🌊 McDonald Trump Takes Aim

Roca community steps up AGAIN.

In another remarkable show of generosity, the Roca community has donated $10k — shoutout to the app users and “We The 66” readers — to rebuild a home in North Carolina that was destroyed by Helene. This morning, we received this message from the family:

Hey Max.

 Wow, you and the community are an absolute blessing. We are incredibly grateful for your generosity and kindness from you and your followers donating to my parents GoFundMe. Your contribution means the world to us during this challenging time.

It’s hard to express how much your compassion has helped ease the burden and lifted our spirits.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Roca News and the amazing community for standing with us. 🙏❤️

With sincere gratitude,

Pablo Alday Jr and Family

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Duke Endorses Stein

Former KKK leader David Duke endorsed Green Party nominee Jill Stein for president

• Duke – the “Grand Wizard” of the Klan from 1974 to 1980 – endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020. This time, though, he said he would vote for Stein, citing her fierce opposition to Israel and the US’ support of its war in Gaza: “She's the only candidate who speaks clearly against the war in the Middle East," he said, adding that he would vote based on what is "good for white people, Europeans, as well as all humanity." Stein rejected the endorsement

• Meanwhile, Duke blasted Donald Trump, accusing him of "full-throated subservience to Israel and to the Jewish lobby in the United States”

Dig Deeper

• In giving his endorsement, Duke alleged that "Jewish supremacy… [is] causing these genocides and these wars and this destruction of our economy, our morals, our society, the very essence of what we call Western civilization"

KEY STORY

McDonald’s Scandal?

In the final weeks of the campaign, Kamala Harris’ alleged tenure at McDonald’s has emerged as a key attack point for Republicans

• Harris first publicly mentioned a job at McDonald’s during her 2019 presidential campaign and has since repeatedly stated that she worked the cash register, french fry, and ice cream stations at the McDonald’s on Central Avenue in Alameda, California, in 1983

• Donald Trump has taken to calling this a “lie.” On Sunday, to highlight the point, he worked at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania

Dig Deeper

• Harris did not list the job on a 1987 resume or in her memoir. Meanwhile, McDonald's says it has no records dating back that far

• The New York Times contacted a long-time friend of Harris, who said Harris’s late mother had once mentioned her daughter’s McDonald’s job. The friend, who also claims to have worked at McDonald’s, said, “We didn’t talk much about our McDonald’s days back then”

• The NYT added, “Ms. Harris talked so little about her long-ago job at McDonald’s that even some of her friends and close aides did not know she had worked there. She also did not mention the job in her memoir, although she talked extensively about her time at Howard and the various jobs mentioned on that old résumé”

ROCA’S SPONSOR

Are investors sleeping on the smart home space?

Together With Ryse

Finding the next big investment opportunity and getting in early isn’t easy. If it were, we’d all be rich! Even the Sharks from “Shark Tank” get it wrong. Like when they declined an offer to buy 10% of Ring for $700,000. Bet they regretted that when Amazon bought Ring for $1 billion. 

• So, just how did Ring blow up and change doorbells forever? Retail distribution

• We’ve talked about RYSE and their recent launch in 100+ Best Buys. But did you know they pitched on Canada’s version of “Shark Tank” called “Dragons Den” and received two offers?

• The smart home industry has yielded massive returns for early investors. Rumor has it, the next sleeping giant could be RYSE

Dig Deeper

• Don’t make the same mistake the Sharks did! Learn about investing now

KEY STORY

“Smart” Insulin

“Smart” insulin – an artificial form of the hormone that switches itself on and off – is working in animals

• Diabetes patients’ bodies struggle to use or make insulin effectively. As a result, they must manually control their blood sugar levels through several insulin injections each day

• In a study published in Nature, researchers detailed how they were able to make insulin that turns itself on and off based on the body’s blood sugar levels

• After a transfusion, the new insulin successfully regulated the blood sugar of pigs and rats without the need for repeated injections

Dig Deeper

• Scientists expressed optimism over the findings: “This a very good study that was well designed — they did all the necessary experiments to validate that this works… It certainly provides encouragement that this approach is worth pursuing,” said David Sacks, a chemist at the National Inst. of Health

• Furthering the new technology could eventually lead to developments that lessen the burden on diabetes patients

KEY STORY

WNBA's Big, Costly Year

The WNBA set viewership and attendance records this year, yet still reportedly lost $40M

• Powered by new stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, regular season WNBA games on ESPN averaged 1.2M viewers per broadcast, a 170% increase from last season. On the attendance front, the WNBA recorded its highest total attendance in 22 years, up 48% from last season

• On the financial front, the league lost $40M this year, per the NY Post. The WNBA recently negotiated a new media deal, however, that will pay it ~$200M per season, more than the current $60M per season

Dig Deeper

• Complicating the picture, WNBA players have just opted out of their current collective bargaining agreement to negotiate a deal that will pay them more money starting next season, per ESPN

• Many of the league's viewership and attendance records centered around Caitlin Clark. Her team, the Indiana Fever, shattered the single-season attendance record for a WNBA team by ~35%

• The highest ratings this playoffs came in the Fever's opening round matchup

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🇺🇸 For the first time since August, The Economist’s election prediction model has Donald Trump leading. The outlet’s model has Trump winning in 54 out of 100 simulations, up from a low of 40 on September 19

🇮🇱 Israel arrested seven Israeli citizens who it accused of spying for Iran. The accused are all Jews of Azeri (i.e., Azerbaijan) origin

🇮🇪 Ireland and the UAE signed a deal to facilitate the transfer of alleged criminals between the two countries. It’s notable because Ireland’s most prominent crime family has close ties with the UAE

🇷🇺 Yulia Navalny, widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, told the BBC that she plans to run for president in Russia

🇺🇸 Kamala Harris raised a record $971M in the third quarter of 2024 – more than the total Trump has raised since January 2023

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: Political polarization plagues the country. How do we fix it?

🧠 Today’s question: Where would you rank Halloween among best holidays?

Reply to this email to let us know what you think!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🍴 “Uhh, Yes I Ate the Blender” Meta fired about two dozen staff for misusing their $25 meal credits on household items

🧑‍🚒 Do As We Say Not As WE Do: A brand new fire station in Germany burned down due to the lack of a fire alarm system

👩‍🏫 A Teachable Moment: A substitute teacher in Minnesota was accused of reenacting George Floyd's murder in class

🏍️ Ontari-OH NO: A motorcyclist in Ontario, Canada, was arrested after posting a video on social media of him fleeing police at speeds over 155 miles per hour (250 km/h)

😭 Life Isn’t Fair, Kids: A goose whose migration route was being tracked by Irish schoolchildren was shot and eaten by an indigenous hunter in the Canadian Arctic

ROCA WRAP

Rise of the Gen-Z Gender Gap

Since 2020 there may have been no political shift greater than the Gen Z gender gap. A moment at a Donald Trump rally last month encapsulated what has changed.

In Las Vegas, Trump called a series of people onto the stage: The Nelk Boys and Bryce Hall. The Nelk Boys are a group of pranksters-turned-podcasters from Canada who have achieved a massive audience of primarily young guys. They have 8.2M YouTube subscribers and one of the world’s most popular podcasts. Bryce Hall, meanwhile, was one of the first TikTok superstars, with 24M followers on TikTok and 7M followers on Instagram.

The trio was the latest group of young, influential men to publicly endorse Trump, joining influencer superstar Jake Paul; reggaeton star Manuel AA; and Twitch streamer Adin Ross. Each of them commands audiences of tens of millions of young people. The endorsements are a marked departure from 2016 and 2020, when most celebrities who endorsed Trump were known conservatives.

Meanwhile, female and “traditional” celebrities have remained Democratic.

When Taylor Swift endorsed Harris on Instagram, Alex Cooper – host of “Call Her Daddy” and the biggest podcaster for women – liked the post and commented, “I f****g love this woman.” Billie Eilish, Jennifer Lawrence, Oprah, Ben Stiller, George Clooney, and countless other mainstream superstars have endorsed Harris.

The endorsements track a broader change in American politics, where young men are becoming increasingly conservative and their politics divergent from young women. An August NYT/Siena poll of voters in six swing states found that men ages 18 to 29 favored Trump by 13 points, while women ages 18 to 29 favored Harris by 38 points. The resulting 51-point gap between young men and women dwarfs that of older voting groups. By contrast, there was a 31-point gender voting gap between those aged 30 to 44.

In 2020, Harvard's Institute of Politics found that 42% of young men identified as Democrats versus 20% who identified as Republican. This April, the same survey found that 32% are Democrats and 29% are Republicans. In other words: From a 20% Democratic lead to a virtual tie. Over the same period, women haven’t moved nearly as much: 43% of young women identified as Democrats in 2020 and 44% do today.

Our travels to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia have identified the same trend: In each state, men overwhelmingly support Trump, while women are significantly more likely to prefer Harris. So why are young men going to Trump and why is the gap growing?

One explanation is social media: The genders live in increasingly separate online worlds, where men are exposed to content from people like Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, and the Nelk Boys. Another is the issues: The hottest issues have increasingly split men and women down the middle. None has likely done so more than abortion, but immigration, transgender rights, and other topics have a gender component, too. And there’s the rise of concepts like “toxic masculinity” and the resulting claim – frequently made by influencers – that there is a war on masculinity.

And there’s the history: Gen Z came of age amid the #MeToo Movement and the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. In the years that followed, criticisms of “patriarchy” became fashionable on one side, while “masculine” figures like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, and, to an extreme, Andrew Tate became stars to the other. When we posted a video about this on our YouTube, commenters shared their thoughts.

One user wrote, “Back in high school, they had two assemblies and divided up boys and girls. The girls tossed around balloons and had music while being "Empowered" by their guest speaker. The boys had a guest speaker who talked about how he served in the army and his best friend/toughest soldier he knew was gay and how we should fear the power of women because theyre special. I will never forget him pointing towards the other gym and saying we need to fear them. This was in 2013. I can only imagine what its like now. Boys growing up are sick of being undermined for masculinity and denied their drive.”

“I think the video games and the gym made us right wing,” wrote another.

“An interesting thing I’ve noticed is that when I ask men my age why they vote for Trump they always say economical issues, immigration issues and the fact he doesn’t start wars. Conversely, when I ask women my age why they vote for Kamala, they almost always only say abortion, women’s rights and they just hate Trump. I find this interesting because men seem to vote based off of what will affect them in the future. Whereas women vote based on what affects them personally right this second,” wrote one more.

Commenters also claimed this isn’t solely an American phenomenon:

“I'm from Argentina, I voted for Milei. The vast majority of young men voted for Milei (the right), while the majority of young women voted for massa (the left) this is a global thing, the gap will continue to grow alongside the animosity towards the other side, it's a spiral that I think will create a lot of tension, instability and further hatred in society,” one wrote.

“I live in a liberal city, a liberal state in Australia. I do stage production, a liberal hobby, and the people who are also involved live in an extremely liberal and left wing part of my city. Most of the guys are conservative or conservative, leaning,” wrote another.

So what do you think has changed? Reply to this email to let us know!

ROCA VIDEO
Hurricane Helene Destroyed His House

It's been three weeks since Hurricane Helene. In this video, we visited North Carolina to see its impact. This is where we met Timothy, who shared some of the wisest words we’ve heard on our travels.

Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Between your donations to Katie’s Amazon registry and the app/We The 66 audiences’ contributions to Pablo’s GoFundMe, we have been overwhelmed by Roca community’s generosity. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Have a great Tuesday.

–Max and Max