Democrats don’t know how to talk to young men – and it’s cost them

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

The author is an editor at FT, chief economist at American Compass and writes the newsletter Understanding America.

Late in the US presidential election campaign, the Democrats discovered a serious problem. Young men, especially minorities, had left the party in droves. An American Compass poll conducted with YouGov in early October found a snapshot: 20 percent of young non-white men had not yet decided on Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, and those who had decided were evenly split .

Harris didn’t know what to say to these defectors. Their coalition was based on identity politics that required an alliance between younger and LGBTQ+ voters, women and people of color, all of whom shared the same commitment to a progressive vision of social justice. What’s somewhat awkward is that the real agenda—fighting climate change and canceling student debt, resisting immigration or abortion restrictions—is primarily aligned with the interests and priorities of a white, college-educated, female elite. But anyone who looked like a coalition member was expected to vote accordingly.

Former President Barack Obama criticized young black men for not showing Harris the enthusiasm she deserved. “I think you just don’t like the idea of ​​having a woman as president,” he said. “And now you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting someone who has denigrated you in the past because you think that’s a sign of strength because that’s what it means to be a man? Degrading women? This is unacceptable.”

The real reason that young non-white men (YNMs) moved to the right was that they did not see politics in these racial or gender terms at all, and expressed values ​​and priorities much more closely aligned with those of the white working class (WWCs). For example, the American Compass survey found that YNMs and WWCs agreed that U.S. culture places too much emphasis on diversity, while wealthy liberal women (ALWs) wanted a dramatic shift toward diversity.

YNMs were similar to WWCs in their concern that “the government regulates too much,” while ALWs overwhelmingly feared that “big business is using its power to destroy competition, squeeze workers, and dominate politics.” The former groups valued living in an America “that honors our values ​​and traditions,” while the latter valued living in an America that “cares about the least fortunate among us.” The former strongly advocated accelerating the extraction of natural resources and the construction of factories, while the latter group strongly opposed this. The former group wanted to eliminate federal student loans and put universities on the hook for funding; the latter group did not.

The inability to engage with these voters as citizens with agency rather than just members of a category was most evident in the Harris campaign’s embarrassing attempt to develop a five-point “black male opportunity agenda.” . One item was “Protecting Cryptocurrency Investments to Show Black Men Their Money is Safe,” another was “Legalize Recreational Marijuana.”

If drugs and crypto weren’t enough, maybe video games and porn? Tim Walz has signed up to play on Twitch Madden NFL 25 with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although they abandoned the game at halftime without having scored a point. A well-funded Democratic Super Pac released an ad showing a Republican congressman taking the phone away from a young man watching porn.

In the final days before the election, the Harris campaign even refrained from directly appealing to young men. Now these men simply had a duty to vote on behalf of women. “We have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better,” Michelle Obama pleaded. Walz tweeted: “I want to talk to all the guys for a moment. Think about all the women in your life. . . This election is about their lives and protecting their freedoms.”

According to election polls, Joe Biden won by double digits among young men in 2020. In 2024, Donald Trump won clearly. Similar changes among Latinos and in Democratic strongholds like New York City gave Trump the first popular vote victory by a Republican in 20 years. New Jersey, Virginia and Minnesota entered the battlefield area. Illinois and New York ended up being closer than Florida. The Obama “coalition of the upwardly mobile” has fractured, and the identity politics that once held it together have proven unable to put it back together. Whatever comes next for Democrats must include people as citizens, not as categories. Not only the party benefits from this, but also the country’s politics and culture.