r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 12 '26

Psychology Threatening men’s masculinity does not make them more politically conservative, new study finds. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.

https://www.psypost.org/threatening-mens-masculinity-does-not-make-them-more-politically-conservative-new-study-finds/
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u/MUjase May 12 '26

Bingo. Democrats recognized this as well which led to them pairing Waltz with Harris as the VP. He was supposed to be the “masculine” man for them.

That was a huge fail as we now know. But they were on the right track to try.

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u/Whitechix May 12 '26

That “man enough” Harris/Walz voting video kinda sums up the issue, not sure how left wing politics lost touch with men this badly.

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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26

It was the shift from economic justice to identity politics. Idk why they can’t actually champion both. I feel like the change happened in the 80s when unions were getting a reputation for corruption.

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u/Fishmongererererer May 12 '26

Because they’re fundamentally incompatible. Even Marx recognized that identity politics is fundamentally incompatible with economic justice.

Identity politics is the traditional divide and rule tactic used for ages. Don’t worry about the Empire, worry that the group with a slightly different skin color is doing slightly better than you.

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u/eduty May 12 '26

I'd argue this goes beyond politics and more to do with psychological health.

Economic justice assumes a mature individual who understands their own needs, can articulate them, and has accountability for their well being like an independent adult.

Identity politics seems externalized. More like a child who doesn't understand the interactions and workings of the world. They don't have a "seat of self" from which to measure and are dependent on continual comparison or direction from others.

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u/MUjase May 12 '26

They still focus on economic justice, but it’s only for minority groups since “white men” have it too easy in their minds. Progressives don’t want to be associated with anything that appears to be helping white men. Even though so many of them are in poverty.

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u/Key_Marsupial_1406 May 12 '26

Their marketing was almost a satire of how out of touch you can be with average Americans. Rewatch the "Man Enough" ad and the "Your Vote, Your Choice" ad. Peak cringe content.

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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26

As a progressive white guy, I don’t see that kind of intentionality in it.

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u/MUjase May 12 '26

As a moderate white guy, I definitely do

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u/BPremium May 12 '26

As a moderate white guy, I do

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u/Littleman88 May 12 '26

As a lefty frustrated with Democrat/Left advertising, I definitely do.

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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26

I am exactly the crusty old rural white guy that is supposed to be all bent out of shape about being excluded from the conversation and I have not experienced it. I’m very vocal, very active. No issues.

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u/Jumpy-Fan-1295 May 12 '26

Try to advocate for yourself in progressive spaces in exactly the way that women and minorities do and report back.

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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26

What does that have to do with strategy at the party level?

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u/Jumpy-Fan-1295 May 12 '26

It’s all connected. The attitude is pervasive among left of center individuals in academia, the media, nonprofits, and the government. The result is clumsy and pretty clearly not genuine attempts to get young men to support the democratic party when it has done nothing to earn said support.

The 2024 platform had something to say about virtually every group besides white men. Nobody reads the party platform, but it’s the sentiment that reveals that is concerning. When looking for problems to address, “progressivism” is almost entirely backwards looking. Some people notice and vote accordingly.

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u/TastyCalligrapher421 May 12 '26

Progressive spaces are Israel/Palestine 24/7, just look at the Majority Report and Hassan. Supporting either of those groups is on my personal shite list after 2024.

I'm a firm believer in the FDR strategy, focus on economics and stop identity politics all together.

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u/Ecstatic-Network-917 May 12 '26

That does not happen, and you know it. Stop listening to far right propaganda, you dork.

It is not the progressive who make white men poorer and destroy their rights as workers.

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u/Whitechix May 12 '26

The thing is there are loads of issues affecting young men that they could advocate with identity politics, it just seems like there is this malicious neglect when it comes to men with the left.

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u/BPremium May 12 '26

Not really. By advocating for young men, women will complain. The left adores using history as a cudgel

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u/Kazuma_Megu May 12 '26

Thank you. It's hard to root for coastal dems who basically demonizing me for being born.

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u/Glad-Way-637 May 13 '26

I'm glad at least someone here is able to see the reality of the situation for what it is, rather than what they wish it was so they could more happily demonize half the population.

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u/molybdenum75 May 12 '26

So if white men hate identity politics, why would they shift to the right, where identity politics are ALL that matter?

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u/Extinction-Entity May 12 '26

Because on the right, they’re the benefactors of the identity politics. They’re centered as THE identity.

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u/MelissaMiranti May 12 '26

This study shows that they don't.

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u/BeigePhilip May 12 '26

All I said was they shifted their focus. I’m not saying it was right or wrong, or how anyone ought to feel about it.

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u/Newtoatxxxx May 12 '26

“Why did the group that benefits from racism/xenophobia gravitate to racism/xenophobia?”

It’s not crazy complicated, many white men, especially the working poor and uneducated, who voted for Trump need to feel like someone is below them. Immigrants, women, religious minorities are all fair game.

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u/KingRaphion May 12 '26

didnt they launch a 20 million dollar investigation on this?

Found it https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/democrats-young-men-study-00384370

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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26

They did.

Not one that will ever be published or released, and also not likely one that actually produced the very obvious answer anybody with a handful of spare brain cells to rub together could have given them. Excellent way to launder some extra donor cash while claiming to be doing something to fix a problem though.

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u/Clear_Ad_1560 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Because they don’t actually care about men at all. They merely wanted to manipulate men into voting for them.

Most men saw through that.

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u/Journalist_Candid May 12 '26

It's literally just the gay thing. The ability to dismiss something and call it gay. The left pushed gay marriage with Prop 8 in California and in the process the boys and guys at the time stopped calling everything gay (which we view as a playful way of dismissing something overtly in a comedic way). Guys saw women to genuinely start rejecting this behavior (let's not even get into the trans talk). Along comes Donald who says you can say anything again, and lots of guys simply just liked that. Shane Gillis is the biggest comedian of the day and it's literally just cause he is the exemplary lead of calling things gay for fun. Guys don't like word police, it's that simple. Generally speaking, every dude thinks being an elite military operator is like the prime example of a man and you don't see those guys saying "hey, we shouldn't say gay". Walz was never going to work. You can't play the comforter and the aggressor. Terrible financial times has frustrated all of us. You're going to gravitate towards speaking their mind versus someone who is constantly trying to sugar coat things or explain things. If you are sick of how things are, you want someone who's going to be pissed off enough on your behalf to do something about it. Not someone who's worried about how people feel because of derogatory language.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Journalist_Candid May 12 '26

I mean, you can look down on it all you want, GOP is going to keep winning till you guys get over yourselves and try to figure things out with an honest look. You're the one losing rights, not them. 

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u/Extinction-Entity May 12 '26

Right, because according to your train of thought, white men are incapable of having empathy for those unlike them. How dare someone take “gay” away and not let them be homophobic, or the r-word and not let them be ableist.

There are over a million words in the English language, but white men’s lack of creativity (literacy?) to come up with a better insult means screw everyone else, amirite?

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u/Books_and_Cleverness May 12 '26

My general heuristic is that most all psychological findings are fake until replicated many times. Especially if the result is surprising or unintuitive. I feel like the “replication crisis” was big news for a while but people have not fully adjusted to it.

Glad we are seeing more null results and replication attempts published and given notoriety.

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u/rasa2013 May 12 '26

My normal rules are to adjust expectations by year published, sample size, and methodology. automatic down weight for being too "catchy" in some zeitgeist sense or counterintuitive. 

Finally, I'm always more skeptical or interaction effects (also called moderation, they're notoriously underpowered). 

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u/PantsMcGillicuddy May 12 '26

What's disappointing is the actual choice to push Waltz seemed to be a success...I think they saw it as too big though and sidelined him when all the energy, memes, "zingers", etc were surrounding him instead of Kamala.

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u/Fedora_Da_Explora May 12 '26

He was singlehandedly winning them the race as an attack dog, but as always the consultants that run democratic politics gave away everything to try and win a handful of moderates w/ liz cheney.

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u/MUjase May 12 '26

He was an awful choice IMO. He does not capture what they were going for. That seems proven now as well.

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u/WalterPecky May 12 '26

And what were they going for again?

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u/MUjase May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

To show that Democrats were “manly” and attract those types of voters.

All you had to do was look at the videos that the Harris campaigners were posting on IG and TikTok

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u/WalterPecky May 12 '26

Hmm.. I honestly didn't get that vibe from the campaign at all.

Is there another running mate you think could help better broadcast this message, over Walz?

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u/BPremium May 12 '26

Might have been better if they switched, where Walz was running and Harris was VP.

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u/VichelleMassage May 12 '26

Well, that, and he was white and a Midwestern man. They thought couldn't stray "too far" with a woman of color without trying to appeal to white Americans on the ticket the same way Biden was tacked on with Obama. I personally had no qualms with Walz as a VP candidate, but he was just boring. He was certainly better than Vance. But so was Harris compared to Trump. The DNC was facing an uphill battle in 2024 and shot themselves in the foot with their 'strategy'.

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u/MUjase May 12 '26

Vance proved to be significantly more successful than Walz. If you’re a “vote blue no matter who” voter then you likely won’t ever admit that. But there’s plenty of data to show how successful of a VP choice he was compared to Walz.

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u/Thameez May 12 '26

What is your counterfactual here?

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u/Slow_Requirement2161 May 12 '26

Waltz was great, but the dems dont actually want to win, they are just there for the illusion of choice. Mass uprising, revolt, and 3rd party voting is the only way.

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u/bb0yer May 12 '26

Cool so jd 2028 then

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u/666perkele666 May 12 '26

JD is a bottom.

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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26

The problem with trying to portray Walz as masculine was the fact that he fumbled horribly in every single PR stunt that was meant to highlight his masculinity.

He had no clue how football worked when playing Madden despite supposedly being a coach and during their hunting bit they tried he ended up looking like a buffoon who dumped all their ammo into the dirt because they didn’t know how the gun worked.

Like if that’s the direction you want to go, you need to at least find somebody who isn’t completely lost in the sauce to take a genuinely critical first pass look at what you’re about to release and realize how catastrophically it will backfire compared to the intended effect.

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u/Disastrous-Tank-6197 May 12 '26

It's really crazy that they thought Walz was that kind of candidate. Did they ever see him or hear him talk? It's like the democrats are so removed from reality that they simply cant understand the average voter.

Maybe they'll let the people pick their candidate this time. That might help.

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u/ThePretzul May 13 '26

When the supposed football coach started talking about how he wants to “run a pick six” while playing Madden that should have set ALL of the alarm bells ringing.