The Failings of Men

Every so often, my professional life provides food for thought for the blog. 

This week was one such example. My work in community organizing has granted me the opportunity to create and implement a leadership development program in Boston's historically Black neighborhood of Roxbury. Working with community partners, we have been doing outreach for the past month to identify and recruit a strong applicant pool that would yield us roughly 30 up-and-coming leaders who would join us on our statewide rent control campaign. We've asked our partners to identify those in their networks who would be committed to the program, and as of today, we have had 24 candidates apply. Of those, all but one are women. 

This is not uncommon in organizing.

Since cutting my teeth on Hillary's national campaign in 2016 in Florida, there has been a trend of women being overwhelmingly involved in social justice work across the country. While major events like the Women's March put this gender disparity in public view, what has happened behind the scenes has been even more noticeable. I recall my first role as a community organizer in 2017, taking part in a conversation about a Greater Boston suburban town, potentially enacting local protections for the immigrant community in the wake of Donald Trump's election. In that room were a dozen women and me, and by and large, they did not identify as first-generation immigrants themselves. Instead, they were concerned friends and neighbors who knew that the most vulnerable among us would be targeted during a Trump Administration. They took it upon themselves to come together, study the issue, and decide if we had enough political will from town elected officials to move forward. In the end, we decided to withdraw our proposal, but the makeup of those in the room is something that would stick with me moving forward. 

Eight years later, and the men are still nowhere to be found. 

And there is no longer time for excuses. White men continue to fail at the voting booth, with 60% having supported Donald Trump in 2024, up from 58% in 2020. Over half of men under 30 supported Trump in 2024, and He even doubled his support among Black men, from 8% in 2020 to 15% in 2024. Faced with the simple task of electing the competent woman over the grossly unqualified man, American men failed the assignment for the second time in three national elections. This time around, we couldn't even pretend that we didn't know what Trump would do as president. We knew what he did the first time around, and yet American men still preferred him over Kamala Harris. The 2024 election will be studied for generations to come, but what we really need to unpack is what got us to a point where men (primarily White men) were so unwilling to do the right thing.

Men all have mothers. Many men have sisters. Many have daughters. Unless they are Native American, men are all immigrants. Yet what we've seen over the past decade has been an absence of empathy for those around us. We all know White men won't be targeted by Donald Trump. But are these 60% of men not concerned about their daughters being raped and forced to carry a child to term? Are they not concerned about their wives no longer being recognized (and likely properly compensated) for their professional nursing degree? Do they really think that it's the best use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove the longtime immigrant from the community, even if this immigrant has no criminal record? Do none of these things matter as long as men themselves can maintain their social status?

Reflecting on those questions allows us to call out men and their privilege. Because that's what this past decade boils down to: the cowardice of men to do even the slightest thing that would make them feel uncomfortable. Men, especially White men, have never been in the minority. It's why they're not working with community activists or applying for leadership development programs, even when they might recognize an injustice. Women, on the other hand, know what it's like to fight to earn something. It's why Black women are consistently voting like their life depends on it, because their life really does depend on it. For a man, especially a White man, to put himself outside of his comfort zone is often a bridge too far. He'd much rather stay home than join the fight. Home is comfort, home is safety, and home is known. Going beyond that is scary, and not even rising American authoritarianism is enough to stir men to action at this point. 

Men are accustomed to being in power, in both personal and professional settings. For them, it's about control: control of the situation, control of other people, control of each and every aspect of their daily lives. Men inherently fear losing this power, knowing that their loss would be others' gains. The 60% of White men who voted for Donald Trump see him as the alpha, as someone who lives the life they envision all men should be living. That includes the vile personal and professional actions that should have derailed his campaign before he ever got started. For those 60%, everything Trump has said and done was not a dealbreaker, despite those things being absolutely revolting to those of us with a conscious. The appeal for White men is simple: Donald Trump is not a threat to ever take away our status. The same could not have been said for Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris. 

Republicans need men to survive. Literally. It's why Stephen Miller of all people put out a last-minute call during the last election day to rally men to the voting booths. Republicans have weaponized toxic masculinity as a way to covince men that Democrats somehow threaten their "manliness." Men who are decent human beings are seen as weak and cucks. Meanwhile, Republicans value a weird, perverted sense of masculinity found in likes of Pete Hegseth that somehow equates assholeness to toughness. Republicans know that demographics are not in their favor but for the time being they know that White men are still their key voting bloc. GOP politics are based on fear: in this case, it's the fear of men somehow losing out on their masculinity. While this fear is laughable for many of us, it is enough to convince low-information male voters that their only choice to maintain their manliness is to vote for the Republican candidate. For this latest generation of eligible voters who grew up with Gamergate, that message hits home and sadly proved to be effective during the 2024 election.

Men got us into this, but men cannot be counted on to get us out. There will be no watershed moment where 60% of White men suddenly realize Republicans hate them and their families. Young men will not abandon The Joe Rogan Experience for "Call Her Daddy" anytime soon. Instead, we need to offset the stupidity of men by continuing to elevate women and people of color to local offices. We need people with lived experience to be appointed to municipal government positions. We need non-English speakers to feel like they belong and that they have a voice in Democratic Party politics. And we need to continue providing opportunities for men to step in and step up, including leadership development programs in historically underserved communities. They may not accept what we have to offer, but providing it at the very least shows that opportunities exist should they choose. 

In the end, we have to accept the fact that men as a whole are a lost cause. Four hundred plus years of partriarchy and White supremacy has gotten us to this point. While two out of every five White men understand the assignment, the three that don't won't see the light any time soon. If men can't see how the GOP is the antithesis of everything they should care about today, they'll never see it. Privilege is a helluva drug and creates massive blind spots in relation to injustice. Men today, through nothing but the lottery of life, have been put in a position of success. Maintaining that position is something that must be done at all costs. 

And is something that has become non-negotiable in the age of Donald Trump.