I think progressives never thought about this because we banked on immigration and demographic change allowing us to win culturally and electorally but the issue is immigrants tend to be overwhelmingly male, that is how Trump won actually he won over a lot of Hispanic,Black,Asian and indigenous men who feel humiliated by a new culture, economy and world.
So what can we do rhetorically and policy wise to win more young men over ?
I get what you’re saying, but every rights movement has worked the opposite way. It’s not about giving up ground, it’s about picking one battle at a time. Gay people fought to be not killed, then fought to be accepted, then fought to be able to marry. It wasn’t a single “equality” battle, it was a series of battles in a longer war. They didn’t slide back immediately when they couldn’t get married, they fought the next fight.
Some people really suck, but for a lot I think it’s more misunderstanding or reluctance to let things change. There’s many reasons. Labeling everyone who doesn’t get on board with every facet of what you want means you’re reducing your allies. And those people who are comfortable with one thing but uncomfortable with another may become more comfortable when they see that the first thing doesn’t lead to the collapse of society.
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I think I misunderstood what you were originally saying and we’re more or less on the same side. My point was that it’s not about saying “okay we’ll stop caring about this” but about saying “this isn’t the thing we need to be focusing attention on right now.” I worded it very poorly.