WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The WRFH Interview: Daniel Corcoran

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Daniel Corcoran is an International Affairs commentator with Young Voices, and host of the podcast, Overcoming the Divide, which focuses on mending political fractures through conversation, civil discourse, and featuring a wide variety of viewpoints. His recent essay is How Male Voters Became The Central Focus Of The 2024 Election

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Verini, and with me today is Daniel Corcoran, who is a program manager at Amazon, Young Voices contributor, host of the Overcoming the Divide podcast, and author of a recent article entitled, How Male Voters Became the Central Focus of the 2024 election. Daniel, could you please tell me a little bit of,

bit about this article that you wrote. Well, one, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And it's such a pleasure to discuss this article. And yes, to your question, this article is basically revolving around how male voters, men have now become kind of the priority demographic in the 2024 election, which I'm sure most people didn't foresee, especially when there's issues such as abortion that are so galvanizing, especially among women. Why do you think that at this time male voters are becoming more of a priority or more of a focus? Why is, I guess, pretty complex to be like, oh, when did this happen? Why did Kamala Harris put out this opportunity for black men agenda?

But I could speak more to that, and that's because she's seeing a lack of support in black men, specifically young black men. There's a recent survey that saw that one and four black men said they would vote for Trump, which is quite substantially higher than previous elections when black men, young black men voting for the Republican nominee. So you could go more into how Harris has seen that and was alerted and quite concerned, understandably. But men overall, I think it's because they are kind of haven't been spoken to. You know, there's like women's issues, like largely seen as abortion or maybe in the workforce, providing them with economic opportunity and equality and making sure all those things are enacted and there's programs for them to excel in certain domains. But when it comes to men, there's not really too much talk around how can we reduce suicides, which, you know, 75% of suicides over 75% are men.

or when it comes to drug overdoses, once again, men make up the majority of drug overdoses. And then also with the economy and employment, we have seen that over 7 million prime age working men between, which is between the years of 25 to 54, have dropped out of the workforce. So I think just there's been, the why isn't like what's happened to make this become an issue. It's more so like these have been issues and they're finally just surfacing. in this election because, as I mentioned, these issues have existed for quite some time. Right. What do you think a presidential candidate could do to address these issues? The thing is, you don't have to address the issues through the lens of this is for men particularly.

So there are a number of diseases such as heart disease, I won't say type 2 diabetes, prostate cancer, that disproportionately affect men. And you could not blanket this through a, you know, male approach, a male lens and just say, hey, we're going to make accessing, testing for certain diseases more affordable. And we're going to revamp the health care system. I recently had entanglement with the health care system. I can assure you, even when you have health insurance, it's a mess. So that's one example. When it comes to the economy, you know, once more, you don't have to say it through the lens of men or women.

you can just say, hey, we're going to bring quality, good-paying jobs back to America, manufacturing, and then also elsewhere. And maybe we'll do like small business grants. This is rhetoric. But nonetheless, it can resonate with maybe men who went to the workforce, dropped out, which millions have. And yeah, maybe I will actually. You know, that sounds pretty good to me.

And when it comes to mental health, maybe subsidizing some kind of service that allows anyone, for that matter to speak to a mental health professional where it's not like going to be burdensome. It's more than just a hotline that you call. So those are just a couple things that mainly come to mind. But I'll lastly touch on just simply rhetoric I think would do a good bit. Simply just acknowledging that life as a guy isn't totally easy and there's issues that men contend with on a daily basis and saying like, hey, it is important for men and young men particularly to do something with their life. And you have a purpose and you are welcomed and you should actually go out and achieve something and, you know, put your best foot forward.

I think honestly rhetoric would be the first place to start for that. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Verini and I'm talking with Daniel Corcoran. So why do you think that it has been so common for our society to focus on women's issues as opposed to. to men's issues? Well, for a large part of history, you know, U.S. history, world history, women have been second class.

Like, they have been welcoming the workplace. In the family homes, they didn't have much to say, and they had the same amount of say, and they were economically dependent on the man in the household. Like, that's just historically accurate. And so they suffered throughout, you know,

most of history through different ways. But so have men. And this is where it gets, kind of confusing and a bit, you know, frustrating because women have most certainly had their fair share of suffering, but so have most men. And this is why it's not talked about because what people do sometimes nefariously, but sometimes just Anne Burnley is to look at history, but look at the people at the top, and they go, oh, most of those were men. Therefore, men always had the power and always had, you know, the upper hand in situations. But what they fail to recognize, what they fail to do is

they fail to accurately portray that and convey that to the minority, the small minority, the 0.01% men that's actually true for. And what they do instead is they attribute that to the overwhelmingly majority of men. So they'll be like, oh, the guy at the top, that's most men. When in reality, no, it's not. Men throughout most of history were subjected to cruelty as well. They were conscripted in the wars that they didn't sign up the fight. before nor really believe in.

Most recently, that only happened like, what, 50 years ago with Vietnam when we lost 70,000 U.S. service members, that's not going that too far back. And in terms of like just economic opportunity, you know, people say the American Revolution didn't get rid of slavery and wasn't perfect and there's still a lot of things going wrong in America at that time. Oh, for sure. No one's debating or trying to really. dispute that. But before that time, unless you have property or held some high position in society

as a man too, you didn't really have much power either. So the American Revolution was the first step to actually achieving equality for more and more people, expanding the umbrella of people who actually has say in society through like the right to vote, for example. And obviously through decades and generations, we have made a lot more progress there to expanding that umbrella. And then I'll say that's not really been touched on because of these people and academia and elsewhere and just your average person sometimes will just actively just degrade men because it's not only normalized, but in a lot of situations, it's celebrated. So it's celebrated and accepted to use terms such as man-splaining or toxic masculinity, et cetera, to casually

use that conversation. So to even talk about these issues, there's this air of negativity surrounding it that makes it kind of uncomfortable because there's just so much negativity and hostility towards, I would say, talking about men's issues and we've seen that through just the common use of these terms

and it makes it just all around uncomfortable to discuss the issue of like what a boy or a man may be going through. Earlier you mentioned that fewer men are showing up to the polls to vote opposed to women. Do you think that

the denigration of men and masculinity and politics has any bearing on that? I wouldn't say so just because since 1980, the Reagan administration, women have shown up. The presidential and presidential elections have turned out in higher numbers than men. And I don't think in the 80s, these issues were really happening to the same extent. But you could make the case that in recent years, maybe with the younger, men in particular, they don't want to go out and vote because they feel that no one has their back, that no one's advocating for them. And that's why I think you try to see with like J.D. Vance and Trump going on like these more like bro podcasts to reach younger men who may have no intent of voting,

but now we're listening to candidates and they're like, hey, like maybe I will go out and vote for them because they are trying to reach me on this platform. Same thing for like any demographic. And that's why it's interesting now because men have never been viewed as like a singular voting block. But I think in this election, after this election, they may be seen as a little more solidified, depending on how it plays out. Right. So how do you think that the political or the presidential candidates right now are addressing men's issues? I know you mentioned in a little bit of detail how Kamala Harris is trying to address these issues,

but how are Trump and Vance also doing that? When you asked earlier about what could these candidates propose to reach out the men, and I know I said a few things about how it doesn't have to be through the lens of men, these policy proposals, and I also mentioned just rhetoric and just talking to them. I think simply knowing you have a candidate in your corner does something for you. Like, oh, I have this advocate who actually cares about my well-being and is actively trying to reach me. And I think that's what you're seeing through these podcasts that Trump and Vance are both doing. They're not speaking, you know, talking specifically to men saying like, you know, this men's issue we have to prioritize.

but they're going where men watch their podcast and watch their videos, say on YouTube and Spotify and elsewhere. And that may be just enough for the visibility that they're showing up in places that a lot of men tune into. That may be enough for most men, whereas before in the past, there hasn't been any kind of effort to reach them out there. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Verini, and I'm speaking. with Daniel Corcoran, author of a recent article,

How Mail Voters Became the Central Focus of the 2024 election. Do you see a trend in the future with political candidates maybe beginning to focus a little bit more on male issues as they are in 2024? Do you think that's something that's going to continue? It's hard to predict how the future plays out. But I think if this election goes a certain way, so I'll make a prediction on this. If Trump wins this election ends because it's, men turn out in higher numbers to vote,

I believe the Democrats specifically, but everyone should do this, the Democrats specifically, they will evaluate their messaging towards men, say particularly black men, but most likely men overall. And it's interesting because there's tropes around this too. Like if you, there's like,

there's insults that you would throw towards a guy and there's stupid insults. You don't mean anything. But nonetheless, people say, it's like, oh, to degrade, say a man's masculine, you go, oh, he's a Biden. voter. And that's, I think, associated with the fact that, you know, the Democrats don't really lean into any kind of, don't really try to cater themselves or position themselves being in favor of men or caring about men at all. I think that plays at that. So my point being is if

Trump does win this election and it's because men turn out in higher numbers or simply that more, that more minority men, say Hispanics or black men go out and vote for Trump, I think there will be a repositioning around how people reach, how candidates reach out to men and it will elevate some of the issues that these men are going through. And not all men face the same issues, obviously, but there are some broad intersections that a lot of men of different races and backgrounds will contend with. And so would you say that men are probably one of the most important demographics that candidates should be focusing on during this election season? I think, no, I mean, maybe not.

If I was a Kennedy, and I'm not speaking from my personal position or how I feel about things or think about things, but if I was like Harris, for example, or I was Trump, but let's just use Harris. I would be like, women vote out in higher numbers, and they're really, really passionate about certain issues such as abortion. I may just lean more into that. But the thing is, the thing is that Harris already kind of has that locked up with women voters who like care most about abortion and like say pro choice. But with men, they're kind of still out there.

Like they're white. They're, that's still undecided. And in king, in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Trump is leading with men. But the thing is men vote out, turn out in lower rates than women to vote. vote. So it may, it actually may be the key demographic to reach out to, not to say like the men's issue, but trying to play into the men's issue, but rather trying to encourage them just to vote and just speak to like maybe their experiences a bit instead of just trying to, I know, play into another demographic because I think, as I mentioned, Harris has a number of women,

most women lined up for her. And Trump has more men lined up for him. But now it's about like the rates of where these populations turn out at. And you can, you know, dissect this a little more and be like, well, black men or black women, for example, like we've seen black women turn out in high numbers for early voting, for example. So you can obviously get a bit more granular. But if you were to cut it just between the genders, I think the fact that men turn out and lower rates historically since the 80s, I would look at them, like, well, can we change

that by talking to them just simply through rhetoric and trying to encourage them to come out. So finally, in your last sentence, you say that there's an urgency to speak directly to the issues that are facing boys and men. Why is this an urgent issue? I think, like, especially with boys, when it comes to children, like, as you've seen in certain areas of the world, such as, like, in the Middle East right now, when children are suffering, and you see that, you're like, no child deserves to suffer in that through, through, through, through, through, means that they have no agency over for reasons they have nothing to do with. And when it comes to boys and how obviously grown to men that are on, like, think of it this way. There's studies from Brown's Watson Institute that show that boys receive harsher treatment for similar acts in school in terms of them being penalized compared to girls. And you think of the, and that can

obviously result in negative outcomes going down the line. And, you see that, like, well, that's not good. Like, just because of this person's, this person is a boy, his child's a boy, and now they're kind of being, in essence, discriminated upon in school, and they're going to take some hit because of that. And then they grow up. And then they enter this culture that really elevates women in a lot of domains. I'm not saying that's not warranted or not exactly good.

But at the same time, it does feel in a lot of cases that you're putting down men, So they're growing up in this culture as well That's saying like to be aggressive Is bad and to be you know Aggressive is bad and you shouldn't really act that out In any circumstance like you should no repress that feeling And then you also see when it comes like mental health And most of the suicides are also men like over three quarters

And these boys and these young men are growing up Growing up without father figures like less or excuse me, one and four fathers don't live with their children. So the point being is like there's just all this kind of suffering going around. There's always suffering going in the world. There's always has been and always will be. But to simply acknowledge it and be like, we could do more here. Like objectively we can do more here.

For example, there's an office for women's health that looks into issues that disproportionately affect women. And they propose solutions or, you know, policy solutions, potential ones. There's absolutely no reason why there couldn't be something comparable for Ben, especially when you see the issues that they contend with on a daily basis. So I think that's where the urgency comes from. Not that men's suffering is uniquely special, but rather it's just time to finally allocate some resources to it as we have done with a lot of other groups. And is there anything else that you would like to add?

Thank you again. I'm in front of having me on the show. I'll also just say that anyone listening to this who hasn't made up their mind about voting, I think this election, similar to 2020, there's a lot of tension around it and who should I vote for and what should I do this. And I think the more I think about this and I have been quite a bit is just like evaluating your priorities. I think there's going to be people, family members, friends, whoever, try to pressure you into what you should vote. for and I think just, you know, am I wrong for voting for this candidate when all my friends and family tell me to vote for that one and vice versa? I think just valuing what matters most to you and then looking at what candidate is going to advocate for you in your favor on those, on those issues, most likely. Obviously, politicians don't always follow through their promises. But that's the last thing I'll say because I think this election, less than two weeks out, or just about two weeks out there is. There's going to be a lot of, a lot of tension going on and a lot of guilt tripping to get people into voting for one candidate or the other. So that would just be my recommendation

as we are in prime election season. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Our guest has been Daniel Corcoran and I'm Emma Verini on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.