TFP Article on "How Democrats Lost Men"

[ThatZanyFatball]

I know Bari Weiss and TFP are divisive, but I wanted to share this article with you fine ladies to hear your perspectives. I know you're mostly UK and this is US, but considering Trump's impact in the world right now it's pretty relevant.

I think the author makes some good points but then loses me when he says things like "The downside of such a safe and easy society is that men almost never get access to public honor, which leads many of them to entirely abandon that as a personal goal."

He doesn't seem to describe what exactly he means by "public honor." The idea that men need to be publicly, openly recognized and cheered for doing - manly? - things, and that's why they're trending right?

But other points, like "When you lose sight of the evolutionary pressures that underlie much of human behavior, you risk wandering into ideological nonsense." I think is a valid point.

https://www.thefp.com/p/how-democrats-lost-men?utm_source=cbs_news&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

Paywalled.

I loved the Dems video aimed at men ahead of the election.
"I'm a man, and love the company of strong women".
"I'm a man, and wasn't afraid to cry when my daughter was born".
"I'm a man, and open up to my wife".
"I'm a man, and not threatened by a female President".
The perfect bookend to the Sadiq Khan "Maaate!" campaign.
Basically, the video bombed, men felt belittled, singled out, and after years of the likes of the Obamas banging on about toxic masculinity, the video arguably cost Harris votes.

I can't read it either.

With the comment on honour - the way I am reading that is that he is saying that if society doesn't think honour is an important attribute, men (in particular) won't have acting honourably as a personal goal or see it as something important in itself.

I know people don't like the idea that someone does "the right thing" for public plaudits. But there is some truth to it, or maybe equally the reserve - people who should feel embarrassed or ashamed for behaving dishonourably. will be pushed to do the right thing even when it is hard.

But if society says, doing what's best for you is what's right, behaving honourably is for mugs, we don't expect anyone to behave honourably - they are less likely to do the right thing when it is hard.

Sorry it came up for me. I don't know how to do the archive thing if anyone else does?

Archive link - I assume it is the whole article

https://archive.is/NHIU6

On a skim read the problem with his arguement is that somehow what being a male is fixed.

And he is cross that women have changed so that unchanging men no longer have attributes that make them useful to society.

Naughty women.

Funnily enough this is exactly what was discussed years ago following the advances made by the Women's Liberation Movement.

Women changed, or rather women challenged and overcame the limited straightjacket of gender norms.

And as was said at the time, women wanted to change, they just never took into account that men didn't.

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This is not to say the Democrats campaigning slogans were right - but men not accepting that toxic masculinity is a problem for sociey, shows that they still dont want to change. As this silly man shows.

So rather than the democrats being the problem but is asking why so many men apparently thought the macho, sexist, woman harming stance of Trump's MAGA agenda was something they wanted to identify with.

What's happening with Democrats is what many on the left warned of: if you create a party that centres identity then by definition you centre the other party by the identities your not. That goes for sex, race, sexuality, religion, etc. That, in turn, subordinates debates about governing philosophy that cut across identities.

In general it's damaging governance - governing is hard; it requires coherence, knowledge, narrative, and discipline. If you're simply acting to advance your tribal identities then you're not going to have the bandwidth to form policy to advance the general good. What's worse you force the opposing party to organise itself along identity lines too. It's not that it's a losing strategy, Democrats are winning the women's vote just as their losing the men's vote so they're not inherently less electable, but there's a strong argument that that makes government over-all worse and less responsive to the needs of the governed.

I think you have a good point.

I've always seen "identity" politics as simply another manifestation of "tribalism" and quite likely a backward step.

Or at least a backward step if your aim is inclusivity and not division.

To me it's everythng I thought the "left" stood against

@IwantToRetire - "... So rather than the democrats being the problem but is asking why so many men apparently thought the macho, sexist, woman harming stance of Trump's MAGA agenda was something they wanted to identify with."

I'm no expert on American politics but it seemed to me in 2016 and last year that a lot of american men (mostly white but a surprisingly large minority of black and hispanic too) voted for Trump because the Obama administration pre-2016 and the Biden administration pre-2024 hadn't really done anything to help them - particularly poor voters.

I'm in the UK and I remember watching a BBC series talking to ordinary US voters in the months running up to the 2016 election. It seemed obvious to me that ouside the big metropolitan areas Trump would win.

And last year was a walkover after Biden's performances and Harris came across as a non-entity.

I'm not sure if Trump's successes have much to do with what you call his "macho, sexist, woman harming stance ... MAGA agenda" rather than the uselessness of the democrats.

Not sure what points are being made, but the number of women voting Democrat in the last election was lower than the previous election.

But then that reflects the fact that just like Labour didn't win the last election, the Tories lost (ie Starmer's vote was really small, less than Corbyn) Trump didn't win the last Presidential Election, the Democrats lost. Something like 7 million people who had voted Democrat just didn't turn out to vote. Trump did gain about a million votes, but hard to say why that was.

And for all we know the Democrats losing is because many US citizens didn't want to vote for a Black Cat Lady.

ie just plain old sexism and racism.

And for all we know the Democrats losing is because many US citizens didn't want to vote for a Black Cat Lady.
ie just plain old sexism and racism.

Trump improved his performance with every demographic except white men.

But crack on.

Seems exactly right to me.

(Though it correctly notes that US men have moved right, without noting that US women have moved even more left, which leaves a bit of a misleading impression that ‘polarisation’ is something men specifically did).

I disagree on the honour thing, individual men are celebrated all the time, even by Democrats. Look at all the male celebrities in the world and tell me seriously that men are never publicly honoured.

But I agree that it was a mistake to turn away from talking about traditional left-wing policies that help everybody, and particularly the working class (e.g. healthcare, workers' rights, infrastructure investment) and instead to focus on rhetoric about helping minorities. That was never going to appeal to a lot of white men.

I think it's pretty perceptive

There used to be a thing in NYC local politics about 100 years ago where Italians voted Republican because they were excluded from the Irish-controlled Democratic Party machine. Even today Italians are more Republican than your median NYC voter.

The Democratic Party in recent decades has become more and more dominated by permanent identity caucuses. This is different from the party organically becoming more female, multiracial etc. The logical end point was Hillary's infamous campaign website in 2016 where there were hundreds of policies micro-targeted at particular demographics, and you could input the demographic groups you belonged to and find out that Hillary had a package of policies that would save you XYZ dollars per month.

It's not just that it's offputting to people who don't fall into the favoured groups, it's also that some people find it annoying on principle.

I don't think there's an easy fix to this. It's too much part of the inherited DNA, and goes way back before the 60s. Republicans generally see themselves as the party of normie Americans (even when they're in a minority). Democrats, and this goes way back to their founding by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, have usually seen themselves as the coalition of the outgroups (even when they've been a dominant majority). That feeds into different rhetorical styles and even ways of thinking about politics.

Smart Democrats have been able to find a unifying theme, like Jacksonian populism or the New Deal. That's been thin on the ground in recent decades. I think Bill Clinton's techno-optimism was the last substantial stab at a theme.

Patrick Ruffini's polling is very interesting on this kind of thing.

That's right.

And having watched on TV some of Kamala Harris' performances, I don't think it was because of "plain old sexism and racism" that people didn't vote for her.

It was a lot more simple than that...

I agree re the poor, but wouldn't you call Trump sexist? His Epstein close friendship and the infamous Access Hollywood 'grab em' tape seem hard to see as non-sexist.

Agree!

Honestly, some are so desperate to cling onto their niche ideas that they cant even cope with accepting normal acceptance of figures.

Irrespective of whether in the UK, the US or anywhere else if in an election one party loses more votes than the winning party gains votes it is seen and is obvious that the "winning" party hasn't signifcantly changed but the loosing party has.

Everyone was happy to crow about Starmer not "winning" but the Tories losing, why this obsession with constructing a false narrative about why this happened.

Unless of course you are aware of survey of democrats who chose not to vote.

Such bonkers and irrational remarks dont give any credibitlity to other comments.

Stretching plausibility to make something a "fact" only undermines the statement.

So Trump gaining a million votes many of whom unexpectedly were male Latinos still doesn't explain why the Democrats lost 7 million votes.

That is the biggest factor. The non voters.

Also the complete humour by pass.

The comment about Kamala Harris is a joke - honestly what back wood were you living in during the election.

It's actually the Maga machos who came up with the line.

Talk about a head in hands moment.

The Free Press is a notorious Zionist propagandist arm whose interests are served more by right wing governments hence regular article's that always seem to be premised with 'what's wrong with the left'.

This piece pretending men are fleeing the democratic party because 'the left hates masculinity' is laughable con. The fact is young men have been more prone to leftist scape goat propaganda because of their economic disenfranchisement from society in modern times. Rather than point to the true crony corporate culprits for men's losses in opportunity, blaming leftists for promoting equality has been a more politically expedient vehicle. Trump won is first election primarily because of male economic frustrations.

Appealing to men's natural biases against women, people of colour & queer people has been the right wing go to forever. 'And now they are taking away your ability to express masculinity is why you have no honour' is just another version aimed squarely to create male victim mentalities who will vote accordingly to whatever appeals to their insecurities. Same goes with gender. Gender ideology is particularly threatening to men's sense of masculinity hence the Free Press beating that trans horse over & over.

The Free Press established themselves on pretending left wing censorship was responsible for all of societies woes that appealed particularly to American men…only to be hyper pro censorship of anyone challenging Israeli talking points.

It's no coincidence The Free Press tends to always lean heavily on right wing men's insecurities & their founder/owner Bari Weiss is a Zionist zealot.

Example #267849 of Why the Democrats Lost.

Exit polls for 2020 & 2024 clearly indicate inflation/the economy as being the overwhelming reason why Biden won by 7 million votes & Trump by 2 million as do most recent elections internationally. And let's not forget Trump's approval rating has plummeted now he hasn't delivered on the economy as promised so it looks blindingly obvious masculinity isn't under threat.

Next.

The funny thing about your rant post’s laundry list of left wing extremism (along with a good touch of antisemitism that would delight Bluesky) is that Harris may have won if she had chosen Josh Shapiro, a Zionist as her running mate, rather than the dreadfully incompetent Tim Walz.

Zionism being falsely equated Judaism? Is Zionism 101… any right wing man will be only too enthusiastic to tell you. Say goodbye to The house 2026….

Quite.

Its actually a brilliant example in action. No attempt at all to engage with the issues raised. It's straight into 'how can I try to discredit the source'.

Looks like the Dems have no interest in learning and trying to fix mistakes. It's just 'we're right and you're wrong' on rinse and repeat. And getting people to actually vote for them doesn't appear to be a concern.