It’s been six months since Democrats lost the presidential election and they still can’t seem to get a clue.
They’re leaving no stone unturned in the hunt for answers and no expense is being spared. They’re doing everything they can think of – except look inward.
Much has been said about Democrats’ problem with men, especially working class men, so they are dumping money into programs that will teach them how to talk like one of the guys.
The New York Times discovered a $20-million effort to “reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online,” called “SAM — short for ‘Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,” which aims to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.”
But you can’t buy authenticity and all the massaging of syntax in the world won’t make the Demsplaining more palatable.
Democrats doubled down on issues that didn’t resonate with male voters and the tactics often used were corny, insincere and offensive.
Here’s a great example from the Times article of what I mean: “For now, Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters.”
Would things be different if these donors and strategists met at dive bars or MMA fights? Probably not, but it would seem less out of touch.
Democrats didn’t lose by much and maybe the analysis need not go further than the obvious. They ran a “Weekend at Bernie’s” White House and campaigned with someone who was mentally unfit for office, then-President Joe Biden. They insisted that everything was fine and mocked everyone who saw the truth as a conspiracy theorist (which, it turns out, was millions of voters with eyes).
That alone eroded their credibility, but they didn’t stop there. They then thrust a deeply-unpopular Vice President, Kamala Harris, to the top of the ticket without any sort of open process after she flamed out quickly and thoroughly in the 2020 primary.
Maybe these were the best political decisions compared to the alternatives, but both severely undercut central themes to Democratic campaigns, like transparency, normalcy and democracy.
Then Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, which she did under the assumption that men would be ok with her, a woman of Black and Indian descent, because he was a white midwesterner.
Another miscalculation.
“‘I could code talk to White guys watching football, fixing their truck’ and ‘put them at ease,’” Walz told a group of Harvard elites a month ago.
Turns out he was wrong. Walz was so awkward and so obviously trying too hard. Printing up campaign camo hats didn’t work either. What Harris and Walz and the Democratic Party at large fail to understand is that the men they were trying to reach are not obsessed with identity.
Male voters will vote for a woman, even a woman of color, if she is speaking to issues that move them. Not only did Harris fail to do that, but her supporters screamed racism and sexism whenever male voters had doubts about Harris.
The Biden coverup and the condescending male outreach efforts would have probably been enough to sink the campaign. But the final piece to the problem plaguing Democrats is that they too often leaned into abstract or woke issues and ignored the masses’ economic woes.
Take the Democrats’ war on gas. In California we see it every day. They have deliberately driven up the cost of gas in the hopes it will drive down demand (it hasn’t) and are trying to regulate the oil and gas industry out of existence. Not only has this hurt working class families who still need to drive places and have to pay for gas, but it also threatens many good-paying jobs worked by the very men they are wooing.
Democrats may sincerely believe curbing gas and coal production is essential to fighting climate change. But many people see losing their job or increasingly higher prices on essentials as the real threat.
Abortion is another good example. Democrats for years have made this a key issue, and, at times, the only issue. Exclusively talking about “women’s health” is not going to motivate a lot of men.There are of course various woke topics that either go over people’s heads or downright repel them, such as: Defund the police, land dedications, preferred pronouns, equity, white privilege, LatinX, reparations, gender ideology and support for Hamas.
Then there’s a lack of positive results. No state stands out as clearly as Democratic governance in action as California, where voters spend a lot of money in taxes to get very little in return.
California has the highest unemployment rate in the country, it tops the nation in adult illiteracy and homelessness, and it has an exorbitantly high cost of living, driven largely by high taxes, bad energy policy and overly-bureaucratic housing policy. And yet, lawmakers seem to spend most of their time banning plastic bag bans and gas-powered cars, eliminating the gig economy, punishing charter schools and countless other counterproductive things.
Working class voters, especially men, want good jobs, a lower cost of living, the chance at homeownership and safe communities. They want results from their lawmakers. And they don’t want to be talked down to for being most concerned with their immediate needs.
It shouldn’t take $20 million worth of market research to figure this out.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Follow him on X @FlemingWords
