Democrats spending millions to learn how to speak to 'American Men' and win back the working class

[TheProle]

Democrats have blown millions of dollars on efforts to appeal to “American Men,” who turned to President Donald Trump in droves on election day, in the hopes of winning back the working class, according to a report.

Democrats have spent $20 million on their efforts, with donors and strategists holing up in luxury hotel rooms brainstorming how to convince working-class men to return to the party, according to a New York Times report.

The plan, code-named SAM, or “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,” promises to use the funds to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces,” according to the report.

As the Times described it, the reports “can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/democrats-spend-millions-studying-working-class-men-b2757957.html?utm_source=reddit.com

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. lmaooooo what on earth

[hildegaard28]

2. How about,

Republicans want you to get married, have ten kids, and support them all on an income that won't even support you alone. Democrats want to let you decide to have a family, how big a family to have, and want you to have a wage that will support you and your family. It's not that difficult. All they have to look at is what issues are appealing to them, and why they find Republican false promises so attractive.

They don't need to look into syntax or anything overly abstract. It's the economy, stupid. Modern men feel left behind due to lack of good paying jobs. Republicans are promising that bringing back the oppression of women is going to solve their problems. Our job is to convince them that the Republican anti-worker, anti-union policies of the past forty years are the reason for their current plight, and that we can help them by protecting workers' rights, supporting unions, and raising the minimum wage.

[CrispyQ]

5. + 100!!

Maybe that DNC guy who keeps asking for money could hire one person to read DU. There are tons of good ideas here.

[hildegaard28]

10. The big brains

At the DNC need to learn to just listen to people.

[atreides1]

103. IMHO

The DNC should listen to people who believe in the US Constitution and what it stands for, listen to people who believe that all Americans should be treated equally, listen to people who don't want to force their religious views on others, listen to people who believe in due process...

[Volaris]

44. Ill throw one out: legalize a distinction between wages and income,

And wages equals anything less than 150k annually is totally exempt from federal income taxes, then jack up elons rate to 50% over a billion a year.
That'd be a good place to start...

[travelingthrulife]

59. I don't think it's the economy. They have been trained to hate liberals and Democrats,

women, gays, etc. It is the hate they have for nearly everyone not male.

[Rebl2]

99. Exactly

[senseandsensibility]

3. There's nothing wrong with Dems trying to plan a strategy

and I find the tone of ridicule to be off-putting. At least they are aware of a problem and trying to solve it. However, I am at the point of advising Dems to just point blank tell working class men that the R's are lying to them. They are anti-labor and ALWAYS sink the economy. Keep it simple, and REPEAT. Also, make fun of them.

[Kingofalldems]

4. Ahhhhh--More "Bad Things About Democrats".

[betsuni]

29. Oh those Democrats! Doing what people say they should, learn to speak to the working class. But ... but ... THE HOTEL.

[WarGamer]

36. Bad? Sound like they're researching what went wrong.

Better than the Ostrich strategy.

[GreatGazoo]

68. Lost the WH, House, Senate, Judiciary

Lost the popular vote. Lost Roe v Wade.

Should we not be asking how to do better?

[Mountainguy]

6. Why is that a bad thing?

[Ritabert]

7. I am done with male victimhood

If you want to advance take a class in a trade or learn something new in your chosen field. If you want a date try being nice to women and everybody else. Join a club be it hiking, biking, karate, etc. Republicans aren't going to help you. They are trying to repeal OSHA for crying out loud.

[Alpeduez21]

21. I think the male bashing when male concerns are considered

Is certainly off putting to getting men on your side. Men overwhelmingly look askance at the Democratic Party. Exploring why that is is not victimizing males. I could just as easily point out that castigating sympathy towards male view points all the time is detrimentally chauvinistic

[walkingman]

8. I'm laughing....my wife said, "Why don't they just go to school

and learn to speak Neanderthal?" That's what Trump does. Just listen to Trump he speaks their language and I think for many she might be right - or at least those that go to the rallies. ☮

[kacekwl]

54. Or they could take a page from republican men

Like J D and Hogbreath and completely lose your spine and lick the "Alpha mans" ass every chance you get. How embarrassing it must be.

[msongs]

9. it's my party........everybody sing along now. nt

[Celerity]

14. ...

Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin - It's My Party (1981)

Label: Stiff Records – BROKEN 2
Series: Broken Records
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single, Stereo, Picture Sleeve
Country: UK
Released: 1981
Genre: Electronic, Pop
Style: Synth-pop

[msongs]

16. Judy;s gonna get what's coming to her.... nt

[delisen]

11. DNC giving me a good reason to ignore donation appeals. nt

[unblock]

12. I don't understand why people have a problem with this, republicans got in power because of stuff like this

We need more focus groups and study and analysis, test-marketing of catchphrases and so on.

One generic point I'll offer: never appear to be defending just one particular group. Always defend Americans. Not only does this keep us united and therefore stronger, but it also makes the issue more relatable for people not in that particular group.

For example, an anti-trans bathroom bill? Don't say it's unfair to trans people, say no one wants to have to carry around their birth certificate everywhere and no one wants the government asking for your papers or asking for dna samples just to go to the bathroom.

[LearnedHand]

34. I think a lack of authenticity might be the problem

They aren't going to be able to focus-group a message that suddenly wins men over. If Dems authentically took on the billionaires and corporations who are bleeding this country white, everyone might start listening, men included. They need to be sitting at Bernie's and AOC's feet to learn about messaging, not paying thousand dollar per hour comms consultants.

Side note: I think Dems also need to own their part in this horrible situation because of their own fealty to globalization and the big corporate money. We can't talk about how horrible Trumps's cuts are if we don't also acknowledge that a Dem willingly signed the welfare "reform" bills in the 90s.

[AZProgressive]

38. I think Democrats focus test too much

That's why they are unable to effectively stand up to Trump because they have to focus test their response to Trump.

Also since Trump is rolling back advancements going as far back as LBJ I'll stand up for whoever is being targeted by the Trump administration at the moment.

I'm also an American male that makes around $30,000 a year, I also don't have a college degree, but I feel the party isn't interested in what I think. They just are interested in winning over right wing males.

[Celerity]

13. cringe level 7

[BannonsLiver]

15. Not taking the bait on every single culture war issue the GOP conjures up costs nothing.

[Retrograde]

17. "donors and strategists holing up in luxury hotel rooms"

I think I see part of the problem here- too many resources going into supporting the lobbyists rather than actually going out into the Real World and talking to and maybe even listening to actual voters

[lees1975]

18. It's the "cost" that bothers me most.

I'm all for any kind of strategy that wins elections for the left. Right now, I think that Trump's complete and total incompetence, and the GOP's unwillingness to acknowledge or deal with it is what Democratic victory in 2026 will depend on the most.

I think they could develop some kind of strategy without the expense.

[jmowreader]

19. The only issue I see here is the "luxury hotel room" thing

Get your asses out here in the real world and find out what's scaring working-class men - and shut down the damned lies when they come up.

For instance, the GOP is using "men on women's sports teams" as the latest bogeywoman - but I suspect almost everyone up in arms about this doesn't even watch women's sports.

[Prairie Gates]

20. Why are you framing this so negatively?

Don't you want Democratic messaging to get better with working class men? How do you suppose that happens?

[TheProle]

24. I posted the title and 4 paragraphs verbatim

I didn’t frame anything.

[leftstreet]

28. How do you make a stupid idea look better?

6+ million reliably Democratic voters who voted Biden DIDN'T vote for Harris

Maybe party geniuses should learn how to talk to them instead?

Edit, I meant this post to respond to the one above yours. On phone, too stupid to post. 😆

[womanofthehills]

32. According to YouGov it was 19 million

And the main reason given - genocide in Gaza.

Trump lied and said he was the peace candidate.

[CrispyQ]

58. Maybe what YouGov meant was that 19 million eligible voters didn't turn out?

Cuz leftstreet is right. 6.3 million people voted for Biden but didn't turn out for Harris.

2020
81,268,867 Biden
74,216,747 Trump

2024
74,946,837 Harris
77,237,942 Trump

The pathetic thing is that three million more people voted for Trump in 2024 than in 2020, even after 34 felony convictions & those boxes & boxes & boxes of documents, they still voted for this fucker. WTF?

[cadoman]

26. believe me, repuke elites have these same sorts of events

The reich wing press just can't be bothered to report on them.

[Tree Lady]

22. Young men feel like they have lost their power

we need to show them without shoving things down their throat how to get ahead and feel good about themselves.

Part of the problem is propaganda that is telling them all these get rich quick schemes and when reality shows up they blame society, women, anyone but themselves for not realizing what the truth is that most people actually have to work hard to get ahead.

My 28 yr old grandson is caught up in this and trying to talk to him doesn't work. He has people on X he is talking to that have convinced him of a certain way.

Result he will take a job for low wages and quit after short while, he didn't get any schooling to get ahead because he is convinced he can do it without. I have no idea what it would take to change his mind.

[womanofthehills]

33. That's a lot of kids right now

My granddaughter - late 20’s-works part time & she says she’s the only one working in her friend’s group. After having her own place for yrs, she moved back in with my daughter.

My bestie girlfriend’s sister is a doctor - she has 2 intelligent kids who are late 20’s. They live at home and don’t work.

[Tree Lady]

37. I think part of it is giving too much to the kids

I was broke when my kids were teens and single mom, so they started working part time after school. All of my grandkids no jobs parents didn't want them to be like them. Except they learned mom and dad pay for everything.

My grandson just moved out from family but my daughter gave him money to get started, he has job now but wouldn't surprise me if he moved back in, before end of year.

[CrispyQ]

63. I don't know how young people afford to buy a house today,

In my area, small, single-family starter homes start at $500K, but when I watch that show House Hunters, I'm always stunned at how many young first-time homebuyers expect to buy a home that meets all their expectations. When I was a young adult we never expected our first house to have all the amenities.

[Tree Lady]

74. My daughter 46 making over 200k

can't afford house on her own because she is in the worst tax bracket for single person and homes where she lives in CA that are decent 1.5 million. And because she helps both her adult kids every month it takes from what she could save.

She bought a mobile home for her daughter so she could afford to live in same town after my great grandson was born.

[tulipsandroses]

78. Social media has convinced too many that they can make tons of money online or in some get rich scheme

They don't need education, training - whether college or trade school.

School not only provides the opportunity to learn a skill, trade, degree - it provides structure. Opportunities to network, make friends.

So they are not only foregoing education, they are foregoing setting up life in so many ways.

How many people met their, spouse, best friend, etc in school? Got a recommendation for a job from a college professor, alumni?

I am not saying everyone has to go to college or even trade school but you need some kind of foundation or training to launch yourself.

[Tree Lady]

84. Exactly this is the issue with my grandson

totally convinced he doesn't have to do anything and magically he will be a millionaire....wtf!

[ImNotGod]

23. all they need to do is use simpler language, more baby talk, a lot of googoo, gaagaa and maybe they can get through to

Last edited Tue May 27, 2025, 07:24 AM - Edit history (1)

the dumbasses.

[Bettie]

25. Unfortunately, what it takes to "please" the portion of men

who vote for Republicans is to abandon every other group and center them exclusively.

it's not that hard, just be ugly to everyone who isn't a straight, white, man and tell them that you intend to cause harm to anyone who is a woman, not-white, not-Christian because they are all that matter.

That's how to "win" them....sadly, the country we would have at that point isn't worth having.

[Midwestern Democrat]

27. Let me guess - they are using the very same strategists who put the party in this position to try to get us out of it.

[Sympthsical]

40. Bingo n/t

[CrispyQ]

65. Kind of like "our big brain is gonna get us out of this mess that our big brain got us in."

I do this so I don't do this

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

30. Does that mean I have to grunt and scratch my crotch?

[Alpeduez21]

31. Well, one just needs read most of the responses in this thread and it is understood that men are not welcome here

We "scratch and grunt." Just "learn neanderthal to communicate with us." Democrats are "sick of hearing about male victim hood." I know that if female concerns were being considered and the response was this vitriolic the tiara of female victim hood would be on full display and wholly embraced. Start looking in the mirror to see why democrats might be distasteful to men.

I daresay it will probably be simpler to siphon off 10% of the male vote than to get 3% of the female vote. If this election cycle lost more women to the Republicans than voted Democrat in 2020 then I, too, would concentrate my efforts on getting the male vote. Just look at the stakes for women with the reversal of Roe and they still left the party.

I'm a full fledged Democrat but I know not to air my grievances due to responses like this thread. It's easy to feel like the Democratic party doesn't give a shit about me, I'm straight, white, and working in a trade, but I have compassion in me. Flame away DU. I can take it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

55. What would you, personally, like to hear from the party?

[Callie1979]

101. Some of what I'd like to hear we cant discuss here.

But #1; admit they totally screwed up with the border. It was a disaster & it was the #1 issue for a lot of voters.

[RJ-MacReady]

73. You are correct

Its not just this thread, how long have we heard that thr "straight white male" needs to keep quiet and acknowledge their "white privilege". All over social media we have seen it over the years. Denigrating men and especially white men by handwaving and being dismissive of their concerns. Telling them to "check their privilege" while they are in the same boat as the rest of us is counter productive. Men's concerns are just as valid as women's concerns. And to the above poster I will second the question that if this was about women the tone would be far different. Not everything men do or say is "toxic masculinity". We need to reach out to white men and men in general. Because looking back at the last several years it's not surprising at all men have been running away from the party. And now women and minorities too.

[womanofthehills]

35. Many think the podcasts won the election.

The comedian Theo Von has a very popular podcast. He appears more liberal than conservative to me - However, week before election-Trump goes on his show & they don’t talk politics but just talk stuff for a hour & then Trump comes off like a regular guy.

You have to go to the podcasts that young men frequent or come up with some really good podcasts to attract American men.

[CrispyQ]

66. That makes sense to me, especially in light of the recent study that men, especially young men, don't read much anymore.

Dems need to sharpen up. There was a time I thought we were the smart party, but the repubs have been playing the long game & we've been going along to get along. We are 25 years into a new century & old guard dem attitudes still rule the party.

[JI7]

39. What a waste of money

[jalan48]

41. Is this a job creation program?

[DSandra]

42. So I guess this means that minorities will be thrown under the bus?

Including women. Instead of focusing on economics, including making a serious effort to reduce economic inequality and curb the monster that capitalism has turn into, there will be social concessions made to placate white men, including throwing LGBT people under the bus.

[RJ-MacReady]

76. Why does it have to be either or?

This is a textbook example of what some are talking about. Being dismissive of men and their concerns.

[MorbidButterflyTat]

43. Maybe instead of blowing millions of dollars

they should blow millions of American men?

[Wanderlust988]

45. DU may ridicule, but I agree with the findings.

When we started using "Latinx" and "Birthing Person's Day" instead Mother's Day, I knew we were toast.

[betsuni]

46. I'm pretty sure few Democrats use those terms. Anybody know? I remember AOC defending "Latinx":

"There are some politicians, including Democratic politicians, who rail against the term 'Latinx.' And they're like 'This is so bad, this is so bad for the party,' like blah blah blah. And like it's almost like it hasn't struck some of these folks that another person's identity is not about your re-election prospects."

[Shrek]

53. Elizabeth Warren

https://shop.elizabethwarren.com/products/elizabeth-warren-latinx-with-warren-fitted-t-shirt

[RJ-MacReady]

100. This doesn't help

I like Senator Warren but this stuff is toxic.

[pattyloutwo]

57. According to Pew

75% of Hispanic people say Latinx shouldn’t be used; 4% use it

[Vinca]

47. The biggest mistake Democrats have made is failing to tell people when they've done something good.

I bet if you stop 100 younger people on the street and ask them which party is responsible for starting Social Security and Medicare, they couldn't tell you. They only associate the ACA with a Democrat because Republicans gave it the name "Obamacare." After the infrastructure bill passed, Republicans who had voted against it made sure their constituents knew how great it would be for them. Democrats need to brag about what they do and make sure people know what Republicans don't do.

[walkingman]

51. That says more about young people that it does the party.

I have no sympathy for people that bring on their own destruction and then try to find someone else to blame.

[MichMan]

105. I suspect that SS and Medicare rank really low on the list of what your average 25 yr old is concerned about

When I was that age (granted a long time ago), we thought we were invincible, so health insurance wasn't a big concern either.

[Vinca]

110. I just gave that as an example because they're among the biggest and most successful programs. What would a 25

year old pay attention to? Access to high-speed Internet? Student loan forgiveness? An increase in the minimum wage? Environmental legislation? Democrats have had limited success with some of those things because Republicans either block it or appeal it in court or repeal it (as Trump just did with the Internet access). 25-year-olds need to pay attention because someday they will be 65-year-olds. They will be better off in the long run voting for the enabling party not the disabling party. IMO, Trump only won the last time because he put on a better show (full of lies) for the willfully uninformed.

[Passages]

48. Why we'll keep right on losing.

[Prairie_Seagull]

49. In my view we need a strategy that will answer 2 questions.

What is the answer to stump and what is the answer to long term growth of party.

They can be the same thing but doubt they will.

Edit: When one gets answered, two will lose steam.

As it has always been.

Pendulum likely to swing again. Unless...

[Autumn]

50. Two parties and both have lost their way. nt

[gab13by13]

52. I have a better idea

go back to the old days when I was a little kid and my dad told me that rich people vote Republican and poor people vote Democrat.

My dad didn't need to read what a study group put out, he knew that Democrats were the ones fighting for the little guy through their actions.

Democrats need not abandon their core beliefs. Look at the crowds that Bernie and AOC are turning out just by going back to the basics.

Stop the nonsense that Democrats need to run moderates in certain districts to win, nominate the best people.

[Blue Full Moon]

56. Actually all they needed to do was undo Reagan's actions.

They never would do it. That was why they would get elected and nothing. That reluctance to undo Reagan is part of how we got here.

[Quiet Em]

60. Women make up nearly half of the working class.

Working class men who voted for the con artist didn't do so for financial reasons. I know why these men voted for the con.

[doc03]

61. We need new leaders that don't come across as wimps. It doesn't matter how stupid you

are just talk tough and promiss to get everything done on DayOne.

[andym]

62. Obama was pretty good at reaching young men: a dynamic messenger promoting "hope and change"

with an emphasis on "you are the change you need" resonated with young people of both sexes and the working class.
What is needed are dynamic messengers with an uplifting, inspirational message about the future and how to get there.

[thought crime]

64. Bernie just showed how to do it. Save your millions.

Bernie enters the Manosphere on Andrew Schulz' podcast and shows how to Mansplain it to the boys.

[Sympthsical]

67. We're losing the culture war

But people who experience America through partisan media are not at a vantage point that can see it.

We had been winning the culture war. I'd say the 90s and 2000's were peak ascension of left-leaning cultural issues. Choice, LGBT rights, racial and gender equality. Systems being reformed to allow for progress. President Obama's election will be seen as the high point of this rise in liberal cultural power.

And then something happened. Two things, actually, that worked in tandem to begin turning things around. After Obama's election, the Right began to reassert itself. We can point to the Tea Party as the first whispers of this stuff. Social media displaced liberal power in mass media culture and figured out that cultural power and influence could bypass mass media and make inroads through the far more individualized avenues of social media. The Left, long used to a comfortable seat at the helm of mass media, just never saw it coming. Hubris, laziness, complacency? Maybe all of the above.

While this was happening, left-leaning culture began over-stepping. I won't get into all the issues - it's literally not allowed in some instances - but having nothing better to do, bored ideological types in academia, media, and other spaces had to justify their jobs, and we started getting some truly wacky shit. Our identity politics went the only place they could go - into a toxic milieu of neo-segregation and racism, gender wars that alienated men, and a moral conviction that anything white, male, and heterosexual was by default evil, and apparently that needed to be centered in every conversation.

This shift made us alien to average Americans. We became cultural foreigners in our own country. People don't like it. Men, women, Black, White, Latino, AAPI, LGBTers (the ones who aren't screaming on Twitter all day). They. Don't. Like. It. Even when they vote for us, it's with the caveat, "Yeah, well I hate Republicans, but this shit sucks." People performatively declared "Hate will never win!" But in culture, it feels like all we do all day long is hate people. As long as it's the approved designated group to hate.

It turned people off. It signaled to young men in particular, white and otherwise, that we were not the place for them. I know I, as a gay man, really did not enjoy being told that my sexual orientation is just a construct, and I was a bigot if I was not open to a sexual partner who had a vagina. I got yelled at on dating apps by some of these activists.

That's how funhouse mirror it all got in the back end of the 2010s.

And there was the Right, on social media, with a very simple message. "We like you." That's it. That's the big secret. The Right didn't harangue anyone and everyone who didn't embrace an increasingly alienating ideological stance that had leaked into culture.

Now I get that this space is not the place for an honest conversation about this, primarily because it is as steeped in this 2010's cultural thinking as a place can possibly be.

But that is the secret. And it's an easy fix. Go back to being actual liberals instead of weird cultural authoritarians with an ever-changing list of cultural offenses people must be persecuted for committing. You can't forever keep expanding the list of heretics and still expect to have the most popular church.

Will we learn that? I'm not optimistic. There's just something in our DNA at the moment that disallows for questioning and self-reflection (also a marker of religion). So no matter how bad Trump is, we've somehow made ourselves less attractive. That should be a fucking bullhorn of a message.

But people continue to effect not to hear it. Messes with core ideological philosophy too much. So they press on. And keep losing people.

How's that working out?

[EarlG]

71. Interesting

I wasn't alive during the Civil Rights era, but my understanding is that at the time a lot of people thought that standing up for the civil rights of Black Americans was political suicide.

I also recall hearing the exact same arguments made by people on this very website twenty years ago, when the GOP was kicking our ass winning elections because -- so the thinking went -- Democrats were too friendly to gay people. The argument was that we should back off crazy radical ideas like "gay marriage" because it was alienating voters. The best way to win was to stuff the gays back into the closet.

It took a lot of fight and pressure and political courage to make marriage equality a reality, and it was the right thing to do. And the result of that difficult fight was, according to you, the "peak ascension of left-leaning cultural issues."

But now it seems you would like to abandon any further efforts to secure civil rights for others, for the exact same reason that other people argued against securing your civil rights.

If we're going to have an honest conversation about reality, start with the reality that most of the time it's not Democrats who are pushing for "wacky shit" and "identity politics." Democrats are not running political campaigns saying that we should provide litter boxes in classrooms for furries. Democrats are not running political campaigns saying we should abolish the police entirely. Democrats are not running campaigns saying we should open up the country's borders to anyone who wants to come here.

But Republicans DO run on those issues. They run campaigns which just flat out lie about Democrats, saying we're going to do all of the above. In 2024 it was Republicans who ran on trans issues, and "DEI," and other social issues -- not Democrats. Democrats ran a campaign based on mainstream stuff like the economy, abortion, foreign policy, etc.

Meanwhile, I don't know if you've noticed, but over in the Republican Party they really are pushing for "wacky shit" and "identity politics" -- for example, they're deporting as many people of color as they possibly can, while rolling out the red carpet for white Afrikaners. That's not just me making up a BS claim for political reasons -- that is the actual policy they're enforcing, from the president on down.

So for me, the problem is not "Democrats need to stop doing all this wacky cultural shit." The problem is "It's way too easy for Republicans to convince voters that Democrats want to do all this wacky cultural shit."

That's a totally different problem, and it can't be solved by throwing marginalized people under the bus, because that is not going to stop Republicans lying about Democrats. Why would it? They'll just come up with some other BS to lie to people about.

The real problem is Citizens United, which allowed unrestricted dark money spending on US elections, and a social media ecosystem which has essentially become nothing more than a massive commercial propaganda machine which shovels incendiary garbage in front of people's faces 24/7 based on algorithms owned by billionaires.

How do we overcome that? Hell if I know -- it's not like Citizens United or social media are going anywhere anytime soon. Best I can come up with so far is that in 2028 we're going to need someone who is an extremely strong communicator with that magic teflon touch, who can play the social media game. I also think that a message of "freedom" vs. "big government ordering you around" could be effective for Democrats in 2026 and 2028.

But I'm not really down with the strategy of, "Let's win by treading on the people that Republicans want us to tread on," because if we have to turn into Republicans to win, we haven't won at all. We've just been assimilated.

[Sympthsical]

72. I feared this would be more or less the shape of the response

There's that impulse. "Perhaps our problem is that we're too awesome." This is a feint that effects to be answer while ignoring the core complaint.

Nowhere in my thinking did I state that our problem is that we fight for equality. Your response is addressing a concept I did not articulate.

Allow me to stick with one issue - a sticky one - but one I can speak of authoritatively and with personal experience. Trans issues. Now I will not discuss the sports thing or bathrooms or anything in that vein. There has been a shift in the last decade. As a gay man, it has been understood that my orientation is immutable. I am a male who is attracted sexually and romantically to other males. Now, this was a non-negotiable thing for us on the Left for quite awhile. Remember, born that way?

It changed. It got weird. I had trans men coming up to me on dating apps. I very politely declined, because I am not interested sexually in that equipment. I wouldn't even mention the reason unless asked. I have a right to be attracted to what I am attracted to. But that did not go well. I was accused of being transphobic. There was a new ideological philosophy that being gay meant being attracted to a gender not a sex. And if I didn't believe this I was a bigot.

People - even straight cis ones - were suddenly lecturing me on how to properly be a gay man. That is crazy. My lesbian friends were being harassed regularly on dating apps by people who have penises. This isn't a right-wing talking point. This isn't propaganda. This happened to us in our own lives. We talk about this amongst ourselves. Look up what the Cotton Ceiling is - and if the reaction isn't to be creeped the fuck out by how predatory it is, I don't know what to tell you. And this idea, that we should be free without judgement to pursue the relationships we want has somehow become a conservative point of view. In our own spaces. Just, whut?

Now, could we have this conversation in public in left-leaning spaces? No, we could not. People get harassed, deplatformed, and brigaded, and would have posts wiped about this stuff. The crazy became the inflexible dogma. It was orientation erasure. The result is that I see more and more LGBT kind of pulling away from the political component of the community. They don't want to be a part of this stuff. They'll just stay home. I know more Republican LGBTers now than I ever did in my life, and it isn't a function of age. I know younger LGBTers in their 20s and 30s who are just tapping out from this stuff.

So here's why your answer is a problem for me. I am for trans rights. Equality, dignity, respect, access to healthcare, nondiscrimination, and the right to live their lives as they wish as they pursue their happiness. I'm a gay man in the Bay Area with many trans people in my social circle, and I want for them to live their best lives.

However, my simple unwillingness to date someone who is not male is seen as not enough in too many of our activist quarters. I might as well be a right-winger. And that's the polite version. My sex, race, and general identity disposition can come into commentary, too. It's all fair when you're designated ok to hate. It's just how loopy it's gotten.

And you can take just about any issue right now regarding race, sex, gender, orientation, etc. and find similar qualities. There's the baseline liberal position - people deserve equality, dignity, and rights. Systems need reforming and policies enacted to give people the best opportunities we can. Then there's the social media activist driven crazy portions like what I and my friends have experienced. But when you bring up how crazy this has all gotten, you get that response. "Oh, sorry that I just care about equality too much!"

That is not equality. That is an attempt at authoritarian imposition of ideological belief systems on others. And we increasingly cannot see the difference. If I'm hated, I don't care. I'm in my 40s with my partner all settled down. I do not have to tread those choppy waters anymore. But we are alienating people with dogmatic ideological positions well outside the boundaries of mainstream thought that the general population does not want to be browbeaten into.

You can browbeat people in your own spaces. Harass people off social media, hide posts, and generally create a space where exists the power for dogma to be enforced. But all that really does is create an insulated system that increasingly loses touch with everyone else.

The discussion isn't how bad are Republicans. We're on DU. We know Republicans are bad. The question is, why are people being turned off from Democrats - particularly more young people, which is a very dangerous situation for us to be in electorally. Particularly with the census imminent. Have you seen Millennials? We're making that Right turn.

This sort of shit is why. We need to stop pretending it's not a problem, stop deflecting from it, stop going, "But Republicans . . ." We need to figure out how to keep fighting for equality while keeping the crazy at bay.

Because we let the crazy into the house. That's on us. The question now is what kind of broom would we like to use to clean this up. For me, the narrower the better. Keep the good, get rid of the crazy.

If the response to that is, "What crazy? I don't see it," we're doomed. People are screaming at full volume how much they hate a lot of the identity politics stuff. And not just white people. LatinX ground is well worn. AAPI - and 80% of my social circle is AAPI, including my large network of in-laws - increasingly see cultural issues as limiting when it comes to going as all in on Democratic politics as they might otherwise do.

And I didn't even touch on economic issues, where for two years before the election, our message was "What problem?" FFS.

It's gotten to the point that we legitimately might need saving from ourselves, because we no longer have the ability to reasonably course correct without melting down about it. I'm not sure the self-awareness requires exists in this moment. "Our problem is that we're too awesome" just isn't reading the American room.

[EarlG]

75. No need for a straw man

"Perhaps our problem is that we're too awesome" is your construction, not mine.

"The discussion isn't how bad are Republicans" -- agreed, I didn't say that either.

My argument was that we should stand up for the rights of marginalized populations and not base our electoral strategies on how far we should throw people under the bus.

I said that it is the Republican Party that is forcing culture war issues down everyone's throats, not the Democratic Party. But we're the ones getting blamed for it -- by Republicans. This is a political problem, and the problem is that:

It's way too easy for Republicans to convince voters that Democrats want to do all this wacky cultural shit. ... The real problem is Citizens United, which allowed unrestricted dark money spending on US elections, and a social media ecosystem which has essentially become nothing more than a massive commercial propaganda machine which shovels incendiary garbage in front of people's faces 24/7 based on algorithms owned by billionaires.

I'm arguing that the biggest problem the Democratic Party faces is that with the assistance of a handful of psychopathic billionaires, Republicans have turned the modern Internet into a massive propaganda machine, which has become extremely efficient at convincing people that the mainstream Democratic Party shares or is responsible for the views of fringe activists. And right now, we do not have a way to combat that.

You seem to be arguing that the biggest problem the Democratic Party faces is that nowadays there are too many people on dating apps telling gay men that if they don't want to have sex with trans men, they must be transphobes.

I was going to end this post by saying that you are kinda making my point for me, but that would be flippant. Instead let me ask, since this is clearly an important issue for you, how do you think this problem with gay men being browbeaten by trans men on dating apps should be resolved by the Democratic Party going into 2026? I could use something more specific than, "Just get rid of the crazy."

[Sympthsical]

79. Keeping it very simple - a question

I'm sorry, I know I ramble, but I will answer your question at the end.

Before I get to the question, have you seen the Catalist numbers on the 2024 election?

https://www.vox.com/politics/414370/2024-election-results-exit-polls-catalist

That's brutal. That white voters more or less remained the same, but that non-white communities significantly shifted. Mostly males, but not only males. These shifts are highly, highly visible in both culture and lived experience. You'd have to be actively hiding not see how the culture is shifting.

So here's my question: How do you square this idea of being champion of marginalized populations when those same populations are migrating towards your opponent? Are you really championing them if they look at you and go, "Nah, I'm good. Thanks," in increasing numbers? You say propaganda. But here's the thing. No one anywhere doesn't know what our message is. I know DU runs with that conceit that everything is a messaging problem. I don't think it is. Culture - particularly mass media culture - is steeped in every permutation of our messaging imaginable. What people cannot bring themselves to admit is that the content of the message is being rejected. Because that's a much harder thing to admit and wrestle with.

I don't think many on our side see this, and I think it's mainly an affluent white liberal problem, where racial politics have become very condescending and patronizing over time towards these communities. We don't talk to them, we talk at them. Then we congratulate ourselves on our ability to talk at them.

The signaling has become more important than the accomplishing.

Which leads me to answering your question.

You seem to be arguing that the biggest problem the Democratic Party faces is that nowadays there are too many people on dating apps telling gay men that if they don't want to have sex with trans men, they must be transphobes.

First. This is deeply dishonest and I think a little below either of us if we're having an earnest conversation. I never said anywhere close to any such thing about it being the biggest problem or even a big problem. I used it as a ready personal example of the cultural contours of the problem. Where the liberal position is usurped by an illiberal one formed from authoritarian dogmatism that characterizes many of the newer ideologies.

I'm not sure the Democratic Party solely has a political problem that can be solved politically. What we have is a cultural problem. I think you're being a little flippantly dismissive of my example, because you aren't living in that experience where there can be significant social implications. Being considered transphobic in the LGBT space can lead to significant ostracization. Which, particularly for young LGBT people, can be devastating. So when everyone's tripping over themselves to send up the right signals, they alienate what are natural allies. Furthermore, there becomes a lot more pressure on youth to be what they are not or accept what they do not wish to in order to avoid that ostracization.

And that's when you see people go, "You know what? This stuff isn't for me. I'm out."

Spread that across other groups. Men. Latinos. The Black community. AAPI.

Look at the numbers. And the answer is we're just not very good at YouTube? That is . . . an extremely self-flattering excuse. Maybe we just don't have anything to say. Do you see that thread about Harvard where people are pissing all over trade schools? What are you selling these communities other than "Not Republican!"

How to fix that? Probably tamping down on brainless virtue signalling would be an amazing start. Not every new idea is progress. Much of the time, it can be quite regressive once you give it even slight thought. Activists do not always reflect their communities, but in making them the Voice of the Community, you can start alienating what might be a significant majority of that community (see LatinX). That desire to signal is what lands us in situations where our politicians just say wild shit where the community they think they're addressing ends up side-eyeing them real hard.

Get rid of the dogmatism. We used to be liberals who had a "Just let people live their lives" philosophy. Now it's "You must think exactly the Correct Things in the Correct Ways always or else we'll come for you." And I know you're thinking, "But Republicans do that, too." Yeah, they do. And if the choice is only that attitude, you might as well go for the real thing. Particularly if you see it as beneficial to your personal sensibilities.

As long as I've been an adult, how we speak to marginalized communities has always struck me as very patronizing, condescending, and dripping with more than just a smidge of bigotry. Say what one will, but that Bush line "the soft bigotry of low expectations" slaps, and it's been striated throughout how we've formed both our political and cultural attitudes towards the marginalized.

Welp. They noticed. So now what?

[Brenda]

87. So much crap you've said...

For example:

I don't think many on our side see this, and I think it's mainly an affluent white liberal problem, where racial politics have become very condescending and patronizing over time towards these communities. We don't talk to them, we talk at them. Then we congratulate ourselves on our ability to talk at them.

You live in white liberal California, right? I live in the Deep South where black Democrats and candidates are becoming more numerous and they are not at all feeling patronized by the Democratic Party. They know exactly what Republican white people are and they are not leaving the party.

You seem to be so upset about your own personal situation that you have extended it to the entire Democratic Party.

Sad.

[Sympthsical]

90. Have you seen some of our national rhetoric towards Latinos?

It’s situated in such a way that acts like that entire community just came over the border last weekend. Like immigration is literally all they care about.

Once you see it, you always see it.

When we lost the last election, I saw - right here - wishes that Latinos would be deported to “learn their lesson.” Right here. As if most Latinos aren’t American citizens on second, third, and fourth generation. It’s insulting - and it’s increasingly taken as such.

We’re great at seeing bigotry in others. Not so much when self-examination time kicks in.

[EarlG]

93. You asked me a direct question

"How do you square this idea of being champion of marginalized populations when those same populations are migrating towards your opponent?" You already know my answer to this because you read it back to me: "Propaganda."

But you're missing the point. I'm not saying that we have a "messaging problem." I'm saying that Republicans are taking advantage of a massive, billionaire-controlled propaganda system that is very, very good at convincing people not to believe their own lying eyes, while Democrats are trying to be the reality-based party in a nation that is increasingly retreating into fantasy. I'm not really arguing much beyond that point. I think it's the obvious elephant in the room that all these other explanations for our losses are absolutely related to, but we are talking around. Maybe the problem just seems too big and unsolvable, but like climate change, it exists.

See: Many Hispanics voted Republican because they supported the removal of criminal illegal immigrants. They are now subject to masked, armed men coming into their neighborhoods, busting down doors, breaking car windows, and hauling their non-criminal neighbors and family members off to undisclosed locations.

See: Many farmers voted Republican because they wanted to cut government spending. They are now struggling financially because Trump eradicated the USAID program.

See: Blue collar workers who voted Republican because they wanted DOGE to cut government waste are losing their jobs because DOGE is randomly shutting down research facilities in ruby-red areas of the country.

Should we be impressed by the fact that many of these people were conned -- by a convicted con man, let's not forget -- into voting for something they didn't know they were going to get? Is that what we're trying to emulate?

When the above policies cause enough pain, a strong democracy should be self-righting, because people who are unhappy with the way things are going will vote for the party that's out of power. And yet, it remains to be seen if that will happen this time around, because we are now all subject to a massive billionaire-controlled propaganda machine which is interfering with that self-righting process, not to mention a rogue government that is highly likely to fuck with the election process.

That machine has spent the last few years convincing people that America's REAL problems are that the Democratic Party wants litterboxes in classrooms for furries, or the Democratic Party wants to abolish the police entirely, or the Democratic Party wants completely open borders. None of that is true, but millions of people believe it. So how does one find common ground with people who aren't even operating on the same level of reality? How does one find common ground when even allies such as yourself seem to be buying into and spreading that same propaganda?

How does one find common ground, when allies such as yourself believe that the Democrats have a "dogmatic authoritarian" problem when -- just off the top of my head -- the current administration is illegally dismantling government institutions, firing highly competent professionals for lack of political loyalty, trying to deport millions of brown-skinned people while rolling out the red carpet for white Afrikaners, trying to force a specific religion down everyone's throats, and throwing patriotic transgender service members who just want to serve their country out of the military? What about the naked bribery and corruption that is taking place at the highest level? Don't come back to me and say, "Blah blah you're just saying Republicans are bad, and we all know that." The vile, unconstitutional behavior we've all witnessed over the past few months cannot possibly be hand-waved that easily.

To me, much of what Democratic Party stands for comes down to empathy, which is something that, unfortunately, I see you demonstrating very little of. You've told me that you're in your 40s and in a stable relationship -- I don't know if you're married, but you have that choice if you want. And yet the arguments you're making now are the exact same arguments that people used to try to deny you those rights just twenty years ago. Opponents said that the nation wouldn't be able to handle it. It was too weird. It was too crazy. It would cost us elections. And now here you are, making the exact same argument against others who are less fortunate than you.

Perhaps you also believe that pushing an allegedly feminine concept like empathy is another reason we lose elections, to which I would say, indeed -- one of those aforementioned billionaires who happens to control a massive propaganda machine is already working hard to try to turn the concept of empathy into something toxic.

Bottom line, I suspect there's little progress to be made here, and we will have to agree to disagree.

[Sympthsical]

102. I actually agree with much you say here

Particularly on matters of policy

But here is the core difference, and it has to do with the idea of propaganda. The Right has been very good at penetrating social media. They have found an audience willing to the listen to what they have to say. The crux of my viewpoint is that we have primed that audience to listen to what they have to say. You read your own website. You must see the hostility towards males and various racial groups depending on the time of day. Usually white people, sometimes Latinos, and AAPI get noticed once in a while for their white adjacentness.

We keep alienating what should be natural allies. It becomes a question - Do you want to win elections or do you want to grind grievances? And somewhere along the way, we decided we wanted to grind grievances. And unfortunately, our grievances are heavily, heavily anchored in identity politics, so our expressed politics - the politics other people see and the cultural results of those politics - are primed to alienate people. We have a whole system of who is allowed to say what to whom. Of course Republicans exploit grievance. They're very good at it. Which circles around to the point in my previous post. If we're having a contest over which side is good at exploiting grievance, Republicans will win. They're good at this stuff. And they're also a bit more homogenized than the Democratic party. So when we start down that road, we might get negativity pointed at Republicans, but we also start firing at each other inside our own tent. It's the nature of our party. We cannot do grievance politics centered on identity and minimize the friendly fire. It's impossible in a political entity so utterly dependent on coalition politics.

I think where you and I differ is in how we read the media. You think I'm spreading propaganda. However, I'm usually relating either my lived experience, the experiences of those I keep in contact with, or reading outside of the MSM. I read a lot, I observe a lot, I listen a lot. To everyone.

I would love to be a reality-based community. We are not that anymore. I have zero intention of relitigating this, but we can see in this Biden/Tapper stuff that there is a very, very closed bubble that thinks everything is propaganda. Everything. And it is well outside even the average Democratic voter. When two thirds of Democratic voters are saying one thing, and it's being dismissed as MSM propaganda in these closed partisan spaces, who's in touch with reality? Over the past two years, just saying "Damn, prices at the grocery store are crazy!" was considered some kind of contrarian statement. Why? Because it imperiled a political narrative that everything was great? Pick a topic. Just saying uncontroversial exceedingly obvious things gets push back. Oh, that's the MSM! They're lying! They're lying about what? What I just paid at the grocery store? Guys, I have the receipt in my hands.

There is so much of this on our side now. "You are not seeing what your eyes and ears are clearly seeing and hearing. It's all propaganda."

Voters see this. The sun is up. They can see us. Narrative reality is increasingly becoming an alternative lived in reality aided and abetted by enclosure in sealed partisan spaces. I suspect what you and I see as propaganda are going to be very different things.

I know Republicans are bad. It's why I don't vote for them. I don't need to be told they're awful. What I need to be told is what the party's strategy is going forward to create a sustainable electoral majority. Particularly because that 2030 census is coming, and it scares the hell out of me. 2026 is probably in the bag for us. 2028 will probably be ours to lose. And after that? Is our electoral fate really "Well, let's wait til Republicans wreck things, then we'll win the election!" Because that's kind of been our strategy for most of my life. Republicans take five steps backward, then we come in and do a bit of spot cleaning, then Republicans come in and push us another five steps back. I think the trajectory of this electoral habit has been painstakingly clear.

Either we figure out how to start talking to the parts of the country who don't already agree with us, or the electorate will change our party by force in the 2030s. We're so desperately bad at seeing problems coming until they arrive (or until they've already passed and we've lost major elections). Because we dismiss anything we don't want to hear as propaganda.

Wouldn't it be nice to tackle a problem before it arrives? Just for a fun change of pace?

[Brenda]

108. Hostility towards males here?

Just because MRA's and incels are ridiculed because of their blatant lies about reverse sexism or whatever they call it doesn't equate to hostility. Men whining about not advancing because feminists took their jobs is bullshit. Most females have worked jobs men would never fucking apply for, usually because they pay far less than what males are paid and women are even paid less than men doing the exact same job. That's hostility.

Considering how women are beaten, raped and killed by males every second of the day and brainwashed by churches and other patriarchal institutions to be subservient to men or else...perhaps THAT is real hostility.

[Sympthsical]

109. No, I got it

I don't need help.

[Abolishinist]

77. I completely agree with this and your later post as well.

Extremely well thought out and expressed. Thank you!

[LearnedHand]

81. This is the part i ageee with: "ever-changing list of cultural offenses people must be persecuted for committing"

The Republicans are the ones guilty of identity politics, but I agree the Dems can be too quick to police other people's language. I don't like the language people use sometimes, but if someone uses the R- word to describe a situation, I shiver on the inside but don't call them out for it. I don't want Dems to be thought of as language police. I want us to be the idea people. I think Dems abandoned real ideas back in the 90s.

[Littlered]

82. Well said.

Based on the amount of “hides” I have. I won’t expound beyond that.

[fujiyamasan]

86. The odd thing is, I don't think this moralizing tone

Is necessarily coming from most democratic politicians. It’s just that when someone steps out of line, there’s hell to be paid from influencers, activist twitter, a small cadre of academics (where the hell else would LatinX come from?), and and an ecosystem of “not for profit” consultants.

I disagree that the right’s message was “we like you”. I don’t think most minorities believe the right likes them. I think many of Trump’s young minority voters think he’s probably racist and know most of his supporters are, but they supported him anyways because of this disconnect what they feel democrats care about, and what they actually care about.

I think the right’s message centered more on “we know you only care about the color green and so do we”. That’s why so much of their schtick is crypto, gold, penny stocks, and other get rich quick schemes. If there’s a secondary message it’s that “we get you” and that part is about cultural issues (I.e. trans in sports and gender affirming care).

[BluesRunTheGame]

95. Thanks for these posts.

I agree with your take on these things.

I haven’t posted here since the election.

My thought, at the time, was that the people who didn’t show up for us were the same people we’ve been chasing away.

I’ve been reading DU since the day the twin towers fell. Two and a half decades. I’ve seen quite a few posts about “men” here in that time. I don’t recall a single one of them that wasn’t negative in the original post or the replies. Often both.

The Left is pretty hostile toward men. It’s really not surprising that we are losing them. I’m not optimistic that we’re going to be able to turn this around.

[Midwestern Democrat]

97. Agreed. I came of age politically in the 1980s and being a liberal minded young man inclined towards intellectualism

there was no question which party I was going to join - and for the most part, I really had no broad complaints with the party until around 2010. There were specific occasional things I was unhappy about - I felt the party should have killed NAFTA in 1993 and should have opposed the passage of the Iraq War Resolution in 2002 far more strongly - but it wasn't until after we won the House back in 2006 and the rise of the liberal blogosphere that I started really feeling a sense of unease - and this unease has MASSIVELY increased since then.

If I was a young man coming of age politically today, I'm not at all certain I would have been attracted to the current party - there's a lot of stuff that would have really alienated me - I suspect I would have chosen to be an Independent who mostly voted Democratic as the least bad option.

I'm not optimistic either that we're going to be able to turn this thing around.

[BluesRunTheGame]

98. NAFTA was, in my opinion, a HUGE political blunder.

I’d almost bet that I could walk into any working class bar between the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes and ask the youngest man there about NAFTA.

If he didn’t know anything else he’d know it cost us good paying jobs and it was signed by a Democrat.

But hey, it opened up the pocketbooks of the investor class. Now we can hire fancy consultants to create “messaging” to reach out to same people we shoved out of the bus and into the ditch in the 1990s. What a deal!

[LAS14]

69. It made me glad.

I always have the car radio set to NPR, and a few weeks ago, while driving, I was surprised to hear two guys chatting back and forth in tones that sounded like a Saturday afternoon sports call in show. After I started paying attention, I realized they were talking very rationally about one of the issues of the day, like immigration or free speech or something (can't remember now). It quite cheered me up, to think that NPR had it in mind to broaden their appeal. And to demonstrate that your tone of voice and speech rhythms don't restrict clear thinking.

I posted about it here, but it didn't gain traction. Maybe some rich Dem muckety muck read it!!!

[biocube]

70. I'm so tired of Democrats blaming voters for our electoral failures

Whenever you have some disaffected demographic, you need to offer some compelling narrative about what the problem is. Trump formed a narrative blaming immigrants and trade deficits. Democrats only counter-narrative seems to be "pull yourself up by your bootstraps., you bigots already have your male privilege".

I'm ready to see Democrats vilify the billionaire class the same way Republicans vilify trans people and immigrants, because they do cause most of the problems we have in society. It's an oversimplification but nuance has never translated well to political campaigning. And when someone accuses you of class warfare you just say "you're damn right, we're coming for you".

[BlueTsunami2018]

80. Hard to do when the infinite dark money ads define you.

We’re in favor of giving sex changes to schoolchildren and prisoners. We’re “elitist”. We care more about illegal alien gang members than “regular” Americans. We want tampons in boy’s bathrooms and drag queens in kindergarten. We think all white men are toxic rapists and are to blame for everything that’s wrong in society. We support Hamas.

And so on and so on.

It’s hard to fight all that. That’s who they think we are.

[Faux pas]

83. Are they taking

dumbing down classes? That's what they'll need to capture all those white man excellence folk. and .

[ProfessorGAC]

85. They Couldn't Have Rented...

...a storefront in Arlington?
Nothing says "reaching the common man" like holding meetings in luxury resorts.

[Initech]

88. We need to reach young men too.

They're being drawn to the likes of Alex Jones and Joe Rogan.

[kentuck]

92. That's the biggest pile of horseshit I have seen in some time...

It's not the syntax. It's the content.

First of all, there should be a truce called between the opposing sides, so that both sides may speak their minds.

Then we might have to agree that maybe both sides have been played for fools at one time or another?

Then we unite under a common goal: To preserve our Constitution and our country from the wealthy oligarchs who are wannabe autocrats, and dictators. We cannot and shall NOT remain divided.

United We Stand. Divided We Fall.

Only Uniting can defeat Dividing.

We must have freedom of speech.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

94. Working class young men are pretty much like foreign people.

As a female senior citizen they are a different breed.

[fujiyamasan]

96. Once again these "consultants"

Last edited Wed May 28, 2025, 02:16 AM - Edit history (1)

Are charging a lot of money to turn all of this into an academic exercise, acronyms and all. Has the party simply become a target for grift at this point or is it just desperation? It’s like reading about how Donilon charged the Biden reelection campaign $4 million!

Why not just get out there and talk to people? Talk to democratic governors who have won red states? Find out how democratic house reps won their seats in districts Trump won?

Shit, the Democratic Party leadership would be better off just paying some intern to create anti Trump memes, or generate some AI slop to do it. I think the ROI on this project is going to be very disappointing.

[Clouds Passing]

104. The Dems must learn to jerk off a mic.

[Scrivener7]

106. Here's the answer: lots of Democratic men are racist and sexist. That's why they

voted for Joe and stayed home for Kamala. There you go. Run a white, middle aged, Protestant, straight man and they will come back. As will the women who are financially dependent on them.

I hate it, and they're assholes but we need them. That'll bring them back.

So. You're welcome.

Now take all that money and run national ads on how every policy being enacted is for the benefit of billionaires and is hurting everyone else, and how everyone's rights are being bulldozed.

[Deminpenn]

107. Save money, just listen to Trump's rally speeches

He knows how to talk to them. It's all about their grievances over people who don't look like them, talk like them or act like them, all of whom they feel have held them back from having a better or more successful life.

They could care less about how they vote against their own self interest. They only care that their station in life is someone else's fault, not as a result of their own poor choices.

[usonian]

111. The solution: "holing up in luxury hotel rooms" is the problem.

"Real men" don't feast on shrimp cocktail.

They're busy preparing for wildfire and hurricane season.

And replacing old, deteriorated door mouldings.

Ask me how I know.