“Big red shock”… “Surprised many”…”Trump stuns world” are all headlines describing Trump’s win in the 2024 election. Nate Silver, a renowned statician, ran more than 80,000 polls showing Kamala Harris ahead the night before election day. The Des Moines Register Poll predicted Harris to win in Iowa, a typically red state. Even historian Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted all but three elections within the last forty years, foresaw a Harris win. In the end, every single one of these markers was incorrect.
Americans must turn their heads to another crystal ball, one which predicted a Trump win far before Election Eve.
Old money aesthetic, ballerina farmer, sprinkle sprinkle, Sophia Richie, Zach Bryan’s concert breaking attendance records. On their own, each one of these is seemingly harmless. But they each display a specific mindset within American voters. Take Nara Smith—a model turned social media personality who grasped the attention of Tiktok audiences due to her from-scratch recipes, from Cheez-its to sunscreen. She is also a Morman convert and 23 year old mother of four. Her soft ASMR voice—which is virtually the same as the delicate voice that Morman women often use—and her increasingly glamorous dresses have garnered some controversy. Mostly, however, they have gained praise. The more and more famous she has become, the more and more viewers begin to idolize her life—a life of cooking, wearing maxi dresses, and tending to her husband and children. Sound familiar?
It would be easy to pass off Nara Smith’s popularity as a fluke or anomaly; instead, it is just one example in a long list of trad-wife influencers. Not only do these content creators promote traditional values on viewers, but they also glamorize them. A large family, to conservatives, means family values. A maxi dress means modesty. Despite the complexities and difficulties of actually raising a family, creators like Smith simplify it to a sixty second video.
To a degree, an abundance of other trends display the same values. A key illustration: A Tiktok movement formed from the book Sprinkle Sprinkle: How To Date a Provider and Avoid a Musty. While it is no problem to want financial stability, the idea in this situation is that the man is meant to provide—an idea that has festered into every corner of every country for centuries, restricting opportunities and rights of women. In its extreme, the normalization of such trends also normalizes an increasingly patriarchal system.
Music can be a similar indicator; while the summer of 2023 was known as the “summer of girlhood,” 2024 was the summer of “the straight white bro,” as Vox calls it. Country music has taken the spotlight, with primary producers being straight white men. ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozy has held Number One for 18 weeks; Post Malone made a switch from rap to country in his latest album; Zach Bryan held more than 60,000 attendees right in Philadelphia. Since the genre is closely aligned with rural, southern communities, it is not surprising that country music is a staple for the Republican party. Therefore, the popularity of country music is an indication of a conservative culture shift among current day America.
But this isn’t a rare occurrence. Each and every election cycle can demonstrate where the overarching perspective of the country lies. The backlash of a Donald Trump presidency displayed a left-leaning America, with #MeToo upsurge (and subsequent films and TV such as Promising Young Woman or The Morning Show), Black Lives Matters movement, and rise in queer media and LGBTQ+ representation, all of which built up into the election of President Biden. It makes sense that the current result is a backlash from men towards masculinity, which is why country music takes a rise and why the majority of young men—who voted blue four years ago—are now generally voting red.
The second significant detail is the working class. While Jon Stewart cited Democrats as leaving them behind, conservative-leaning media did the opposite. The glamorization of traditional roles and the focus on white, male leads in music and movement instead elevated the sub-group, allowing them to feel seen and heard, rather than unrepresented and forgotten.
So, popular culture marked it again. Before any ballots were counted or electoral votes were in or any county was shaded red, the movement towards conservative values predicted a Trump win. But just as ‘mommy-vloggers’ and Morgan Wallen showed the future, the backlash to the backlash has just begun.
