Chapter 1: What is the gender divide in American politics as of 2024?
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Arvoisat oppilaat, lukuvuosi on nyt taputeltu ja haluan erityisesti oditella sinua, joka nostit arvosanojasi juuri tarvittavan määrän. Tai pääsit sittenkin matikasta läpi. Tai ehkä et, mutta tärkeintä on, että yritit. Onnea kaikille ja ihanaa kesää!
Heille, jotka ansaitsevat kultaa. Kulta Katriina. Eläköön suomalainen kahvikulttuuri. One of the great battlegrounds in modern American politics and modern American culture is men, what to do about them, how to attract them politically, how to treat them culturally. On the right, they're pretty sure They've done very well with men. The Trump campaign did well.
The Republicans more generally do well, particularly young men who've been attracted to the right-wing cause. On the left, they're more conflicted. There are plenty of left-wing people who do not approve of what they regard as masculinity. But there is also a sense on the left that something has to be done to attract men back to the left, back to the Democratic Party.
I've been talking to one person who has very strong views on modern American masculinity. He's not someone from the right. He's very much someone from the left. But he's someone who believes that the left needs to change. And we had a conversation as well about where America is going next. The character of America, which is so vital and in a sense so unpolitical.
It goes to what the place should be in the post-Trump era. Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.
We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.
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Chapter 2: How are young men feeling towards the Democratic Party?
Whereas on the left, I went to the Democratic National Committee or convention. It was a parade of special interest groups articulating the very real issues they still face, but not one mention of the group that's fallen furthest fastest, and that is young men. And so I don't think either group is quite frankly helping or addressing the issue.
The far right conflates masculinity with coarseness and cruelty and the far left, basically their answer for young men is just acting more like, you should act more like a woman, which I don't think is the answer either.
It's interesting you mentioned the convention. I was there as well, up in Chicago. And you're absolutely right. And there were loads of influences there. And the one thing that definitely would not have been, I mean, you would have been committing a real kind of social faux pas if you'd suddenly said, what about the young men? Or particularly, what about the young white men? Why, though?
What is it that prevents the Democrats seeing what you've been telling them?
Well, I think there's a natural gag reflex because unfortunately, well, one, if you look at America from 1945 to 2000, we registered a third of the world's economic growth with 5% of the population. So we had six times the prosperity of the rest of the world. And then within that six acts of prosperity,
About a third of the population that was white, heterosexual, and male registered the majority of the spoils. So you could argue that being born as I was in the 60s in California, a white, heterosexual male, that I had 15 to 20 times the prosperity that I had earned. And so I think there is a natural response that, okay, you've had a 3,000-year head start.
If young men now are having a little bit of a difficult time, maybe that's okay. It's payback time. It's payback. But what I think people are coming to the realization is that, you know who wants more viable, economically and emotionally viable young men? Women. It's also hurting birth rates. It's hurting crime.
And then what happens is when you have young men that don't feel seen, they're very receptive to sort of a – a nationalist blame women, blame immigrants for your economic problems, blame women for your romantic problems, and it's not your fault, the enemy's within and I see you.
And if you look at why President Trump got elected, if you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red from 2020 to 2024, it was one Latinos, which is hard to categorize into a single group, to young men. And three, the most interesting demographic that went broke for Trump or went way more Trump is women age 45 to 64. And my thesis, Justin, is that that's their mothers.
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Chapter 3: What does Scott Galloway suggest about modern masculinity?
To your point, masculinity and femininity are social constructs. They're empty vessels we get to fill. And I think that femininity is a wonderful attribute. And by the way, these things aren't sequestered to people born as males or females. I think a lot of men demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes. I think a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine attributes.
But we've been celebrating femininity as we should, nurturing, more thoughtful, better EQ. If I say women likely make better doctors, there's more in medical school, they're better students, they have better bedside manner, people clap their hands.
But if I say on average, men oftentimes make better entrepreneurs or combat soldiers because they're more risk aggressive, there's a general sense I don't feel safe around you. That is not allowed. And I think masculinity... framed correctly is wonderful. I think being aggressive has its role in places. I think wanting to protect people has its place.
I think being strong such that you can move to protection. I think we need to celebrate, just so I can offend some of your listeners, I think we need to celebrate men's horniness. I think wanting to have sex turns you into a better man. It tells you to shower. It tells you to be kind. It tells you to make friends with women so they can help you understand women.
It trains you to have perseverance to try and get through the much finer filter of women who are choosy. It teaches you how to endure rejection. It teaches you how to take chances. These are wonderful attributes that young men are giving up on. So I think masculinity, embracing it in an aspirational format, And saying we've been celebrating femininity as we should, but also celebrate masculinity.
And also what I would call for is a renewal. I think we need to renew the alliance between Europe and America, renew the alliance between moderate left and moderate right. But most importantly, we need to renew the greatest alliance in history. And that is the alliance between men and women.
And I think a mix of feminine and masculine energy is a wonderful combination that has literally built the world that we know.
I wonder whether actually part of all of this is the daintiness about language and the walking on eggshells-ness about language, which has been very much something from the progressive left, I suppose, in the last 10 to 15 years in particular. So in a sense, it's not just about men and women.
This goes to a wider argument about the ability of people to have these conversations actually in the first place.
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Chapter 4: How does the left's view on masculinity impact young men?
for several years have a tendency to be people who have a crypto university or think that all you need to do is drive a Lambo and not let your girl go out because she should be supporting your life. So I think there needs to be a more aspirational vision of masculinity. And I think we just need better role models that say, okay, being masculine is wonderful, but it's about service.
It's about surplus value. celebrating the progress of women. It's about engaging at home. It's about being a great dad, a great partner. And you can also be strong and you can also be aggressive, but you are in the service of others. There's no such thing as toxic masculinity. There's violence, there's abuse of power, But masculinity, that's like, I don't believe there's toxic femininity.
I think femininity is a wonderful thing. And I think we need to move to some sort of, we need better spokespeople and better role models that help convince the nation and the world that masculinity is an aspirational wonderful thing that helps move the world forward.
Just saying there's no such thing as toxic masculinity, I think really would have got you cancelled. And maybe borderline still would, certainly in universities in the States. I don't know whether you do commencement speeches still or whether you're allowed to, Scott.
But I mean, that is a deeply controversial view among a certain and very powerful group of people on the progressive left, isn't it? And I just wonder whether they're not going to let that go without a fight.
I don't want to make myself sound too virtuous, but it's not easy for me to be counseled. I can be dragged and shamed, and it happens a lot because sometimes, quite frankly, I get it wrong sometimes, and I'm not immune to saying stupid things. But one of my role models is Sam Harrison.
He says, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, and I have both those things, you have an obligation to speak out.
Scott, can I widen the conversation just before we finish to the context for all of this, which is where the US goes after after Donald Trump? And I was listening to you talking the other day to David Brooks of The New York Times actually writes for The Atlantic now, doesn't he?
So someone who's thought a lot, he's on the right, on the kind of moderate right, who's thought a lot about where America goes ethically now. And it was a fascinating conversation because he's really quite optimistic, isn't he? Did he convince you?
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Chapter 5: What role does social media play in shaping men's identities?
And he is a supporter of the Democrats. He wants Democrats to do well. He doesn't think much of Donald Trump. But he has got this knowledge as well of the manosphere that you're talking about.
When I was doing the documentary I did for BBC Two, Inside the Raging Machine, speaking to different insiders from the companies, I also spoke to people impacted by social media. And one was a young man who had had this very thing happen to him. Basically, he was having a bit of a rubbish time and he felt like he was struggling to make friends. He was kind of struggling romantically.
He wasn't loving school. And once he started getting pushed this sort of content on his feed, it was so alluring and appealing and it made him feel powerful and and kind of have some agency in his life. But actually, ultimately, he realised that it was making him unhappy.
And you can imagine that the Democrats looking ahead to the next election would think there is a place in the market for the kind of not cringey, like, be a good man, that kind of thing. But for the, like, actually, I don't want to be in the manosphere. Like, I don't want to be part of this kind of group. But I also want to feel like, you know, my voice is heard and that it counts.
I want to feel respected and understood. And I want to feel kind of, you know, I want everyone to feel equal.
Like, I think there's, I remember speaking about this before when it came to Tim Walls, who was running for vice president alongside Kamala Harris, and that it felt like they really missed a trick, that they could have used him, who was very active in, like, school football and, you know, college football and that kind of thing.
They could have used him to actually speak to men who are just kind of, like, quite reasonable and normal, which is the majority of people, really. Like, we're talking about the outrage algorithmic people, but most people you'd hope... you know, want the same things ultimately.
It didn't work with him though, did it?
There was something... No, no, they didn't even use him in that way. They used him in a kind of like pro-progressive ideas. Yeah, and it didn't work.
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