Can Voters Forgive Flaws for Populist Gains?

Back in June, we published an episode about the "Speaking with American Men" (SAM) project, a $20 million initiative designed by political consultants to understand and win back young men (18-29) who increasingly voted for Donald Trump. We talked about this cringey, inauthentic approach to compete over the influence of manosphere figures like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Huberman, who exploit a perceived "meaning crisis" with pseudo-intellectual and often reactionary messages. 

Instead of what? We said that the better route would be to focus on material concerns so that the rage of young men isn’t ceded to right-wing movements. Big-money consultant-led efforts to micromanage online interactions will not spawn-in the authentic cultural engagement that right-wing influencers naturally achieve.

Well here we are now in the fall, and we’ve got a bunch of guys stepping into this contested space from different angles. Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner present very differently as masculine role models, but share the same economic populism, but also a deep challenge in the long shadow of patriarchy: how do men become trustworthy?

Show Notes

Brief: Nair, Mamdani, and Culture against the Culture War (Pt 1) — Conspirituality 

Matthew's Review of Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway 

A Political Litmus Test: Can You Hang With the Boys?

Zohran Mamdani Is New York’s First Millennial Mayor. You Can Tell by His Suit.

A Political Misdiagnosis—NYT on How Dems lost Black and Hispanic Voters

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