Young men at Trump's White House UFC event say they're there for the sport, not the president. But they still credit Trump for making UFC mainstream and bringing it to a 'historic place' — even as they express disappointment in his second term.
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At 3:41 · chapter starts 1:49
On the ground at Trump's UFC White House event, Astead Herndon finds a crowd that is more complicated than the image of a MAGA pep rally. Most of the young men he speaks with are frank: they came for the UFC, not for Trump [1] — Astead Herndon "Young men here for UFC, not Trump: Multiple attendees at the UFC White House event said they came primarily for the sport, not for Trump, t…" 03:57 . Several describe themselves as disappointed, pointing to Trump's failure to lower prices and his involvement in what they see as new foreign conflicts after promising the opposite. Gas prices come up again and again — 'I don't even want to fill my gas tank no more' — and the Epstein files are a live grievance, with attendees describing the lack of transparency as a specific betrayal. One attendee says he voted for Kanye West in the last election because both major-party candidates felt 'too extreme.' Another says he's eighteen and doesn't know if he would have voted for Trump if he'd been eligible. The picture that emerges is of young men who are drawn to UFC's cultural energy and credit Trump for legitimizing it, but who feel increasingly let down by the gap between his promises and his performance [2] — Astead Herndon "Top 3 grievances: gas, Iran, Epstein: Young men at the UFC event consistently cited gas prices, the Iran war, and lack of Epstein file tran…" 29:35 .
Multiple attendees at the UFC White House event said they came primarily for the sport, not for Trump, though they appreciated the atmosphere.
Gas prices, the Iran war, and the Epstein files are the three issues young men at the UFC event cite for losing faith in Trump. Together, they form a picture of a president who promised economic relief and anti-war credibility and delivered neither.
Attendees said Trump used to seem cool and relatable but that image has faded in his second term, especially after the Epstein files and the Iran war.
Social media feeds men and women the absolute worst caricatures of each other while stripping away the everyday, imperfect relationships that would calibrate their expectations. Combine that with smaller families and fewer cross-sex friendships, and you get a generation that talks about the opposite sex constantly but almost never to them.
The 'would you rather be alone with a man or a bear' debate went viral not because men are objectively more dangerous than ever, but because an entire fear industrial complex of influencers and safety products had already primed women to feel that way. Once the algorithm identifies you as worried about personal safety, the content and the scrunchie drink-covers never stop.
Women feel less safe not because danger has increased, but because trust in institutions — police, churches, schools — that used to enforce safety norms has collapsed. Young women are far less likely than older women to believe those institutions will handle sexual assault responsibly, leaving them with only individual self-protection as a fallback.
Even self-identified feminist women consistently told Daniel Cox in interviews and surveys that they want men to open doors, pay for dates, and show demonstrable care. The internet noise around 'benevolent sexism' drowns out this widespread, quietly held preference.
In focus groups in Philadelphia and Raleigh, every single hand went up when participants were asked if parents discussed financial stability and education. Zero hands went up for marriage or parenthood. Parents are shaping their children's ambitions with total silence on the experiences that matter most.
American families are smaller than ever, with roughly 1 in 5 children now growing up as only children. Without the daily friction of siblings — shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, resolving disagreements — young people enter adult relationships without the negotiation muscles relationships require.
Online dating optimises for your existing preferences rather than expanding your horizons. People who meet online give bad first dates almost no second chances; people who meet through mutual friends are far more forgiving. The disembodied, checklist-driven nature of apps removes all the social cues that actually reveal character.
A split-sample survey found that men judge male and female cheating identically harshly, and women judge male cheating the same way men do. The outlier: young women are dramatically less likely to call female infidelity morally wrong, suggesting shared-fate thinking and personal experience of being cheated on are reshaping the moral calculus.
The monk mode trend encourages men to withdraw from social life to work on themselves — but this is precisely backwards. The research is clear: close friendships are the single most powerful predictor of whether a man dates, commits, and becomes his best self. Self-improvement without social reintegration is just sophisticated avoidance.
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