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
It's not my original thought (there was a NYT column along these lines) but the enthusiasm among the TikTok set for Tim Walz memes along the lines of "Tim Walz checked your oil and it was a little low, so he added a quart" and "Tim Walz slipped a $20 in your pocket when you said goodbye, for gas money" shows the hunger for that supportive, midwest Dad masculinity. I made me think of your column in Comment magazine and your point about a productive, relational masculinity that is rooted in responsibility, caring, and support. Whether Walz is being mythologized, or this is actually him, it reflects the need of our nation for this kind of positive masculinity - "tonic masculinity." That need not be a partisan thing, though the Dems find themselves in a position to capitalize on it because the Trump-Vance side has staked out a more bellicose position as the masculine one.
What I appreciate in your piece here, however, is your connection of these symbolic tropes of masculinity to the policy proposals of each party. Neither party need abandon their core values to capture this kind of relational, supportive, productive masculinity. Both tickets have an opportunity to lean into the national hunger for this sort of masculinity by acknowledging the general priorities of men as workers, fathers, and students. Let's hope this becomes a national moment and each party finds its way to these emphases. It could be so good for everyone.
Terrific piece, and great job at getting your perspective into the WSJ. I wish I could read more. But it seems to me that the Democrats are the ones with the real opportunity here, and the chance to make a difference. After all they are the ones who are (at least perceived) to have abandoned men. No such perception among Republican-leaning voters.
But to this point Harris has done nothing to change that perception by appealing directly to men – certainly not disaffected men, the way Trump does by default. And that’s only because men sense that Trump does not consider them to be the source of all evil and oppression in the world, the way the progressive left does.
She may have thought Walz would do that, but in an oh-so-Democratic way – by relying on identity politics. Meaning, he LOOKS like the kind of person progressive Democrats think would appeal to men. But voting patterns in his state of Minnesota show that his primary appeal is to urban female progressives and not rural male Republicans.
Either way, what Harris needs to do is something no one has done in the political realm for decades, if ever. To some extent, she needs to make the problems of men an issue in the election. That would be seismic. Because to this point in the campaign and over the last many decades, there has never been an issue particular to men that was part of the political debate, the way issues like: reproductive rights, sexual harassment and abuse, and affirmative action are particular to women.
But she will never do that, because her feminist progressive left would revolt. Because it is inconceivable to them that men should ever receive any kind of help or even attention, the way help and attention are constantly being heaped upon women, in the political realm and in the media.