Ever since President-elect Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential race in the early morning hours following election night, CNN's Scott Jennings has been offering some key advice for Democrats and those in the mainstream media. It's words of wisdom they'd be smart to take. On Tuesday night, Jennings appeared on "CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip" to explain how Democrats have pushed men away.
Young men are in a crisis, podcaster Scott Galloway has pointed out before, as host Abby Phillip mentioned. "It's a pretty dire picture that he paints there. And it seems what he's saying is that Trump spoke to that," she offered.
Jennings was clear that he agrees, especially when it comes to how "we have a crisis of especially young men in this country." He also noted that "they're, you know, in many ways, disconnected from the rest of society, disconnected from their families, disconnected from their communities, disconnected from our political culture, disconnected from our civil culture," which he pointed out is "a real problem for a society that depends on all of us to be engaged and working together to make it as good of a country and as good of a society as it can be."
He then got to how Democrats for this election cycle actually made the issue worse, which in large part involved messaging, as well as the role of Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN). When it comes to the masculinity problems that Democrats realized they had during this campaign cycle, they laughably tried to use Walz and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff as a way to fix that, when it just made them look even more cringeworthy. CNN's Dana Bash even offered while at the DNC in August that Walz "can speak to men out there who might not be the testosterone laden gun toting guy."
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"I think the Democrats in this election made men feel like that 'the patriarchy is over, boys, and we're going to put you in the back seat for a while, and you're just going to have to accept it,' without any thought to the ramifications of telling people who are out honestly trying to make a living, provide for their families, be good husbands, be good fathers When you tell people who are doing their level best that either, A, it's not good enough, or, B, you're part of the problem, what do you expect?" Jennings offered. "And then finally, as a political tactic, you know, the attempt to put Walz on the ticket and that was going to somehow solve all of the problems that had been built up for years was ridiculous, because it turns out Walz was the last person that men wanted to hear from," he emphasized about the vice presidential nominee.
Jennings also brought up a specific example, which was the Democrats' attempt to appeal to young men through camouflaged Harris-Walz hats.
"And I remember at the beginning of that whole campaign, when they put him on, I sat right here and people are like, 'oh, they got camouflaged hats. They're going to be wearing them in the deer stands this fall,'" Jennings mocked, as he pointed out that "that idea that was not formulated by a bunch of dudes who actually go deer hunting. It was come up with by a bunch of people who've never met a dude that actually goes deer hunting. But when you try to put that kind of window dressing on a real communications problem or a real relationship problem, it gets exposed immediately," and it indeed was.
Discussed why Democrats are totally in the wilderness when it comes to men last night on @cnn. pic.twitter.com/cyivwGCuH9
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) November 20, 2024
Later during the show, when Jennings and other panelists were talking about the appeal that Trump has with young men, Phillip raised the point of how "people would say Donald Trump speaks to, you know, the lesser angels of everyone, not the higher angels," also offering that "part of it too, it almost feels like men--there's a backlash to men being accused of being too misogynistic in the sort of MeToo era and all of that."
Jennings asked the fitting question of "who gets to decide whose angels are right and wrong?" He then spoke further of how men have felt about the Democratic Party in this regard. "I mean, I think one of the issues that you're articulating, and I agree with you, is that men feel like Democrats and, you know, the sort of the society that is built up around this viewpoint is constantly looking over their shoulder, you know, the sort of the professional, oh, fainting society waiting to hear what thing offends them next and is it coming out of your mouth and what am I going to do to you when I hear it come out of your mouth."
With Trump, though, there's a contrast. "And, you know, the way men talk to each other, the way men interact with each other, you know, I think in Trump, they see somebody who is sort of immune from the cancelation society or immune from the group of people who would try to police at all," Jennings continued, with Phillip and other panelists pointing out that Trump himself has survived plenty of accusations.
Later still in the segment, Jennings raised another key point on how the Democrats have deemphasized the family unit. There are plenty of comments to be made about such a talking point, but Jennings succinctly covered the "cultural" aspect.
"Like, I mean, the Democratic Party's emphasis or deemphasis on the need for strong family units, strong father, strong men to take care of families. I mean, there has been a rejection of that on the left in this country, and I think there's consequences to that," he aptly noted.
The discussion about Trump's appeal with men, especially young men compared to the previous election, is not limited to such a segment. Last week, Cygnal released a post-election memo, with one of the takeaways mentioning that men under 30 were R+10 for this election. "Men were the late deciders in this race, and they swung things Trump’s way. 9% of voters waited until the final week to decide who to support, and they were overwhelmingly non-college educated," the memo also mentioned.
A little more on the @cnn discussion of how Democrats have pushed away men. Dudes are sick of the professional fainting society members constantly looking over their shoulder, and in Trump they see a bulwark against the cancel culture of the Left. pic.twitter.com/KnhQuD37ns
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) November 20, 2024
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