After all the months that have passed since the 2024 election concluded, and with all the time liberal elites have had to think and self-reflect, to read the room, they still can’t seem to see past their upturned noses. Now, the political left is focused on learning how to talk like right-leaning men in an attempt to regain their support, even planning to have strategists “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in spaces where such men roam. It’s part of a $20 million project called SAM: “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan.”
How will the Democratic Party reach millions of people to showcase its new lingo? Simple – it’ll pay influencers and try to improve its podcast game, ramping up its media presence to compete with the right. That’s really not a bad plan, assuming the progressive mouthpieces can muster some substance. One question though: Once the party has all the proper people trained and has mastered a trite dialect, what will they actually say?
The Left’s Vision Board
It’s as if Democratic politicians are looking to hire contractors to construct a house and are already researching which drapes best block the light despite having no land on which to build. Their only blueprints appear to be a vision board, a collage of crayon drawings: stick figures with rainbows and butterflies. But wishful thinking and money can only get somebody so far. They need a foundation, a message, an identity – beliefs. Instead, “donors and strategists,” said Shane Goldmacher in The New York Times, “have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters, commissioning new projects that can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places.”
The left apparently sees men and working-class voters in the same way former President Barack Obama viewed black people when campaigning for Kamala Harris – as objects to manipulate, statistics, numbers to improve. “They see us as their public servants, instead of them being our public servants,” said Ana Kasparian, co-host of The Young Turks, speaking to SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly. And let's not forget VP candidate Tim Walz who speculated that he was chosen to run on the top ticket because he could “code talk to white guys."
How will the party change millions of minds? “[L]iberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, ‘find the next Joe Rogan,’” said Theodore Schleifer in The New York Times. “The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump – if only they can throw enough money at the problem.” But not everything can be built from the top down.
SAM Lacks a Key Ingredient
The podcasters who supported Trump last year and interviewed him were not paid to push the MAGA message and were unafraid to criticize his policies and positions. It was all organic. Trump naturally appealed to them, and the hosts were honest, no matter how ugly the truth. Democratic officials, however, “want influence without authenticity,” said Emily Jashinsky in UnHerd. What would these influencers even talk about? Regulations? Abortion? Diversity? The party’s infighting? Does the left have a relatable new message or platform, perhaps a unique perspective on global affairs? Or does it just have a burning desire to have people talk about it, repeating the same belabored points that so many Americans have rejected?
For the Democratic Party to have the best possible chance of succeeding, it will likely need to attract already established podcasters and influencers without hiring or asking them. Authenticity can’t be bought. No matter how the party proceeds, though, it first needs a message that defines it, something it believes in besides attaining (more) power. Propaganda cannot replace character, and there’s a big difference between having an identity and supporting niche groups who believe their appearance defines them. Half-measures might not suffice, so stepping back from a few radical issues and pretending to be moderate probably won’t convince many people that up is down. “Its woes won’t be remedied by any readily tweaked flaw in party messaging, or a canny nudge toward a newly Democratic-leaning demographic grouping or economic region,” said Chris Lehmann in The Nation. “[T]his system-wide resistance to change is continuing heedlessly on track to the next total system failure.”
That strategists and their leftward handlers think learning to talk like men and paying influencers to advocate for the party will heighten its approval suggests Democratic officeholders have not been paying attention. If anything, this endeavor will further repel the desired demographic. The most challenging part for the left, though – if it ever puts forth rational and relatable principles – might be getting voters to believe it is not just saying what various studies indicate people want to hear. Until then, it will likely remain stuck, a deer caught in headlights, frozen in the status quo, unable to see the impending doom barreling toward it.
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