I think progressives never thought about this because we banked on immigration and demographic change allowing us to win culturally and electorally but the issue is immigrants tend to be overwhelmingly male, that is how Trump won actually he won over a lot of Hispanic,Black,Asian and indigenous men who feel humiliated by a new culture, economy and world.
So what can we do rhetorically and policy wise to win more young men over ?
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.
A lot of fancy words to say nothing