much acquaintance with either logic or facts.