Former President Donald Trump made many incredible promises and claims during the election campaign. However, particularly due to his political base as a working-class man, he achieved little economically during his time in office.
President Trump actually presided over the loss of 2.7 million jobs, including thousands of manufacturing jobs, due to his disastrous mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now economists on both the right and the left agree that his massive new tariff proposals will not benefit workers, harm consumers and be a net negative for the economy.
It is clear that Trump’s main appeal to his male working-class base is not to actually provide economic value, but to stoke discontent and anger. This process only deepens cynicism and anger over time. Trump unleashes increasingly outrageous lies laced with insults and threats of state violence against his political enemies, especially aimed at provoking disaffected young people.
But the problems of working-class men in American society are very real and getting worse. And empty promises won’t solve the problem.
As leading sociologist Richard Reeves and others have documented, men die six years earlier than women. This is two years more than just a few decades ago. This is “primarily due to an increase in “deaths of despair,” including drug overdoses and suicide. “The risk of dying by suicide is four times higher for men than for women, with approximately 40,000 men losing their lives to suicide each year,” Reeves said. That’s almost the same number of women who die from breast cancer,” Reeves says.
Male students also lag significantly behind in academic achievement at all levels, with a ratio of nearly two female undergraduates for every male. This has made it much more difficult for men to earn a salary to support their families and compete in the modern information economy. Not surprisingly, men are increasingly disengaged from the workforce, even during what should be their most productive times, and more men than ever before are withdrawing from society and not participating in relationships or marriages.
As the New Yorker’s Idrees Kahloon points out, “Men are empowering a new brand of reactionary Republican politics premised on a return to better times.” But Trump has no serious plans to create better times for men.
Given the large gender gap among Democrats, there has been a tendency for years to focus on issues important to female voters. A majority of women favored Democrats, while men more often supported Republicans. Polls show that the gender gap, which was already significantly large in previous elections, has widened further since Kamala Harris and Tim Walz became Democratic candidates.
According to a recent New York Times poll of three key battleground states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), 55% of men with registered voting rights supported Trump, while only 39% of women. This helps explain why issues like abortion have been such a point of emphasis for Harris-Walz and other Democratic candidates. But it also means that Democrats have a huge opportunity to appeal to the men that Trump failed to satisfy.
Fortunately, the Harris-Walz campaign is finally starting to reach American men more directly and specifically, especially working-class men. Walz recently launched a media blitz to “reach powerful men” in swing states and mobilized surrogates through the “Athletes for Harris” program, co-chaired by basketball stars Stephen Curry, Magic Johnson and Chris Paul.
Last week, Harris unveiled a new plan aimed specifically at black men. The Opportunity Agenda for Black Men includes providing $20,000 forgivable loans to Black entrepreneurs and others starting businesses, as well as investing more in apprenticeships in Black neighborhoods and recruiting and recruiting more Black male teachers. Includes proposals to sustain and health equity initiatives. The needs of black men. As Kahloon puts it, black men’s prospects for life have been “annihilated by decades of mass incarceration.” Particularly those without college degrees, “wages have fallen substantially, life expectancy has declined significantly, and families have been incredibly fragmented.” charge.”
But the Harris-Walz campaign should also create more opportunity programs to help young people of all races and backgrounds, especially those without college experience, address employment, health, training and related issues.
For example, while the government naturally has many women’s health programs, many members of Congress are advocating for the creation of a federal Office on Men’s Health, along with research on the effectiveness of federally funded activities related to men’s health initiatives. Harris also supported changes that would allow job applicants without a college degree to qualify for many federal jobs. And as a senator, Harris introduced the 21st Century Skills Act to expand funding for training programs for workers and job seekers (sadly, this bill never became law).
But her campaign should push for more serious efforts to connect young people to education and training directly linked to employment, especially those in rural areas, to help them gain independence and standing in their communities.
The Democratic platform calls for free community and technical college and new investments in apprenticeships and career and technical education. If elected, Harris will have to fight hard to ensure that the best programs are enacted in a way that can actually help young men, as well as women, regain employment and educational opportunities and a stable place in society.
This is not just a political issue. This will help us successfully cope with the numerous economic and social changes we have experienced in recent decades, and perhaps even reduce the allure of the culture wars that have divided us.
Paul Bledsoe is a faculty lecturer at the Center for Environmental Policy at American University. He served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee under Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, DN.Y.
