Why the Left Can’t Reach Men
Most people probably missed the multi-day discussion started by the popular politics Youtuber, Vaush, about why young men, particularly young white men, are taken in by the radical right rather than embraced by the left and progressive politics. Vaush pointed out that the Right has influencers like Andrew Tate, Jordan Petersen, and many others who offer disaffected young men a place to feel validated, welcome, and emotionally salved. The Left doesn’t offer anything nearly as compelling. His question was simple, why doesn’t the Left do more to reach men?
Why Bother Reaching Men?
It is no secret that men are having some struggles, especially economically. The difficult job market allows many young men to fall down the right-wing trap online. There are plenty of reasons for this and I’ve talked about them before. I even cover them in America’s Lost Generation. If you’re a young man today your options are either trades, college, or a string of ever-worse-dignity-destroying service jobs. It seems like you can’t get ahead without years of more school or a body-breaking job. The days of having a high school education and being able to walk into decent job that supports a family are long over and they aren’t coming back. No one really talks about how this effects the economic prospects of men.
I’ve been writing about this for several years and a whole essay appears in my book about it. Traditionally, when the Left was more dominated by unions and espoused more working class values, the Left agitated for things that helped working people and that was usually men. However, in the last 50 years, the Left has become more educated and women have become a much larger political force. Changing culture and economics have happened to where the needs of men, especially non-college educated men, have fallen away in favor of marginalized groups and primarily the women or feminine expressing people within those groups.
Issues that mainstream men have like workplace safety, divorce, family court, education, and economic security have fallen away. Women now can compete with men in the white collar fields and many blue collar fields often require training of some kind after high school either way. There is a whole class of opportunities for men that have either been eliminated by technology or been taken over by those with a college education. The modern Left is not organizing to help men in the trades or other blue collar professions. Much the unhappiness about how things have changed has turned many of these men into a reliable GOP voting base. The reality is that working-class men were the ones most impacted by trade treaties that sent jobs overseas (Trump mentions this regularly) and the Left has no answer to these problems. Trump was widely criticized for the trade war with China but the tariffs he implemented were kept on by the Biden administration.
It is my view that many on the Left view most men as a lost cause. The last 10 years of Leftist movements in the US have decidedly left men, particularly white men, behind. However, there is an opportunity here to do something politically. By returning to the roots of what activates the Left and by addressing men’s issues, the Left could undercut a reliable Trump voting base. 2020 exit polling data showed that while Trump increased his vote share in every demographic, he lost votes among white men, including non-college educated men. This is tremendous progress and shows that Biden’s strategy of focus on a strong economy (missed the mark but it was a nice thought) good jobs, and labor movement support was a solid idea and should continue to be pursued. If the Left is serious about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion then the conversation needs to include an important group: men.
Men = Toxic
One of the reasons it is hard for the Left to reach men is that much of the discourse about men on the Left isn’t exactly friendly toward men. In most leftists spaces you’ll see people open criticizing men as a whole, complaining about misogyny, and generally calling out toxic behavior. This is a good thing because it changes our perspective and hopefully gets some men to change their behavior. Men who say “not all men” get shouted down immediately. In some extreme cases, there are radical women who treat maleness as a disease.
There isn’t much in the Left narrative that encourages men or addresses their issues. The Left isn’t even in the conversation and when it gets involved in the conversation it is through the lens of patriarchy or racism. The Right wing commentators offer platitudes and easy advice for getting to the good life where money and available women abound. The Left offers no such thing. It is not a hard thing to figure out which side young men are going to gravitate towards. Most young men would like to drive a fast car, date an attractive woman, and be able to afford the lifestyle that goes with that. Even for young men inclined toward the Left, there is no easy advice. They are told to, “educate themselves” and “read a book.” Tate, Peterson and others offer action plans for something to do, actively, in the world to improve life against a system that no longer seems to care about young men. Their advice is clothed in right-wing ideology and often racist ideas but it is packaged for easy male consumption in a way that young men understand. Men like to do things more than think about things and people like Peterson and Tate know this and they have adjusted their message accordingly.
On the Left, there is much talk about privileges and the target of that message is usually toward men but that is increasingly a hard argument to make outside of major institutions and systems. For the regular guy who is trying to find his place in the world, it can seem like he doesn’t have much a place in the world and yet somehow he is responsible for all its problems. Some people reading this will think that the idea is absurd but I am talking about narratives and what current impression is in the zeitgeist. I’m not the first to say this but it is important that we have an open conversation about this. If the Left wants to really change society, it will undercut these right-wing commentators with a message that is packaged by and for men and that can help them grow. This is why I’ve been writing about manhood and masculinity for so long.
Male Politics
Men are still a force to be reckoned with in elections. In 2020, Donald Trump increased his vote share in every demographic except White Men (according to AP exit polling). It was white men that decided the election for Joe Biden when you look at the entire picture and it was white men that put Trump back into the White House in 2024. The lesson from the 2024 election is crystal clear: ignore male politics at your peril. For progressives this likely means leaving much of the “wokeness” and “DEI” and other stuff behind. The entire 2014 progressive project has been rejected and it was men that rejected it. If Democrats want to win in the future, they are going to have to learn how to be a bro.
