SBSQ #21: Why young men don't like Democrats
Plus, the New York City mayor’s race — and whether win probability models are broken.
Welcome to the Roberto Clemente Edition (#21) of Silver Bulletin Subscriber Questions. Some of this month’s responses are long, so we’ll keep it to three questions. But next month, I’ll be out at the World Series of Poker, which means we’ll make up for that with a ⚡ lightning round edition ⚡. As always, feel free to ask anything down in the comments below, but you might lean more into questions that I can answer off the cuff. On the menu this time:
Risk tolerance, the River, and why Democrats struggle with young men
Does Zohran have a chance against Cuomo?
Are win probability models broken?
Risk tolerance, the River, and why Democrats struggle with young men
Carrie Levande asks:
SBSQ submission: as you noted in Risky Business, the Democrats’ groupthink around protecting Biden is emblematic of their Village tendencies. Lately I’ve been feeling like a lot of the country’s rejection of the Democratic Party can be traced back to their Village-ness: seeming “fake”, the groupthink they foster in cultural institutions and the media, wokeness (and the forces that created it), generally being insufferable.
I’m curious your take on viewing today’s political climate through the village/river lens. Do you think the rise of trump and tech billionaires represents an appetite for more Riverian spirit from the electorate? Are political parties by nature Villages that repel Riverians? Are Riverians who want to run for office inherently inclined to do so in a somewhat authoritarian way, and would they have any chance of success through conventional party pathways and norms?
I know it might not seem related at first, Carrie, but I’m thinking about your question in the context of the debate Democrats are having about how to win back young men. (Gen Z men actually voted majority Trump last year.) One Democratic group, for instance, recently proposed a $20 million initiative called “Speaking With American Men”. Adding fuel to the fire is the Catalist report I discussed last week that found an expanding gender gap, especially among young voters and Black and Latino men. In fact, essentially all of the decline that Harris experienced relative to Biden came from men:
How does this relate to the River and the Village? For those who haven’t read On the Edge, the Village is my term for basically the progressive establishment, which is consensus-driven and risk-averse rather than individualistic. Its quintessential institutions are Harvard and the New York Times, but this attitude is also very much reflected in Democratic political campaigns. Conversely, the River is for analytical, contrarian, risk-seeking types: think Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Las Vegas. Until fairly recently, the River mostly saw itself as being apolitical or part of a third, vaguely libertarian-ish “Grey Tribe”. But a faction of the River — not all of it by any means, but a prominent faction associated with people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen — has become heavily invested in the conservative political movement over the past few years.
Now, I’m not exactly sure the River’s alliance with Trump has gone well, especially with Musk’s recent departure from the White House. But it’s shifted the Republican platform on issues like AI and crypto. And more importantly, it has changed the vibes around Trump. Instead of being the party of fat cats and crazy uncles, which is how my generation of liberal-ish men tended to stereotype Republicans, the GOP can at least sort of claim to be the party of risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and rocket ships to Mars.
Meanwhile, unlike during the Bush Era, moderate men might think it’s those Villagey Democrats who want to police their speech and their behavior. And that they’re just generally unchill, turning everything into a “political conversation”. Last year, Trump fared better among voters who don’t consume a lot of political news, which liberals like to read as a sign that these voters were poorly informed. But that could also indicate that Trump was winning the more apolitical, “normie” vote.
Obviously, this mapping is far from perfect. Some Silicon Valley leaders are free speech hypocrites and they mix uncomfortably with other Republicans on issues like tariffs and immigration. And although some Riverians see themselves as classical liberals who want government to get out of the way, others are also not so keen on democracy. This faction of the River tends to believe in the “great man theory of history” and they don’t want to let anything stand in their way.
Still, I don’t doubt that some of Democrats’ problem with young men is that they’re seen as what in the poker world we’d call “nits”: neurotic, risk-averse, sticklers for the rules, always up in everyone’s business.
In my research for On the Edge, I found that risk tolerance is something of an understudied personality trait, but the two truisms are that men generally have a higher risk tolerance than women and younger people are more risk-tolerant than older ones.
Keep in mind that these are population averages: there are plenty of exceptional risk-taking women that you’ll meet On the Edge, for instance. But guess where Harris lost the most ground last year? With men, especially young men.
Of course, there is a major confounder here. Harris is a woman, and that’s going to be a tough sell for some men. According to Catalist’s data, Hillary Clinton had a relatively large gender gap, too. In contrast to Clinton, Harris seemed aware of the constraints this presented, not only downplaying her gender in her convention address but delivering a very male-coded speech that boasted about the strength of the American military, competitiveness against China, and so on.
Still, I think these autopsies on what Democrats must do to win back young men are getting a couple of big things wrong. I discovered this by, y’know, actually looking at the polling data instead of relying on the stereotypes that Villagers have about young men.
Mistake #1: Missing that young men take a more risk-on view of the economy
One problem is directly pertinent to risk tolerance. The messages Democrats are proposing tend to emphasize security — minimizing downside risk — above the opportunity to compete and maximizing upside outcomes. Here’s one section from “Speaking with American Men”, for instance: