Taylor's Takes: Tough times have created weak men

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

Post-midterm election, we find ourselves in the latter part of the third sentence of that quote from author G. Michael Hopf.

Trump’s second term has been bumpy, to be sure. From the “release” of the Epstein files and ICE-involved shootings to the war with Iran, Democrats haven’t let a single opportunity to bash Trump pass them by.

That has always been the case. But what changed with the midterm election?

I’m not here to perform an autopsy on what led to Tuesday’s devastating outcome for GOP candidates nationwide. That’s for smarter people than myself.

"I’m not here to perform an autopsy on what led to Tuesday’s devastating outcome for GOP candidates nationwide."

One statistic, though, that keeps being pointed out is the number of young men who voted for Trump in 2024 but opted to vote blue in 2026.

In 2024, 59% of white men aged 18-29 voted for Donald Trump for President. If you remember, Trump ran a campaign with wide appeal. It was very energetic, filled with hope, and he crossed the generational gaps by making appearances on popular longform podcasts.

In 2026, however, only 56% of that same demographic voted in line with the Democrat Party this week.

Granted, it’s not the biggest swing in political history, but in this day and age of razor-thin margins of victory, a three-percent shift in any demographic can be the difference between a win or loss at the polls.

So what happened? Why did these young white men feel discouraged enough to break party lines and vote for the party that seems hell-bent on establishing socialism in American government?

Trump’s “good times” era in his second term was fleeting. The border was sealed up quickly. Deportations, though at a slow pace, were underway. Investment in U.S. manufacturing was way up. Gas prices were coming down. 401ks were going up.

But then came the strikes against Iran by the U.S.

The reasoning for the war with Iran was quite clear: they were on the verge of arming long-range missiles with nuclear warheads.

Whether or not this was true at the time is beyond my paygrade. But I’m inclined to believe President Trump’s motive for calling for the strikes and instigating this conflict was spurned by good intelligence.

Regardless of the reasoning, the price of everything has skyrocketed. And we all feel the pain. There’s no relief to be found, especially in blue states that are already expensive to live in to begin with.

The war, though less than a year old, does bare the hallmarks of an endless war. Iran is not capitulating and negotiations have not been fruitful. A clear, clean end is nowhere in sight.

Trump promised no new wars. In fact, he ran his campaign on ending forever wars around the world, and delivered in the first few months of his second term. But the war with Iran, whether his hand was forced or not, broke that promise in the eyes of the electorate.

I didn’t vote for new wars and neither did you.

But that doesn’t mean I vote Democrat because something bad happened.

That’s Hopf’s weak man.

It seems the quote at the beginning of this column is being subverted by the current timeline. As with most everything else, Trump is putting his own personal stamp on the quotation.

“Tough men create tough times.”

And now those tough times, temporary as they may be, are creating weak men.

I don’t know what solace that 3% of those young white men are expecting to find amongst the Democrats. The party is openly hateful toward men, especially young white ones. More points are taken off if those young white men are also cisgender.

But the promises of free healthcare for all, taxing the hell out of the rich, and basic universal income can be alluring to foolish young white men who have become disillusioned with the Republican party.

It’s too bad, because all of those initiatives are rose-covered thorns. They look very appealing, but they will end up hurting.

I remember before the 2024 election, I asked a friend of mine about the upcoming election. I had already grown somewhat weary of Trump’s jabs on Truth Social that lacked good judgement. That friend acknowledged those posts but reminded me, “That’s Trump.” I asked him if he was still planning on voting for him again. His reply was, “He brought me to the dance.”

That stuck with me. It reminded me that I’m not going to be 100% happy with 100% of the things he does. But he has delivered for the American people before and can continue to deliver, if given the opportunity.

And his second term has been an even tougher hill to climb after Joe Biden’s open-border policy and DEI nonsense.

For anyone to abandon Trump for an ill-timed or ill-advised campaign against the number one state sponsor of terrorism is short-sighted.

We owe it to the man to see this through, to find the conclusion that we’ve all been longing to see. And we owe it to him to make the path to that goal as primrose as possible.

Trump didn’t fail the American people. It may have temporarily felt like it. But the American people have failed Trump.

And now he doesn’t have to just negotiate with Iranians, but also the Democrats in Congress. And I’m not sure who is a more formidable foe.