'A huge mistake': Dems are ignoring a key voting bloc at their peril
Politics reporter Casey Quinlan tells the New Republic that major news media and political leaders are “very concerned about white men … holding onto their masculinity and status.” But when women struggle — especially women of color — it gets dismissed as an “inevitable part” of how the system works under capitalism.”
“In their analysis of how the economy has moved young men to the right, political pundits and leaders on the left shouldn’t forget that young women and mothers of all ages have also been unhappy with the state of affordability in this country,” Quinlan reports. There is no economic data making clear that men are doing a lot worse while women are “thriving,” as coverage suggests.
Quinlan acknowledges that men without a college degree have seen steeper falls in labor force participation, largely due to the decline in manufacturing and military jobs, complimented with mass incarceration and a rise in opioid use. Racism-fueled mass incarceration in the 1980s and 1990s hit Black men’s labor participation particularly hard.
“But it’s also true that labor force participation for men in total has rebounded a bit during stronger economic times,” said Quinlan, adding that political leaders and the media “should be wary” of ignoring women or throwing women under the bus while conducting the important work of communicating better with young men on economic issues.
“Women have already suffered under the economy Trump has helped build and are likely to continue to see major setbacks to their economic mobility,” Quinlan said. “They will be looking to Democrats to address it, and if they feel abandoned, it could derail the party’s goals.”
Celinda Lake, president of public opinion and political strategy firm Lake Research Partners, said young women who didn’t show up to vote back in November weren’t happy with Democrats, as Harris did not draw enough of a contrast with Biden as a candidate, and they were not convinced that the Democrats’ agenda was oriented toward them. A July Lake Research Partners report showed that among people who skipped voting in 2024, on economic issues, “the top two issues that most affected their decision not to vote for Harris were that she did not have a strong enough plan to get the cost of living down and that her economic plans mostly focused on the middle class and homeowners rather than poverty and inequality.”
“We have problems with men and women, and we have to be dealing with both. Our biggest opportunity for the long term is with younger women,” Lake reported. “We need to particularly improve our numbers with non–college educated women and our turnout of young women.”
Lake added that Democrats helped undo themselves last year when they dropped ambitious childcare proposals from Biden’s landmark legislation.
“That was a huge mistake,” said Lake. “The party is really divided on this. There are people who are saying just let the Republicans hang themselves, just let them do bad and stay out of the way. But that’s a profoundly flawed strategy when your own favorability is down to 35 percent, and when people can’t follow what your agenda is and think you have the wrong priorities.”
Read the New Republic report at this link.
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