00:59:50 · Scott Galloway
[00:59:50] S0: That was another very exciting thing here. Bill Al Sayed, 42, beat Mike Rogers at 63, James Talarico, 37, beat Kim Jackson, 63, Chris Pappas, forty six six, first openly gay senator elected, beat John Sununu, 62. It was definitely... I think America has been listening to people saying, okay. At some point, we need an electorate that looks, smells, and feels like America. A lot of doctors, a lot of women, more gay representation. We have never had... In in American history, there's only been three black governors. Now there's five sitting black governors. So the youth vote was incredible here. Hands down, the largest swing. If we go to sort of... I've said that 2024 was about masculinity. Young men did not feel seen, and they felt that politics had become overly feminized. And then Trump came in with World Wrestling Federation, crypto, rockets, and said to young men, I see you. And I think over the last two years, there's been an evolution, a healthy evolution of masculinity, that it's about service, that it's about empathy, that strength is in the agency and service of others, and he has been anything but that. Then you see all these young dreamy people, many of whom have served in the military, many of whom who are doctors, many of whom look like they might actually have kids at home. I think young men aren't as Neanderthal about social issues as people think. The story for young men was economics. The boring shit is what moves the needle. Believe... I mean, this was the perfect storm of bad things for Trump in terms of who is most likely to swing, and the people most likely to swing are young men. And look what look what's happened to young men over the last couple of years. All of the job growth in America has gone to industries that are largely populated by women. Healthcare, education, 80% women, right? Those have been the growth areas in the economy. The areas... And they're not as big a swingers. They're a little bit more resolute in terms of the parties tend to go with. Young men over index on what industries? Manufacturing and transportation. By the way, the two industries that have had... That have observed some of the greatest job losses. Let's talk about men drive, get this, men drive on average 30 more miles than women. So who do skyrocketing gas prices affect most? Men.
01:02:24 · Scott Galloway
So everything everything everything went wrong for this guy. When I say this guy, I mean Trump. Everything went wrong for him. And men just saw... I think they really were revolted by what is a very... I hate to use toxics, but but perverted vision of masculinity that Trump put forward, an abuse of religious values, quoting scripture as you're cutting food stamps to poor people, the role models put forward in this administration. And, also, I just think they said, look. Whatever his economic plan is, I don't buy it because I keep seeing a billboard on every three blocks called gas prices that is telling me it's gonna cost me a $160 to fill up my truck. And he seems... You know, this... Again, the GOP went through a full transition, and you said they're a no man's land right now. There is no GOP. The GOP was kicked out. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who I would like to congratulate for being steadfast, and I hope that they're enjoying this moment. There is no GOP. There's MAGA. And, the primary association that they have lost was the GOP was always seen as pro business. Now these guys are seen as pro billionaire, and billionaires have not acquitted themselves well because it's no longer even the billionaire class. There's an association with tech brothers who have not acquitted them... Selves well, and as John Alsop says, the Epstein class. But young men... The way I would describe it though in the cautionary tale of the Democrats is we're renting them. We don't own them. And unless there is a very strong set of policies that say, we see that for the first time in our nation's history, a 30 year old is not doing as well as a 30 year old was, and then your parents were at 30. We're going to change that. And then the statistic that just blew my mind, since 2022, I'm not talking about thirty years ago, in the last four years, in the last four years, people over the age of 65 have increased their wealth by 62%. People under the age of 25 have seen their wealth decrease by 23%. Democrats need to say, we are going to start reinvesting in the middle class and specifically young people, and we're going to fund it through doing away with the Trump tax credits or tax cuts. We're going to refund the IRS to close the tax gap.
01:04:53 · Scott Galloway, Ed Elson
We're gonna have an alternative minimum tax on people making over a certain amount of money in corporations because they should pay their fair share, and a lot of Republicans agree with that. A lot... You know, the whole... Bernie Sanders doesn't get enough credit. Bernie Sanders basically a decade ago said, and it seemed very populous and left wing at the time, that we have to stop transferring money from the middle class to billionaires. [01:05:22] S3: He was fucking right.
01:05:24 · Scott Galloway
[01:05:24] S0: He just said that over and over that the billionaire class is sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and that message has resonated with, you know, everyone, obviously, from AOC to Joe Rogan. So young men, I think they're a bellwether. They are all of a sudden... You are gonna see a lot more programs focused on young men. We're already seeing it from governors Moore, governors Newsom, because politicians are gonna have to respond and say, alright. We see this group. And while they may still not turn out at the same level as older voters, they're up for grabs. And generally speaking, the big transition or structural shift in this election in terms of the electorate is that more people are up for grabs than ever before, and that is fewer... The the largest political affiliation now is independent. It used to be you just went in behind the curtain and you went all red or all blue. Now more and more people are saying, no. I'm... I might vote for that young pastor named Talarico. Everything... And this is a good thing is up for play. And then you layer on top of that possibly the elimination of the electoral college. And then all of a sudden, people in states that never had power have power, groups that never had power, of a sudden have power. And quite frankly, we stop obsessing over the soccer mom in Wisconsin. Anyways, I... This is a huge moment for young people in terms of who was elected, in terms of the power. The swing amongst young people was dramatic. Oh my gosh. That was... I mean, arguably, you could say that's the story of this election, but it's really exciting. The electorate is starting to look more like America. It's coming down. And what would be the the best theme, I think, I think the two themes for the Democratic Party if they wanna own versus just rent this group is to say, we are going to do what America has been best at, and that is offer you more opportunity than was offered your parents, even more than previous generations. And America's gonna do whatever it takes, whatever it costs. We are a $30,000,000,000,000 economy. We are going to ensure that we are going to continue to support Ukraine or restart our support of Ukraine until he leaves Ukraine.
01:07:44 · Scott Galloway
If I had to focus on two messages that send the right signal, it would be restoring opportunity and prosperity for America's youth and committing to defending Europe against a murderous autocrat. You can only pick... There's so many messages you could go with. The close third might be making health care more affordable. But the Democrats... Again, we were talking about this last week. Great CEOs. It's not about what they do. It's about what they don't do, and we keep talking about Apple. Look what Apple decided not to do, not to get into the AI race. Their stock is up more than any any of the Mag seven this year. The Democrats are gonna have to show real messaging discipline. There's a lot of things they could go for. They're gonna have to put two, maybe three things to focus on to ensure, to to convert this girlfriend into, you know, a marriage, if you will.
01:08:39 · Ed Elson
[01:08:39] S3: Yeah. I mean, I think what I'm gonna wanna see from the Democrats is a focus on the wealth transfer from young people to old people. And one, I wanna hear them take it seriously. I want them to acknowledge what's happened. I want them to be vocal about that and show us that they understand what the problem is. But then I wanna see a solution. Like, I wanna see actual tax reform here. And I think there are a lot of different ways that you could go with it, but I want them to be thoughtful and surgical about how we fix it. Maybe it means looking at income tax versus capital gains tax, maybe trying to equalize them, but at the same time, maybe that's not surgical enough because you're not identifying the specific problem, which is that the boomers have accumulated vast amounts of wealth at the behest of young people. Maybe it's looking at social security, having tough conversations about that. Maybe it means means... Means testing Social Security. I mean, a lot of different avenues you can go down, but I do wanna see the Democrats come up with a plan that actually addresses it. Because one thing I could see them doing is saying, we we care about young people, and then they don't do anything about it. They basically just make it a talking point. At which point, young people certainly will turn on them. But, yes, this election was certainly a vote of no confidence among young people. Young men specifically, I mean, I felt this back in '24, which is that I think that young men, what they liked about Trump was that he was kind of a bro, and that was basically it. He went on the podcast. He talked about women. He kind of had this bro attitude that young people were like, oh, that's kind of funny. Maybe I like that. And I said this from the beginning. Yes. It's powerful, but for a very short amount of time. I mean, the half life on liking him for that reason was a a couple of months long, And that's what we saw. And then suddenly it ran out, and they were like, oh, this was a this was a joke. We were completely lied to. What were we doing? And then they came to their senses, which is incredibly heartening to see. But we are gonna need some... To see some real action from the Democrats to address this inequality problem, specifically between the young and the old. And it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.