I’m kicking off with some exciting personal/professional news. Today I’m moving from side hustler to full-time entrepreneur! I’ve spent the past few years splitting my time between my company, Relay Strategies, and Democratic polling firm Change Research. I’ve enjoyed my time at Change and working through a presidential cycle was as interesting as you’d expect, but I have to say, I reeeeeallly love what I’m building at Relay and on this platform. 

Check out our website if you’d like to learn about our approach to public opinion research. And if you want to help a girl out, please follow us on LinkedIn. 

Wind me up and I’ll keep talking about gender 

I joined the Herle Burly last week to discuss the ways the US opinion environment is and isn’t relevant to the Canadian context. It was a great conversation with some really great Davids (Herle & Coletto). If you haven’t yet, I suggest you check it out. 

One point I made in the interview is that young people, especially young men are experiencing an expectations gap between what they thought their lives would look like economically and the reality. 

In some recent Change Research polling, we found that half of men under 35 say their life is falling short of their financial expectations, more than any other group, but this is actually a widespread feeling among US voters younger than 50. 

Young men are dually disappointed in their romantic relationships, or lack thereof. 42% say their romantic lives have fallen short of their expectations, compared to 25% of young women. Young women are no more likely to be disappointed than older cohorts (contrary to what my TikTok algorithm has been telling me). 

On the Herle Burly, I discussed how the expectations gap is shame-inducing for young men. Given that sex and money are the building blocks of traditional masculinity, I think it’s safe to say that another way of describing this is that many (not all!) young men are feeling emasculated. 

When looking at the life expectations data, I have to admit, I first thought of angry, scary, yet mockable incels sitting in their parent’s basement. But the numbers are too big to disregard as a fringe. I don’t think 40% of young American men are incels or extremists. But clearly, a large portion are living in a headspace where they feel stripped of opportunity and autonomy. 

I’m currently reading, For the Love of Men, by the journalist/commentator/content creator Liz Plank, which discusses toxic masculinity and its impact on both men and women. She cites academic research that shows when men’s masculinity is threatened, they act out in weird and sometimes dangerous ways as a means of restoring their manhood. For example, “One study from the University of Washington showed that when men were told they scored lower than their actual strength on a handgrip strength test, they were more likely to distort a completely verifiable fact: their height”. She also described less benign examples, but they all point to a reassertion of power and control. 

There are many lenses we can interpret this through, but I want to focus on the one that’s in my wheelhouse - what does this mean politically? I don’t know that I have the answer, but I have a few questions I’ll be chewing on: 

• How do we parse “vibes” from policy? Are young men positively reacting to stong-ish men like Trump and Poilievre because they feel like… men? Is their assertiveness the point? Or is there some policy message that’s breaking through? 

• What makes the non-disappointed young men different? What are they experiencing? How can we describe their worldview? How can they be politically engaged?

• The question that has been repeated again and again after the US election, is how do we reach young men? Both in the literal sense (channels) and in terms of language?  

I’ll be focusing a lot on the interplay between the economic, social, and political lives of young people in the coming year. If you know any organizations that might like to partner in this space, send them my way! 

Oh, and the early success of this newsletter has been enormously helpful as I build my business. So thank you for reading, sharing, and subscribing!