Trump won resoundingly in the 2024 election because every demographic in America shifted in his direction. This was especially true for men, with black, Hispanic, and young men as the standouts who abandoned the Democrat party for Trump. Democrats find it inconceivable that these men haven’t responded well to a saggy economy and constant attacks against them for their “toxic” masculinity. Clearly, it’s just a communication problem.

So, to right this communication wrong, the Democrats have their eyes on influencers. That’s how we end up with Dean Withers, a young man Democrats believe is the left’s answer to Charlie Kirk or Ben Shapiro. Callie Holterman has the scoop on Dean and his boyish brethren:

They are eyeing people like Mr. Withers, who attended a holiday reception at the White House on Tuesday. (“Off to meet mr joe,” he wrote on his Instagram story beforehand.)

He is part of an ecosystem of left-leaning influencers including Hasan Piker, the 33-year-old progressive commentator who streams for hours a day on Twitch. An even younger group of men including Harry Sisson, Mr. Withers and a friend known online simply as Parker each have more than a million followers on TikTok, where they brawl with supporters of Mr. Trump during combative, unpredictable livestreams that Mr. Withers compared to U.F.C. matches.

Can their fluency in the language of the manosphere be used to encourage young men to consider liberal viewpoints instead of conservative ones? Mr. Withers thinks so.

You won’t be surprised to learn that these young men were part of the ill-fated, laughable “white dudes for Harris” campaign.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by dean withers (@deanwithrs)

Withers’ approach to debates is actually intelligent: He takes it to conservatives, debating not only mainstream conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk but also fringe figures like Nick Fuentes, a really foul antisemite. Withers is smart to get out of the leftist echo chamber, and Holtermann writes that he believes that, by debating conservatives, he “can help introduce progressive ideas into right-wing echo chambers.”

What Withers doesn’t understand is that because the left dominates the culture—education, the media, and entertainment—there is no right-wing echo chamber. Currently, conservativism is inherently reactive. In other words, Withers isn’t exposing young men, especially young white men, to anything they haven’t already heard. His and the Democrats’ problem is that what these young men hear from the dominant culture—and don’t like—is that they’re toxic, sexist, racist, stupid, privileged, and don’t deserve the jobs they’re able to get in an economy that they’re too ignorant to realize is actually good.

And indeed, Withers himself is proof of the power of the dominant culture. Despite a boyhood in conservative circles and private Christian schools, his values changed completely when he went to the leftist strongholds of public education:

When Mr. Withers began attending a public high school, in 2018, he became exposed to more points of view. He befriended a lesbian couple who challenged the anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric he had been taught in Catholic school, he said. The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol occurred during his junior year: “I remember not understanding it that well, but being scared,” he said. “That was almost, like, the nail in the coffin.”

He began participating in livestreamed TikTok debates as a freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2022, thrilled by the rush of adrenaline that came with debating issues like abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights before a live audience.

Despite his fragile appearance, Withers has a surprisingly robust voice. He’s a fast talker and incredibly arrogant.

In the future below, he assures his followers that he “cooked” Ben Shapiro on both abortion and DEI during Jubilee debates. For those who don’t know, Jubilee is politics for people with one-minute attention spans. It’s a large part of what’s wrong with American political discourse, but people like Ben Shapiro participate because they know that’s where young people are.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by dean withers (@deanwithrs)

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe that Ben Shapiro, a person with a vast fund of knowledge and a profound moral value system, was “cooked” by this boy. Ben Shapiro, for his part, graciously acknowledged Wither’s brain, if not his wisdom:

@fullsendpodcast Ben Shapiro praises Dean Withers after his Jubilee debate #fullsend #nelk #fyp #donaldtrump #benshapiro #deanwithers #jubilee ♬ original sound - FULL SEND Podcast

The Democrat party will not reconnect with young men by promoting fast-talking, baby-faced men with well-expressed but ill-informed and weird ideas. The way to get men back into the Democrat fold is to treat them with respect and create an economy that offers scope for hard work, ambition, imagination, and innovation. And since it’s unlikely that the Democrats will move in that direction, I don’t see young Mr. Withers shifting votes anytime soon.

Image: Instagram screen grab.