While the US election result remains the imponderable of the century, there are themes that have become more obvious as the election campaign draws to a close. One of the most striking, while managing to be unexpected and expected — in that it makes sense, once you think about it — is how this election cycle has turned into a referendum on the Sexual Revolution and the subsequent decades of feminism-driven policies, buttressed by cultural manipulations and usurpations.   

That’s why the Democrats and their publicists — also known as most of the mainstream media — having been panicking. This has included a big push to gaslight “young men” about them not wanting to vote for Kamala Harris because they are “sexist” or “misogynistic” (while also implying they are incapable of voting in an intelligent way, one that draws on the long list of reasons why Harris would make a terrible president). 

Barack Obama even waltzed in from stage left. With a real dash of Mephistopheles about him, Obama patronisingly lectured black men — the “brothers” — about their apparent lack of feminist credentials by not doing the “right” thing and voting for Kamala. 

It was a crass move, typical of out-of-touch progressives, though Obama and the rest of the liberal establishment aren’t wrong to be worried about how this particular voter bloc is going to line up on game day. What the polls are showing when it comes to young men reflects all the gender reductionism that the Democrats have engaged in of late, maintaining what the progressive Left have been doing for decades. 

Progressives have spent years demonising male voters and now they’re trying to guilt them into backing the Democratic ticket

Many young men — not to mention those of other ages — will vote for Trump because they have had enough of all the feminising mantra and group-think that the Democrats both push and represent. Progressives have spent years demonising male voters and now they’re trying to guilt them into backing the Democratic ticket. It’s not going to work: there may be some truth to the phrase “young, dumb and full of cum”, but they are not that dumb.  

A vote for Donald Trump is shaping up to be a Brexit-like middle finger to the last two decades of modernist liberal philosophy, with the EU in this case represented by soul-sapping egalitarian diktats and war cries around “toxic masculinity”. 

It’s also a vote for Top Gun and everything that went with that iconic 1986 film: speed, camaraderie, light-heartedness, taking risks, being able to buck the system — a touch of Joie de vivre US-style.

Call it asinine or juvenile to yearn after such things, but guys are guys, and the fact is the mainstream has ignored and belittled such tendencies for a long time — not to mention the male need for such endeavours — so now it’s payback time. 

Social media is exploiting this brilliantly: compilation videos of footage from the 1980s, ranging from bikini-clad babes skipping along the beach to scenes from famous films, cut to great music, interspersed with images of Donald Trump having a gay old time with beauty queens, fast cars, etc. And a lot of people smiling.

It’s not just nostalgia, as the naysayers would no doubt like to suggest. Most young men voting now weren’t alive during the Top Gun era. But they get — and can see in all the footage — that it was great fun. I remember it: it was great fun. And young guys now can compare it with the stern-faced state of society now. 

The phenomenon certainly isn’t limited to the US, affecting most of that Western world that Maverick — and those of us fighting on the ground — were trying to protect. This was illustrated to me in Berlin when I got chatting to two young guys in their early twenties at a table outside a bar. They were both smart and good looking; probably could have made it as US Navy pilots after a haircut. One of them suddenly said: ‘What was it like back then? You know, when people got together without smartphones; when you tried to chat each other up in person?” 

The sense of curiosity was palpable; as was a desire for a world where in a bar you might grab a turned-off microphone and start belting out “You’ve lost that loving feeling” to an unknown female sitting at a bar, who then laughs it off and invites you to take a seat, rather than replying with a lecture on respecting distances, the male gaze, objectification, etc.  

Donald Trump both represents that ribald era and plays to its associated mores brilliantly. Sure, the guy has a mean streak. You only have to watch his speeches at New York’s Al Smith charitable dinner and see him go from making fun, good-natured jokes to harsh personal jibes — be them about Hilary Clinton or Kamala Harris — to realise he has venom. 

But the fact still stands that the guy can tell a good joke; has comic timing and a deft, even self-deprecating touch. This was all displayed when he recently popped into a McDonald’s drive-thru in Pennsylvania to don an apron and serve fries out the window, which he has now followed up by driving a dumpster truck to turn up at a rally wearing a high-vis vest after Joe Biden let slip a gaffe about Trump supporters being “garbage”.  

It’s entertaining, which always has an appeal. Especially when the Democrats, along with most of the media, have so fine-tuned their message to Female Inc., that there is nothing left for young guys to latch on to.

What you may be about to see this election is the metaphorical aircraft control tower — run by the “serious-minded” Democrats — buzzed by a metaphorical F-14 Tomcat flying too fast and too close to the ground manned by The Maverick of US politics. 

Afterward, someone will be left with hot coffee spilt down her/their smart uniform and scowling in the control tower, while the pilot will be left grinning across the breadth of his perma-tan as he flies on toward the White House with the afterburners glowing hot orange.