For These 20-Somethings, Trump ‘Is Making It Sexy' to Be Republican

New York Times

13-02-2025

Amid a surge of youthful Republicanism in New York and nationwide, there has been an element of social cachet that has often proved elusive: In blunt terms, the word is 'cool.'
Indeed, hamstrung by political beliefs that are often in opposition to those of major cultural figures, conservatives have frequently groused about the depiction of them as squares, including President Trump, whose hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center this week was seemingly led by a desire to make the venerable institution 'hot.'
'We made the presidency hot,' Mr. Trump said, speaking to the newly formed board, according to an audio recording obtained by Jake Tapper of CNN. 'So this should be easy.'
It was in that spirit that a clutch of Mr. Trump's younger supporters assembled on Wednesday night at Centurion New York, a members-only club on the 55th floor of a building in Midtown Manhattan, to celebrate the nascent Republican administration, and assert their fashionableness — and their fealty to the new president.
'POTUS is making it sexy to be Republican again,' said Max Castroparedes, 27, a self-described 'international, globe-trotting consultant,' who was using the acronym for 'president of the United States.' 'He's making it glamorous to be a Republican again. He's making it great to be Republican again.'
Mr. Castroparedes, a former special assistant at the Department of Homeland Security during Mr. Trump's first term, now works for Montfort, a company based in Palm Beach, Fla., that calls itself 'a specialized strategic advisory firm.' He had invited a dozen or so friends to assemble in a glass-walled room of Centurion, framed by sweeping views of the skyline, a soaring wall of wines and an imposing black chandelier.
Men wore ties, women toted vintage Dior purses, and the playlist — said to be imported from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump's estate in Palm Beach — ran from classic rock ('Don't Stop Believin'') to classic Broadway ('Do You Hear the People Sing?' from 'Les Miserables') to something called 'The Trump Song,' a salsa-style number with a chorus of 'Oh my God, I will vote/I will vote, for Donald Trump.' (Mr. Castroparedes often asked the wait staff to turn the music up.)
Exclusively under the age of 30 the group also, of course, came to drink and meet people, including one attendee who quietly admitted to being a Kamala Harris voter.
That guest, a young gay man in his 20s, said he had noticed a rightward political drift in his social circle, but believed it was 'about proximity to power versus ideological conviction.' Of perhaps 100 friends, he said he would describe 'maybe a dozen as Trumpy.'
The group is not alone in trying to make it cool to be a youthful G.O.P. fan: The New York Young Republican Club has been an increasingly visible presence on the cocktail circuit, complete with famous — and occasionally formerly incarcerated — guests like Stephen K. Bannon, the podcasting firebrand who was a headliner at a December gala for the group just weeks after being released from federal prison. The group also has less pricey celebrations, like a 'champagne, caviar and cocktails' event planned for later this month at a Prohibition-age speakeasy on the Lower East Side.
'But don't worry,' that invite read. 'We conservatives have nothing to hide!'
That said, in the case of Mr. Castroparedes's party, which he had described as a gathering of 'MAGA Youth,' some of the guests were shy, asking a reporter and a photographer to avoid identifying them, and demurring when asked why they were there. One who would speak was Jairo Gonzalez Ward, 28, a consultant whose resemblance to the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau might unsettle some in the Trump administration.
But even Mr. Ward, whose company, Allume Consulting, had helped provide the rented aerie at the Centurion, said he was uncertain whether he would identify as a conservative or even as 'entirely political.'
'And I think this would apply to most people in the room,' Mr. Ward said. 'I don't think this room's a monolith. And I don't think the quote-unquote, conservative movement today is a monolith.'
Still, Mr. Ward added, 'from a business perspective, what's happening right now is very interesting.'
'If there is a common denominator of people in the room and a sort of fundamental aspect of the administration, it's that there's a strict aversion to inertia,' he said. 'And that I appreciate.'
Others were less equivocal in their beliefs, including a 29-year-old man, who asked not to be named because of professional concerns but said Mr. Trump was an idol of his.
'I loved him for many, many years,' the young man said, suggesting that he be described as 'an affluent Republican.'
Much has been said of the recent inroads made by Republicans with young men — and 'bros,' that amorphous, often macho cadre populating 'the manoverse' — and the president did far better with young voters in 2024 compared with his loss in 2020. Bearing out that trend, one 23-year-old woman who attended the dinner said she had two friends back home in dependably Democratic California who had voted for Biden in 2020 and then switched to Trump in 2024.
'In 2020, it was considered cool to be a liberal,' she said, mentioning events like the Black Lives Matter protests. 'It was cool to be socially woke. And I feel like now people are so sick of it and they've seen the repercussions and they don't like the policies.'
For his part, Mr. Castroparedes, who mentioned a desire to run for the U.S. Senate in his native Texas someday, said he wanted to replicate his dinners in other locations, as a kind of 'roadshow' of young Republican dining, in hopes of 'making elites comfortable' being openly conservative, which he simultaneously described as 'edgy' and 'the common-sense thing to do.'
'I think having more young people in politics is a good thing,' he said, gesturing at guests around a table and ticking off their credentials — two journalists, a health care expert, the scion of a famous Hollywood producer. 'They don't have to be political hacks like in Washington.'