I was not going to write any more election post-mortems based on the current data. California is still counting votes, and it will take months for the whole picture of the electorate to come into focus.
But that hasn’t stopped chatter from strategists and politicians about the ways Democrats should change their candidates and messaging. There has been heavy emphasis on appealing to young men specifically, with many advising that the left should go about manufacturing its own Joe Rogan. One articulation of this viewpoint comes from Richard Reeves, who writes in an op-ed in The Boston Globe that Democrats shouldn’t talk about sexism, and claims that the problem is that they haven’t focused enough on issues affecting boys and men. James Carville keeps repeating the charge that “preachy females” are the problem and Democratic messaging comes across as “too feminine.”
It feels absurd to ask rank-and-file Democrats to stop talking about sexism when Donald Trump himself and several of his cabinet picks so far have credible accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against them, and when Trump’s campaign sunk to new lows in disparaging women.
Democrats should absolutely be soul-searching and figuring out ways to win. But Reeves’s suggestions — “More investments in vocational training, for example in apprenticeships and technical high schools, would mostly help boys and men to secure better jobs” — were already an explicit part of Harris’s platform for economic opportunity, which she talked up on the campaign trail.
Harris did not mention sexism as a reason for her loss in her concession speech. And the overwhelming consensus was that Biden’s low approval ratings, and his failure to bring an end to inflation sooner, were the major reasons that she did not win. But does that negate the sexism raining down on our young women, who are walking across campus hearing their classmates tell them: “Your body, my choice”?
Trump’s totally cavalier attitude about violence against women — the ones he said he would protect whether we “like it or not” — is most glaringly evident in his nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general. More than 100 nonpartisan organizations that combat sex trafficking and gender-based violence signed on to an open letter to the heads of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to reject Gaetz because he has been investigated for sex trafficking himself and said: “The nomination of Mr. Gaetz sends a signal to the country and the world that sexual misconduct and exploitation and corrupt behavior will not only go unpunished, but will be rewarded.”
But I guess I should stop talking about it.
The good news, to me, is that the youngish women of social media will never stop talking about it, no matter what anyone says. For weeks, my TikTok feed has been filled with girls and women ranting about Trump who don’t look anything like the derogatory purple-haired caricatures of feminists that the right uses to make Democrats seem out of touch with normal people. They’re wine moms drinking espresso martinis with perfect manicures and University of Oregon students who appear to be on their way to a football game, saying, “I’m very disappointed that America would trust a convicted felon over a woman to lead our country.”
If we’re looking for the next Rogan, it’s not going to be someone anointed by politicians or pundits like me writing in mainstream publications. It will probably be one of these women, who could become the next Alex Cooper, of “Call Her Daddy” fame, who interviewed and endorsed Kamala Harris on that hit podcast but mostly talks about dating and pop culture.
But crucially, Rogan has been podcasting since 2009, and he doesn’t talk exclusively about politics — his fandom grew through his association with mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Most people do not want to hear about politics 24/7, and as I have argued before, the left needs to take a page from Steve Bannon’s playbook. Bannon captured the gaming community in 2016, and Democrats could also use pre-existing, mostly apolitical fandoms to their advantage.
I recently called Barrett Adair, the content creator who runs my favorite popular American Girl Doll meme account, hellicity_merriman, and works in politics by day, to ask her what she thought of the pressure on Democrats to stop talking about sexism. “I think it’s a very worthwhile mission to try to appeal to more men and get them to vote for us,” she said. But she thought underplaying misogyny was counterproductive, because it’s not trying to get men to understand that progressive policies are good for them; “it’s trying to abandon our progressive values to appeal to men.”
Sixty-one percent of Gen Z women define themselves as feminists, far more than any other generation, and they care a lot about sexism. It’s foolish to ignore the interests of your base, who trust you on women’s rights and consider abortion to be among their top issues.
I asked Adair about her media diet and who the influential left-leaning voices of the future might be, and she said she loves Mary Beth Barone, a comedian who co-hosts the “Ride” podcast. While she talks about politics from time to time, it definitely is not the main event of this show, which is described in promotional materials as: “If you’ve longed to hear two absolute bimbos talk about looping, Schrödinger’s cat, being a lizard and SO much more, you’re gonna absolutely live/die for this podcast.”
It got way less play than a lot of other influencer political appearances, but Bernie Sanders and Marc Cuban appeared on Twitch with the popular streamers Pokimane and Valkyrae to support Kamala Harris. On the explicitly political front, I discovered Elizabeth Booker Houston on TikTok during this election cycle, and I find that her content has some of the clearest policy explanations on the app, delivered with a relatable passion. I have also enjoyed Hope Walz’s Trader Joe’s hauls.
But in the media environment of the present and future, what I think doesn’t matter so much to Gen Z. Who the next influential voices are will come from the grass roots, not from pundits. That scares a lot of people — but I think it opens up a world of possibility. If we’re paying close attention, we might be able to hear what young people actually want, and how to win their votes.
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The post Young Women Will Never Stop Talking About Sexism appeared first on New York Times.
