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I don’t think it will move the needle much, but I think his interviews with Trump/Vance/Musk did by a few fractions of a percent at least.
I do think one thing that has been lost is that Kamala will probably struggle with men more than Trump struggles with women. The Kamala campaign has aggressively refused to appeal to men, with their weak attempts doing more harm than good.
On top of that, Biden was the “reasonable” choice that “reasonable” men could get behind. Now that the Biden admin is viewed as a bit of a failed hysterical clown show, the “reasonable” masculine thing to do is vote for Trump. Centrist men in my experience feel Dems had their chance and they botched it. “Go to your room and think about what you’ve done, and maybe next time we’ll vote for you” energy. They did the same to Trump last time
Kamala Harris and the Democrats think you don't have to appeal to men; the way to get men's to vote for Democrats is to tell them they should do it for women. The Gillette ad some time ago showed that, and Harris's "weak attempts" aren't much different. The idea is that voting for Trump is a betrayal of any women in their lives -- "How could you [vote for that bad orange man]?" is the idea. Problem is it might work; plenty of men are "responsible" enough to ignore their own interests in the favor of the perceived interests of women.
Maybe.
Alternately I fully radicalized my wife. She's pro abortion, and we have a daughter, and that pulls at her heart strings. However, my argument that we have to keep her from being brainwashed trans in her tender years before abortion matters in her teen/adult years got her full on the Trump Train.
Open threats from the DNC to "alter" the 1st amendment, and Biden sleep walking us to the brink of WWIII also helped.
Funnily enough, this isn't far off from the "radicalizing" argument you see a lot of women give about why they are voting Trump despite being nominally pro abortion. Bridget Phetasy straight up said becoming a mom radicalized her against all the trans stuff. Leapfrogged everything else to become her top issue over abortion.
If there was a broad-scale strategic mistake the left made, 'letting' the GOP turn trans issues into the most central culture war flashpoint has to be it.
Closing the country at all during COVID was the biggest broad-scale strategic mistake for the left. Less damage to the economy and more dead boomers is a massive win for them in the short and long term.
They made out incredibly well for themselves in all the panic spending though. Nobody's ever made a full account of all the trillions that ended up going to left wing orgs. I'm sure that more than made up for general economic damage.
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I don’t think they ‘let’ the GOP do it. The reason that trans had so much traction was because people pattern matched it to legalising homosexuality and gay marriage.
The utter terror of having your life destroyed five years later for opposing ‘trans rights’ compelled public people on both the left and right sides to become viral vectors for the ideology. I think people have forgotten how much trans was pushed by conservatives, especially in the UK but in the US too.
In short, the form of the campaign ensured that it would take centre stage regardless of what anyone rationally thought about it as an election winner.
(The pattern matching between ‘trans rights’ and ‘gay rights’ then forced interested parties to double down because if it became possible one day to criticise trans stuff without being destroyed, the same might be true of LGBT issues more broadly. The taboo would be broken. Whether that’s actually the case I don’t know.)
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Did the Gillette ad show that? My understanding was that it triggered a massive backlash and actually lowered sales for about 6 months after the ad aired.
The Gillette ad didn't show it worked, though it's pretty much impossible to measure the backlash to one ad in a consumer product like that unless it's truly massive (Bud Light is the only example I know); it did show that's what they think is a good idea.
The Bud Light boycott has already been reversed because my boomer mother-in-law doesn’t understand that Michelob Ultra is owned by the same parent company.
AB Inbev’s total sales have recovered, even as Bud Light’s have not.
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True, but this idea is fading hard, especially among the younger generation. Women are so strongly protected by the Daddy State that many men feel no obligation.
Given the relative outcomes in terms of higher educational attainment, life expectancy, suicide rates, gender-specific advocacy/scholarships/celebration, etc., I can't believe there are still men who feel compelled to give up anything to further support women in 2024.
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