I think progressives never thought about this because we banked on immigration and demographic change allowing us to win culturally and electorally but the issue is immigrants tend to be overwhelmingly male, that is how Trump won actually he won over a lot of Hispanic,Black,Asian and indigenous men who feel humiliated by a new culture, economy and world.
So what can we do rhetorically and policy wise to win more young men over ?
Man it’s like the majority of people here don’t have ‘regular guy’ friends.
The way to get to regular dudes, is to make them feel fucking included. Yes, diversity is fucking awesome. Yes, having women in leadership roles is fucking awesome. But for your average guy… who do they have to look up to on the left side of things? In the news? In congress? Who is on the national stage for these things? Who is talking to those people?
There isn’t anyone. There are tons of people talking to other groups of people, but there has been flat out no courting of the white dude demographic outside of White Dudes for Harris (which was brilliant but came too late).
Speak to the issues these guys are facing. Talk about dating. Talk about career struggles. Talk about feeling alone, and feeling vulnerable. And then, talk about solution based problem-solving for these things.
Why do you think the right wing latched onto guys who do the whole personal betterment thing? It’s the same shit that white supremacist groups do. They’ll get you with things that anyone can agree with like ‘Hey man if you work hard you’ll succeed. I fucking believe in you when no one else will.’ Then they go into the right wing bullshit because now they have you at an emotional level.
There is no online left presence doing these things, and there are multiple right wing people doing this shit.
Make a left wing Joe Rogan, and bro-dudes will watch that shit like shit on velcro. But it has to be a dude-bro talking to them. It can’t be Rachel Maddow or AOC, it has to be someone who comes from that background.
I wanted to reminisce about the Daily Show when it was at its best. John Stewart and Stephen Colbert were huge for me. Realistically though they aren’t the right kind of people for the type of role model your talking about. Part of the left’s problem is that the language and style that are used is too intellectual. It contrubitues to the right being able to dismiss progressives as “coastal elites” Part of Bernie’s appeal is that he seems very down to earth and straightforward and that’s one of the reason that the right has so much trouble going after him. We need a progressive plumber.
I always make the same argument as to why left-wing politics has been so generally unappealing to working-class, average people - in spite of the irony. I vote left, I have a uni degree, and they still piss me off. Don’t talk about Marxist analyses, and don’t make everything about gender identity or Palestine (I care deeply about Palestine, but it’s not the main issue that I’d want my local political party to focus on) make it about the issues facing regular people on an every day basis. Say “bro, me like taxes” instead of producing a 20-page paper on the evils of capitalism.
Why do we need a role model anyway? I’m a straight white married male with no kids and very progressive. I don’t need a role model to not be a piece of shit.