"I'm Scared."
New research on what young men actually feel about the war in Iran — including Trump's own voters.
The Backdrop
There are two conversations happening about the war in Iran right now.
One is on cable news — generals with pointers, think tankers debating escalation ladders, the president saying “freedom” and “unconditional surrender.”
The other is happening in apartments and on tractors and in the group chats of young men who are watching a war unfold on their phones and realizing they’re the ones who’d have to fight it.
We heard the second conversation.
On Monday afternoon— with U.S.-Israeli strikes still underway, the Supreme Leader dead, 3,000 targets hit, and seven Americans killed — we conducted 55 in-depth interviews using our new CrowdVox platform with young men under 30. Diverse in every way: race, region, politics. About a third lean Republican. About a third lean Democrat. The rest won’t vote at all. We asked about Iran. They told us about fear.
A 19-year-old in California was asked what comes to mind about the state of America. His entire answer:
“I’m scared.” — Louis, 19-year-old White man in California
Asked to elaborate: “Bombs. Hella bombs.” Then: “I don’t want to have my home blown up. I don’t want to go to war.”
A 20-year-old in Tennessee, asked what worries him most:
“The fact that the president be trolling too hard, bro. Like, no, this ain’t no game, bro. Our lives are at stake.” — Jacob, 20-year-old White man in Tennessee
Asked if he sees any positives: “There are no positives. We’re all gonna die.”
A 21-year-old in California, undecided politically:
“What concerns me the most is like a nuclear war and just knowing that there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” — James, 21-year-old Hispanic White man in California
This isn’t opposition. It isn’t ideology. It’s fear — physical, personal, located in bodies and homes and farmland that these young men can see from where they’re sitting.
My Takeaways
#1: Young men aren’t debating the war. They’re imagining themselves in it.
Nobody said “draft” casually. But it was in the room. A 20-year-old Republican-leaning farmer in Iowa put it plainly:
“It’s getting pretty heated. And I’m young, so I’m pretty sure I’d be set up to be drafted. And that’s not really something I’d want to do because I got a farm out in Illinois and that’s what I really love doing and that’s what I really drive myself to do.”
That’s a young man who leans toward the president’s party measuring the distance between the life he’s building and the war that could pull him out of it. His conclusion: not far enough. In Indiana, a 27-year-old had a different version of the same calculation: “I have friends and family that are going to get caught up in this conflict.” In New Jersey, a 27-year-old Black man near New York City was doing geography: “I live right next to New York, and it’s the capital of the United States, so I’m afraid that we’re going to get bombed.”
The national debate about Iran is conducted in the language of strategy and deterrence. These guys are counting miles from a target, years until draft age, and people they love in uniform.
#2: The most devastating image in the data came from a Trump voter.
Peter is 21, Hispanic, lives in Pennsylvania. He told us proudly: “I elected President Donald Trump.” First term. Then he described his fear about the second:
“I feel for Donald Trump, he is assured that there is nothing that can happen to him because anytime a nuclear missile will almost reach United States he will be already evacuated into Air Force One and already airborne but he will leave all the rest of us here on the ground to deal with the nuclear warhead.”
A man who voted for the president — imagining the president flying away while he stands on the ground and the bomb lands. That is a class nightmare dressed up as a foreign policy opinion. It’s the feeling of being expendable, expressed by someone who believed he was valued.
Peter went further: he fears Iran will hit American schools the way it’s hit targets in Israel. “The kids... Iran does not mind if it’s hitting kids.” When a Trump voter’s fear is this specific — schools, children, nuclear warheads, abandonment — the trust relationship isn’t fraying. It’s shattered.
#3: The fear is bipartisan — and it’s not what either party is talking about.
This wasn’t a Democratic-voter phenomenon. The Republican farmer in Iowa afraid of the draft. The Trump voter in Pennsylvania imagining Air Force One. A 27-year-old Black man in New Jersey, a Democrat, saying “we’re small people.” A politically undecided 21-year-old in California saying “there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” A 20-year-old in Tennessee: “we’re all gonna die.”
Cable news is debating escalation ladders. Think tank fellows are discussing nuclear thresholds. The president says “freedom” and “strength.”
And somewhere in California, a 19-year-old is saying “I’m scared” to a stranger because nobody else has asked.
The disconnect between the national conversation and the lived emotional reality of draft-eligible young men is total. One side is talking about regime architecture. The other side is wondering if their house will be standing next month.
#4: This fear is already shaping civic behavior — in the most dangerous way.
One in five of the young men we interviewed said they would not vote in the midterms. Several of those are Trump supporters — guys who say “I trust him” but won’t show up at the ballot box. A lifelong Republican in Texas said the president isn’t keeping his promises and that he won’t vote. A 22-year-old in West Virginia hung up the phone when we asked the midterm question.
Fear doesn’t make people more engaged. It makes them go quiet. And in a democracy, quiet is the most dangerous sound there is. These young men can see the stakes — “our lives are at stake” — but they’ve concluded that the system isn’t built to hear them. So they’re withdrawing. Not in protest. In self-preservation.
The Bottom Line
The most underreported dimension of this war isn’t the geopolitics. It’s the fear. Fifty-five young men — including Republicans, including Trump voters, including guys who say “I trust him” — are processing this conflict not as a policy debate but as a threat to their physical safety. Their homes. Their farms. Their families. Their bodies.
Nobody in power seems to be talking to them about it.
Nobody is asking how it feels to be 19 and watching a war start on your phone.
Nobody is acknowledging that the guys who would actually go — who would get drafted, who live near the targets, whose friends are already enlisted — are sitting in apartments and on tractors right now, scared, and silent.
Louis in California said two words: “I’m scared.” The question isn’t whether we believe him. It’s whether anyone who can do something about it is listening.
Note: Yesterday, Peter Hamby wrote about these CrowdVox interviews with young men reacting to the war in Iran in Puck. You can read his piece and about our methodology here.
Both of my sons, now in their 30's, served their country in their 20's. Last weekend, I asked if there was ANY possibility that they could be called back into service, and they reassured me they couldn't. Though I know it's not your focus, someone needs to talk to their parents, too. Similar fears that no one's addressing.
Why would not voting be conducive to self-preservation? Or the converse?