The Problem With Jon Stewart - Man Oh Man Why Male Voters Shifted Right

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

In the weeks following the election, Democrats are confronting uncomfortable questions as to why much of the electorate—particularly men—abandoned the Left. This week, we're joined by Richard Reeves, President of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and Annie Lowrey, staff writer at The Atlantic. Together, we examine how the party might speak to both modern men and women, and bridge the gap between aspirational rhetoric and practical achievements. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, ladies and gentlemen and all the ships at sea. Welcome to the weekly show. It's our podcast. My name is John Stewart. It is week two, week three, AT after Trump? I don't know how we're going to notate this new era that we've entered. We are still in our spinning phase of trying to deconstruct all the issues that went wrong. I don't think any of it will be fixed without.

it's all vision and leadership man and i think that the democrats should do the thing that they haven't able to do which is present and develop their new uh generation of leaders to allow them to the space to make their their case i believe we should do it like the voice you get like four voters they sit in a chair then you bring out west more you bring out the buddhajidjj you bring out the other ones they start to give their pitch and then boom You see if anybody gets four chairs, three chairs, two chairs. And then, yeah, and you bring them through the battle rounds. And we put them together in the...

This is not going to work. I'm grasping at straws and I understand that. And it's perhaps a sign of a broken man, a man that does not know where to turn in this darkest hour for the Democrats. But we're going to continue our process of uplift. We have to find a way through this that does not deplete us emotionally. There cannot be defeatism. There cannot be fatalism.

This is not the time. This is the time to examine institutional thinking. This is the time to examine the status quo. This is the time to create anew. This is an opportunity, damn it. And I apologize for my language. I don't mean to work blue, but damn it. What the fuckety fuck fuck.

I guess I do want to work blue. But we are going to continue our process of talking to people far smarter than I about where they saw some of the disadvantages that the Democrats were operating on or things that they could have done differently, the populations that they didn't connect to. And I think we've got a very strong program for you today on just that. Avenue. So let's get to it now. While we are joined today, we're very delighted to have them with us.

Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, author of Boys and Men, why the modern male is struggling, why it matters and what to do about it. And Annie Lowry, staff writer for the Atlantic. So we've been parsing the electoral shalacking through the prism of demographics through the prism of economics. Today, we want to talk about the brotocracy. The fact that they talked a lot about that males, that the Donald Trump phenomenon, is that males have felt rejected and that they have turned to this in a matter of an acceptance. Richard, is that how you understand this phenomenon?

on? Well, it's interesting that the election did become about, a lot of it was about masculinity, quite a performative masculinity, I think, kind of on the right. And so it was weird, because we thought it was going to be election about women and women's rights and so on, and especially with Harris at the top of the Dem ticket. But actually this question about what's happening with guys, whose side of guys, but also like who's on the side of guys. Really, I think, kind of came up in this election pretty strongly. And the way I think about it was that it's less, I think, I think the sort of young men in particular turned so strongly away from the Democrats as much as they would say that they felt the Democrats weren't really offering anything specific to them.

And so they felt like welcomed and heard and seen, if I can use those words. I love this. I love the idea that the appeal of Trump is that he makes you feel seen. He makes men feel seen. I mean, obviously we can get some criticisms here, but like he appeared to like the things that men liked. Sure, sure. He appeared to like men. The song YMCA.

Right. And there was maybe a bit of playfulness there. And of course, we can get into this. Annie's reported on this, but the sort of freewheeling podcast appearances that they did, et cetera, as opposed to the tightly scripted stuff they heard from the left. Basically, the Democrats, I think, assumed they could win on the back of the votes of women,

and particularly around the ambitions of women. That turned out to be wrong. But I would suggest, and Richard, you're bringing up great points. And Annie, let me ask you this. You know, we keep talking about, well, he appealed to men and the freewheeling. She didn't do that well with women. She didn't do as well with women as Biden did as Hillary Clinton. So I almost think the criticisms that Richard is levying, which is sort of the freewheeling nature.

There was a sort of a sense of humor to it, was more broadly appealing, not just to men. Absolutely. So I think that Kamala Harris, we knew when she took over from Joe Biden, that probably if there had been a competitive primary, it's probably not the candidate that Democrats would have picked. An amazingly talented politician, but she came in in this kind of funny way. She was sort of appointed because she was VP. Her favorability went up, but she was not like the most, you know,

well-liked politician. When you go back and you look at the kind of generational political talents that you've had in both parties, Bill Clinton, people talk about being in a room with Bill Clinton and feeling like the sun was shining on them, right? Like, people talk about Barack Obama. They talk about some other things being in a room of Bill Clinton. Yeah, but he's likeable. And I think the Democrats have not wanted to credit Donald Trump with being a generational

political talent, with being kind of magnetic, with actually being likable. He doesn't drink, but people kind of want to spend time around him. He is, I think, the funniest person almost in politics, perhaps not always intentionally, but the whole thing where he calls the kid and is asking, they're talking about Santa, and he's like, do you believe in Santa because it's seven? It's marginal. I'm like, that's the funniest thing I've heard a politician say in a long time. And so I think that in any election like this that's really close, there's probably like 10 or 15 things that could have flipped it.

But I do think that one thing you saw is that people just like, maybe it's not even likeability, but it's a certain magnetism. Because I do think that Democrats ended up sort of celebrating the fact that Kamala Harris was this kind of like, funny, wacky. She actually seemed really, I think, as time went on, more authentic and more human. Right. Yeah, Donald Trump really does authentically appeal to people. And I think Democrats had a hard time recognizing that because so many of them found him racist, sexist, repulsive. And they wanted to focus on that, on the threat of him, you know? Well, I mean, it does bury the lead that he's, that he's, you know, fun and private. But maybe that's, you know, are different groups receiving different

messages from him because it almost sounds as though we're talking about two different people, sort of this lovable comic figure that makes people feel seen, who also stands up on a stage and says, you know, Democrats are the enemy of the people and I am your retribution. So which is the one that was clicking in for people? And maybe if they dropped the more angry talk and the rest. rhetoric of, you know, I'm your hammer, I'm your vengeance, maybe this thing looks more like a Reagan victory over Mondale and 49 states go. You know, what do you think, Richard? Yeah, I think weirdly people are able to discern these different things, but they probably do

so selectively. And so, like, at one hand, I think a big question that lies behind this is, like, did people vote for Donald Trump because of some of those views, or at least the expression of those views, or despite them? And because he is in some ways, so, as I said, freewheeling, long form, inconsistent, jockey, that of course is a perfect fit with the media landscape within which kind of many people, especially kind of young people, are consuming stuff. And it's not like they're not, they're not agreeing with every one of his tightly defined 10 point plan for America. They heard that joke.

They heard that. Right. Oh, my God. He's better content. He's Mr. Beast. And he was up against worse content. Yeah, and I say one more thing about this spot, but what Annie said,

which is that I really worry when I hear Democrats now saying, well, it was sexism, what won it for him. And the reason I'm worried about it, A, I think it's wrong, and B will send people, especially men, rushing to the right, if that's the only reason they could have done it. And thirdly, it will put a massive break on the possibility of having another female candidate.

Like, the female candidates, the Dems have run so far, have both come about in quite unusual circumstances, right? And so I do think that a really dangerous misreading of this election would be, well, we can't run a woman again. I think that would be horribly wrong and horrible for women in politics if that was a conclusion based on just the two women we've had so far, who for different reasons, I think, were just not the best candidate.

But also apparently up against a generational political talent. But, Annie, what's your thought on that idea of, you know, first of all, I don't know that that has felt like, the majoritarian criticism of why she lost. But Annie, you tell me, what's your thought? We've had, you know, the Democrats have been running unusual candidates in unusual circumstances. It has been a while since the Democrats have had a vigorous open primary without Barack Obama or Joe Biden or somebody on the inside really putting a thumb on the scale for a candidate. But Obama wasn't on the inside.

I mean, Hillary Clinton, by all measures. No, I just mean, you know. would kill in 2008. Yeah, they did. But there was, right, like, there was this very strong headwind behind her. There was this feeling of, like, well, who are you if you don't support her? I mean, I remember that. And she had high unfavorables.

There were questions about it. I do think that if you kind of stop and you just go to just unbelievably simple, right? Like, I'm not somebody who thinks a lot about political messaging. But if you say, you know, are the Democrats putting forward their most popular candidate? clearly not, right? Democrats spent most of 2024 running an unbelievably unpopular president who had said that he would step down and then chose not to, right? Like, I think that when we're thinking about the sort of original sins here, again, I mean, I can't tell you how many discussions I had with people inside the Biden White House who believed that he was going to be a one-term transitional president and then he wasn't. And then also, I think when you're just thinking about like the simplicity of messaging, I know what Donald Trump is going to focus on because he's told us. repeatedly. He's going to focus on immigration. He's going to focus on tariffs and he has an unusual

sense of what those will do, but nevertheless, he's there. And he's like, and I'm going to just make a smaller government now. I'm going to cut a bunch of stuff. It's very... And he was that specific. I am going to cut a bunch of stuff. That was the level of specificity. And, you know, low taxes, we're going to make it a small government, which, to be clear, I'm not sure that I think that he's going to do. You know, I think that there's this giant, question over how much fertility care, the right to a termination, things like access to birth control, and technologies like IVF are going to be under threat because he does now in his tent have people who are really intent on that. And my guess is that if RFK doesn't make it as HHS secretary,

it'll be because he's seen as insufficiently serious about continuing to limit access to reproductive medicine and technology, including abortion. But, you know, like, it's all very simple. And when I think about Kamala Harris, I, right, I talk to people about this constantly. I read about it. I report on it from principles. It was hard for me to say exactly what they were going to focus on doing, right? And it was actually sometimes hard for me to say what the Biden administration had done in its big bills. And again, I'm like, you know, I know way more about this than any reasonable person should. Right, right, right.

You spent way more time on this than human beings should. And so I think that we can get really elemental about it, too. Yeah, simple messages, popular candidates. I think that the Republicans did better on that in this election, and I think that it shows. Well, you know, I want to add, and Richard, you know, this gets to the efficacy of this deconstructive process that we're doing. We're sort of putting it through one of those, you know, molecular spectrographs where we're teasing out each individual thing.

And you guys keep bringing up, I think a lot of really interesting points that are very difficult to tease apart, sort of this idea of a charismatic or more likable figure, you know, a platform that's more easily digestible. But ultimately, when I think about like the commercials that were run, they really were based on the Democrats are going to turn your Trump. child into a different sex during the school day that you won't know about, and they are letting in murderers, and that seemed triumphant. And that seems almost more how they were able to galvanize people, no? Yeah, I think that that sort of message that the cultural left, the left broadly, right, not just the Democrats, but like the blob, the liberal blob, which would include media, Let's call it that. That's the nicest name we've ever been called, I think, the liberal blobs.

Right. I know it's not a reference to you, John. I apologize. But you know what I mean? The blob. Yes. And so let's call it that for the purpose of this conversation. And so a sense of like the overreach of some aspects of that on some of these issues.

Like clearly that gave great ammunition, which they then used very, very effectively. And no matter how hard the Democrats said, well, we didn't say that. We didn't run on that in the last hundred days. Okay. But what has the, what's the liberal blob been doing for? the last eight to 10 years. And there there was some real concern about some of that overreach, especially among parents. I think it also especially landed well with men. But I just want to pick up this communications point that you both referred to, which is like at some level,

the frustration here was that the Republicans were much better at getting into those communication spaces and styles that were going to reach the modern audience. But actually without any real substance, the Democrats actually had more substance that they could have talked about. if they'd been able to get into those spaces. So let me give you a thought experiment. Yeah, please, please. Imagine a world where Tim Walsz hadn't been told to just stand still and say nothing

after he'd been right. Was that the instruction? I assume so. I mean, that's what he did. All right, coach, don't move. Oh, so that's basically what it's right. Here's the play. That's right, he's a coach, right?

So the play was, Tim, just stand still and don't say anything for the next 100 days. But that speaks to the caution that they ran with. Exactly. Exactly. But the reason Tim Walsh was picked, or at least part of it, was because he was doing well on that front. He was saying they're a bit weird and he was quite freewheeling.

He seemed quite authentic. But then they picked him and said, all that stuff you were just doing, don't do any of that. Imagine a world where instead, Waltz was all over the brosphere, all over the podcast, three-hour interviews. And he could have said things like, the Republicans claimed to be on the side of working-class men. In that case, why did they vote against the infrastructure bill, two-thirds of the jobs from which went to working-class men, black working class men, Hispanic working class men, and white working-class men. They could have used, it could have talked about Medicaid expansion, helping young men get access to mental health care. They could have basically taken the substance of their own policies into those communication spaces and basically exposed the vacuosity of the Republican claim.

but they didn't do any of that. And so what you heard from the Democrats on all these issues was deafening silence. And in politics, something always beats nothing. Absolutely. But they filled that space with joy. Joy had filled that space. Oh, sorry. How long did that last?

Annie, how long was the joy moment? Annie, what were you going to say? You were about to comment on what Richard had said. Yeah. I think it's so fascinating that we've seen this gigantic shift in white men and unions towards the Republican Party. Because say what you will about the Biden administration, they delivered for unions. They were super pro-union, right? Really, really pro-union. Actually, the most pro-union Democratic Party, Democratic

administration, you know, in my lifetime. And so why, why were those folks, you know, so much more willing to vote for a Republican? I think that this is, you know, the triumph of cultural issues. And I think that what we've seen is that for a really long time, there was this feeling that Republicans were just playing to the fringes, right? They were appeasing their rightest edge. And that it was Democrats who were capable of soaking up this more moderate center. And I think in the last couple elections, that's very clearly been shifting. And the Democratic Democrats have not realized it. All of a sudden, the Democrats were the ones who seemed super focused on the voters to their left, and we're having trouble of appealing to these voters in the middle. And most American voters are kind of squidgy and in this middle. And we're seeing an upending of the types of polarization that have been predominant for a while where we're seeing really sharply increasing education polarization and declining polarization on a lot of a lot of other metrics. All right. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

And we are back. I actually think it's a time where we're just seeing a lot of shift, right? Declining racial polarization. Declining in some cases income polarization, which is really, really interesting. Wait, declining income polarization. Explain that because it seems like income inequality is actually a much larger issue. Or are you talking about something different? Yeah, political polarization.

I think that you've seen the shift of kind of like urban high income but not extremely high income intellectuals to the Democratic Party. A lot of those voters would have been Republicans 30 years ago, basically for tax reasons, where I think that you're shifting, you're seeing a shifting of lower income families into the Republican Party, despite the fact that I think that Democrats continue to have a better claim for, like, wanting to deliver material, better material outcomes to those folks. I think that they've had trouble understanding that they haven't really succeeded at that. And so, you know, I'm not saying that it's like a, you know, I'm not saying that there's giant shifts in reversals. It's just that the arrows are pointing slightly different direction. right? And we're still very polarized and the polarization still tends not to be kind of cross-cutting, right? People have these aligned identities. But I think that you're seeing that change a little bit, which is interesting. But as we as we tease this out, right, it looks like as we build the case out

that all of the prevailing wins were against the Democrats, their own actions subverted any chance of they had. Shouldn't this have been a much larger ass kicking? I mean, it was an ass kicking. but in the sense of the way that we're accustomed to true wave elections, then why wasn't this even bigger? You know, it was still, you know, he won the popular vote, but not in ways that we've seen. It didn't reach 50%. You know, with all these things that are coming,

if men have suddenly shifted and are all moving in that direction and women are also not moved by those reproductive, issues and all these other things. But it was still really close. Are we overestimating what went wrong? Well, I'll say, I say something that actually Ezra Klein said on a recent podcast where he said, don't. No one here likes that. There's no one on this podcast that likes that guy. So for those who don't know, Ezra, among his many other claims to blame is Annie's husband. But he had this great line where he said, actually, politics isn't just about like whether you like the politicians. It's increasingly about whether you think they like you. Oh, that's interesting.

And it really struck me. And so I think there's a sense that like, look, if it hadn't been Trump, like imagine if it had been like Haley or DeSantis or someone, then maybe it would have been even bigger win. Well, maybe not. I think, I think the opposite. I don't think so, yeah. The opposite. I think the opposite. So then me, why, well, why do you think that? Why do you think the opposite? Well, I think. Why did he so much better? Well, because he represents something, And this is something I was talking with Rui to share about. You know, he was saying the centrist idea, you know, that the country is relatively centrist. And what I think is the country is thirsty.

We're a really thirsty country for vision and leadership. And the fact of the matter is you can design a policy prescription that meets certain boards and makes perfect sense and allows for the manufacturing base to come up. But if you don't display vision and leader, ship. And I think truthfully, if I were, if you're asking me, I think that the Democratic Party's biggest issue, and this is what used to get me in trouble with the Obama White House and why I would get called down there to be yelled at on occasion was, if your platform is government has a role to play in people's lives and improving it, then your job one is to make sure that it is efficient

and competent and that you have to not have institutional and status quo thinking. You cannot run on the audacity of hope and govern with the timidity of the possible. And like, that's just not going to connect with people. And if, if you're asking me why I think DeSantis and Haley would not have, and DeSantis may be different only because he's just such an incredibly unlikable person. Like, he's, he's definitely, like, has the vision, but the leadership is a little more like, come on, Napoleon, chill out. But Haley, I think is McCann. And so I think vision and leadership are lacking in the Democratic Party and has been for a very long time. And even when they have the vision of leadership, they don't govern that way.

They govern institutionally and to the status quo and they are not creative in their thinking. And I speak of that from the experience of trying to get legislation through that Byzantine labyrinth of bureaucracy. Yeah. I think that when I think about the bills that Joe Biden passed, so you know, when I talk to voters, voters have no idea who did CARES and who did like the Inflation Reduction Act and what was in it. But this was an enormous amount of legislation that passed in a short period, right? CARES was functionally a Democratic bill that was signed by a Republican. There's a lot of great stuff in that. And it was just, it was like not very well messaged.

There's a bunch of checks and people are like, what is a CTC payment? I'm getting these like stimulus. Did Biden do something? They have no idea. They're like, I got a bunch of cash. And then they seem to have doing a bunch of infrastructure stuff. And you talk to people in the White House and they'd be like, it's the new, new deal. And you talk to average voters and they would have no idea what you were talking about at all.

They're like, I don't know what's in it. And even I would be like, it's green energy stuff, you know? Right. And that's, you know, and I think that Democrats got a little high on their own supply on it, that they're like, these are the biggest and the most transformative. And it's like, well, if you can't. point to what it did. And people are like, yeah, there were a bunch of checks and then I don't know what happened to it. You know, I think that they actually had a, maybe it was a communications problem.

I think that they tried to do too many things and they weren't kind of hammering sort of simple things. And I think that Democrats, I think it is a really, really good and important thing for parties to lose decisively. I actually think that, no, I'm dead serious. No, no, no. I laugh because you're dead right. I mean, that's, you're exactly right. Yeah. And we've had a bunch of part of the problem with the close elections. We have these really close presidential elections. And then Congress is constantly going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And there's like never a mandate, right? It's never like a big giant sweep in which they're like, that side's better. And this side is it's this eternal campaign in which you get kind of caught up on tiny, tiny little

excuses. And I'm hoping actually that this would be good for the Democrats. And I hope it would be good for the Republicans too to be like, okay, we got a little bit of what looks like a mandate now. And for Democrats to be like, yeah, back to the drawing board. Maybe, you know, know, what we were doing in 2008 isn't working. How are we actually going to appeal to people instead of being mad that the voters aren't just naturally attracted to us? Because I think that there's been a lot of like, well, screw these people. I've heard it, you know? Any time that I have brought up criticisms of the Democrats, the fierce blowback that I get is always the ACA, the Chips Act. And you're like, no, I understand that. But what?

What I'm suggesting is even things like that when the website doesn't work or it's really just the government giving money to insurance companies to create this other pool. What I'm saying is we're still following along a line that's not connecting to the day-to-day lives of people. The first policy that they really said where I was like, oh, that's the future was when they said, we're going to help with home health aids. We're going to give money to home. That was one of the first policies. I was like, that's your future. It's connecting to the day-to-day struggles. And Richard, do you think that they will adjust their thinking along those lines?

Well, it depends how the post-mortem goes, right? I think it's a question of, you know, to put it bluntly, do the Democrats conclude that they have the wrong voters or that they got the campaign and the messaging wrong? I mean, I think right now there's a very big debate, which is like, what's the Bertolt-Brex comment that I keep seeing being floating around online, which is me to dissolve this electorate and find another one. There is a kind of, there's a bit of a feeling of that. But do you trust there are people within the party that have the wherewithal to even,

to do that? Well, we'll see. The next four years will. I think Annie's right. And that the failure to sort of connect the policy to the feeling that I'm on your side, that I've got your back, that I like you. That is not a trivial thing. And sometimes the way I think about this is that what you got from the Republicans,

what this was this sense of like, you know, I really like you. We can have some fun together. When Trump was like, when he drove the garbage truck, right, you didn't get the sense that he'd been persuaded to do, or the McDonald's thing, right? He didn't, he wasn't acting like a politician who'd been persuaded to do that by his senior staff and really hated it. You got the impression it was his idea and he loved it. And it communicates this sense.

But there isn't that much substance. Meanwhile, the Democrats come across as they're a bit like the doctor who is giving you all this medicine, which you know is, they're trying to tell you it's good for you, but they kind of don't like you. Right, they're just doing it like in this. So you've got to do both, right? You've got to, it can't feel this sense of like, take your medicine or look at these amazing things we've done for you. Before people will listen to the things you've done for them, they have to feel like you like them.

You're on their side. You've got their back. And you're not being. But did he, but did he, would, did he accomplish that, though, by scapegoating less popular segments of the population? You know, does, is his message? I like you or is his message? Yeah, I get it.

These other fucking people are the ones that are ruining this country. You're the good guys. Like, is it a little bit less, I think we're making it slightly more benign than it is. Yeah. Right. It's more the hatred of them rather than the love of you. That's what I'm trying to get at. Now, I know there's probably some crossover in that, but it struck me that, look, the

trans community, the undocumented community, like, you can't find. a more vulnerable population to scapego? Absolutely. And look, if they go through, if the Republicans go through the plans, they're currently creating a plan to use the U.S. military to forcibly deport like 2 million people, right?

This is going to be, we know from other ice raids and deportation that this is devastating to communities, miserable for families, and also really hard for the people who have to do it, right? You're breaking communities up by gunpoint. I, you know, if they actually go through with that, I think that that is going to read really differently, then it's actually a pretty popular sentiment among immigrants, right? Like, yeah, we're going to stop like the flood of people coming in. And if you're here, we're going to make sure that we're taking care of you. Sort of similarly, you know, the post row landscape has been nightmarish. We have had women die because of the policy change, which we knew was going to happen. Women die of sepsis. You know, and I think that we're still.

going to have this drumbeat of stories of people who are like, you know, I, you know, my mother, my sister, whoever, like, you know, died in a parking lot waiting for care. And I think especially if they go after IVF contraception, other more popular and less polarized things, we're still going to get that. So I think that, you know, it was kind of all blather and I think a lot of it connected. And where I think it's going to be interesting is how much of this they actually do now that they do have this mandate and have said that they would do it. Similarly with tariffs, terms of not going to be popular if he implements them. So it's about to get a lot more expensive.

So that gets a really interesting point. And I want to get back to Richard on this. Yeah. So what she's talking about is the real implications of what's been done post-Roe have been millions of women have lost the power of choice and control over their reproductive outcomes. Some have died. There have been some horrific outcomes. And here we are in an election where we're talking about men just didn't feel seen.

And now they feel seen. And you're like, wait, why are we worried about how, you know. So in your research and what you've seen, what have been the implications of men not being seen and why do they feel so disconnected and disaffected when, as Annie is saying, the real policy implications, the real tragic implications have been roiling women? Well, I mean, I think we saw a very good test of the proposition that this was going to be an election largely determined on those issues and that also that men would be persuaded to vote on those issues. I mean, you saw Michelle Obama give a very powerful speech in the closing days of the election, essentially saying to men, if you don't want your loved one bleeding out on the table in front of you, if you don't want to be holding the flowers at the grave of the woman you love, you need to vote for us. So it wasn't like they didn't try. that message, and it was a big part of it. And my reading of the polling and Annie about a different view of this is that actually,

and you saw the Missouri election go an interesting way with the passing the abortion referendum, but then voting for Trump, is that actually men, and especially young men, they don't really disagree very strongly with women about abortion or disagree that the Democrats had the better platform on that. That's what I see in the data. It's just that that's not what they were voting on. and they thought that was being to handle at a state level or to referenda or whatever. So it just wasn't saying it.

And I will say that this is relevant to Annie's description of the next four years, is that Trump was persuaded very early on, try and get the abortion issue as much off the table as possible. If the election had been about abortion, he would have lost. And so he took it, he's very, it's unusually disciplined for him, actually, to sort of just take large, leave it to the states, and I'm not going to sign a federal ban, and talk about other stuff. Vance will really want to win in 2028.

And so that he will want Trump's third term. Don't you mean 2032 after Trump does his third term? And then at 86? Exactly. I'm trying to work out whether the Democrats will be back in 2032 or 2036. That's right. Yeah. Takes a while.

Anyway, I can't do the math. I got to do math. Going to take quick break. And we will be right back. And we are back. Richard. Yeah, I think back to this deportation thing. I think we've learned that mass immigration without the sort of controls people wanted wasn't popular, right, across the southern border.

Will mass deportation be even less popular? And will they do it? And will they stop doing it if it actually turns out it's not popular because they want to win in 2028 and 2032? I think that's what the next few years will show. My guess is there'll be a lot of symbolic stuff. It'll be very noisy. It'll be very messy. Like it was, you remember the Muslim ban in 2016 where the airports were chaotic and then a judge came along and

I suspect it'll have more of that flavor once they start to realize that it's actually not going to be that popular to go all the way through with this. But we'll see. We do know that the Democrats policy on this wasn't popular. Right. Well, that's, I mean, that's what we've got them in. I mean, the Republican policy was in reaction to the Democrats not being forceful in those things. I almost think that for men, it is like a cultural comfort. It's that idea of that the locker room has been taken from us. and you can't do what we used to do in the locker room, which is incredibly scatological and perverse

and anti-gay rhetoric. Like all that sort of stuff has been taken away. And you're almost seeing it, you know, now if Christian Polisic scores a goal, he does the Trump dance. If somebody scores a touchdown, they do the Trump. Like there is a, and I haven't seen this before, a celebratory reaction from men that I hadn't seen before. there is a zeitgeist. There is a cultural moment for men and for Trump that I think liberals and

Democrats especially are like, wait, what? We had Beyonce. Like, now you got everybody doing the Trump dance on things. I think there's a shock that's occurring. Do you think that's correct, Annie? Yeah. And I think the fact that you are seeing millennials is perhaps the kind of like peak liberal generation and gen Ziers are shifting back the other direction as really interesting. You know, I think when you talk to liberals or to Democrats and they, you know, 15 years ago, they might have said, like, demography is destiny. And like, we're going to become a solid majority party because the country is becoming less white, more Latino, more black, more Asian. This is our future. And I think that even now, right, you know, there's a sense of like,

we have all of the young people. And once the old people have died off. and we got all the young people, then like, we're going to win for forever. Hard thing to wait for, but okay. Right. Like these people, you would hear this kind of derisiveness about Republicans about, you know, well, they're racist and they're sexist and they can't even do policy. They don't do policy. They didn't do the ACA.

People come to their senses and recognize. And I think that Democrats lost sight of just what voters were telling them. I really feel this way about inflation. I really feel this way about the unlikeability of candidates. They were constructing these intellectual arguments about, about how voters would come home. And they didn't. And voters were very clear throughout the entirety of this election

that they were not crazy about Joe Biden, that they didn't think the economy was great, and that they felt that whether it was fair or not and who cares, you know, that they felt like the culture had shifted in a way that they hadn't liked, right? And so I think that, you know, probably for Democrats, there's just like a lot of listening to and a lot of, you know, belief that if you're saying that,

well, like, good people vote for us and bad people vote for the other guy. Right. I think that's kind of a hard, message. You have to take it out of that moral component. You have to take it out of that righteousness. It almost sounds like. If you're making arguments to people that we're moral and you're immoral, boy, that's not going to play great. And is that what in some ways men were reacting to, Richard? I think so. Yeah. I know. I think to put it bluntly, a lot of men felt like the message from Democrats

wasn't that men had problems. It was that men are the problem. Oh, that's interesting. And I don't want to overstate this. And I think this is related to this triumphalism thing you're just talking about John, which is this sense of like free at last, like in a way. And the question is like free at last to be what, a rampant misogynist who wants to roll back women's rights, etc. That is not the median 24 year old man who voted for Trump, right? That is not what they're right. But it is a kind of like, okay, we can have a joke. I can, you know, I have a certain aff, I'm not going to be told I'm toxic. I mean, it is interesting that the term toxic masculinity was basically born. in 2016 and has been a big part of the kind of culture for those remand. Eight years is a long time in the life of a 24 year old or an 18 year old. And so I think what's happened is that partly as a result of the first Trump term, we're in a like a pinball game of backlash. We've had the backlash to the backlash to the back. And I've lost count. I don't know where we are at this point. It's a Bo Burnham song for God says. It's like, I don't know where we are. And so a lot of men, a lot of the young men that I know and come to talk to and feel about it's like, it's not

that they're actually against gender equality or a lot of these things, they're just kind of over the earnestness. They're just over it a bit. They want to just be able to just be a little bit more. And maybe it's the lack of grace. But the difficulty is in the moment that we're in social media wise, there's really no position, liberal, conservative, anything that isn't attacked viciously like, you know, by everybody. know, it's how do you get at it? How do you get people to not feel like that when it feels like on Twitter or on Facebook and those things, everybody is poised to attack at all times. It's not just men that are attacked. Women are attacked. Liberals are attacked. Conservatives are, everybody attacks.

Yeah, it's really hard. And I think it's really hard for liberals and Democrats when they're like, well, look what the Republicans say about us. That's my point. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's not fair. Like what? You're saying that, um, You can call me a terrorist sympathizer, but I can't call you racist. You're like dunking on gay couples and gender diverse little kids and mixed status families and people who just want reproductive freedom and people who would go march for somebody else's rights, right? Like, what's wrong with that? It's a very tense and tough moment. And I think that you're right, John, to bring it back to the fact that, yeah, Trump stoked white nationalism.

That is just true, right? he doesn't dog whistle. He openly uses racist language, sexist language, constantly, constantly. And it's not just nativism. It's not just about immigrants, right? It's like literally othering people. And so I do think that we're in this, you know, kind of dissonant moment that's like hard for both sides. And I agree that, you know, I don't, I'm not sure that social media, it's one of the ones where I'm like, I'm not sure.

If we went back and we just didn't invent it, I actually think it would be better. I think so. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think so. Right. Right. But do you also, do you think, any, that part of what happens in these sort of backlash pinball, you know, this sort of reaction thing, is that what Trump's very good at is finding picks or lines or whatever that he knows are going to really needle the left and will

provoke them into a kind of reaction? Do you think he's that strategic? Because even some of his picks recently and the stuff he's doing since then and kind of watching the sort of meltdown that you're seeing among a lot of people from the left. I mean, he must be thrilled when he sees. He's really hoping that the left will go into a similar meltdown. Absolutely. Right.

Do you think he's doing that deliberately? I don't know that he's doing it deliberately. I think that he is pretty straightforwardly just supporting people who supported him. He wants people who show that patronage. And the fact that they're not really qualified for the job, I just, I think that, you know, people who listen to this podcast probably know that the HHS and CMS position, you're like an insurance administrator. You're talking to like AHIP and the AMA and the AHA, the mighty American Hospital Association.

You're dealing with like pay schedules and FQAHCs. It's not like those aren't actually even health agencies. They're insurance administrators, basically. And you can't do with them what, you know, Mehmet Oz and RFK have implied that they would like to do with them, at least not easily, although I don't know what they'll do with them. So I don't, you know, he's not sitting down and thinking, you know, who's a great legal mind who would be a really prudent leader? of the administration of our legal authority is Matt Gates. You know, he's like picking the guys that have supported him. I think it's basically just as straightforward as that is the sense that I've gotten.

So it's a sort of healthy byproduct if it also inflames the left into a sort of massive, you know, he's owning the libs with them as well, but that's the kind of second round effect. Yeah, I've gotten a sense it's straightforward patronage, but I could be wrong about that. No, I think that's probably right. I think it's, you know, my opinion is I agree with you. it's loyalty is a big factor, or, but I think we're missing the mark on the idea that, that these picks will not be sufficient stewards of these agencies and administrations as a downside. I actually think that's why, you know, they're running on dismantling.

They're not, you know, it's when we say, like, I don't think that Linda McMahon will be an efficient, you know, efficient steward of the Department of Education and like, right, She's not there to do that. She's there to help, like, dismantle it in the same way that, you know, RFK is there to dismantle HSS. And I'm not saying that, oddly enough, in the way of like, oh, they just, what, they ran on these institutions are not serving. It's the thing that we've been hammering Democrats on for decades.

These bureaucracies have to be addressed. And they didn't do it. And they weren't able to do it. efficiently and they weren't able to do it agilely. And you watch it now, suddenly they can do it. Oh, yeah, okay, executive order on the border? Yeah, I actually am allowed to do that. Oh, wait, we can give Ukraine that. Yeah, just could do it. They're suddenly governing with urgency. So I would suggest, and I would ask your opinions about this, but these picks are there to do exactly what the Trump voters wanted them to do. And in a large degree, a lot of Democratic voters have been

begging the Democrats to do, which is get out of this status quo, institutional thinking, and make government more responsive and agile, if you can. So the real question that I have has to do with Congress. So, you know, Congress appropriates the money. Congress creates the rules. There is just reams of administrative law and huge numbers of lobbyists and huge numbers of civil servants that are really dedicated to the idea. that the executive branch executes.

They don't actually make the policy, except at a granular kind of rulemaking level. And so the question is, what is Trump going to do with Congress? I know. Because to do the really big stuff, you do need Congress. And also, the courts,

and I could be proven completely wrong about this, but this is a court that has really deferred to Congress's power to actually, you know, set budgets and is not wanted to give power to the agencies to kind of overstep. But I don't know that that is going to be how that gets interpreted by this court, by these courts. I really, all I have is questions here. And I would agree with you that like forget who he's naming to the top of agencies. Republicans are very

set up to name really smart deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, chiefs of staff who actually really understand how these agencies work and could really, you know, degrade the capacity, slow things down, speed things up. You need people who know how to actually do it. First Trump administration didn't have that. Second Trump administration does because you've had a lot of Republicans getting ready for this. So they're going to be much more effective administrators and executives. In some ways, it's demo day. It's sort of like when you watch every makeover show and they're going to walk in there and be like, guess what? agencies, it's demo day. And they're going to go in there with some sledgehammers, I think. Yeah. And so, you know, Congress, that's my question. I'm so, but I think the part of the

framing here is like, what's the destination, right? Can you actually achieve this? Can you pass the law? Can you get the Department for Education abolished or set up this new, whatever? But I actually think what Trump's, Trump's much more of a directional politician. He's more about the directionality than he is about the destination. Right. It's not whether he can actually get to that place. It's that he's pointing in that direction. And I think the same will be true around the deportation stuff and a lot of things like. And so I think what he does is he signals through these sorts of picks and through these policies, just directionally, that's the way I would like to go. And then quite often he's thwarted in doing so by all the things.

But it kind of at that point politically doesn't matter because he signaled that's the direction I would like to go in, even if I end up not being able to. Well, vision and leadership. I mean, that is, you know, when you give people the direction you're going, as long as you have a clarity of vision, there's a certain amount of flexibility of process. As long as you know, you know, you know, you spoke about. destination. I'll tell you what I think may occur, and I think it's something Republicans and the right have been really good at, which is if you can't make something illegal, make it impossible.

And I think we saw that in the reproductive fight, which is, you know, we haven't been able to make it illegal, but I'll tell you what we can do. Let's make it so you've got to have, even if you're a small Planned Parenthood or a small reproductive health thing, you need three anesthesiologists and four operating rooms or you can't open. So it's not illegal, but it's sure as hell impossible. Absolutely. And, you know, Republicans are very, very, very effective at this. They're great at doing things like applying work requirements, shortening re-enrollment periods, working through sludge. One of the great kind of ironies of the Musk and Vivek focus on administration and making government more efficient is that Republicans are like the great geniuses at making government less efficient for political ends that they can't accomplish through legislation. You've seen this actually with immigration, right? We're not going to make it a illegal for you to immigrate. We're going to make it impossible. And so, you know, I'm, I am again just interested to see what they do. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of kind of just like standard and shittification that can achieve political ends. And I think that they'll be pretty good

at it. If that's not coined, wait, Annie, if that's not on a t-shirt somewhere or a bumper sticker, yeah. That word, that word must be gone. Richard, before we go, you know, it can't be just, we got to get, you know, Democrat leaders on better podcasts. There's something fundamental going on here. And do you see it turning around in some respects? And do you see a pathway to that? I think if the Democrats take the lesson from this election that they need to focus on, A, a communication strategy that meets people where they are rather than where they think they ought to be, which downweigh some of the cultural issues we've talked about. And I think actually gets past some of the zero, I'm thinking on gender. I mean, it is true, I think, that the Democrats thought at some level

they could win as the women's party, and they can't. We do rise together. And there are a lot of moms out there who are worried about their daughter's access to reproductive health care, but also desperately worried about their son's mental health and whether their husband's going to get a job or not. And so a politician from the Democrat side who can speak to those concerns across gender, and especially for working class Americans, and to do so authentically. I think that's the real lesson to draw from this rather than the more reactive pinball one we might get. If a politician emerges, it can speak to a class sensitive, across gender, constituency,

I think that they could win, but it all depends how they interpret this election result. Annie, do you see anything like that on the horizon or any individual on the horizon that you think can start to broach that? Yeah, look, I think there's actually a ton of talent. the Democratic side that's been somewhat overlooked. I think that there's a lot of state politicians that are really great that are chomping at the bit, that are desperate. You might have heard of this guy, Pete Buttigieg. He's very, you know, shy about stating his ambitions. I don't follow the cable news. But I think that they will, I do think that they're already talking about like, okay, are we going to do,

let's just universal pre-K. You're three-year-old. You don't have to worry about it at this point. Really simple policy making like that. Cheap rent, cheap gas. And then kind of drive. towards that center. That's my guess. And I think that, you know, they'll be reactive to whatever it is that the Trump administration does. And, you know, so much of negative partisanship is more powerful than partisanship still, you know, like there's going to be, they're going to have to run, Trump is going to have to run on his record as opposed to against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And whoever the next Democrat is is going to have this certainly anarchic administration to run against. And, you know, I think that we're just going to have to see what that looks like.

And up until recently, it does seem like incumbency rather than being the power that launches you as a bit of an albatross around the neck. And so in some respects, maybe the headwinds, it wouldn't have mattered what the Democrats done. We can parse their podcast strategy and communication and all those things. But perhaps the hill of incumbency and the dissatisfaction in the country would have been too steep to climb. But I really appreciate the both of you and would love to continue the conversation more. Thank you, thank you guys both. Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, author of Boys and Men, why the Modern Mail is struggling. And of course, Annie Lowry, staff writer at the Atlantic. Guys, thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, I thought it was very interesting. And I'm with, as of course, Brittany and Medevich, Lauren Walker and Gillian Spirit. You know, we were laying out the case, right, about why men didn't go for it. And I think Annie very passionately, very cohesively, very powerfully laid out the stakes for women. And it really was, you know, one of those who was like, yeah, I guess nobody. I mean, I guess it was important to some people, but, you know, men, you know, I think men probably agreed, but then they thought, well, I'd really like to do the Trump dance. Probably. I know. That really stood out to me. I do hear what Richard is saying that a group of people were not addressed like men.

I will say women have not felt necessarily addressed for a pretty long time. I also want to raise the point that like two things can be true at once. It can be true that men were not addressed. It can also be true that there is some sexism and racism. Baked into the cake. Right. Every election, the person who has spent the most money has won. except in two cases, the women, just saying.

Is that true? Yeah. So are you suggesting that the women were spending their money frivolously? Is that what you were saying? You know, that is so... Ladies be shopping? Lauren, that is so sexist that I am shocked. I was hoping you would understand my takeaway.

No, I just, I think two things can be true, and it's just not the case that the country is not sexist. You know, I'm sort of of the mind that the Democrats, loss rather than Trump won. And maybe that's a coping mechanism. But I was really struck by what you said, John, and what Annie built upon so well, which is that there has been this lack of vision and leadership within the Democratic Party. You have to pass spending measures that help people with the same fervor that the right passes these tax cuts. You can't just be austerity, but woke. And maybe that sounds crazy because they did pass these spending bills. They did pass the infrastructure bill, but the effects of that won't materialize for years.

Well, I think that's it. When you triage a population, your consumer base, you have to triage them. You have to protect their future, but you have to address, as the famous phrase would be, the fierce urgency of now. I do think they would have had to have match it with a leadership and vision that I just think the headwinds were really, really stiff. I agree. I mean, she could have gone on every podcast, but if you don't have like, if you're not able to communicate efficiently about what you're going to do for people, it doesn't matter how many, you know, conversations you have. You have to be able to back up and let people feel heard about their concerns.

And the broader change of how you're going to, you know, that famous question on the view, what would you do differently? I can't think anything. You know, that that showed that. I'm not saying that was determinative, but I really think they were up against it. Do the listener, are we getting questions on like the election right now? Like what are, what's the feedback coming in on that? Or is it still, how tall are you, that sort of thing? We've got a healthy mix. All right. The first one, do you have any plans to go to Marlago to kiss the ring? Do you think there will be any retribution against the late night hosts?

Oh, that, uh, probably, probably some, maybe some in subtle form, some maybe more explicit. I'm not going down there right now. Obviously, my membership to the club is pending. I'm hoping that I get, you know, I assume they're going to call my references. Yes. And they'll look into things and then I'll. Yeah, of course. I've gotten a call.

That's exactly right. I tell them I could, you know, I happen to be someone who was very adept at chandelier polishing. So if that, I mean, there's got to be, that might be Joe and me could go down there. might be one of my favorite when they had to come out and go. And so we did. Like they spent the year going, this man will destroy all that you hold dear. He is a Hitler Mussolini cocktail mix.

And we must all say literally one week later, they're like, so we go. We have lunch, light lunch. I get the watercress salad. And you know Joey. He loves shrimp fra diablo. So he and the Mara Lago shrimp fra Diablo is delicious. I thought that was one of the more remarkable,

but it shows the performative nature of so much of all of this shit, which is, again, when you talk about credibility, like, e. Well, specifically in terms of news, they probably want some access because that's where their money comes from. I don't even know if it's access. as much as like you're the king and we serve at the place, like, please hold me in graces so that I too am allowed, you know, I don't know. Well, they got a whole morning out of it though. Yeah, that is true. That is true. And they live nearby. So maybe it's convenient. Maybe it's literally

just, you know what? We just decided to be neighborly. It was a welcome wagon. You have to get lunch somewhere. Don't let politics get in the way. Right. Yeah. But listen, man, these guys are not shy about like, there will be retribution for people. And so I'm just going to take them at their word. I assume that something. We've got your back. Thank you. The full force of the United States government is coming back down on me.

And you guys would be like, hey, man. That's lovely. Thank you. All right. JFK's cabinet was nicknamed the best and the brightest. So far, what would Trump's cabinet be called? Wow. The best in the brightest had good alliteration.

And so I think we're going to have to find alliteration in that in some respects. Right now, I think they'd be called like, these motherfuckers over here. But like, I don't know. Like, it really is like, he's like, who'd you bring? I brought these motherfuckers over here. Maybe like grab bag gang or something. They feel so random. It does.

But what's interesting about it is I almost think the cabinet is secondary to the posse. Like, did you guys watch any of, he went to UFC, but did you see the walkout? Yeah. Like, that's the walkout. Like, that's the cabinet. That's it. The cabinet is like, we come out to music. It's like they're getting ready for a prize fight.

And they come out to the music and they all come and it's quite glamorous. Yeah, we don't know, we don't know what's going to happen. But a lovely question. All right. What Trump cabinet appointee would you feel most comfortable inviting to Thanksgiving dinner? My home? To invite them to my home? Yeah.

Do you have one that you would bring? I'm trying to think of who. Well, how close do you live to an elementary school? It's a question. Alleged, Jillian, a legend. How dare you? Oh, the legal letters that are flowing. You know, you're never going to get on Jeopardy with that kind of attitude, lady.

They're never going to let me on the show. Yeah, I would, you know, you try and think like, I'm trying to think about our Thanksgiving. And it is like, we usually have about 20, 25 people over at the house. I stay in the kitchen because I do a lot of the cooking and it keeps me from having to talk to anybody. So it's who would I like my family to have to deal with? Oh my God. You could really offer some contrast and make you look great. Yeah.

Yeah. How much do you like your family? You know what? I'd like to, yeah, I'm trying to think. Heggzeth. I think Hegzeb I'd like to bring in. Oh, okay. I think the older folks that are there would just be like,

who is this handsome gentleman? Yeah, you want to go, you don't, you want to go hard edge. You don't want to go like Linda McMahon. You're like, you want to make a splash. You want to fuck Thanksgiving up. That's what it's about. Shake this shit up. What else?

We are, Brittany. All right. On Thanksgiving, how do I handle my mother's constructive criticisms about everything? Career, relationships, looks. Let me tell you something. This is Brittany. I didn't write this in just so you know. The Thanksgiving criticism is right up my alley.

My mother. God bless her. You know, it's really actually one of the one most difficult things about aging is to watch someone slowly lose their ability to criticize you. Devastating. They just don't seem as interesting. It's devastating. Are you nostalgic?

I'll give you, here's the story. So my mother had, she's 91, 91 years old. And still like completely would, yeah, phenomenally smart. Good genes. She gets pneumonia last, right around this time last year, right, right around Christmas, she gets pneumonia. So they admit her to the hospital. She's there for five, six days.

I go to pick her up to take her home after six days in the hospital. She's still like pneumonia knocks you on your ass. She's lying in the hospital bed, a tube of oxygen in her nose, the IV in her arm. It's quiet. Doot, do, do. I come in. Mom, mom, it's time to go home. Mom.

She opens her eyes. slowly from the bed, looks at me and goes, you look tired. I'm like, what? She's still got it. Zing. Yeah, I was just like, you're going to be okay. But that, like, you have to make a game of it. Like, you just have to enjoy it.

All right, let me do one more and then we'll move on. This one's good. All right. What's your favorite Thanksgiving dinner side dish or dessert? What do you chefing up, John? Well, let me tell you something. I wish I could be like, I make a compote that you guys wouldn't believe. Like it's straight up like fucking mashed potatoes, like all the classics.

The craziest I'll get is like sweet potato pie, you know, and, you know, get that nice marshmallow in there. But there is nothing in there that you would not have eaten on Thanksgiving in 1952. Like I have made no advancements. I have made no innovation. Like as crazy as it gets, it's like, what if that apple crumb pie had a caramel drizzle on it? Well, that's something. The only thing that we do sometimes, so we have a lot of celiac in our family.

So we'll make stuffing that's like gluten-free or, you know, that's the only thing, like a gluten-free pumpkin pie, a gluten-free apple pie. But it is all straight up traditional football game, heavy food, ton of gravy. Sleepy times. Sleepy times. That's it. Well, I hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Brittany, how can people keep getting in touch with us? Yeah, Twitter, we are weekly show pod, Instagram, threads, and TikTok.

We are weekly show podcast. And you can like and subscribe our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with John Stewart. Lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mimenevick, video editor and engineer, Rob Vitoa, who is back from paternity leave, tired but unbroken. So we welcome Rob back, of course, audio editor, an engineer, Nicole Boyce researcher, associate producer Jillian Speard, our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray. I hope everybody has a lovely Thanksgiving, enjoys themselves, and we will see you back in December for more neurotic, hand-wringing, etc.

See you guys next time. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bus Boy Productions.