Dear DNC: I’ll Tell You How to Talk to Men—for Free. Stop Paying Consultants to Be Clueless
By Michael Kelman Portney
The Democratic Party is about to do what it does best: waste donor money solving a problem that doesn’t exist the way they think it does.
Apparently, men—particularly white men—are a “messaging puzzle” that requires consultants, surveys, PR firms, and probably a TED Talk or two. The party’s strategists are floating the idea of spending millions figuring out how to “reach” us, as if we’re a remote Amazonian tribe that needs pamphlets and PowerPoints to understand the concept of climate change.
No. We are not mysterious. You are just bad at talking.
And I’m going to save you all that money right now, free of charge. Ready? Here's how to talk to men: like we matter.
Let’s get into it.
I. Men, Microaggressions, and the Marketing Department from Hell
Somewhere in a glass tower in D.C., there’s a whiteboard that says something like this:
"How do we connect with men without sounding like we support them?"
And beneath that, a flowchart that includes words like:
“Accountability training”
“Non-hegemonic framing”
“A/B test: patriarchy vs. privilege callouts”
You are not going to win a single welder, truck driver, or combat vet with that crap. You're not even going to win their nephew who listens to podcasts and vapes weed in his Civic. You’re going to sound like you’re pitching a gender studies elective during a hostage negotiation.
II. Men Aren’t Broken. Your Messaging Is.
Here’s a radical idea: men are not a “problem” to be managed. They’re voters. They’re citizens. They’re tired, overworked, underpaid, and being told constantly that their instincts are a threat to democracy.
Masculinity isn’t toxic—it’s situational. Courage? Masculine. Loyalty? Masculine. Standing up to corporate bullshit? Masculine. The problem isn’t testosterone—it’s how you market around it.
When you say:
“We need to check our privilege and center marginalized voices,”
What men hear is:
“Shut up, we don’t care what you think.”
Try this instead:
“This country needs strong men to stand up against corruption, defend working families, and rebuild the nation.”
It’s the same politics. Just with a spine and a heartbeat.
III. If You Only Mention Men to Blame Them, Don’t Be Shocked When They Bounce
Let me ask the DNC a real simple question: When was the last time you ran an ad about what you were going to do for men?
Not men as abstract allies. Not “men who benefit from racial equity.” Not “men as perpetrators.” Just… men. Fathers. Sons. Workers. Veterans. The guys who do HVAC, fix brake pads, and drink beer watching football they bet $10 on.
If the only time you talk about men is to tell them they’re the reason everything sucks, don’t be shocked when they stop listening. People don't vote for candidates who hate them. Not even self-loathing ones.
IV. The Official DNC Messaging Ban List (For Anyone Who Wants to Win a Male Voter Again)
Let’s make it real simple. If you want to reach men—especially the ones you're bleeding like a gunshot wound in the Midwest—stop using these words in your speeches:
Microaggression
Patriarchy (unless you’re smashing Wall Street’s version)
Lived experience (unless it ends with jail time)
Toxic masculinity (unless you’re quoting Ben Shapiro, sarcastically)
“As a…” intros (e.g., “As a non-binary left-handed descendant of medieval surfboard artisans…”)
Instead, use:
Honor
Work
Sacrifice
Brotherhood
Rebuild
Fight
And for the love of polling gods, stop acting like men are either predators or cavemen. Start talking to us like we’re your teammates in a bar fight, not the guy you’re calling the cops on from your Prius.
V. Masculinity Isn’t the Enemy of Progress—It’s the Fuel
Being pro-man isn’t anti-woman. It’s not anti-trans. It’s not anti-anyone. Masculinity at its best builds civilizations, defends the vulnerable, and fights the bastards in power.
Men want a mission. They want something worth sweating for, bleeding for, hell—dying for. They don’t want to be told they’re the villain in every story. They want to be in the story.
Want to win the climate fight? Don’t say “decarbonization.” Say “We’re launching the next great American infrastructure project and we need electricians, engineers, and machine operators to lead it.”
It’s not that hard. You’re not selling a therapy session. You’re selling a revolution. Talk like it.
VI. Want to Win Back Men? Try Not Insulting Them.
Let me paint you a picture.
You’re a 40-year-old guy in Ohio. You work in logistics. You’ve got two kids. You’re behind on bills. And you turn on a campaign ad. It’s a ukulele playing over a montage of white women crying, a drag queen in a library, and a voiceover about checking your biases.
You change the channel. You don’t hate anyone in the ad. But you do hate being ignored. You hate being erased. And you hate the feeling that your struggles don’t count.
DNC: nobody is asking you to stop caring about marginalized people. We’re asking you to add men to the damn list. We’re asking you to act like we’re not expendable.
VII. Don’t Fund a Study. Fund a Spine.
You don’t need more research. You need more guts. What you’re looking for is not in a PowerPoint—it’s in the mirror.
Want to know how to talk to men?
Say what you mean.
Be proud of your country and your values.
Don’t apologize for every damn thing.
Pick a fight worth fighting.
Promise something hard and real and big.
You want to reach working-class men? Try sounding like you’d actually show up to the job site instead of filing a report about it.
VIII. Final Offer: I Just Saved You $10 Million. Send Me a Thank You Card.
You don’t need focus groups. You need fire in your gut. You need to talk like a brawler, not a brand.
Stop blaming men for everything. Stop pretending every guy with a Y chromosome is one Fox News clip away from becoming Mussolini. Start treating men like something more than an obstacle—and maybe, just maybe, they’ll show up at the polls again.
Until then, the only thing you’ll win is another invoice from a DEI firm telling you that cisheteronormativity is the reason your campaign can’t break 44% in Michigan.
Good luck with that.
Or maybe—just maybe—you could listen to the American Gadfly.
Share this with every campaign manager too cowardly to say what we all know: if Democrats keep treating men like a liability, they’re going to get replaced by someone who treats them like a weapon.
Your move, DNC.
