"A Timely Contribution to Democrats’ Post-Mortem."

On yesterday's feature in The Guardian.

(A quick note: I drafted most of today’s post before Trump bombed Iran. I’m not a foreign-policy expert, but I do know a lot about domestic politics, and on Wednesday I predicted that war with Iran could be the end of the Rogan-Trump bromance, and with it, the MAGA coalition. If you haven’t read that one yet, I think it’s unfortunately more relevant than ever. And I think for the same reason, the ideas in today’s post are going to matter as well.

The world is crazy right now. Trump is out of control. And precisely because Trump is so out of control, Democrats have been handed a golden opportunity to win back the voters who put Trump in the White House. We can’t blow this chance.

Okay, here’s the post.)

Throughout my writing life, I’ve always been either the funny person in a serious room, or the serious person in a funny room. Sometimes, that’s straightforwardly amazing - I got to write jokes for President Obama! Other times it’s still amazing but in a slightly more complicated way.

Here’s a completely hypothetical example: imagine if I wrote a memoir about learning to surf that contains the phrase “I could be bullrushed by a sex-crazed elephant seal,” but which I also think has something urgently important to say about how to win back voters who put Trump in the White House and save America from MAGA before it’s too late.

Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I was so happy to see a feature article in yesterday’s Guardian about my new book It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground, which comes out on Tuesday.

The piece was about how, embedded in the book’s story, is an argument that Democrats have a chance to win back non-college educated men and beat MAGA for good, but we need to change the way we think about messaging if we’re going to do it.

A nice reminder of how much more hair I had a decade ago

I’ve copied and pasted a few selections, and you can read the whole thing here.

Also, today is day one of “on sale week,” a make-or-break sprint for any new book. Thanks to all of you, It’s Only Drowning already has more than 1,000 hardcover pre-orders, so we’re off to an amazing head start! But I’ll be honest: getting attention for a new book has almost never been harder than it will be this week.

So if you like what you read below - or if you just enjoy this newsletter in general, and want to support it - I’m asking you to buy a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or a local independent bookstore via bookshop.org.

Thanks again. And now, here are some excerpts from that Guardian piece.

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What do men want? Democrats need to know after their election drubbing by Donald Trump and the “manosphere” last year. They have responded by commissioning “Speaking with American Men”, a strategic plan that will study “the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in online spaces.

News of the two-year $20m project reinforced critics’ view that Democrats have become the party of an aloof, college-educated liberal elite whose pursuit of working class men resembles a Victorian explorer wielding a butterfly net. Which makes the publication of David Litt’s book, It’s Only Drowning, a timely contribution to Democrats’ ongoing post-mortem.

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[Learning to surf] would not be easy. At the age of 35, it required developing new muscles and confronting intense fear and humiliation. Still, Litt moved to the Jersey Shore and enlisted his brother-in-law, Matt Kappler, to help with surfing lessons. After months of struggle, he set the ambitious goal of riding a big wave in Hawaii.

Expert surfers tend not to do this

Surfing became a metaphor for confronting fear, both physical and existential, and an antidote to Litt’s habitual overthinking. He says: “Weirdly, the feeling I get, that sense of dread when a wave is about to crash down right on top of me, is actually somewhat analogous to the feeling I get when reading the news these days. It’s that sense of looming disaster and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

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As he tells this story, Litt reflects on America’s deep political and cultural divisions and how they were exacerbated by the pandemic. Differences in taste and lifestyle become “identifiers” declaring political allegiance. Litt admits that, had Kappler been a friend rather than family, he would probably have cut off contact after learning that Kappler refused the Covid shot.

On sale this week! From Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bookshop.org

“Matt played electric guitar in a ska band that is a big deal on the Shore; I played ultimate frisbee. He was into death metal and I was into Stephen Sondheim. So we never had anything in common. In the run up to the pandemic all of these differences weren’t always political, but then somehow they started to feel like they were telling us what team we were on. It felt like we’d been drafted into opposite sides of the culture war.”

Litt does not pretend that there was a Hollywood ending in which he and Kappler found common ground and changed each other’s minds. But he does argue in favour of shared activities that allow for connection and understanding between individuals with differing views.

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Ahead of the 2016 election, Senator Chuck Schumer declared: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.”

It turned out to be bad maths¹. Last November Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress. Trump won 56% of voters without a college degree, compared with 42% who favoured Harris, a shift from 2020 when Trump and Joe Biden were roughly even.

Litt points out the homogeneity of Democratic circles and the lack of organic relationships with working-class people, particularly those without college degrees. This disconnect hinders their ability to understand their issues or effectively communicate.

Recalling his time volunteering for Harris’s ill-starred election campaign, he says: “I would sometimes be on conference calls and people would talk about a policy or message and say, ‘Do we think this is going to work? Do we think this is going to be effective?’ I would basically say, well, let me go surfing and find out.”

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Democrats do have a strong policy agenda for blue collar workers but have failed to communicate it, Litt argues. His friendship with his brother-in-law will not explain everything. But he offers it as a start for a party that somehow allowed Trump – a millionaire businessman who cuts taxes for the rich – to steal its clothes.

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I won’t argue that this message is the most important thing people need to hear right now - not with the U.S. on the brink of war. But I would argue that it’s a close second. Our best hope to put an end to this madness and lawlessness is to win big in the midterms, and then again in 2028. The only way that happens is if we can win back at least some of the voters who put Trump in the White House.

And I 100 percent believe that if It’s Only Drowning gets off the launchpad and into the national conversation, winning back those voters is going to become much, much more likely.

You’ll hear me say this many more times over the next seven days, but week one sales matter more - exponentially more - to a book’s long-term success than sales at any other time. So whether you’re feeling intrigued, inclined to be supportive, or wildly enthusiastic, now is the best possible time to buy It’s Only Drowning on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or a local independent bookstore via bookshop.org.

Also, if you want to read the whole Guardian piece, it’s here.

And if you want to learn how to avoid being bullrushed by a sex-crazed elephant seal, you’ll have to wait until Tuesday when the book comes out.

Thanks as always, and stay safe in these crazy times.

David

1. One fun thing about being profiled in a UK publication is that they say words like “maths” the British way. Very classy.