Attendees participate in Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee
Voters from many different walks of life took a chance on President Donald Trump in 2024, and according to a new piece from MS NOW, his second presidency has badly failed one key group that put "the greatest hope" for their future in him.
Writing for the network on Monday morning, author and reporter Paul Waldman exposed "the unmanly truth" about the Trump administration, citing the most recent federal jobs report as proof that "Americans continue to fall behind on affording the necessities of life." He further suggested that the almost apocalyptically bad poll numbers for Trump and the GOP might be explained by the acute disappointment of one particular group that broke for him in a big way in 2024.
"To look at President Donald Trump’s poll ratings, one would think we’re in the middle of an outright depression, not just a mediocre economy that isn’t providing the kind of security and opportunity people want," Waldman wrote. "That may be explained by a yawning gap between what Trump promised and what he has delivered — especially for those people, including young men, who put the greatest hope in him to improve their lives"
He added later: "It was clearly a mistake for Trump to say on the campaign trail in 2024, 'When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.' But that’s not all he hasn’t been able to deliver. Ever since he ran in 2016, he has offered a vision of a return to an America of the past, one in which manufacturing was the driver of the economy and the people who today feel they have been left behind — especially men, and especially men in rural areas — could rely on well-paid, secure jobs that offered not just a good living but also a sense of accomplishment and status."
Waldman noted that it was almost certainly impossible for Trump to bring down prices as swiftly and dramatically as he promised, as it would be for any president. However, the major sting voters are feeling now is because of the actions he took that directly made things worse "for the people who counted on him the most," including his war with Iran, which has inflated gas prices, hitting harder in rural Trump-supporting areas where "residents have to travel longer distances and many of them drive pickups."
"If you were driving to one of the great manufacturing jobs that Trump claims he has created, you might be willing to absorb that cost. But there has been no factory boom," Waldman argued. "In fact, there are fewer manufacturing jobs now than there were when Trump took office."
Among the few sectors seeing job growth under Trump have been home healthcare and social services, professions that don't "involve manly men pounding raw materials into finished products," and are therefore not the sort of jobs that "Trump will encourage men to go into."
"If Trump had chosen to, he could have used his influence with young men to convince them that the economy of tomorrow isn’t going to be about upper-body strength," Waldman continued. "Instead, he told them that the past could be recaptured. With the help of a thousand right-wing podcasters and social media influencers, his administration has worked to promote a vision of manhood based on bullying, violence and anxiety. Just look at the comically insecure secretary of defense, who throws insults at every vulnerable group and is obsessed with testosterone levels."
He concluded: "Even so, when you ask young men what’s necessary to be a man, the top answer will usually be providing for their families. They don’t want to be isolated and atomized, desperately injecting themselves with supplements but unable to find a good job. With the election just a month away, they know Trump hasn’t delivered what he promised — and like other voters, they may have run out of patience"
