News alert: Washington Post journalists are panicked that some DOGE employees previously worked at Elon Musk’s private-sector companies and “are in their early 20s.”
The horror.
Outrage over Musk’s whiz kids reveals another progressive double standard: Young activists are praised when they are on the Left and denounced when they join the Right.
The Post, moreover, is blind to the real story. Trump may be the oldest man elected president, but he leads a youth movement that will shape politics for decades to come.
Trump shattered the cliché that Republicans are the party of seniors and Democrats the party of young people. And he’s staffing his administration with men and women who will form the next GOP governing class.
The Beltway is only beginning to grasp the implications. Young people not only define the cultural landscape. They carry the political categories they learn in their 20s for the rest of their lives.
Such is the power of youth that even losing candidates who win over young people have lasting influence. The young people who worked on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, were the liberal future.
Ron Paul’s collegiate supporters in 2008 and 2012 previewed the anti-Establishment, anti-war GOP. And Bernie Sanders’s bros and girls in 2016 and 2020 pointed toward the Democrats’ coming lurch to the Left.
When a youth-driven campaign wins power, the consequences are profound. Think JFK accepting the torch passed to a new generation of Americans. Or Reaganauts forging the doctrines that guided the GOP for 40 years.
It turned out that 78-year-old Donald Trump would preside over the demographic transition that Barack Obama fans once dreamt of. Trump did more than turn the Republican Party into a multiracial working-class coalition. His time in the political wilderness gave the GOP a cutting edge.
In 2020, for example, Trump lost 18- to 29-year-olds to Joe Biden by 24 points. Four years later, he cut Kamala Harris’s lead to 11 points.
How did this happen? Trump capitalized on young people’s frustrations with inflation and interest rates by recalling his presidential record and opposing the woke agenda of anti-American cultural transformation. His particular focus: lower-propensity young male voters.
Over the past decade, young men have had trouble finding their place in the economy, culture, and society. Politics offered disappointment. George W. Bush’s conservatism receded before they came of age. Many young people have found purpose and meaning in a return to traditional religion and male pursuits. They looked beyond Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s liberalism and found Donald Trump.
That was why Trump took in so many UFC matches, visited college football games and NASCAR races, and made Joe Rogan’s endorsement a priority. He wanted to demonstrate solidarity with the rising generation.
Social media propelled both Trump candidacies. In 2024, Trump added TikTok and long-form podcasts to his political arsenal. These platforms showcased Trump’s authenticity and communications skills. They provided Trump direct access to his growing audience. Among the architects of this winning strategy: Barron Trump, age 18, and adviser Alex Bruesewitz, 27.
In staffing this administration, Trump skipped over the Reagan-Bush governing class to create a new echelon of GOP leaders. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is 27 years old. Vice President J.D. Vance is 40 years old. U.N. ambassador-designate Elise Stefanik is the same age.
Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard is 43. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is 44. OMB chief-designate Russell Vought is 48. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy are both 53. Attorney General Pam Bondi is 59 but looks 30 years younger.
The oldest Trump cabinet pick is Linda McMahon, born in 1948. Her mission? Put herself out of a job by closing the Department of Education. There’s no better mission for the former CEO of WWE than a bureaucratic smackdown.
GOP congressional leadership has changed too. Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) is 53 years old and arrived in Washington, D.C., along with Trump in 2017. Senate majority leader John Thune (S.D.), 64, is decades younger than his predecessor. And Tom Cotton (Ark.), who chairs the Senate Republican Conference as well as the Intelligence Committee, is 47. That’s a toddler in Senate years.
“Most of them aren’t old enough to rent a car,” 77-year-old Hillary Clinton says of DOGE. This the same woman whose 1969 Wellesley commencement address was a paean to youthful dissent, searching, and renewal. Now she’s checking IDs.
The Democrats lecture and scold. Trump offers opportunity through disruption. The GOP’s baby-faced bulldozers are just getting started, and they won’t be denied.
