Kamala Harris Wants to Redefine Masculinity—And Demolish Trump’s
Democrats used their convention to stake a claim to a new manhood. It may leave Trump clutching his.
IN THE WEE HOURS OF THURSDAY MORNING, I stood outside a theater where Drive-By Truckers and Joan Jett had just wrapped playing a Democratic National Convention afterparty.
As if that joint billing—the icons of rock for the anti-Trump South warming up for the unapologetically hard-charging grand dame of rock-n-roll—weren’t already allegorical enough for the moment, out onto the street came tumbling a scrum of burly guys wearing football jerseys and toting Coach Walz signs. Cheery and boisterous, these were the same football players who’d taken the stage to cheer on their coach, vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz. They posed for pictures with the stragglers walking by as they exited the show.
This scene at the Ramova Theater underscored perhaps the most significant development that took place last week: Democrats finally decided to fight for the votes of men. They did it by recasting liberal values as those of a grown-up or even “evolved” masculinity, and by having a presidential nominee who delivered a conventionally masculine address. Vice President Kamala Harris flashed her famous smile as she promised to slay foreign enemies and lock up the bad guys coming for our country and its people.
For all the football and talk of lethal force, the party still has an uphill battle when it comes to men’s votes. The New York Times Upshot reported on the sobering reality this past weekend by surveying the growing gender gap in partisan support. Men under 30 favor Trump by 11 points while their female counterparts break for Harris by 28 points, making this generation the most gender divergent by a long shot.
This larger trend must have weighed on the minds of the Harris team going into the convention; for months, headlines and pundits have trumpeted that the Democrats have a man problem. In Chicago, Democrats did more than make a solid effort to begin closing that gap. They signaled for the first time that they understand their bigger assignment: Do not abandon a generation of men to the MAGA project.
With the notable exception of Bill Clinton’s elections in 1992 and 1996, white men have consistently voted Republican since the 1960s, when civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights movements began to shake up the long-established social pecking order. But recently, a new trend emerged: Democrats began hemorrhaging Latino men and African American men. Combined with the Gen-Zers highlighted by the Times, these constituencies represent not only large portions of the historic Democratic base, but ones that will define the trajectory of our politics for at least a generation to come. These men describe the Democratic party and progressive culture as hostile to traditional masculine values, immune to the concerns they feel about being a provider, and actually dismissive of the strength they were required to show growing up to survive.
Chicago might prove to be the key to opening that GOP lock. From the first night’s invocation to the balloon drop after Harris’s speech, the Democratic convention featured a lineup that refused to accept the boy vs. girl frame that has come to define this year’s election. And they didn’t just seek to compete for male votes, but to reclaim masculinity itself as belonging to their party, too.
Harris’s speech was remarkable for her full-throated commitment to maintaining the “most lethal” military force in the world, and to going after those who threaten our interests, whether they be a foreign adversary or a predator that needs to be locked up. But it was equally notable for what it didn’t contain: the demurring phrases meant to demonstrate that she’s not a threat to men or the subtle indications that she’s still a woman. Sure, Kamala cooks dinner. But she makes a crispy, sassy dosa, not chocolate chip cookies, and you better be on time. Yes, she has had a career in law. But she didn’t even have to bother defending it, as Hillary once did. Sure, abortion is top of mind, and the Vice President is an unapologetic champion of reproductive freedom. But restoring Roe was a commitment she put alongside a pledge to sign a tough border measure.
What we got at the podium that night was an aspiring commander-in-chief in a power suit, dark blue to boot. A candidate who is clearly the best option to represent her party and all Americans—not in spite of her gender, but because of her personal journey, all things included.
Harris’s running mate, Coach Walz, had his own approach. He sprinkled his speech with references to football plays and trophies he earned by shooting rifles, and he undergirded those endeavors with a clear directive about the responsibility that naturally accompanies them. Might and brawn mean nothing if they are not used to protect and defend—and not just your women and children, but your community and country. He reframed reproductive rights and the attacks on them by Republicans as a men’s issue. The raw emotion he expressed while recounting the challenges he and his wife Gwen experienced getting pregnant was as visceral as the absolute joy he took in their finally becoming parents. He always spoke of the issue of reproductive rights as being about “we” and never about “her”— a refreshing change of pace from the tired talking points of being an ally for our “sisters and daughters.” None of this is trivial in a country where young men rank coaches in their top three personal influences.
Potential first son Cole Emhoff offered his own Gen Z perspective on modern masculinity, too. In a video introducing his father, he talked about watching Doug leave his law practice after 30 years when it became clear Kamala’s political star was going to continue to rise. Cole acknowledged that this was hard for his dad, but that the decision was part of being in “true partnership.” That idea is especially poignant to a generation where women are starting to out-earn and out-perform their male counterparts.
There was nothing emasculating about the speech that followed from Doug himself. The elder Emhoff touted his Nirvana fandom and fantasy football league. He talked about climbing from McDonald’s employee to hot-shot entertainment lawyer. But he also struck a universally relatable note when he recounted his awkward first calls to his new crush, a woman named Kamala.
By the time comedian DL Hughley took the stage on the final night, it felt as though the shift of masculine vibes was already palpable. All over the convention hall, I saw men smiling, laughing, and hugging each other. White Dudes For Harris caps were being passed around along with the camo Harris-Walz hats. When the online right attacked Gus Walz—the neurodivergent seventeen-year-old son of the VP nominee—as weak and weird for showing his tearful joy during his dad’s speech, men rose up in a collective defense so forceful that conservative commentators were forced to do something anathema to their identity: back down. Trump’s centering of cruelty within the MAGA political project had, for that moment at least, lost its sheen.
But Hughley wasn’t there to make Harris more palatable to male voters. He was there to wipe away their adulation for Trump and drive a stake through the heart of the former president’s brand of toxic virility. And on that front, he may have landed the punchline of the night by branding the ex-president’s need for a succession of trophy wives as being more than a little sad and embarrassingly outdated. His remark that the rise of Republicans for Kamala meant Trump would finally know what it feels like when “YOU get left for a younger woman” got uproarious applause. It also sent a signal to men that someone who punches down to lift himself up might be less of a “man” than the woman on the other ticket.
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