Quote:

---

The answer, political and sociological analysts agree, is that gender indeed mattered in the election, arguably enough to tip the scales to Trump. But it is so much more nuanced than the simple matter of Harris’s gender (though surely there were voters who could not, or would not, pull the lever for a female president). Much of it had to do with young men, a group experts say is adrift—lonely, faced with competing pressures to be tough and to share their emotions, and struggling with what it means to be a man in a world where gender roles are changing rapidly and the very notion of gender itself is being challenged. But as a longtime privileged group, men are typically not on the Democratic Party’s list of aggrieved voter groups looking for government to protect them from discrimination or other harm.

It’s the “Democrats’ blind spot,” said Aaron Smith, co-founder of the Young Men Research Initiative, echoing complaints from those within the party who say the Democrats were so focused on mobilizing women voters that they ignored men. Take a look at the Democratic National Committee’s website, Smith said. It has a section called “who we serve,” and it starts with the pledge, “Democrats are the party of inclusion. We know that diversity is not our problem—it is our promise. As Democrats, we respect differences of perspective and belief, and pledge to work together to move this country forward, even when we disagree ... we do not merely seek common ground—we strive to reach higher ground.”

After that, readers can click on 16 different categories of people the party serves—everyone from women to union members and seniors to LGBTQ people. “There’s nothing, no mention of men, period,” Smith said. That neglect, he argues, hurt the party.

In polling the institute has done, “many young men, even young men who said ultimately they would vote for Kamala Harris, thought the Republican Party and Donald Trump were more in favor of them,” Smith said. “That has long-lasting political implications, if that gets into the heads of young men as they get older, and start voting in higher numbers.”

---