You
have probably been bombarded with messages about
how the Democratic Party is frantically
attempting to regain young men’s support. As a
professor who teaches courses in Gender and
Sexuality Studies, this recent development has
avidly captured my interest “Speaking
With American Men: A Strategic Plan” (SAM) is a
$20 million plan to “study the syntax, language
and content that gains attention and virality”
(see New
York Times). Ilyse
Hogue, the former president of the abortion
rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, and John
Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard
Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, are
leading the project, whose fundraising pitch
lists former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), a
one-time NFL player who lost a Senate race to
Ted Cruz last year, as part of the SAM project
team.
It
isn’t just policy experts. Numerous governors
have made such an effort a major priority.
During her annual State
of the State address, Michigan Gov. Gretchen
Whitmer announced
plans to
help boost young men’s enrollment in higher
education and skills training. Connecticut Gov.
Ned Lamont declared
what he called “a DEI initiative, which folks
on both sides of the aisle may appreciate” to
recruit more men into teaching. Maryland
Gov. Wes Moore, who has spoken
at length about
his own challenges as a teenager, recently announced
plans to
direct his “entire administration” to find ways
to help struggling boys and men. “The well-being
of our young men and boys has not been a
societal priority,” Moore said in an interview.
“I want Maryland to be the one that is
aggressive and unapologetic about being able to
address it and being able to fix it.”
A
report released
last month from
the data firm Catalist revealed the Democratic
Party saw a nine-point drop in support among men
aged eighteen to twenty-nine years old between
2020 and 2024, including substantial drops among
young men of color. The
party has been hemorrhaging support among the
group, fifty-six percent of whom supported
Donald Trump in 2024, according to one study.
Party leaders have come to believe that they
have no feasible road back to power if they
continue to be unsuccessful in recruiting male
voters of the future and lose even more of them
to
Republicans during next year’s midterms and the
2028 election.
Shauna Daly,
a Democratic strategist and cofounder of the
Young Men Research Project (see youngmenresearchinitiative.com) argues
that candidates need to do more than show young
men that they can relate. “Where the Democratic
Party has really fallen short with this cohort
is that they don’t feel like Democrats are
fighting for them,” she said.
Statistics
reveal that in every state, women surpass men in
the number of college degrees earned. Boys are
more likely than girls to be disciplined
in class and
more likely to fail to graduate
high school on
time. Men die
by suicide at
greater percentages than women do and are more
likely to self-medicate with illegal
drugs and
alcohol. And while women
increasingly participate in the workforce at
higher rates, men have steadily withdrawn
from the
labor market for quite some time.
While economic deprivation and
despair have no doubt contributed to the
gravitation of men of all races, ethnicities,
and various backgrounds toward Donald Trump, the
truth is that other factors are relevant as
well. To a sizable percentage of men across
race, age, socioeconomic status, religion,
sexual orientation, and regional background,
Donald Trump is the “ultimate representation of
manhood.” He is ultra-wealthy (a billionaire),
owns multiple businesses and several luxury
homes and apartments, and has an attractive wife
and millions of followers who practically
worship him. Additionally, he possesses a
brazen, unapologetic combativeness, swagger, and
arrogance that a segment of men admire yet
cannot emulate without either actual or
potential consequences.
There was a
kernel of truth in those who argued that swaths
of men viewed former Vice President Kamala
Harris’s presidency negatively because she was a
woman. Sexism, like racism, is a perverse vice
deeply embedded in American society’s fabric,
and a number of men are frantically probing the
darkest corners of their personas. Misogyny must
serve as the antitheses of what manhood
personifies. Nonetheless, sexism
notwithstanding, the reality is that many men,
like their female counterparts, are likely to
vote based on pocketbook issues. A
lot of young men (and women) believe the
American dream has become unattainable. Moreover,
the Democratic Party failed to provide any
answers regarding what sort of programs or
vision could or would aid these men in securing
a higher-paying job.
Let’s cut to the chase -
manufactured, disingenuous propaganda is
unlikely to seduce younger people. This is a
generation that has lived their entire lives
through a screen. The media environment is a
force that they dissect quite effectively.
Condescension and insincerity will not endear
them to the Democratic Party or anyone else.
This is something that Democratic strategists,
policy experts, and other supposedly
well-informed party honchos need to consider.
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