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For months, pundits<\/span> have decried the absence of a \u201cJoe Rogan of the left\u201d \u2014 an online media figure who can galvanize young men to support Democrats in the way that popular right-wing creators like Rogan, Adin Ross, and the NELK Boys have done for President Donald Trump. Now, it appears that Democratic operatives have a $20 million plan<\/a> to build such a figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n The proposal, titled \u201cSpeaking With American Men: A Strategic Plan,\u201d from Ilyse Hogue, the former president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, and John Della Volpe, polling director for the Harvard Kennedy School\u2019s Institute of Politics, is one of several pitches floating around in Democratic policy spaces aimed at making up ground with demographics the party lost in 2024. The plan was immediately panned online by critics who argued that young men would view this type of approach as inauthentic.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the last election, young white men swung aggressively in the direction of Trump, voting for him by a 28-point margin<\/a>, after supporting Joe Biden in the last election.\u00a0<\/p>\n Online media has largely been credited with the shift, particularly among young white men.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an analysis <\/a>of 320 of the most popular online shows across platforms such as Youtube, Rumble, and TikTok, Media Matters<\/a> found that right-leaning shows were significantly more popular, accounting for roughly 82% percent<\/a> of the total following of online shows analyzed. It also found that 9 out of 10<\/a> of the most followed online shows were right-leaning. Evidence suggests that young men are absorbing what these far-right streamers are sharing. A survey ahead of the election from the Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice found that more than 40 percent of young men trust one or more misogynistic voices online<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The plan<\/a> would raise $20 million from Democratic donors, which the project\u2019s leadership has reportedly<\/a> already begun to collect, to study the \u201csyntax, language, and content\u201d that\u2019s popular among young men in online spaces, then develop content that spreads an \u201caspirational vision of manhood that aligns with Democratic values without alienating other core constituencies\u201d and partner with influencers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts on masculinity and gender in politics argue that while it\u2019s good to research why young men left the party, investing millions to recreate a \u201cJoe Rogan of the left\u201d fundamentally misunderstands why young men moved so rapidly to the right \u2014 and misses an opportunity to woo them back.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo try to create the next Joe Rogan, it\u2019s [misguided],\u201d said Gary Barker, president and CEO of Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice. \u201cBecause it\u2019s going to come across as preaching and a kind of lab-designed android.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Barker and Equimundo released a report on the \u201cManosphere,\u201d<\/a> tracking how young men engage in online communities and why. Barker\u2019s research suggests that young men are attracted to these spaces out of a desire for community and for someone to speak directly to them about their social, political, and economic anxieties.\u00a0<\/p>\n Right-wing influencers and Republicans fill that void, stoking those anxieties and creating a useful scapegoat in women, minorities<\/a>, and immigrants<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019ve talked to men about their feeling of anxiety and said, \u2018You\u2019re right to feel anxious. You\u2019re not the problem. Tear it all down,\u2019\u201d said Barker.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Barker said that Democrats shouldn\u2019t be trying to recreate that strategy even if it would work for them. \u201cYou don\u2019t want a Democratic Mr. Beast,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s horribly manipulative. It\u2019s exploitative of people. I\u2019m not sure if we can get something so big online that doesn\u2019t follow a playbook that\u2019s either exploitative, exaggerated, or harm-inducing. And if we do, I think it\u2019s going to feel like it\u2019s preaching to you.\u201d<\/p>\n If Democrats want<\/span> to win back young men, they\u2019ll have to prove to them that their economic and social issues matter to them, said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute and author of \u201cThe Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Deckman\u2019s research found that young men\u2019s political shift toward Republicans was heavily influenced by the economy. \u201cA lot of young men feel that the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for them. And the Democratic Party certainly didn\u2019t have an answer for how their policies or their vision might help them get a better paying job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n