THE SCHULZ STACHE AND THE PROGRESSIVE BLIND SPOT
The moustache will fade like any trend, but the lesson for liberals should not.
Michael Spitale
Walk into any gym on a late evening and you’ll notice a pattern. Among the racks of dumbbells and the steady thud of plates hitting rubber, there’s something else. A sea of moustaches – the Schulz stache – popularized by stand-up comedian and podcaster, Andrew Schulz. It’s not ironic, not hipster, not cosplay. It’s a style shorthand for a certain type of young man: health-conscious, competitive, focused, socially confident. He’s probably got the signature red GoodLife duffel bag slung over one shoulder, a Huberman endorsed protein shake in hand, a Carhartt mesh-back hiding his quasi-mullet, and earbuds cycling a playlist that mixes Schulz’s Flagrant podcast with Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove audiobook (okay, maybe that last one is just me). He’s not hostile to the world. He’s not uncurious. He’s not even particularly political. But he’s increasingly unlikely to call himself a progressive.
That’s a problem for progressives. Because these young men are not a fringe subculture. They’re carpenters and consultants. They’re pilots and programmers. They’re everywhere. And they’re drifting away.
When Liberals Valued Masculinity
It wasn’t always this way. Liberal politics once embraced traditional masculinity in healthy forms. In 1960, John F. Kennedy sounded the alarm in Sports Illustrated with his essay The Soft American, warning that “the physical vigor of our citizens is one of America’s most precious resources.” His politics linked athleticism to civic pride and even national security.
Barack Obama, too, wore his “bro” credentials openly. He shot hoops, albeit in lame sweats, and filled out NCAA March Madness brackets on live TV. His White House was stocked with young male advisors who carried that same energy and went on to be the popular “Obama bros” or better known as the hosts of Pod Save America. Obama didn’t apologize for his competitiveness or his love of sports. He used the culture of it all to connect.
Closer to home, Dalton McGuinty – Ontario’s earnest “education premier” – legalized UFC in the province. He saw young men’s passion for mixed martial arts not as a threat, and beyond a live-event economic driver, but as a reality of modern culture worth respecting. Full-day kindergarten and legalized cage fighting were not contradictions. They were two parts of a whole political brand: serious about policy, but not contemptuous of culture.
Today’s liberal movement prides itself on openness. It celebrates Pride, multiculturalism, and diversity. But when it comes to younger male-coded culture: gym life, gaming, bitcoin, sports, crude humour and camaraderie – that openness often curdles into disdain.
The label of “toxic masculinity” was rightfully meant to call out harmful behaviours. Instead, it has ballooned into a suspicion of masculinity itself. The guy encouraging his bud to push another rep, joking about his fantasy draft, or flexing his Call of Duty K/D ratio feels judged (I’ll let you look up that last one). He observes that progressive politics see him as a problem to be corrected, not a voter to be courted.
The irony is that liberals are the ones who are supposed to know how to make space for others. It’s a good thing that women’s cultural spaces are embraced without hesitation by progressives. Long after The Oprah Winfrey Show, Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy, “the most-listened to podcast by women” racks up millions of views. Kamala Harris even sat down as a guest on her podcast in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Nobody dismissed it as “toxic”. We celebrate it. But Andrew Schulz (watch his interview with The New York Times here) is no Andrew Tate – an alleged human trafficker who legitimately is toxic. But Schulz’s Flagrant podcast, with its irreverent humour and unapologetically rude male energy, is treated as suspect, even as a few smart liberals like Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg have gone on the show. Bernie, and progressive Texas State Representative James Talarico, even sat down with Joe Rogan, a space liberals often caution as hostile. The audiences are real. The only question there is whether more progressives are willing to talk to them.
This gender and cultural gap show up in the numbers. Across North America, men under 40 are less likely to identify as liberal than they were just a few years ago. In the U.S., Harvard’s Youth Poll found that Democratic identification among young men dropped from 42% in 2020 to just 32% by 2024, while Republican alignment climbed from 20% to 29%. They haven’t become hard-right ideologues. Many still support progressive policies on healthcare, climate, and fairness. Many even find appeal in the left-wing economic arguments of a Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani. But they don’t see themselves reflected in liberal culture. They see suspicion.
Politics is as much culture and identity as it is policy. That’s why Barack Obama’s jump shot mattered. That’s why Dalton McGuinty’s UFC legalization mattered. And it’s why, if Mark Carney ever wants to seriously compete for the younger male vote in Canada, it would be smart to sit down with Joe Rogan, as he did with Scott Galloway, and explain at length the nuance of his big-L Liberal agenda. Moreover, he would be wise to do it now to start the courting of millions in this demographic, rather than waiting until the transactional GOTV period of the next election. The Prime Minister is smart, and the long-form podcast platform, like Flagrant’s predecessor pod The Joe Rogan Experience, is the modern stage for Bill Clinton style “explainer-in-chief” storytelling. But to the point: meeting young men where they are is not pandering; it’s politics.
Lessons From the Schulz Stache
The Schulz stache isn’t just a moustache. It tells us what young men value: competition, hangouts, ambition, adventure, humour. It also tells us what they resent: being caricatured as dangerous for enjoying those things.
Winning them back doesn’t mean progressives need to cosplay as gym bros (see Mamdani’s bench press). It means dropping the reflexive sneer. It means remembering that masculinity, like femininity, has healthy and unhealthy forms. And it means that progressive politics should encourage the healthy ones. Masculinity channeled into team spirit, discipline, and community is an asset, not a liability.
Progressives like Kennedy, Obama, and McGuinty once understood this. Each showed how masculine culture could be acknowledged as an asset without losing liberal values. Each was a reminder that you don’t build winning voter coalitions by treating differing identities as defects.
When you see that young man’s Schulz stache around town, don’t dismiss it as irony or hostility. Extend an open hand not a wagging finger; better yet, progressives should strive to become a movement of big brothers (and big sisters). The Financial Times recently reported that “Canadians aged 15-24 are experiencing the highest unemployment rate since 2010, excluding the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic.” Furthermore, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed that “unemployment is rising the most among male teens,” which sadly reminded me of an observation from Scott Galloway: “A bored, angry young man is the most dangerous person in the world.”
So yes, it’s a silly moustache, but it’s also a signal. Young men want to belong to a politics that respects them, not one that scolds them. Right now, that’s the progressive blind spot. And you’ll make it more challenging to win future elections if you lose a generation of young men.
Progressives reject the Schulz stache at their political peril. Because coalitions aren’t built by sneering at identity. They’re built by respecting it – stache and all.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Spitale - Michael Spitale is a co-founder of Air Quotes Media. He has worked in progressive politics for 17 years and spends most of his time advocating for pro-union policies that support underpaid and overworked healthcare workers, like personal support workers and nurses.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Air Quotes Media. Read more opinion contributions via QUOTES from Air Quotes Media.