Young men turned to Trump, I turned to Marx to understand why.
Why did all these young men cast a vote for a nearly 80-year old out of shape retired golfer who was given everything he wanted by his father? A spoiled rich guy from Queens. A card-carrying member of America’s elite. A man totally out of touch with problems and issues most Americans face every day?
I listened and read endless opinions on the reasons Trump was able to gather in this disaffected crowd. Let’s call them Rogan voters since podcaster Joe Rogan seems to be the epicenter of discontent.
Cluelessness and confusion sent waves of static across national airwaves and social media bubbles became pincushions. The left began to eat themselves and the right pumped themselves into puff balls of overfed ego.
But there’s nothing to celebrate.
Defined by economic instability, social fragmentation, and an overwhelming sense of disconnection, today’s youth are facing a profound crisis of alienation—one that limits not just their opportunities but their very sense of self.
Marx wrote, “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range.”
For American youth, the paradox sucks: despite living in the wealthiest nations in history, they often feel impoverished in terms of meaning, belonging, and future prospects. The commodification of everything—from education to relationships—leaves little room for connection or expression.
This generation experiences alienation everywhere they turn. Trump is another broken-promise hawking his drugs on a street corner. Work and purpose is a cubicle in the mouth of a hungry AI robot.
Labor not only produces commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity. Marx
The modern education system is a cruel tease, structured to churn out “job-ready” graduates, into a jobless world that treats young people as little more than silicon data points. Many work gig jobs or get degrees in fields they don’t care about, with no clear path to meaningful work.
The result? A growing sense of detachment from their own efforts and aspirations.
The object that labor produces, its product, stands opposed to it as something alien. Marx
For young people, the “product” may not even be tangible. They see their time, energy, and creativity poured into systems—academic or professional—that seem to reward conformity over individuality. The fruits of their labor often feel distant, inaccessible, or meaningless.
Smothered in a bone rattling alienation from community and humanity Marx described how estranged labor “tears from people their species-life… transforming their advantage over animals into a disadvantage.
Digital technology, while offering unprecedented connectivity, has amplified feelings of isolation. Social media reduces every relationships to transactions, while the decline of physical community spaces leaves many young people feeling unmoored and alone. This depression is deeper and more permanent than before. Punk rage is not going to dump these blues. There’s no exit anymore.
Alienation from the future breaks every dream.
The most devastating form of alienation is a growing disconnection from the idea of a hopeful future. Climate change, economic inequality, and political dysfunction paint a bleak picture of what lies ahead.
Marx warned of “an inorganic body, nature, [being] taken from people.” For young Americans, the erasure of a stable planet and a livable future embodies this loss on a global scale. No generation has ever faced what this generation faces.
To this generation alienation is not just an abstract concept—it’s a lived reality with real consequences. Rising rates of anxiety, depression, and substance use among young people are symptomatic of this deep estrangement. They are smoking through the haze of a world that offers them little clarity, little hope, and limited horizons. Vape anger. Rave pump. Pill joy. Empty dawn.
Yet, even within this crisis, there lies potential for change. Marx believed that recognizing alienation was the first step toward overcoming it. If young people can come together to demand systems that value humanity over profit—whether through labor rights, environmental justice, or mental health advocacy—they can begin to rebuild a sense of connection, purpose, and possibility.
This is trouble for Trump. He has no intention of delivering anything. His focus is on the elite.
In Marx’s words, “The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object…but that it becomes a power on its own confronting him.” The same is true for our systems of alienation. They are powerful, but they are not immutable.
By understanding the roots of their disconnection, young people can find the tools to reclaim their lives—and perhaps their futures. Even the possibility of a future. If they’re not consumed in a Trump inspired rage of violence.
I think it was Heather Cox Richardson who pointed out Karl Marx coined the concept of alienation, so I tracked it down. His Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts written in 1844 dug deep on what he saw would be the result of workers chained to factories to produce for the elites with no ownership in the product. What would Marx make of the Muskification of the world, where workers are reduced to data? Their output serves no other purpose than to increase wealth for 16 white men in bunkers.
Line a good American boy I accepted Marx was a bogeyman. I should have known.
We are led to believe we are special, that on some level we are supposed to be the elite. One of the strange aspects of Americans is that this assumption of privilege is an impediment to changing our leadership. Americans blame ourselves for not living up to that potential. It stifles protest. And because the education is so poor, we don't understand history. We keep pronouncing our privilege even in our decline. Thinking of "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind" by Carl Sandburg now.