The Masculinity Election
We need a politics that honors men without dishonoring women. Can either side produce that?
I’ve an essay up in the Wall Street Journal today, On the Ballot: American Manhood. In case you don’t have a subscription, here are few excerpts:
The 2024 vote was set to be a referendum on the rights of women. Instead it has become a debate over the needs and desires of men. The question now is which model of manhood will win in November. The macho brawler of the Trump-Vance ticket, or the kindly “girl dad” offered by Harris and Walz? The fighter or the coach?
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[There is a] big gender gap in voting intentions. Among likely women voters, Harris leads Trump by 14 points (55% to 41%) in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll while Trump leads by 17 points among men (56% to 39%).
The gender gap among younger voters is especially stark, with women under 30 moving left while their male peers move right.
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Where do the parties go from here? Perhaps each side will double down. Democrats may try to pick up extra votes from women to offset their losses among men, while Republicans do the same in the other direction. This would turn the election in November into a rather grim choice between a Women’s Party and a Men’s Party. It would also be a dire response to the challenges of the moment.
A better way forward would be for the campaigns to break out of this zero-sum calculation on gender. This means crafting a political message that acknowledges that both men and women are facing real and distinct challenges right now, without suggesting the fault lies with the needs and desires of the opposite sex.
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For Republicans, this would mean disavowing some of the more misogynistic claims of the manosphere, including the most pernicious: that the advances of women have come at the expense of men. They might also ditch unpopular positions on curbing vitro fertilization, support access to contraception and back reforms popular with working women, such as better access to paid leave and a more generous child tax credit—something Vance actually supports, but you would hardly know it from listening to him on the stump. Instead of banging on about how families ought to look, Republicans should recognize that priorities such as reducing crime, curbing inflation and securing the border are broadly popular with women, too.
They could also offer concrete plans to actually help men, such as investing in vocational education and training, especially technical high schools and apprenticeships; creating more jobs to fix the country’s infrastructure; and widening opportunities for national service. Conservatives who are eager to see more happy families with children might also support plans to broaden access to paternity leave.
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Democrats could not only propose investments in vocational training and paternity leave, but also create a federal task force on male suicide. A national recruitment drive of male teachers might also help stem the attrition of male students. When Walz began working in education in the 1980s, around a third of all K-12 teachers were male; that share is now less than a quarter and falling, especially in high schools. Democrats might also call more attention to the fact that most of the jobs created by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act have been for working class men, of all races.
Tectonic shifts in our economy and society have left many men reeling. Neglected for too long, the real problems faced by boys and men have turned into grievances. But the solution isn’t to fuel the grievances, it is to tackle the problems.
If you can I’d love you to read the whole thing: but either way let me know what you think! - R
"creating more jobs to fix the country’s infrastructure"
- Trump ran on that in 2015 but he never did anything.
To answer your question Richard Reeves, the answer is no, not at this time. Why? Because it is time to have a discussion about what it means to be masculine and what it means to be feminine. Let's stop the polarization. Society is calling for men to be role models to their children and their sons. The number of boys growing up without father figure role models is staggering. Let's get to the core of the issue rather then skirting it through the lens of politics.