I think a big part of the issues end up being economic. Things are obviously not great for a vast majority of middle and lower income people. You spend all day working your 1-3 jobs and in the background there's all the culture war battles going on.

Few regular people have the mental space to even engage with the nuance required to navigate some progressive talking points when they can barely keep a roof over their heads. Toxic masculinity just turns into masculinity = toxic. You've lost these people, even if there's an actually good message in there.

The Right is amazing at drawing a direct line between, "These are the problems we know you're having" and "This is exactly what you can do about it today". And for the Right, they actually deliver results. Do the kids turn into insufferable dickheads? Sure. But does the rhetoric sometimes get them what they want? Yeah, it does.

Where does the Left even come close? Almost everything is a delayed effect. Protest for a good cause? Wait to see if the politics catch up. Be nice to people? Great start, but that doesn't help these guys get people-skills to have good platonic and romantic relationships. Be more open emotionally? What happens when your friends don't accept that from you?

The Left is full of high risk, upfront demands from people who aren't already affiliated with potentially little to no reward. Granted, the desired outcome is a better and more just society. But like, carrots and sticks people. You need something that regular people can get behind besides just ideology. Especially when mainstream media has a lock on those that are tuned out of progressive spaces and every now and then see something leak through from the culture war.

We need an actual vision for the future. Not a list of things we don't like about the present, but what do we see people doing one day. If you don't have a place for any group of people in your society, they will be indifferent if it burns. You can't build a progressive future without having an actual, honest to God idea of what opportunities you can provide to legitimately everyone. If your best plan is, "Conservatives get with the program or rot in hell", don't be surprised when they take you down with them.

What you've described is every complaint I've had with centrists and neocons in the democratic party. I don't really know where the progressive part comes in.

Bernie did amazing with men to the point where "bernie bros" were being mocked in media, so has Mamdani in NY in polls.

If anything, I would argue that the Democratic party should be more populist and progressive. Focusing on things that pull up everybody, because everyone is struggling right now.

Reclaim patriotism. Republicans love to wrap themselves in the flag, progressives need to do the same thing. It's just a piece of the whole, but seeing pics of the LA protests with Mexican flags flying - that doesn't help bring American voters to a cause.

Education. You will never be able to explain taxes in a way that can counter propaganda if the person is an idiot. You just won't. And until then it's an uphill battle.

Simple. What do young men care about? Getting laid and getting paid. Promise them that, and you'll get their votes.

You'll need to use coded language, of course. But using coded language is politicians' whole job.

I think instead of focusing on how to sell this product, we focus on the product itself because it's impossible to sell something that Democrats keep pulling off the shelf as "defective." Like any other item that people buy, committing to something only to have the "company" do a 180 and stop supporting it immediately after your "purchase" is just going to drive people away.

Most Democrats only seem interested in pushing progressive policies right up until they get elected and then it's always "not the right time" after the election.

Edit: also the product would sell itself if they actually implemented them and improved people's lives. It's kind of hard to deny things that exist right in front of your face, but we never seem able to get to that point because corporations and genocidal "allies" always take precedence over the American people regardless of which of these two parties hold office.

Young men are not some new phenomenon. Their desire, in a word, is agency.

As the world has grown more interconnected, the world has become more visible. This has created a crippling awareness of their place in the grand scheme. Nietzsche's void has opened beneath them and, in the ignorance expected of youth, they grasp at what is presented to them. Selling hope to the desperate, even false hope, is lucrative, so there is no shortage of hucksters and charlatans offering it to them.

The ultimate problem is that there is no pleasant truth. When faced with the existential horror of being, the truth doesn't help. You cannot focus on learning to be a better version of yourself when facing raw terror. A comforting lie will get you to tomorrow. Truth will send you to the long, dark night.

So, when offered a pretense of agency, in almost any form, they take it. Some pretend that the problem is simply women. Some say it's other 'races.' Some say it's this or that ideology, whether economic, social, sexual, psychological, or anything else. They all just want to feel like they can make a difference, just like everyone else.

I honestly don't think progressive politics is the problem. When it comes to the US. The only other party is the democrats and at best they are center at best but really they are just Republicans from 20 years ago. From a fiscal sense.

Both times they sold the American people to pick them just because the other side is worse. The problem is most people don't want to pick the lesser of two evils. They want to pick something that will change their lives for the better.

The problem is when Democrats don't really have a platform or communicate that platform effectively. But the other guy is saying he will fix the problems in people's lives even if they are lies. Most low information voters will roll the dice on the chance he is not lying. Because the other side has brought nothing to the table at all.

The logic i have seen with a man like that broke my heart was this. He said i care about the plate of Trans folks and other minorities but like on an airplane you have to put on your own mask on first before you help others. So when you are out of work or can't afford to live. The culture wars feels like less a priority for those type of people.

When looking with that lense it makes sense how people voted. People with higher education and income voted Dem becase they wanted to help others.

People with lower income voted Republican out of desperation and was easy for Republicans to sell the snake oil of. If we hurt these small group of people. All your problems will be solved. Then those same people are hurt more when they find out it was all a lie.

Read up on history and how Germany was after World War I. It's like having a crystal ball of what's going to happen next.

It's not a rhetorical problem. It's a propaganda problem. People aren't being reasoned into right wing politics. It's being beaten into their heads day and night by talk radio, cable news, local news, and YouTube; and this has been going on very deliberately for decades. The right wing powers-that-be have been busily, patiently, creating a massive, pervasive propaganda machine for a long time while the left sat on their hands. We're now seeing the results: a world where the right can do and say literally anything they want without consequence. Their base is very literally brainwashed through brute force repeated messaging that nobody can compete with.

We needed the Democrats to do something about this propaganda machine before it became unstoppable. They already didn't do that.

The best thing any of us can do is try to steer kids away from the propaganda before they get sucked in.

The first thing is that progressives need to stop being intellectually dishonest. The movement needs to admit that the world view is a technocratic one in which the best course of action given the evidence available is the one that will guide the decisions of the movement, not popular sentiment.

As of right now the progressive agenda looks like a mass of contradictions whose only identity is opposition to MAGA and the right with such intensity that the right has in fact co-opted many of the stances that traditionally belonged on the left, losing the support of the working class.

Seen through a Marxist lens, it is not surprising, the progressive movement in the US is not a worker’s movement but rather a managerial class movement.

Maybe like, one day you are gonna need the social safety net, even if you're a very strong cis het guy.

One you're gonna be old. One day you're gonna be fired without notice when your car breaks down. One day your girlfriend might have a surprise pregnancy you can't deal with.

Just brainstorming but I would start with saying, sure this doesn't benefit you right now, cause you got the luck of the draw, but one day we will all need help

Pride in intellectual achievement would be a good start.

Better marketing.

Drop policies that have been consistent long-term losers like expanded gun control.

Force through policies that improve their lives at the cost of others, for example, healthcare paid for by taxing billionaires

Christ - some of these replies are exactly what a lot of women talk about when we say that Lemmy has a misogyny problem.

Blokes really don't recognize how much harder shit actually is for women, overall. It would be lovely to just sit on a bench for 5 mins without a stranger coming to chat me up, or if people would stop crediting men for my work when they don't even ask for it.