Democrats are still trying to figure out how they lost the male vote by being Democrats, and they might have stumbled on a solution: Harass gym bros while they are banging and clanging. The gym is popular among young men. I guess the plan is to convince them that if they become Democrats, they can also become women and easily rack up weight lifting championships or something.

This is all due to a new piece of journalisming content by NBC News. Yes, the same NBC News that also ran think pieces about how working out was a gateway to right-wing extremism and white supremacy.

This news piece of journalisming is in defense of Democrats spending $20 million dollars to study young men and try to determine why young men think Democrats su-diddly-uck. Since the right has, quote, "done an excellent job parlaying young men’s healthy interest in exercise into an embrace of reactionary politics," the belief is Democrats should do the same, while ignoring if Democrats even have the ability to do the same.

Across the political spectrum, craving the surefire sense of accomplishment the gym provides is an age-old response to an unstable political and economic environment. And historically, championing physical fitness with appeals to American manliness has not been a partisan issue. If the SAM initiative is going to net the Democrats more than online snark, its leaders should appreciate that this history suggests the party’s path forward might just begin at the gym.

I'll be honest, I lost interest at "the social and economic roots of the American man’s fixation on fitness date to the early 20th century..."

Democrats, who shut down gyms during a public "health" crisis and attempted to arrest and bankrupt anyone who tried to open them back up, have also spent the past five years attacking the idea of being in shape as "right-wing." Besides being the party that calls it problematic when your doctor tells you to lose a few pounds, they are also the party that, whenever too many Trump voters are seen liking the same thing, go out of their way to find something wrong with it.

Like The Guardian, less than a year ago.

But there is a dark side to wellness, which I always, for shorthand, thought of as political: getting fit makes you more rightwing. The mechanism is incredibly simple: you embark on this voyage of self-improvement, and more or less immediately see results. You feel stronger and more energetic, probably your mood lifts, and pretty soon you think you are master of your own destiny. You’re still not, by the way: destiny does not care about your step count. But until that fact catches up with you, which it may never, there you are, high on self-righteousness.

So, let's take away all the times the left has labeled working out as a gateway to racist and sexist homophobia. Let's take away that the Democrat Party has spent the last sixteen years telling men what they are and aren't allowed to have an opinion on, or determining they are guilty until proven innocent any time someone tweets an accusation about anything ever. It's going to take a lot more than comparing personal records to fix all that.

The main reason this is a dumb idea? Men go to the gym to be left alone. If you make me turn my music off so you can quiz me on Project 2025, I'm going to hate you.

Brodigan is Grand Poobah of this here website and when he isn't writing words about things enjoys day drinking, pro-wrestling, and country music. You can find him on the Twitter too.

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