Commentary on “the cruel kids table”

It took a while to figure out what I’d talk about when I returned here because I knew so much would have gone down since the holiday season and post-inauguration—both in my personal life and on a macro level. We’re ten days into the second Trump administration, and of course, there’s plenty to talk about. But one thing in particular caught my attention this week—a continuation of thoughts I’ve been having since the post-election season.

One of those thoughts has been about me feeling like I’ve been living in a bubble. And in this bubble, I’m surrounded by like-minded people who, while we may not wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, or even eat the same foods, generally share the same values. But when the election results came out, I couldn’t help but think, there has to be something I’m missing. Who are these other people? Who are these younger voters who influenced the outcome of the election? And why the fuck are their values so displaced from mine?

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Well, according to NYMag’s Brock Colyar:

It’s Monday, January 20, the first night of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and just a couple of blocks from the Capitol Building that his now-pardoned MAGA army swarmed four years and 14 days ago, there is, as there has been for the past several nights in restaurants, hotel ballrooms, and lobbying offices, a party for people who have never been happier about the direction in which this country is heading. They are drinking, smoking, flirting, networking—but mostly congratulating one another on their big win.

This scene, as described in the article, opened the door to a world I didn’t know much about. Without it, I don’t think I could stomach being in that space for more than three minutes.

NYMag’s latest issue calls them “the cruel kids’ table,” with a cover showing a group of young, well-dressed conservatives laughing and drinking at a lavish party—MAGA hats, tuxedos, and champagne glasses in full display. It’s a striking visual, perfectly capturing the mix of privilege, irony, and self-satisfaction that defines this new wave of conservatives. And honestly, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to describe them.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux for New York Magazine

In my opinion, the “cruel kids’ table” is full of people who weren’t invited to the “cool kids’ table” growing up, and now they’ve decided to make everyone else’s lives miserable. Instead of letting go of adolescent resentment, this group has held on to it, becoming representatives of some of the darker parts of our society. They’ve grown up to be incels, bigots, and provocateurs, hoping to be accepted through power and chaos. The mentions of feeling like the “underdog” and the constant use of the phrase “we’re so back” make it seem as if something was lost—a sentiment echoing deprivation and desperation for belonging. And let’s be clear: we all desire a sense of belonging, but when it comes at the expense of exclusion and bigotry, it gets ugly.

These young right-wingers wish for a world where they can freely use slurs without reprimand. As the article explains, “a former Bernie supporter... told me the same: he wanted the freedom to say ‘faggot’ and ‘retarded.’” This desire for so-called “freedom of speech” isn’t about liberty—it’s about cruelty. It’s about choosing exclusion over empathy because that’s easier than doing the work to understand people different from you. And while this group may have taken a harsher approach, it is certainly an easier one.

This reminds me of a friendship I had growing up in Raleigh, NC. We both grew up in the suburbs—she was white and what many would call a “tomboy” by the way she dressed. I met her in fifth grade, and we stayed friends all the way through college. She was conservative, like her parents, and we would debate politics through quite a few election cycles. Back then, it was less about being right and more about learning from each other. Honestly, it was just a way to pass time. We both had ambitions of being lawyers one day, so in some ways, it felt like an exercise for the real world we both wanted. I hated her views on economics, and she thought I was too soft on international affairs, but no matter how intense our disputes got, we could still sit down, have a drink (once we got older), and consider each other friends with opposing views.

Unfortunately, she went off the deep end. This happened in 2016 when Trump won his first election, and I’ve since lost contact with her. She, like so many others I’ve mentioned before—something was lost. What was lost was respect. It wasn’t about us disagreeing on tax rates anymore—she had now begun to prioritize her “fiscal conservatism” over the humanity of marginalized people and accepting “alternative facts” that suited a false reality in her mind.

Her ideological shift mirrors a larger trend in our current political ecosystem—a shift from politics rooted in ideas and respect to something toxic and performative. Fast-forward to today, and that same kind of mutual respect that she and I once had for one another doesn’t seem to exist anymore on the grand scheme. We’ve started treating political parties like sports teams instead of ideological institutions.

Politics has become a game—spectacle over substance. Watching former leaders enter the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to the sound of boos felt more like a WWE intro than democracy in action. And the fact that the media framed it that way? Further proof that sensationalism has taken over. I think we’ve forgotten that we don’t actually have to like politicians. They don’t represent our identities—they represent our votes. And you don’t need to have a beer with your elected representative in order to vote for them—you need politicians who can drive results, and sometimes those people aren’t the ones you want to hang out with.

Media pundits like Andrew Schulz and Charlamagne further push this idea that political leanings are tied to identity by saying things like Democratic men are shorter than 5’7”. Or that viral video featuring Officer Tatum, where he claims liberal men have lower testosterone levels and aren’t “real men.” As if masculinity and testosterone levels are legitimate indicators of someone’s worth or political ideology. This kind of rhetoric isn’t just shallow—it’s counterproductive and, to be quite frank, it’s lame. It weaponizes outdated, fragile ideas of masculinity to insult and delegitimize opponents, turning political discourse into middle school banter.

We should be debating solutions to climate change, wealth inequality, and infrastructure development. Instead, we’ve platformed a bunch of losers whose only goal is to sow division, mope, and whine about their personal grievances with the world—and we call them influencers.

This so-called "Golden Age" of American politics—the MAGA dream of a past where exclusion was the norm—is just a façade for anti-intellectualism. Instead of solving real-world problems, we’re obsessing over testosterone levels, stream counts, and crowd sizes—meaningless metrics that prop up fragile egos.

I think about that friendship in Raleigh sometimes—not because I miss it, but because it’s a reminder of what we lose when we stop respecting each other’s humanity. Without respect, there’s no foundation for real debate or progress. And when politics becomes a contest of insults instead of ideas, no one actually wins—except the ones profiting off our division.

Here’s the thing: politics should be about ideas. It should be about who has the better approach, the better solution—not who can yell the loudest or go viral. But somehow, we’ve reduced it to these petty, pointless measurements. And if we don’t change course soon, we’ll be too busy debating testosterone levels to actually solve the problems that matter.

These people don’t seem to understand that just because you won doesn’t make you right.