CNN Political Briefing

'Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing. This may prove to be a historic presidential election when it comes to the gender gap. Currently, women are strongly supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump is holding a significant advantage with men. That divide between male and female voters has emerged as a central factor in this race. And with a month left before Election Day, both campaigns are trying to chip away at the gap. And their appeals to voters show two different ideas of manhood in America. That was on display Tuesday night when vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz went head-to-head on the debate stage. On the issue of abortion, both talked about earning the trust of women, but in different ways. Earlier this week, Donald Trump said at a rally that he would be a, quote, "protector" of women.

You will no longer be abandoned, lonely or scared. You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today.

At the VP debate in New York City, Vance said his party needed to earn back women's trust...

As a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party — we've got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people's trust back on this issue where they frankly just don't trust us.

...while Governor Walz talked about trusting women.

'We're pro-women. We're pro-freedom to make your own choice. We know what the implications are to not be that.

'So what are these competing ideas of manhood being presented in this election, and what can they tell us about male voters in America? Richard Reeves is the founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, a think tank that does nonpartisan research on the well-being of boys and men in the United States. He joins us this week to talk about masculinity on the ballot and why men could play a determinative role in this race.

Richard, thanks so much for joining me, really appreciate it.

Thanks, David.

'So, we have heard so much this election season about the gender gap, obviously, and Trump's big advantage with male voters and Harris's advantage with female voters. And, of course, it is that divide that is the gap that we refer to as the gender gap. But because there has been such a focus in the post-Roe world on the female vote and with the potential historic nature of Harris' candidacy producing a possible first female president, I don't think we've focused as much on the power of the male vote here in this race. And so if you can just take me inside your thinking about how male voters are sort of sorting themselves and approaching this election right now.

'Yeah. So, the first thing is just what a paradox this is in many ways. I think you've just alluded to that — that this is supposed to be an election about women. Even before Harris was at the top of the Democratic ticket, this was going to be about Roe, reproductive rights, MeToo, and now we've got a female candidate at the top of Dem ticket. Like this is supposed to be an election about women and for women and to some extent about the votes of women and the issues of women. But actually it's turning into a debate about men. And in many ways, that's partly about issues around different models of masculinity that are being discussed. But also just because of this polling evidence that we're seeing this really pretty unprecedented gap in the inclinations, particularly of kind of young male voters versus young female voters, the Times/Siena poll finding that 50-point gap in inclination. And that's driven by two factors. One is the one that you just, I think already mentioned, which is that young women in particular are becoming more politically engaged and more left and more Democrat, right? That's really been driving it. But in recent months, perhaps a little bit longer than that, we've seen another trend, which is a move, perhaps not quite as dramatic as the move among kind of young women, but of young men and men generally towards the right. And not just white men, by the way, but men of color. And the way I think about this is that perhaps for too long the presumption was men of color and young men especially were just kind of naturally going to be on the center left and naturally Democrats. And that just appears to be much less true. It's not so much of a stampede over to the right, a huge enthusiasm for Trump or the Republicans and actually not much evidence for a shift in views on policy among these men. It's more, I think, a sense of disengagement from some of the political processes, and I find it interesting how often people, particularly if you talk to people on the Democrat side of this, they'll say, why are men turning to the right? And I always ask them, are you quite sure that they're not turning away from the left? That could be as much of the dynamic here. And I think that's probably a better description of where a lot of men find themselves now is a bit politically homeless in the sense they don't see much for them on the left, and they're perhaps not as excited by the right as people think.

And you noted it may not necessarily be a policy driven thing. There could be more what I would call sort of emotional or just other factors into how these voters are perceiving what the parties are presenting. But there's no doubt, Richard, I mean, if you observed, as I know you did, what went on this summer at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. I mean, Hulk Hogan was literally ripping his shirt off his chest as a feature of the primetime. We see where Donald Trump goes to talk to certain podcasters that have a certain audience, you know, yet he's given up to go talk to 60 Minutes now. I mean, there is a clear strategy to try and market the Trump ticket to these potentially disengaged, disaffected men from the political process. Why might Trump find success there?

'Yeah, well, the first thing I think that's true, that it's more of a cultural issue than a policy issue. So this is like a not a new front in the culture war, but certainly a much hotter front in the culture war. I think the whole issue of gender, attitudes towards gender, attitudes towards masculinity is a big part of this. And it's been said, I think accurately, that this is as much about how people feel about men as it is about men, right? This is partly just about this, are we welcoming or pathologizing more masculine ways of of being in the world? And, yeah, it's not subtle on the Republican side. I think it's very interesting that when Donald Trump was introduced to the RNC in 2016, it was his daughter who introduced him, Ivanka. In 2020, it was his daughter, Ivanka. In 2024 it was Dana White, the head of UFC. Right? That's not subtle. This is very on-the-nose. And so what's happening, I think, is that this is less that people are — but first of all, there's no change really in attitudes towards gender equality, no big shifts around policy. This is not about the child tax credit or the apprenticeship bill or whether paid leave should be partly transferable. This is about a lot of men feeling as if the ethos, the performance, the atmosphere around the Republicans being just more welcoming and saying we like guys, we think guys are good, and we think that the things that guys like are also good and not feeling that from the other side. And so that's a big cultural difference.

I take your point about the right maybe presenting themselves, hey we like guys, come hang with us. But you had mentioned the challenge to those on the left: Might it be that these men are turning away from the left? What do you think the left is presenting that may be antithetical to the vision of masculinity that some of these men want to see reflected in their political leadership choices?

'Yeah, well, I think we've seen much less of this recently, but there has, over the last few years, been a real push on the left around the MeToo movement, which was of course, a wonderful movement, very liberating. But in its wake, and partly because of the rise of Donald Trump and for other issues, the rise of terms like toxic masculinity, mansplaining, etc. And so there's been something of a sense that in order to be pro-women on the left, the lot of men have felt as if that's either been anti-men or at least absent a message for men. And this is in some ways a little bit of a cheap shot, but it has been pointed out that if you go to the party platform for the Democrats, there's a page there which has the title "who we serve," and it says we're a part of inclusion, and we serve the following groups, and it lists various demographic groups, including women. But probably by now you're going to guess who's not on there. Now, it doesn't mention men, and I'm not going to suggest that many men are looking at that website and saying, oh, it doesn't mention men. But it is indicative, I think, of the fact that to the extent that there are some male issues out there, things that men are worried about, thinking about — like the massive rise we've seen in suicides, for example, among young men. That's risen by a third just since 2010. Some of the struggles that men are having in the education system, massive gender gaps in college, etc., they're just not being talked about very much. They're not being reflected or issues around vocational learning, etc. So, I think it's much more of a sin of omission by and large, than commission now. It's less that I think that the Democrats are saying things about how terrible men are. I think that era has passed, but there is still a gap there that, to be clear, is not being filled on the right, either. It's not as if, like you hear Republicans talking very much about these policy issues either. But I do think it's a missed opportunity on both sides to actually start talking about the substance that lies behind some of these performances of masculinity. And there's an opportunity still, I think, for that, for the politics of this to change. But the politics of male issues right now is significantly underdeveloped on both sides of the aisle.

And what would you describe as sort of the state of masculinity in America today?

With a big question mark next to it.

Because it could be different — masculinity could be different, mean different things to different people, right?

'Right. And it does. And it should, and isn't that one of the great blessings of a more liberal and pluralistic society is like, to be a real man means X. To be a real woman means Y. That we have liberated ourselves from many of those constraints. But that said, the changes we've seen in recent years, not least in the economy and in kind of family life and so on, have actually meant that the whole question of what's the role of men — is there a distinct role that men play in society and families and communities — that question is being asked with a new urgency. And it's perfectly appropriate to recognize that question is a real one. It's an honest one. There are many men now saying, well, how am I supposed to be in the world today? And actually, as one young man has put it to me, he said, look, I have a long list of things I know I'm not supposed to do, that I'm not supposed to say and that I'm not supposed to be, but I don't really know who I'm supposed to be or what I am supposed to do or whether I have any role in society that is distinct from and complimentary to, in some ways, to the kind of role of women. And that's not really a question that kind of most women are grappling with now. And it's difficult even to talk about that because the fear when you talk about it is that you're somehow saying, we need to go back or that women's problems are lesser than men's and so on. And none of that is true. But the absence of a proper conversation about this and just recognizing that, look, if you're a 25-year-old guy trying to figure out how is this going to work, family-wise. If you're a 50-year-old guy who's kind of lost his manufacturing job and is kind of struggling to find his place in the community, right? We just need to have a little bit more empathy for those guys as guys, as they struggle to adapt to this new world. And honestly, in elite circles, this is not playing out in anything like the same way, right? So, if a highly educated, you know, high earning men, the issues around masculinity are much more like dinner table discussion. But if you're a man who's really struggling economically, struggling educationally, struggling with your mental health, then these are not confections. These are not frothy issues. These are real problems that many men are really facing. And until we acknowledge that, I don't think we'll make much progress on the substance here.

We're going to take a very quick break. We're going to have a lot more with Richard Reeves in just a moment.

Welcome back. We're here with Richard Reeves, author and founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. We're talking about masculinity and the 2024 election. Richard, we alluded to this earlier in the conversation, but I would like to dig in just a little bit, because there does seem to be both a generational factor here when you talk about young men versus older men and a racial component here, white men versus men of color. And I'm just wondering how you see — you talked about the big, huge gender gap in one of the polls, The New York Times/Siena poll among younger voters. But what is different about the younger set of men right now than the older set of men in this quest for, again, what I call sort of being recognized or addressed by their political leaders.

'Yeah, there's just a strong sense that, you know, feeling seen is just something that is more important in politics than perhaps we recognized. And for many young men feeling a little bit unseen, a little bit, the sense of their problems, if they articulate their problems, that the reaction people are going to have is, well, can we find a violin tiny enough for this? Right? And to be somewhat dismissed or discounted against the real problems that other people are facing and so on. And that's just bad. That's bad culture. That's bad politics. That's no way to run a society to make people feel like their issues are somehow lesser. As for what's happening with young young men, I think that because there's been this strong swing for understandable reasons on the center left politics towards women's issues, and that's obviously true kind of post-Dobbs, post-MeToo, to some extent post-Donald Trump. You saw the Women's March, etc. And that has really significantly politicized kind of young women in a more leftward direction. And whilst young men are just as supportive of gender equality as before, that's just, that's not them. That's not their issue. And, unfortunately, no amount of wishing men into being better allies is going to make them think that's going to become the central thing that they're worried about, right? I think it's unrealistic to expect young men to make feminism their central political identity. And that sometimes is how it feels on the left, is that what we want from young men is to be better allies and maybe less toxic. But they are concerned about the economy. They are concerned about education. They are concerned about, will I be able to afford a house? How can I raise a family? And, to some extent, they're grappling with, I think, they're in some ways the first generation to really be reckoning with the revolution in the economic position of men versus women that's been playing out over the last few decades. And it is a wonderful revolution. But if you look at the earnings of kind of men and women under the age of 30, basically the same in many cities, women are actually earning a bit more than men now. Obviously, we see that playing out in education. And so, they're really in this world that we've been fighting for and working for and hoping for, which is a world of just transformed economic relations between men and women, a world where it is not clear that women need men. And that's a liberating moment for sure. But it's also a disconcerting moment, particularly if you're a man that's been raised in a family or a community where your worth is valued precisely by that ability to be an economic provider. And I think one of the things happening here politically — and this may be an issue that gets into race and class as well — which is that the men who are most likely to feel like their worth is still measured in dollars, are actually the men who are doing worst economically, who are struggling most in the economy. And there's a real tragedy in that, which is that they're the men who I think are then very open to the suggestion that the left is really not for them and that maybe the right is.

So, let's talk about some of the different appeals we see the two political parties making. What do you make of how Trump and Vance are directing their appeal to these male voters and where they're going to find them and talk to them?

I think, again, it's more of a performance, it's more of a communication style. It's more about audience. What I find interesting about it is that not that many young men are aspiring to be like Donald Trump. Like that doesn't seem to be what's happening particularly. But I do think that in their mood music, you know you mentioned the RNC, the sort of podcasts they're going on, in a kind of just an almost — and I don't — this sounds much more judgmental than I mean it to be, but almost like as a kind of almost an adolescent joy to the expressions of masculinity you see, right, about fighting and joking and horsing around and, like, there's just — and I think that that's appealing to a lot of young men who have felt constrained, constricted in some way, that actually just expressing themselves in a more masculine way is somehow off the cards politically unacceptable. And you see in surveys, for example, the share of men, it's about 50%, saying that men are punished for acting like men. Now, that could mean acting really badly, right? Acting in horrible ways. But it could just be that there are certain ways of being that are just a bit more male, on average, that they're just — they don't feel are appropriate anymore. And then what they see is a bunch of people doing that on podcasts and on stage and even just ripping your shirt off and stuff like that. In a way you could see as a little bit adolescent, a little bit of a middle finger, but also quite countercultural, if you think the culture has been strongly affected by quite an orthodox view about gender, which is if anything problematizes or sometimes even seems to pathologize masculine expressions, then you create a real political opening for someone saying, yeah, enough of that.

And yet, we saw on the debate stage between the two vice presidential candidates, you know, JD Vance didn't see it as his political mission necessarily to keep mining in that way for those male voters and do that performative stuff. In fact, we saw JD Vance make an appeal to earn the trust of women back. So he was clearly trying to address the deficit they have with female voters and one that in a way it sort of sounded unlike what I've heard a lot of Republican candidates, certainly unlike Donald Trump, who was just recently, you know, saying he was be the protector of women. This was JD Vance saying, we've fallen short and we need to earn the trust of women back. And he seemed to be doing it without fear that that would alienate this pursuit of men that they have going on.

'Yes. So that might suggest that they feel pretty confident about their appeal to those men. But it also may be that there's a growing recognition that actually running as the men's party may not get you over the line. And that may also be because they're concerned about turnout among many of these men. And I think that's a question that won't be answered till November, which is that even if there are some men who are somewhat disaffected and almost maybe not going to vote Democrat, doesn't necessarily mean they're going to show up and vote Republican. Whereas the Democrats might feel more confident that the women voters who are motivated are going to show up. That seems reasonable. You can easily imagine, particularly young women being pretty motivated to turn out. But it was interesting. I haven't seen anything from the Harris-Walz campaign yet where they're directly trying to appeal to young men. And so it may be that right now the center of gravity here is that the Democrats feel a bit more confident they can win as the women's party than the Republicans feel they can win as the men's party.

That's interesting. I think some of the Coach Walz narrative is to appeal to young men. I mean, I think some of what they are, how they present Tim Walz and how — I mean, even in advance of the debate this week, they put out a video of his former players trying to give him a reverse pep talk to the coach before he took the debate stage kind of thing. So I do think the way they've constructed the narrative around him is to try and see if he can help mitigate some of this male voter deficit.

Yes. And you'll hear kind of Harris calling him Coach Walz now, which is a comically —

'Like you said, on-the-nose, perhaps, yeah?

'Sometimes it's like you forget his actual name. He's actually just called "Coach." And that's smart because like the coach has this iconic status, of course, it's within US culture and as a father figure and so on. I would say that it — as yet it's been implicit. It hasn't been explicit. So, the appeal to men, and I do think there's an opportunity there around this kind of coach-based model. So, in a sense, the contrast that could be drawn here would be between like the model of the fighter, which we see, we saw very much at the RNC and the through UFC and so on and the model of the coach. And so there's a little bit of a potential you could draw out the difference between a form of masculinity, which is more service-oriented, it's more — it's more the arm around you, shoulder asking if you're okay than than the clenched fist. And, of course, those are both like different ways to express sort of traditionally kind of masculine ways of being. But so far it's been implicit. I think there is a lot of space, particularly with Tim Walz, who's not only a coach, but let's not forget the first career public school teacher to run for such high office and a male public school teacher. And, by the way, since he was a teacher, the share of male teachers has dropped by ten percentage points from 33% to 23%. And so you could imagine a narrative here which talks about male mental health, male teachers, apprenticeships and that explicitly makes an appeal to men and to young men especially. But the fear on both sides has been that this is something of a zero sum calculation and that you can't afford to alienate the women if you're a Democrat, the men if you're a Republican, and I don't know about the political strategy of that, that's clearly not what you've had me on to talk about that. I don't know. But I don't think it's great in the long run for parties to be kind of leaning into gender politics, because in the end, we're going to mostly have to rise together.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. I will save it for a whole other podcast. But beyond the context of the election, just culturally, if in our politics, as you said before, if we have a male party and a female party, and we are just in this to borrow another, you know, Venus/Mars world, you can see all the complications that grow out of that. Richard Reeves, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me on.

'That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. We want to hear from you. Is there a question you'd like answered about this election cycle? Is there a guest you really want to hear from? Give us a call at (202) 618-9460. Or send us an email at [email protected]. And you might just be featured in a future episode of the podcast. So don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, how we can reach you, and if you give us permission to use the recording on the podcast. CNN's Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dam Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Katie Hinman. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.