Recent polls have shown Democrats’ support has significantly declined among young men, specifically 12th grade high schoolers, lower income, less educated, and even Black and Latino voters. This should come as no surprise, given how Democrats have failed in all areas of long-term cultural engagement, focus on issues that do not resonate with these groups, currently lack a positive vision, as opposed to simply defending against threats from the right, and especially have not engaged adequately in narratives of positive masculinity to counter the right’s claims to vulnerable men. I explain how the Democrats’ current focus on 3 main points: Republicans/Trump are a threat to democracy, Republicans/Trump are a threat to minority identity groups, and “everything is fine now, keep it that way,” have helped in the short-term with more educated voters but ignore or even repel these key groups.

Somewhat paradoxically to conventional political wisdom, I feel that further left and more progressive ideas and groups can achieve far better success in these demographic groups that typical liberal/Democratic politics have left behind. These ideas can address the long-standing issues with material conditions that conservatives and the far-right have pushed false narratives about the cause of and fake solutions in a way liberals simply cannot. And they can create long-term engagement and narratives that combine strength with inclusion to help those who feel abandoned create community and seek true solutions to the systemic causes of their tribulation. There are very real issues that they face which Democrats exclude for short-term political reasons, but need to be addressed by someone. Right now that someone is the right, but it doesn’t have to be. Even if Democrats cannot address them, left-wing groups outside the mainstream of Democratic politics can act in a similar fashion to conservative groups, such as the Tea Party and Trump’s early supporters. that were not initially embraced by the GOP but later became a major part of its support and changed its policy direction.

My videos on the high school boys poll:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Lx9hEF/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8LxkqC1/
The Hill article on the high school boys poll:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/high-school-boys-trending-conservative-093000721.html
New York Times poll article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/upshot/biden-trump-poll-2024.html
Nate Cohn’s graph of the NYT poll results regarding demographic groups:
https://twitter.com/nate_cohn/status/1686336922061303808?s=46&t=x3E-r-OT2KgX3LK5oJokcA
Some of my work on pro wrestling as an example for positively engaging with masculinity:
https://podcast.greysonpeltier.com/wp/2023/01/12/adam-page-for-president/
https://podcast.greysonpeltier.com/wp/2023/01/14/fighting-toxic-masculinity-with-pro-wrestling-adam-page-for-president/
The MJF and Adam Cole segment I mentioned:
https://youtu.be/USUx4Z31WAc

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