Man it’s like the majority of people here don’t have ‘regular guy’ friends.

The way to get to regular dudes, is to make them feel fucking included. Yes, diversity is fucking awesome. Yes, having women in leadership roles is fucking awesome. But for your average guy… who do they have to look up to on the left side of things? In the news? In congress? Who is on the national stage for these things? Who is talking to those people?

There isn’t anyone. There are tons of people talking to other groups of people, but there has been flat out no courting of the white dude demographic outside of White Dudes for Harris (which was brilliant but came too late).

Speak to the issues these guys are facing. Talk about dating. Talk about career struggles. Talk about feeling alone, and feeling vulnerable. And then, talk about solution based problem-solving for these things.

Why do you think the right wing latched onto guys who do the whole personal betterment thing? It’s the same shit that white supremacist groups do. They’ll get you with things that anyone can agree with like ‘Hey man if you work hard you’ll succeed. I fucking believe in you when no one else will.’ Then they go into the right wing bullshit because now they have you at an emotional level.

There is no online left presence doing these things, and there are multiple right wing people doing this shit.

Make a left wing Joe Rogan, and bro-dudes will watch that shit like shit on velcro. But it has to be a dude-bro talking to them. It can’t be Rachel Maddow or AOC, it has to be someone who comes from that background.

Talk about issues that affect the working class. Not the white working class, not working class men, just everyone who makes a living by drawing a wage. Progressive movements are formed by solidarity, and we have more in common with other working class people than any of the politicians or business leaders who set the tone of this debate.

What you’ve described is every complaint I’ve had with centrists and neocons in the democratic party. I don’t really know where the progressive part comes in.

Bernie did amazing with men to the point where “bernie bros” were being mocked in media, so has Mamdani in NY in polls.

If anything, I would argue that the Democratic party should be more populist and progressive. Focusing on things that pull up everybody, because everyone is struggling right now.

Quit trying to make young white men feel guilty for existing. I come from poor white trash. As near as I can tell, my family never benefitted from slavery in any possible way. So fuck you. I dont feel bad about something I didn’t do, no one in my family did, and we aint gonna pay for it.

A little out of the blue but I watched an episode of a German cooking show today where strangers are coupled in groups of five for a week and every day one of them has to cook for the rest of them. They then vote who was the best host.

This week was ALL 30-38 year-old straight Dads. Nobody talked about football.

Nobody chestbumped anyone. Nobody was mansplaning anything. Instead, they were all swooning over each others’ cooking skills, making each other cry over how much they love their kids and hugging each other for feeling insecure about their cooking. In other words it was the most realistic and “manly” portrayal of the male reality that I have seen in the media ever.

It’s easy to blame the media and the “culture war” for male alienation but I strongly believe that our perception of ourselves is largely influenced by our peer group’s portrayal in society. In other words: if I feel antagonized, I tend to overreact. If I am being told by Hollywood or social media to “stop being a mansplaning patriarch” I will be imprinted with the very idea to identify as such.

So long story short: non-toxic masculinity needs more representation AND it needs to come from a place of positivity, not judgement or condescension.

Promote and get behind actual progressive candidates, not corporatist shills like Hillary or Kamala. I like Kshama Sawant because she calls shit like she sees it.

I think a big part of the issues end up being economic. Things are obviously not great for a vast majority of middle and lower income people. You spend all day working your 1-3 jobs and in the background there’s all the culture war battles going on.

Few regular people have the mental space to even engage with the nuance required to navigate some progressive talking points when they can barely keep a roof over their heads. Toxic masculinity just turns into masculinity = toxic. You’ve lost these people, even if there’s an actually good message in there.

The Right is amazing at drawing a direct line between, “These are the problems we know you’re having” and “This is exactly what you can do about it today”. And for the Right, they actually deliver results. Do the kids turn into insufferable dickheads? Sure. But does the rhetoric sometimes get them what they want? Yeah, it does.

Where does the Left even come close? Almost everything is a delayed effect. Protest for a good cause? Wait to see if the politics catch up. Be nice to people? Great start, but that doesn’t help these guys get people-skills to have good platonic and romantic relationships. Be more open emotionally? What happens when your friends don’t accept that from you?

The Left is full of high risk, upfront demands from people who aren’t already affiliated with potentially little to no reward. Granted, the desired outcome is a better and more just society. But like, carrots and sticks people. You need something that regular people can get behind besides just ideology. Especially when mainstream media has a lock on those that are tuned out of progressive spaces and every now and then see something leak through from the culture war.

We need an actual vision for the future. Not a list of things we don’t like about the present, but what do we see people doing one day. If you don’t have a place for any group of people in your society, they will be indifferent if it burns. You can’t build a progressive future without having an actual, honest to God idea of what opportunities you can provide to legitimately everyone. If your best plan is, “Conservatives get with the program or rot in hell”, don’t be surprised when they take you down with them.

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Reclaim patriotism. Republicans love to wrap themselves in the flag, progressives need to do the same thing. It’s just a piece of the whole, but seeing pics of the LA protests with Mexican flags flying - that doesn’t help bring American voters to a cause.

Young men are not some new phenomenon. Their desire, in a word, is agency.

As the world has grown more interconnected, the world has become more visible. This has created a crippling awareness of their place in the grand scheme. Nietzsche’s void has opened beneath them and, in the ignorance expected of youth, they grasp at what is presented to them. Selling hope to the desperate, even false hope, is lucrative, so there is no shortage of hucksters and charlatans offering it to them.

The ultimate problem is that there is no pleasant truth. When faced with the existential horror of being, the truth doesn’t help. You cannot focus on learning to be a better version of yourself when facing raw terror. A comforting lie will get you to tomorrow. Truth will send you to the long, dark night.

So, when offered a pretense of agency, in almost any form, they take it. Some pretend that the problem is simply women. Some say it’s other ‘races.’ Some say it’s this or that ideology, whether economic, social, sexual, psychological, or anything else. They all just want to feel like they can make a difference, just like everyone else.

Simple. What do young men care about? Getting laid and getting paid. Promise them that, and you’ll get their votes.

You’ll need to use coded language, of course. But using coded language is politicians’ whole job.

I don’t have any big answers, but just a small piece of advice: Don’t shame people for asking questions when they just want to learn.

I would think that’s the perfect opportunity to educate someone, but so many people will just down-vote a naive question and move on without explanation, which is even more confusing.

I’m speaking from my own experience. I still tend to be neutral on a lot of things so far, but my brain is kinda… unusual. I think most people might gradually feel pushed away, “othered”, etc. and eventually lean in the opposite political direction than you might want.

TL;DR: If you want people on your side, stop pushing them away. And maybe ask others on your side to stop too.

Education. You will never be able to explain taxes in a way that can counter propaganda if the person is an idiot. You just won’t. And until then it’s an uphill battle.

Punching nazis can be nice and masculine if you like.

Maybe stop labeling them the “enemy” with posts like these?