THE DEMOCRATS’ GENDER GAP: “The signs of possible Trump strength among young men are obvious online.”
Related: On the Campaign Trail With Elon Musk: Offering Young Men an American Dream.
Using the sort of rhetoric that he has criticized Democrats for, Musk framed the stakes of November’s election as nothing short of “the fate of Western civilization” and painted a Harris win in apocalyptic terms, predicting runaway crime and illegal immigration.
“It’s nice to watch the ‘Mad Max’ movie,” Musk told the crowd Thursday. “But we don’t want to be in the ‘Mad Max’ movie.”
They cheered.
There he was joking around. But more than that there Musk was carefully explaining himself and his dreams. He talked about a city on Mars and space travel, or, as he said, making “Star Trek” real and building “Star Wars”-like robots.
“Life can’t just be about solving one problem after another, there have to be things that inspire you and that move your heart,” Musk said.
“Build the Warp Drive!” somebody yelled. . . .
The image of the two together worried Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who is sounding the alarm that Musk’s willingness to campaign for Trump is a real threat to Democrats in the state.
“A lot of surrogates really doesn’t count for much, but Musk, it’s undeniable that he’s successful. He’s the world’s richest man…and he has—he has a brand, and that’s attractive to a demographic that we need to have, to win in Pennsylvania,” he told CNN this week.
Before the show began Thursday, I ran into 19-year-old Owen Young and his 18-year-old brother, Eric. Both live near Ridley High School where Musk held court Thursday. Both work at a hoagie shop, and both dream of bigger things down the road.
“I’ve been following Starship and SpaceX for a long time, since I was in middle school,” said Owen, who wore a SpaceX sweatshirt. “I am very inspired by what he has done so far.”
Eric summoned up his excitement in simpler terms: “It’s Elon frickin’ Musk.”
“He’s gonna be the single biggest pioneer in getting us, you know, to Mars,” Eric added. “He’s gonna get us off world.”
They weren’t the lone fanboys eager for the chance to see Musk in person. Several guys told me that they didn’t consider themselves politically active but jumped at the chance to come to a Musk rally. . . . Yes, Musk has unfathomable wealth. More than that, though, to them, Musk has something more precious: purpose.
For certain young men in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, who feel left behind, that’s the new American dream. Purpose. And Musk is showing them that.
Offer young men the prospect of big achievements and they respond. That’s why the people running our society have been careful not to do that.