Why men are leaving the left — and not coming back

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Why men are leaving the left — and not coming back
by John Mac Ghlionn, opinion contributor
10/19/25 12:00 PM ET

The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging men. Across the U.S., they are leaving in waves — from the unions that once powered the party’s muscle, from classrooms that once echoed with idealism, and from a movement that now talks at them rather than to them. Polls show young men flocking to the right in numbers not seen for generations.

The trend isn’t a blip but a brutal reckoning. And no amount of branding or beer ads will stop it.

The party’s latest efforts to woo men are almost painful to watch. The Democratic National Committee has poured money into influencer partnerships, podcast cameos and clumsy “masculinity” campaigns filmed in gyms. Spokespersons drone on about “kitchen-table issues,” as if men are sitting there waiting to be emotionally validated between spoonfuls of reheated stew.

None of it works because it isn’t real. Men don’t want to be sold to. They want to be spoken to. The problem isn’t packaging but posture. A party that has spent years pathologizing masculinity can’t expect gratitude from the men it has spent so long diagnosing.
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The irony is almost poetic. Democrats say they want to reconnect with men. Yet every strategy they devise sounds like it was written by someone who’s never met one. They’ve turned politics into therapy and wonder why men don’t show up for the session. For all their algorithms and analytics, they’ve forgotten something simple. Men don’t want to be managed. They want to be moved. And no amount of focus groups can teach a party how to speak to the soul.

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