I’m a big advocate for the idea that we need to start selling “manly socialism.”
I want to see grainy low contrast posters of a guy in wrangler jeans posed next to an F-150 with a sledgehammer over his shoulder and text that says “You’re really such a pussy that you just let some rich asshole in Redmond walk all over you? Real men unionize.”
I want to sell solar power to midwesterners with video ads of rugged manly men getting off the grid. “My daddy taught me to do everything with my own two hands. Instead of suckling on the teat of that big ol power grid, I get my own from God’s beautiful bounty.”
I want videos of church goers saying “I’m voting for public healthcare because God told me to lift the poor and the weary.”
I think there’s real legs to this. Meet people where they are.
(And before anyone starts, I have no desire to break bread with these people. They hate me and everything I am. I have no illusions about that. But for real change to happen, it takes a village; even the parts of the village you want absolutely nothing to do with. I don’t have to break bread with them to get them pulling in the right direction; I just have to help them see what’s in their best interest.)