Disconnected Dylan
 | |
| Era | The Modern Era |
|---|---|
| Age | 20-28 |
| Home | Columbus, OH |
| Demographic | young, white, disaffected |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | Drywall Josh |
Dylan is a warehouse worker in his mid-twenties in Columbus, Ohio, who does not follow politics, rarely votes, and sees little difference between the two parties. He represents the largest single group in the American electorate, the people who never vote at all.
Who they stand for
Dylan represents young men without a college degree who do not vote, the largest such group in the American electorate. Voter turnout among people under 30 stays below half in presidential election years and is much lower in midterms, and it is lowest of all among young men without a college education. During the 2010s his generation found work in logistics, in the distribution warehouses around Columbus, rather than in the construction industry that had employed a persona like Drywall Josh until the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike Tempe Kurt, who took out a mortgage in the 1990s, Dylan has no similar path towards home ownership. His two main pleasures both became legal in Ohio in 2023. Sports-betting apps went live in January, and voters approved recreational cannabis in November. He did not vote in that election, so the cannabis measure passed without his participation.
In 2024 the young men who did vote moved towards Trump, drawn in by podcasts and betting-app culture. Dylan stayed home instead. He and Podcast Pete come from the same background of men who feel shut out of politics, but Pete became radicalised by it while Dylan simply switched off.
Playing to them
Dylan responds to almost no political message. A president who wants his vote must first get his attention, and the only subjects that have done that are cannabis, sports betting, and the cost of living. A federal policy change on marijuana is the one policy that reaches him directly. That same policy loses the support of Iowa Martha and Gospel Gloria, who both treat drug use as a moral issue. He does not forgive being told that he ought to care about politics, so a president who lectures young people about their apathy only deepens his contempt for it. Loud culture-war rhetoric from either side confirms his belief that politics is mostly theatre.
A president who wins the support of Plain Jane and Vegas Danny by lowering rent and calming the national mood is doing one of the few things that can also get Dylan's attention. Podcast Pete, from a similar background but politically engaged, is won over by the opposite approach, a president who picks fights. Winning Dylan's support is one of the rarest results in the game, and a president who manages it has usually lowered political tension for everyone else too.
Where they live
The five states where Disconnected Dylan makes up the largest share of the electorate in the modern era:
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Wyoming
- Montana
- Nebraska
Lineage
Tempe Kurt → Drywall Josh → Disconnected Dylan
Young white men without a plan, and what differs is whether a man like that can still build a life in that decade's economy. In the nineties he can: Kurt drifts through his twenties and still ends up with a job, a mortgage and a family, and he is probably Dylan's father. In the 2000s the housing boom pays Josh well for unskilled work until 2008. In the 2010s Dylan gets nothing: no route into university, and the jobs that once paid a man of average ability are gone, so he works in a warehouse and ignores politics. He and Pete are both shut out. Pete becomes more political because of it and Dylan becomes less.