Dems' Other White Guy Problem
Camo hats can't replace authentic outreach
Everyone knows white male voters are overwhelmingly rejecting Democrats (a recent Quinnipiac poll gave Democrats a 22% favorability rating among men). But the party actually has a bigger problem: when it feels the need to pick a white guy, they’re bad at it.
At the DNC Chair forum on Thursday, every candidate raised their hand to affirm that racism and misogyny contributed to Kamala Harris’ loss.
As Josh Barro pointed out, this leads to Dumb DEI: if you believe that a black woman can’t win because of how sexist and racist the electorate is, you need to run a white guy. Now, there’s a ton of white guys out there so normally that wouldn’t prohibit a strong candidate. But there are two problems:
Selection - The Camo Hat Problem: the “shadow party” - the collection of nonprofits and interest groups chock full of over-educated, cosmopolitan elites who are disproportionately young and female - has a terrible Guydar. What will guys like? Ask anyone but The Groups!
There is no Zyn-filled room where savvy politicians can pick a white guy for electability. To the extent there are rooms, they’re just progressive Twitter come to life in an upscale urban apartment or NGO office tower.
Here’s a question: who were the straight white guy dads on the VP search committee?
Trick question: there were none.
Running - The Pandering Problem: most recently evidenced by Ben Wikler’s widely mocked identity-focused tweet, the type of white guy who rises to power in the late 2020s (we are now in the back half of the 2020s people) has performed so many ritualistic group signaling behaviors it’d make the head of the Freemasons blush. It’s impossible for them not to “center” an ever expanding set of capital letters.
Obama spent a good chunk of his 2008 win saying Stuff White Guys Can’t Say.
Faiz Shakir, the only non-white candidate to make a dent in the race, clearly saw the lane.
He said the Normal thing, which only in modern democratic politics is noteworthy. He said that we shouldn’t speak to people’s identities, we should speak to their needs. Black men, white men and Asian women all want a growing economy with low inflation.
Shakir knew what he was doing - he explicitly said he’d “use the party” and was clearly using the process to raise his own profile. But the role was useful, as a foil.
A former DNC spokesperson said “It’s clear no one understands what the DNC does, or what it’s supposed to do. Instead, we get roped into discussions that are detached from what it actually takes to win elections.” The race is more symbolic: and what it’s showing is Democrats haven’t moved past the politics of evasion.
The politics of evasion
Nearly all of the candidates agreed that the problem Democrats truly face is messaging - not substance. Per Weigel, O'Malley and Martin agree that they need a "misinformation, disinformation war room." Another said “We can overwhelm the algorithm." Another: “We've got the right message, what we need to do is connect it back with the voters." But Democrats spent more in 2024 than Republicans did, so it’s not merely the message that is the problem. This is classic “politics of evasion,” focused on “fundraising and technology, media and momentum, personality and tactics.”
None of the white guys on stage were willing to point to the party’s stances on crime, immigration or spending - in part because as white guys are conditioned to pass progressive litmus tests, they would be chastised for “speaking from a position of privilege” on these questions.
The white guy problem isn’t just a messaging problem. It’s a policy problem. Democrats need better ideas for governing, not just messaging, to win.