Democrats Find New Trojan Horse To Smuggle Their Agenda Into Young Minds

Ambitious Democrats looking to go national are pining for young male voters, and they have settled on a new Trojan horse to smuggle their message.

A slew of Democratic governors have recently turned to sports as a venue to hawk their agenda and claw back men who ditched their party for President Donald Trump and the GOP. The move seems thirsty, but it’s also the smartest thing Democrats have done since their defeat in November. Still, that doesn’t mean it will work. (Subscribe to MR. RIGHT, a weekly newsletter about modern masculinity)

Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has, for a long time, been making regular calls to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., sports radio shows, while Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro most recently was a guest game analyst for a University of Pittsburgh basketball game in February. Shapiro also made an appearance at a La Salle University basketball game on Saturday to honor their retiring coach. During the Buffalo Bills’ playoff run this year, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, sat for an interview on a Bills podcast. Down south, Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is planning several podcast and show appearances for the Kentucky Derby in May.

Voters crave “candidates and people serving who don’t just sound like normal human beings, but they are normal human beings,” Beshear told The New York Times. “Talking about sports, going to watch sports and talking to people as you meet them about sports, just shows that you, too, are a normal human being.”

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school football coach who tried tapping into sports and sports video games to boost his appeal among men during his failed campaign with Kamala Harris, told The Times that engaging with sports shows “you’re a real human.” (Maybe so, unless you’re Walz.)

“It takes the politics out of it,” he said. “When I go out there and go on those shows, it shows you’re a real human being and it connects with people on something they care about.”

Shapiro, Moore, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York City mayoral candidate and former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have also all made appearances on Stephen A. Smith’s show to chop it up with the former ESPN commentator, who, himself, has gotten more political in recent weeks.

Will the new media strategy actually make a difference and win over apolitical sports fans? Doubtful, especially if, like Walz, the sports-friendly Democrats peddling their agenda have already exposed themselves as uncharismatic blocks of wood. Trump, too, makes appearances at sports events and did so during his campaign. But Trump has something many, if not all, Democrats lack: charisma. (RELATED: Dems Spent So Long Being Fake They No Longer Know How To Be Authentic)

Democrats have to do something — anything besides posting cringe social media videos that are either too silly and degrading or too stuffy and demoralizing — to radically alter their brand ahead of the next election. Maybe they should send the one Democratic politician who has an inkling of charisma, Gavin Newsom, into the lion’s den, the Talladega speedway for the GEICO 500, and see if he can pass muster. At this point, it wouldn’t hurt.

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