Democrats would be dumb to cater to white masculine bigotry
Get the Point!
The New York Times, MSNBC, and Rolling Stone each reported this past weekend that in the wake of Donald Trump's victory over Kamala Harris last year, that the Democratic Party has spent about $20 million on a nationwide strategic plan called “Speaking with American Men,” or "SAM," in an effort to engage young male voters who trend towards Republicanism and/or voted for Donald Trump last November.
Like many of you, I, too, have watched and listened to testimonies and Tik Tok documentaries about how the "Bros" just love Donald Trump because they see him as a "Bro," or "manly man" who they look up to and consider ideal.
Lest we forget that this weak form of political analysis is not new, rather, its been going on for decades with one simplistic question that was once "fringe" now among the mainstream: "which candidate would you prefer to sit down with and drink beer?" For most “Bros,” the answer will hardly ever be a person who doesn't share their subjective heterosexual mores.
In Trump, many of these "Bros" see the man who has dated and married attractive women, not the man who has raped and defiled women—and joked that he would "date" his own "hot" daughter Ivanka on the Howard Stern show back in the day.
In Trump, these "Bros" see a man whose ear was scratched by glass (not a bullet) during last summer's "alleged" assassination attempt, not the portly man with child bearing hips and well manicured little nails who dodged the Vietnam Draft five times in the 1960's—and has referred to military personnel as "suckers and losers."
In Trump, these "Bros" see a man who boasts about being a billionaire, not the man whose wealth is heavily leveraged by banks—including some in Russia—facts that have made him a puppet of (Vladimir) Putin, and a grifter who is using the Oval Office to leverage deals to garner wealth for himself and his family from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and even China.
And while it just may make me an "elitist" to call these "Bros" out on the source of their affinity for Trump, which is a twisted understanding of what actually makes a man a good man, I would be remiss if I didn't note that many of these male Trump supporters, ranging in age from 18-60, deep down inside know that the "deals" that Trump boasts about aren't putting more education into their minds or money into their pockets, but they applaud him anyway because his bigoted views about the "proper place" for women, immigrants, and the LGBTQ communities align with their own bigoted views!
Perceptions of presidents as virile, sporting types, from FDR fishing, JFK playing football, Bill Clinton enjoying baseball, Obama hooping, and Trump on the golf course, have influenced men and women voters, alike, since the early 20th Century…
Such is why a $20 million study is a waste of funds when realizing that there's no number of podcasts, blogs, social media posts, or studies that will change the mindset of any man, regardless of their race, who is a living embodiment of lyrics from the iconic Memphis Rap Group Eightball & MJG circa '93, "ain't no way in HELL a B*tch can get me to obey her..."
Regrettably, for men who see women as pejorative terms like “B*tch,” there was no way in Hell that the intelligent, articulate, and extremely well qualified Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, attorney general, Senator and Vice President, was going to get those who believe that her proper place is to be seen—not heard—to vote for her last Fall! Not when the "Bros" were constantly referring to her as an unqualified "gold digger" due to her relationship with a married Willie Brown early in her legal career—as if the 30 plus years of professional achievements that she earned after that relationship ended made her less worthy than Trump, a man who was having unprotected sex with call girls while his third wife, Melania, was pregnant with their son Barron less than two decades ago!
VP Kamala Harris with future NBA Hall of Famer Stephen Curry prior to last year's Olympics
To this same point, I will never forget the look on the face of Vice President Harris’s predecessor in presidential pursuits, Hillary Clinton, when some young male idiot held a sign and shouted out "iron my shirt" when she was on stage during the 2016 election season. Men of high character and breeding understood the folly in that fool's remarks, while knuckle dragging men of low cunning found it (and worse) remarks amusing!
Hillary Clinton was routinely hit with sexist barbs during her 2016 presidential campaign, as was Harris in 2024
In light of the foregoing, I find $20 million spent "studying the Bros" a sheer waste of money, because there's nothing that any Democratic candidate or operative can say to shift the minds of men who believe they have a right to force women to bear children that they don't wish to have; men who pretend as if rape and sexual harassment are largely figments of liberal women's imaginations; men who wish that the LGBTQ community would go back into the closet while pushing to see the pronouns "she/her/they" replaced with the only pronouns that matter in their sphere: "He/Him/Bro!"
That's why you can count me among those Democrats who believe it unwise for the party to abandon its platform planks to push for civil and equal rights; what gets lost in analysis is that Trump won the popular vote over Harris 77,303,568 to 75,019,230, or 49.81% to 48.34%! Meaning, Trump has never had the overwhelming mandate that he claims while issuing executive order after executive order which undermine the Constitution and the Rule of Law while ignoring the one tie that binds Republicans and Democrats alike—the economy!
Yes, 33 years after Bill Clinton first said it during his presidential race against George H.W. Bush, “it's (still) the economy, stupid!”
At the end of the day, no matter whether you're a rank bigot or a humanist, each of us wants a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in our bellies! In 2024, Trump ran on a platform that he would lower inflation and address economic uncertainty, but he has governed as a tariff levying maniac who is driving the price of food, goods, and services even higher—all the while enriching himself and his billionaire benefactors!
Such is why Congressional Republicans who have cowered in fear of Trump's social media attacks are facing relentless attacks from MAGAs, Independents, and crossover Democrats who realize that their vote for Trump/Vance hasn't yielded any relief for their wallets, and now has them facing being kicked off of Medicaid rolls with the specter of having to pay even more for prescription drugs as their president continues to hammer away at the health care reforms enacted by Democratic Presidents Obama and Biden!
Which leads me to conclude that instead of wasting any more millions on trying to "un-bigot" the bigoted “Bros,” the Democratic Party needs to return to its FDR era roots and figure out ways to promise (and deliver) "a chicken in every pot," prescriptions in every medicine cabinet, and steady job prospects and pay in a suddenly less stable job market!