How To Win The Male Vote: Respect
It turns out half of the population of the United States does matter when it comes to winning elections. The demographic matters so much that the New York Times reported the Democrats have developed a strategy to invest $20 million into an effort they’ve called SAM - “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan” - where they will “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and vitality” in online spaces. This effort will shift away from a “moralizing tone” and “recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things.”
The 2024 election is not the first election in which men gravitated towards the G.O.P. They’ve actually been gaining ground with working-class voters of every race for years. While the “Democrats are increasingly perceived as the party of college-educated elites” and “the defenders of a political and economic system that most Americans feel is failing them.” After the NYT broke the news about the Democrats new strategy, MSNBC published an article titled “The uncomfortable truth about Democrats’ problem reaching male voters.” They attribute the loss of male voters in Presidential elections on whether the candidate for the Democrat Party is male or female. But they acknowledge that “Trump is undoubtedly a factor . . . as well. He’s long preached a traditional form of masculinity that undoubtedly appeals to a certain segment of American men.” The Democrats, on the other hand, are often “branded as the more feminine party, for their views on issues like trans rights, abortion and even social insurance programs.”
The MSNBC article isn’t wrong in highlighting that male voters are going to be more attracted to a masculine campaign over one that has a more feminine flair. Just as women, in general, tend to lean more Democratic for the reasons they listed above. To help counter this feminine branding, the Democrats have decided to engage a young woman, Olivia Julianna, to reach Gen-Z male voters. In an interview she did with a representative of the Texas Democratic Party, she stated that she “loves frat guys” and believes that most young men are closet Democrats. Young men, she says, support the “right to choose,” gay marriage, and BLM, they just don’t feel welcome to the Democrat Party. She will speak with young men to help them understand that they are, indeed, welcome!
It is not a secret that I, too, am a woman. So the un-elicited advice that I am going to give to the Democrats - and the Republicans - can be taken with a grain of salt. However, if the Democrats want to save their $20 million, I think I can solve their problem, but don’t take my word for it. Ask some men if they would agree with what I am about to say.
If you want to win male voters, you need to show them one thing: respect.
As MSNBC mentioned, the Democrat Party is seen as being a place for women. It is entrenched in feminist ideology and, as a result, makes men feel disrespected and worthless. Their young activist, Julianna, isn’t wrong to say that men don’t feel welcome, but it isn’t because men are closet Democrats. It’s because the Democrats have publicly condemned men for years. They’ve made men feel guilty for earning a pay check that may, sometimes, be more than their woman counterpart, despite doing what is necessary to earn it. They are labeled bad because of how they were born. And because of that, they are told to step aside, in every facet of life (even in their areas of interest), to let the women handle it. Yet, once women do start taking control, they start labeling men as incompetent and lazy. It is almost like men, according to feminists, cannot win.
This feminist mindset is not just found in the Democrat Party. The other day, Laura Ingram had Tomi Lahren on her Fox News show for a segment she called “Men in Decline.” During this segment, Lahren went on to condemn Gen-Z men for using “cutesy” names to rebrand laziness and being socially awkward. In addition, she claimed it wasn’t the fault of women that birth rates and marriages are down, but that the number of eligible men to have such a life with is “slim.” According to Lahren, young women want to get married and have kids, but young men just “want to order DoorDash and stay in mama’s basement.” If Republicans have been the Party that men of all ages gravitate towards, because of its “traditional values,” views like Lahren’s will have them sitting out of politics completely.
What I find most amusing about the feminism that has seeped into both political parties, is that women point the finger at men for being the problem, while then continuing to go to women to try and solve the problem. If men are the problem, if they are being driven away or want to stay in their mom’s basement, should we not hear from men on why that is? Should men not be the ones making comments on the “male decline”? Shouldn’t men be the ones to engage other men to win them back to a political party? Women are so concerned with being in control of everything, they can’t even trust men to understand and communicate with other men!
The world that we live in, politics and all, is often a reflection of the private lives of the individuals within that society. The role of respect in a marriage, for the average woman, is gone. It’s a foreign concept that requires a man “earning” it rather than just receiving it for who he is. I had to recently learn this truth in my own marriage. It wasn’t that I felt like I was choosing to disrespect my husband, but the way my husband and I view, and understand, things is often different. He will understand things through a lens of respect, while I will understand things through a lens of love. Men can often be “won over” if they are treated respectfully. But in a society that has lost the art of respecting the men in it, it can be hard for women to know how to show not just their husbands, but any man, respect. This leads to not just problems politically, but societally and individually as well.
Democrats, honestly, have a lot of talking points that tend to go against a man’s natural inclination to be the protector and provider. They often tell men that if they vote for them, they will be given things, which doesn’t often energize men. Men, often, don’t need to be provided for - they provide.
As the Democrats are realizing, the G.O.P. has an upper hand here, for now. Feminism is making its way into the Republican Party, but it hasn’t fully engulfed it yet. One way to stop the furthering of the parasite of feminism is to start respecting men for who they are, seeing them as valuable, and doing away with the concept of “toxic masculinity.”
The United States needs men to know that if they stand up for what is right, if they fight to protect this country, that they will be respected and honored, because it is respectable and honorable to do so. Whichever Party wants to let men know that they are respected, that’ll be the Parry that wins the majority of male votes.