“The Return of the Democratic Manly Man,” reads the unintentionally hilarious Atlantic headline. The subtitle is even funnier: “The party has a new campaign strategy: masculinity.”

The overarching theme of Russell Berman’s paywalled article is Democrats’ woes with convincing males to vote for them. “In 2024, Kamala Harris won just 43 percent of the male vote against President Trump and an even lower portion — 39 percent — of white men,” Berman says. “A Democratic presidential nominee hasn’t captured a plurality of men since Barack Obama in 2008, and even then, Obama edged out John McCain among men by only a single point.”

One solution to this problem, Berman seems to think, is a Democrat running for the U.S. House in Ohio, Brian Poindexter. Before the interview, that particular hunk had “just finished wolfing down a Reuben sandwich,” which seemed to get Berman’s heart all aflutter.

“There’s nothing wrong with being masculine,” Poindexter told him. Big if true.

Poindexter’s own manliness credentials are fully in order. The 46-year-old started working in a machine shop as a teenager and spent years hauling furniture across the country before finding stability as a union ironworker. He drives a Ram Big Horn pickup truck and built, with his buddy turned campaign manager, a shed in his backyard. Now Poindexter is running for Congress, trying to flip a Republican-held seat in Ohio with a pitch aimed at a constituency that has abandoned the Democratic Party over the past two decades: men.

I’m just spitballing here, but Democrats have struggled with men because they can’t define “man” (or “woman,” of course). When they do venture an idea, it’s primarily about the adjective “toxic.”

Democrats are the party that sold ObamaCare with that pajama-wearing beta and tried to convince men to vote for Harris with that lame ad featuring a guy sitting on a tailgate like a sassy teen girl. Joe Biden hosted a dude flashing prosthetic boobs on the White House lawn to celebrate Pride Month. His administration prominently featured openly homosexual Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary and Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine as the first “transgender” assistant secretary for health. Irony alert. And Biden hired Sam Brinton, the first “openly gender-fluid” energy official luggage thief in a presidential administration. Then Harris picked Prancing Tim Walz as her “manly” running mate.

By the way, Walz is the guy still defending a deported pedophile, saying, “We can’t all be judged by our worst day.” Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin would like a word.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Masculinity is awfully “fluid” for Democrats.

In fact, the party is full of bad examples of masculinity. James Talarico in Texas is one. He’s a phony Christian who loves “trans kids” and abortion and probably can’t open a pickle jar.

Abdul El-Sayed is another. The candidate for Senate in Michigan is a Muslim, making him an adherent to a religion that is infamous for its centuries-long abusive treatment of women.

A third is Maine’s Graham Platner. He’s no longer in the race, but the communist with a Nazi tattoo is the definition of actual toxic masculinity. He’s practically dependent on his dad for house money, and his mom is his only oyster customer. Far worse, of course, is the list of bad things he’s said about and done to women, including sexual assault.

I’ve always thought Democrats pushed #MeToo so hard because all the men left-wing women know actually are toxic.

Anyway, back to The Atlantic and Poindexter: Part of his “manly” appeal is supposedly his bad-boy history. “He was once caught with a bag of marijuana, and at 18, he was charged with assault after a neighborhood fight,” Berman notes. “Records show that Poindexter was also charged with disorderly conduct in 2002 and aggravated disorderly conduct in 2003, when he was in his early 20s. (Poindexter told me that both charges stemmed from drunken tussles at Cleveland Browns games.)”

I mean, what stud doesn’t get into drunken tussles at football games?

Berman profiled other male Democrats, too, in hopes of making his case. He did not, however, talk about Talarico. Perhaps that’s because he concluded, “Democrats are embracing their masculinity again.” Heh, sure they are.

Democrats still haven’t figured out what the problem really is. “It’s all vibes,” Poindexter said. No, it’s not. It’s about science, family, and the very definitions that make the English language function. It’s about radical feminism that teaches women to hate men and also to be exactly like their distorted picture of men. It’s about policies that rob men of the role of family provider, handing it instead to a nanny state.

Until those things change, it’s safe to say Democrats will continue struggling with men.

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