The political fight for American men

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:05Marianna Spring:The CIA has been carrying out covert operations around the world for decades. How has it shaped how people feel about the US? I'm Asma Khalid. And I'm Tristan Redman. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As part of our series to mark the United States' 250th birthday, we're exploring the CIA's hidden history. Do you think the word of the United States will be trusted in years to come? For more, check out The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:56did well, the Republicans more generally do well, particularly young men who've been attracted to the right-wing cause. On the left, they're more conflicted. There are plenty of left-wing people who do not approve of what they regard as masculinity. But there is also a sense on the left that something has to be done to attract men back to the left, back to the Democratic Party. I've been talking to one person who has very strong views on modern American masculinity he's not someone from the right he's very much someone from the left but he's someone who believes that the left needs to change and we had a conversation as well about where America is going next the character of America which is so vital and in a sense so unpolitical it goes to what the place should be in the post-Trump era welcome to AmeriCast

1:51americast americast from bbc news you hear that sound oh i think when i hear that sound it reminds

1:58Scott Galloway:me of money we didn't start this war but under president trump we are finishing it this is a

2:03Marianna Spring:big cover-up and this administration is engaged in it this guy has trump arrangement syndrome i have four words for you turn the volume up

2:18Hello, it's Justin talking to you from the city of Bath. And I'm going to be joined in a second by Marianna. And we're bringing you something we've done instead of AmeriCancers because it's a bank holiday in Britain. So we've done an interview or I've done an interview with the author Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway, who is not just an author, actually, he's much more than that. He's a podcaster. He's an influencer in a way, particularly in the world of financial affairs, but actually much more widely as well. He's a kind of cultural commentator. And he wrote this book called Notes on Being a Man.

2:52And one of the things he's really passionate about is changing the way, particularly the American left, regards men and manhood. And he thinks they're making big mistakes about it and it needs to change. So I've done this interview with Scott and we're going to bring it to you now. And then Marianna and I are going to discuss what he says, because what he says is controversial and it's certainly controversial within the United States. But I think it's fair to say as well that it's having an increasing influence on people who are affected by it and wonder about it and wonder whether the Democratic Party needs to do something about it.

3:30So here we are without further ado. Scott Galloway talking to me. Enjoy. Scott, you're not a Trump supporter, in fact, anything but, but you are someone who is critical of the left, aren't you? You think the left are getting this wrong.

3:41Scott Galloway:Well, I think Donald Trump is president of the United States because of strongly young men. And that is, to the far right's credit, they saw the problem first. The issue is they see that the remedy is to take women and non-whites back to the 50s, which is not helpful. but look at Donald Trump. He flew right into the manosphere, crypto, rockets, World Wrestling Federation being somewhat coarse and cruel, if you will, which unfortunately people conflate or some men conflate with masculinity. Whereas on the left, I went to the Democratic National Committee or convention. It was a parade of special interest groups articulating the very real issues they still face, but not one mention of the group that's fallen furthest fastest, and that is young men.

4:24Scott Galloway:And so I don't think either group is quite frankly helping or addressing the issue. The far right conflates masculinity with coarseness and cruelty and the far left, basically their answer for young men is just acting more like, you know, you should act more like a woman, which I don't think is the answer either. It's interesting. You mentioned the convention. I was there as well up in Chicago and you're absolutely right. And there were loads of influences there. And the one thing that definitely would not have been, I mean, you would have been committing a real kind of social faux pas if you'd suddenly said, what about the young men, or particularly, what about the young white men?

5:02Why, though? What is it that prevents the Democrats seeing what you've been telling them?

5:10Scott Galloway:Well, I think there's a natural gag reflex, because unfortunately, well, one, And if you look at America from 1945 to 2000, we registered a third of the world's economic growth with 5 % of the population. So we had six times the prosperity of the rest of the world. And then within that six X of prosperity, about a third of the population that was white, heterosexual, and male registered the majority of the spoils. So you could argue that being born as I was in the 60s in California, a white, heterosexual male, that I had 15 to 20 times the prosperity that I had earned. And so I think there is a natural response that, okay, you've had a 3 ,000-year head start.

5:48Scott Galloway:If young men now are having a little bit of a difficult time, maybe that's okay. It's payback time. It's payback. But what I think people are coming to the realization is that, you know who wants more viable, economically, emotionally viable young men? Women. It's also hurting birth rates. It's hurting crime. And then what happens is when you have young men that don't feel seen, they're very receptive to sort of a nationalist, blame women, blame immigrants for your economic problems, blame women for your romantic problems, and it's not your fault, the enemy's within, and I see you. And if you look at why President Trump got elected, if you look at the three groups that pivoted hardest from blue to red from 2020 to 2024, it was one Latinos, which is hard to categorize into a single group, two young men, and three, the most interesting demographic that went broke for Trump or went way more Trump is women age 45 to 64.

6:44Scott Galloway:And my thesis, Justin, is that that's their mothers. There's still a lot of women in America who will vote for who they perceive as best and the best interests of their husbands and their sons. And if your son is in the basement playing video games and vaping, you don't care about territorial sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender rights. You just want change. So I would argue that the darkest moments in history where we've turned to very, very frightening nationalists that cause a lot of chaos in the world, there's always one static element, and that is a large cohort of young men with a lack of economic or romantic opportunities.

7:19You said earlier that one of the things the Democrats were getting wrong is they're just wanting men to be more like women. I mean, why not? What are they getting wrong in wanting that? Because I imagine there are quite a lot of women listening and say, well, yeah, it wouldn't be a bad thing, actually, but more femininity, but more embracing of all of that would be a good thing. You know, you said you don't want to go back to the 1950s, but is there not a risk that this becomes a kind of 1950s conversation where there are kind of sex differences or gender differences that we pander to, but actually, in a way, just in our minds?

7:54Scott Galloway:To your point, masculinity and femininity are social constructs. They're empty vessels we get to fill. And I think that femininity is a wonderful attribute. And by the way, these things aren't sequestered to people born as males or females. I think a lot of men demonstrate wonderful feminine attributes. I think a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine attributes. But we've been celebrating femininity as we should, nurturing, more thoughtful, better EQ. You know, if I say women likely make better doctors, there's more in medical school, they're better students, they have better bedside manner, people clap their hands.

8:28Scott Galloway:But if I say on average, men oftentimes make better entrepreneurs or combat soldiers because they're more risk aggressive, there's a general sense I don't feel safe around you. That is not allowed. And I think masculinity, framed correctly, is wonderful. I think being aggressive has its role in places. I think wanting to protect people has its place. I think being strong such that you can move to protection. I think we need to celebrate, just so I can offend some of your listeners. I think we need to celebrate men's horniness. I think wanting to have sex turns you into a better man. It tells you to shower.

9:03Scott Galloway:It tells you to be kind. It tells you to make friends with women so they can help you understand women. It trains you to have perseverance, to try and get through the much finer filter of women who are choosy. It teaches you how to endure rejection. It teaches you how to take chances. These are wonderful attributes that young men are giving up on. So So I think masculinity, embracing it in an aspirational format and saying we've been celebrating femininity as we should, but also celebrate masculinity. And also what I would call for is a renewal. I think we need to renew the alliance between Europe and America, renew the alliance between moderate left and moderate right.

9:43Scott Galloway:But most importantly, we need to renew the greatest alliance in history. And that is the alliance between men and women. And I think a mix of feminine and masculine energy is a wonderful combination that has literally built the world that we know. I wonder whether actually part of all of this is the daintiness about language and the walking on eggshells-ness about language, which has been very much something from the progressive left, I suppose, in the last 10 to 15 years in particular. So in a sense, it's not just about men and women. This goes to a wider argument about the ability of people to have these conversations actually in the first place.

10:23Scott Galloway:A great point, Justin. If you were to reverse engineer the single point of failure where a boy comes off the tracks and becomes an unproductive male, it's when he loses a male role model through death, disease, or abandonment. The moment I was raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died as secretary a lot of my life, but the reality is when my father left us, at that moment, I became more likely as a boy to be incarcerated and graduate from college. What's interesting is that Girls in single-parent households have similar outcomes, same rates of college attendance, same rates of self-harm.

10:55Scott Galloway:So despite being physically stronger, what the data shows is that boys are actually emotionally and intellectually much weaker than girls, much less resilient. But even saying that boys need men in their lives was triggering five years ago. What, women can't raise men? Sure they can. Again, see above raised by a single mother. But the reality is boys need men in their lives. We couldn't even have an honest conversation, even acknowledging a different in the 95 % of us who assign as binary. And by the way, that doesn't mean people in the middle don't deserve the exact same opportunities. It doesn't mean in any way women should be prohibited or not have the same opportunities than men have.

11:37Scott Galloway:What I'm saying is 95 % of us are born with certain attributes that are easier for us to lean into than the other gender. Let's celebrate both those things and acknowledge that our society right now seems to be not helping young men, that young men are flailing. And that is going to have all sorts of second order impacts on the well-being of our society. Are you getting somewhere, do you think, with the broad left? I'll turn to Trump in a second. But with the left, do you feel that the argument is now playing out on your side or not? The conversation has become a lot more productive in the last five years.

12:14Scott Galloway:Governor of California, Governor Newsom has sponsored programs for young men. Governor Moore of Maryland said that in his State of the State address this year that the focus of his administration was going to be on lifting up young men and boys. He could not have said that five years ago. That's interesting. And both of them potential, actually, both of them actually presidential candidates in 28, aren't they, or going for the nomination. No question of both of those. That's interesting. So it's going to be there in the debates in the primaries. This is something people are feeling in their homes.

12:50Scott Galloway:You know, you get in a room of parents and you start talking about the problems between young men and young women, and they just start nodding their heads. There's just such a stark difference. It's even biological. I don't know. Do you have kids, Justin? Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah. If you have 15-year-olds over, this is my son had 15-year-old his class over. The boys are nice, but they're dopes. they can't look you in the eye. Some of the girls that come over at 15 could be the junior senators from Pennsylvania. They could be in parliament. Girls are just maturing faster in a world that values, and I think there's some bias, K through 12.

13:26Scott Galloway:What do we ask kids to do? Be quiet, sit still, ask questions. Look at the gross motor skills of a boy are better, but the oral skills and the dexterity of a girl is better. What do we ask kids to do? push a pencil around, ask questions, articulate themselves, sit still. 70 to 80 % of our primary school administrators and teachers are female. So basically, education has been feminized. A boy in primary education is twice as likely to be suspended from school for the exact same behavior as a girl. So we've built in some biases we're not even cognizant of accidentally that I think really, and not recognizing they're biologically behind, not recognizing the problem of single-parent homes, which conservatives have been talking about for a while but through a different lens.

14:13Scott Galloway:So there's just no arguing with the statistics here. But to your point, the conversation has become much more productive. And we've also recognized finally, I think, that this is not a zero-sum problem. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage. Civil rights didn't hurt white people. Helping men and recognizing their problems will not hurt women. and that argument is going to be felt right across the aisle in the states isn't it because if you put trump to an extent to one side and he is going to be gone um at some stage and there is going to be a discussion about where the right goes and there is obviously a lot of discussion on the right about masculinity they're very interested in it you think of the online right you think of of um someone like bronze age pervert who a lot of americast listeners will not have come across but as you will know, is a very, very big presence in the online kind of right manosphere slash political place.

15:14And, you know, to what extent, I suppose, have they co-opted all of the things that you've just been saying in a way that it's going to be quite difficult, actually, to pull people back, to pull young men particularly back?

15:26Scott Galloway:The manosphere starts off fine. Be fit, be action-oriented, be economically viable. But then it comes off the tracks, and it becomes about dominating women. It becomes about a propensity towards violence, demonizing immigrants. It just takes young men to the absolute worst place. And it's been such an unproductive part of helping young men because when people hear me advocating for men, they have a very understandable radar that goes up and says, here's another guy who's going to start blaming women while advocating for men. What he's really doing is talking about dominating women and sending them back.

16:07Scott Galloway:And I understand that gag reflex. And to a certain extent, as a white male of my age, I may not be the right spokesperson for this because people see me and I'm sort of wrong before I open my mouth. People immediately gag and go, you out yourself as a misogynist and anti-immigrant and as a racist when you start advocating for men because the people who are advocating for men for several years have a tendency to be people who have a crypto university or think that all you need to do is drive a Lambo and not let your girl go out because she should be supporting your life. So I think there needs to be a more aspirational vision of masculinity, and I think we just need better role models that say, okay, being masculine is wonderful, but it's about service.

16:54Scott Galloway:It's about surplus value. It's about celebrating the progress of women. It's about engaging at home. It's about being a great dad, a great partner. And you can also be strong and you can also be aggressive, but you are in the service of others. There's no such thing as toxic masculinity. There's violence. There's abuse of power. But masculinity, that's like, I don't believe there's toxic femininity. I think femininity is a wonderful thing. And I think we need to move to some sort of, we need better spokespeople and better role models that help convince the nation and the world that masculinity is an aspirational, wonderful thing that helps move the world forward.

17:36Just saying there's no such thing as toxic masculinity, I think really would have got you're cancelled and maybe borderline still would certainly in universities in in the states i don't know whether you do commencement speeches still or whether you're allowed to scott but um i mean that that is a deeply controversial view among a certain and very powerful group of people on the progressive left isn't it and i just wonder whether they're not going to let that go without a fight

18:05Scott Galloway:i don't want to sound my make myself sound too virtuous but it's not easy for me to be cancelled I can be dragged and shamed and it happens a lot because sometimes, quite frankly, I get it wrong sometimes and I'm prone to, you know, I'm not immune to saying stupid things. But one of my role models is Sam Harris and he says, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally and I have both those things, you have an obligation to speak out. Scott, can I widen the conversation just before we finish to the context for all of this, which is where the U.S. goes after Donald Trump?

18:36And I was listening to you talking the other day to David Brooks of the New York Times, actually writes for The Atlantic now, doesn't he? So someone who's thought a lot, he's on the right, on the kind of moderate right, who's thought a lot about where America goes ethically now. And it was a fascinating conversation because he's really quite optimistic, isn't he? Did he convince you?

18:55Scott Galloway:I struggle with anger and depression. And so I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. So I consistently have to ask myself what could go right. But I do like to think that America is so dissatisfied with the way things are headed that they're going to make a change. Now, my fear is we swing too far to the left, and I think extremism on the left can be just as dangerous as extremism on the right. But if you look at the polls, it looks like America is ready for a fairly substantial change, which makes me hopeful. Yeah, David Brooks was suggesting that, I mean, he was using the example of the 50s and the 60s, and the 50s suddenly become the 60s, 50s all uptight and all the rest of it and crew cuts.

19:36And then suddenly the 60s happen and nobody sees it coming. And he was making the point to you, wasn't he, that we could have the same thing. So after Trump, we could be something completely different and it could happen very suddenly. But that point that you make is such an important one, isn't it? Because when you look at some on the left, I was just looking at the Luigi Mangione trial, which has been getting going in New York, hasn't it? And some of the hate filled stuff that comes from the left, just as much as it has come from the right, you do wonder about whether or not there is something in the post Trump politics that has really changed in a kind of poisonous way that is not just going to be able to be brushed off or cast aside.

20:21Scott Galloway:Typically what happens when people are frustrated and angry, it's not that they attach to a political ideology, they just want change. So no one was going to vote for the person they saw as the incumbent, Vice President Harris. And I think the same thing, one of the wonderful things about America is typically speaking, whoever's the next president is much different than the one now. It's like when I see someone who's pregnant with their second child. All I can tell you is it's going to be nothing like the first. And if you look at American elections, it's the same way. Usually we go for something different in our next election.

20:53Scott Galloway:I just hope it's not... If you look at Europe, the communists on the far left were fighting for power versus the fascists on the far right. Now, the far right won. But I think this type of dangerous, non-plural, non-democratic societies, I think it can just as easily come from the far left as the far right. And my fear, my fear is that, my biggest fear is that Trump or Vance continues this mantle of corruption and a lack of empathy and the coarsening of our discourse. But I also think there's a real threat that we move too far to the left. We're starting in the U.S. to demonize success. And one of the reasons we've always had so many people aspire, both my parents are from the UK.

21:36Scott Galloway:And the reason they got on a steamship and crawled across the Atlantic with 300 pounds to their name was they wanted to go somewhere where they thought they could be successful. And I think that so many things in America right now in terms of an anti-immigrant policy, corruption, lack of rule of law, but also on the far left, a demonization of success. I think all of these things add up to what I would call superpower suicide. So I just hope we can move back to an environment where we have moderates with common sense solutions that are pregnant to us. And I also hope that we end up with a president that's not on our face every day, that gives everyone 30 or 60 minutes back a day where they're just not thinking about the president, so to speak.

22:19That then goes to the social media. I've mentioned social media and we had so much part of the conversation now and it's for another day for us. and you talk a lot about it, and plainly there are good things about social media, but plainly there are bad, and we're all aware of bad ones, and that is not really a controversial issue, is it? Except to say that you have to wonder whether the kind of America that you want to see and that David Brooks was outlining to you as well can exist where people are interacting with each other politically and in other ways as well, with algorithms designed to make them angry.