The seed behind Gen Z’s far-right push was planted more than a decade ago – and now its a full-blown tree

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” The 1697 quote from English playwright William Congreve has long outlived its author’s fame for its relatability through the years, but the ages-old phrase might need a 2024 update.

The election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris resulted in a landslide victory for the soon-to-be 47th president, and the win has startled nearly half of the population. As liberals wonder where things went wrong, social media users are tearing each other apart – and a lot of the rage is directed at Gen Z. Zoomers were hailed as heroes before the polls opened, but now that they are closed, the latest generation of voters has surprised everyone watching by swinging wildly to the right – making it one of the first generations to be more conservative than its predecessors.

Though most of the election, liberals banked on Generation Z’s participation. They prayed that the up-and-comers would “fight the good fight” and back progressive values, but statistics show, that wasn’t the case. Gen Z – especially young men – swung right, casting their votes for Trump and leaning hard on the idea of a better economy.

As “digital natives,” they’ve grown up with technology at their fingertips. But despite their lengthy tenure with the internet and all things tech, they aren’t exactly digitally literate. Likewise, educators have warned that the group has shorter attention spans and spends more time on electronic devices than they do with conventional reading.

And while this is something scientists have been studying, the implications for the shift in literacy and learning are still far from understandable, but it makes for a dangerous combination – especially with the stark rise of Alt-right propaganda on the web.

TurningPoint USA and PragerU have been preaching traditional conservative values through social media, YouTube, and TikTok since 2009. Many young boys, now men, have consumed a raw diet of Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk, and the Nelk boys, toxic masculine voices who care little for science and even less about equality. TurningPoint is active in college-level student government, and has made consistent efforts to reach a group that Dems have forgotten for years.

Nick Fuentes, one of Turning Point’s contributors, took to social media hours after Trump’s win to taunt women saying, “your body, our choice.” The rallying call quickly took off on social media.

PragerU, a billionaire-funded organization that isn’t associated with any academic group, creates colorful “historical” cartoons that actively promote slavery, clearly aimed at a demographic younger than 10. It denies climate change, and campaigns against gender-affirming care while releasing content for secondary schools. Its “educational material” has even been adopted in some Florida schools.

Young men and boys are targeted by these radical podcasters and grifters on every corner of social media – even video game streams on Twitch aren’t exempt. The content feeds into the “war on men” ideology that, starting in the 1970s, boiled men’s problems down to feminism. These ideas have gained traction through the “manosphere,” a collection of websites and blogs that promote misogyny and opposition to feminism. But they seem to be the only group actively speaking to young men.

These areas, and even left-leaning websites like Reddit, paint a very clear picture of why these youths are so willing to throw their female counterparts to the wolves. They exist in an online echo chamber that affirms the feeling that they are being attacked all the time. In the fight for equality, they feel their rights are eroding. They are bashed online for being incels, degraded in the face of the “male loneliness epidemic,” and white men frequently feel demonized– and their fury cast Harris’ campaign into the dust.

Kamala Harris was, in her own way, just as divisive as Donald Trump. It’s a gut-wrenching thing to compare her to that troglodyte, but clearly, she missed more than ½ the country with her rhetoric – and somehow couldn’t pull 20 million in for the vote. Just look to the above ad, which was directed at men but missed by miles with its condescending tone.

Those young men are frustrated and afraid of their future in an uncertain economy. They feel ignored and underappreciated, and the connectivity of social media has just made it harder for them to connect. It’s trapped them in a cycle of loneliness spurred on by “alpha/sigma male” and Red Pill ideologies. They repulse women but want women, and their repugnant ideology will keep them single forever unless women meet them in their delusional 1950s paradise – but women never will.

And as men sink deeper into the rabbit hole, women will continue to lambast them for their failures. The male loneliness epidemic is entirely self-made, and when the bill finally comes to the table, all those furious incels should be the only ones to pay. But the real truth is that women are being forced as the price for that disenfranchisement, now that the tab has come due.