During Kamala Harris’s interview last night with NBC’s Hallie Jackson, the vice president gave a muscular defense of her positions and also addressed something that’s been a challenge for her campaign — the willingness of American men to embrace the fascist option offered by Donald Trump. She vowed to combat that offering with an emphasis on her commitment to capitalism, to economic possibility, with an accent on jobs and a vision of the American Dream.
This morning, Anand appeared on “Morning Joe” to talk about the task that remains for Harris and Tim Walz: making their case to the majority of the male electorate willing to trust their futures — and the futures of their families — to the MAGA movement, and why addressing the emotional underpinnings of that feeling is so critical in the outcome of this election.
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Transcript: I think it's important to understand in a larger context why she's doing some of those things that you saw in that interview.
I think part of it is, you know, inoculation against the socialism charge, but I think there's something deeper going on that they are trying to take on, which is men, American men right now.
A majority of American men are supporting American fascism, right? And, I think there is, beneath the labels of socialism and capitalism and everything else, there is a deep problem in many American men's sense of themselves, a fear of the future, a sense that they don't quite know who they will be and how they will provide for their families and their communities in the future that's coming.
I think a lot of these fears have been manufactured by places like Fox News, but some of those fears are real and based on real changes in our society: housing prices, food prices, things like that.
And so what you're seeing the vice president do is answer some of that by saying, “You'll be able to create wealth. You'll be able to start a business.”
All of that is great. I think what it doesn't quite do, and that she still has — and Tim Walz has — the opportunity to do in the next two weeks, is speak to millions of American men at that deeper guttural level. Because again, going back to the last conversation, it doesn't so much matter that Donald Trump is selling fascism. What really matters is that roughly half of Americans, including a clear majority of American men, are buying it.
The buy side is much more scary than the sell side right now. And we all focus on deploring the sale of it. But the real problem is the buying of it. People should be rejecting this and most men… the average American man is saying “yes” to fascism right now. Why?
And so I think she needs to understand, as I'm sure her team does, that in this era of rapid change, the future feels to a lot of men — a lot of people in general — like a pair of jeans that doesn't quite fit.
And you have to speak to people not just in terms of economic policy. if that's the case. You have to say, “Hey, I see you and I recognize you. I understand the future feels bewildering. I understand you sometimes feel like you don't know what to say or you don't know quite how you're going to take care of your family, but real men don't outsource the protection of their family to dictators. Real men don't turn to fascists to solve their problems. They create things, they build things, they do things.”
I think men need to be invited into an aspirational picture, an aspirational story of progress that has a place for them, too.
Watch the full conversation below:
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Can Harris win enough men back from Trump's fascism?