Charlotte Clymer: What Young Men Problem? [View all]

https://charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/what-young-men-problem

For the past eighteen months, a favorite talking point of legacy political pundits is that Democrats have a young male voter problem.

It’s been incessant and so ubiquitous that you’d be led to believe—based on the commentary—that Democratic candidates had all but told young men they don’t want their votes.

Last November, one of the biggest stories coming out of the election was that Democrats are lackluster in their outreach to young men. There had been too much focus on young women (defending bodily autonomy and talking about the need for paid family leave is, apparently, “too much focus” on young women).

Legacy pundits (mostly straight, white men) had ideas on how to solve this crisis. They said the left needs a Joe Rogan type. They said Democrats should “moderate” on issues like trans equality. They opined that the Democratic Party had become too feminized.

Remember James Carville ranting about “preachy females” and claiming that women’s empowerment in messaging is somehow a dealbreaker?

As far as I can tell, none of the big Democratic winners from last night got these histrionic memos from the legacy pundit class.

Not Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger. Not New Jersey Gov-elect Mikie Shirrell. Not NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. None of the baker’s dozen of Democrats who increased the party’s majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

None of them.

*snip*