What I Saw at ‘White Dudes for Harris’

Monday night, I watched the livestream of the “White Dudes for Harris” fundraiser. Our host, a thirtysomething political operative with a man-bun and a beard, was upfront: some people didn’t feel comfortable with this event. But, he argued, white men feel lonely; they’re struggling in the new economy and feeling forgotten. MAGA has co-opted masculinity, he said, and the left has ceded white guys to the right-wing. 

“But,” he declared, “that stops tonight.”

He then introduced the first guest speaker: a black guy. 

If you’re wondering why the Harris campaign organized an event just for white guys—so am I. But the trend for segregated fundraisers is really taking off: in the last week we’ve also had Zoom calls for black women for Kamala, white women for Kamala, Latinas for Kamala, and more.

It’s weird. It was especially weird that the first guest on “White Dudes for Harris,” Maurice Mitchell, is demonstrably not a white dude; he’s not even a Democrat. He’s the head of the Working Families Party—a minority left-wing political party mostly active in New York. He celebrated policies that Kamala Harris has never voiced support for, like an arms embargo in Gaza. He encouraged the white guy audience to “get in formation,” which I assume is a reference to the Beyoncé song. 

The strange vibe abruptly shifted with the entrance of a vibed-out Jeff Bridges, best known for his portrayal of “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski. Recalling that he had just heard Kamala give a speech telling people to “fight,” Jeff said, cryptically: “I can’t relate. It’s a surrender to our higher thoughts and the way we want things to turn out.” 

Hell yeah, Jeff. 

After that, the organizers slowly rolled out the parade of white guys on Kamala’s VP shortlist. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg opened with “I’m a policy guy” and spoke about the need to protect reproductive rights. North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said if just 1–2 percent more of the white male population voted for Democrats, Kamala could win. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker gave a stump speech that you could have heard anywhere. In a show of just how online this event was, Minnesota governor Tim Walz was introduced as “David Hogg’s favorite politician.” David Hogg is a school shooting survivor and former proprietor of a liberal pillow company who posts a lot on Twitter. 

With little exception, the speakers focused on social issues, particularly—and perhaps oddly, given the audience—abortion and race. Many were incensed by the fact some Republicans have been calling Kamala a “DEI candidate.” 

One speaker stood out for addressing white men specifically and consistently throughout: Jimmy Williams Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, who touted Biden’s economic accomplishments and praised Kamala for standing beside him. The president’s infrastructure bill, Williams said, created jobs for white guys, specifically, and bailed out the union pensions of white guys, specifically. He said that Trump had been bad for working-class white men who worked in construction, specifically.

It’s difficult to imagine another Democrat saying such a thing in a non-disparaging manner, particularly given the climate the left has fostered in the last several years, which has been particularly hostile to working-class white men. In a 2022 interview with Pete Buttigieg, MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid dismissed Biden’s infrastructure bill as a “white guy employment act.”

“You look at the jobs we’re going to create, and yeah, they have been traditionally white and male, but it doesn’t have to stay that way,” replied the transportation secretary, essentially conceding that there was something wrong with giving productive jobs to blue-collar white men.

Williams was basically the only speaker at “White Dudes for Harris” who talked about class in any meaningful way. This was a fundraiser where the host announced happily at various points that billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Hollywood bigwig J.J. Abrams were matching donations. The fundraiser has raised more than $4 million.

Imagine if Republicans put on a celebrity-studded event called “White Dudes for Trump” that raised $4 million. Imagine the endless op-eds. Consider the B-roll that outlets like NPR or MSNBC might use: Klan rallies, January 6, clips from The Handmaid’s Tale, perhaps. 

The Democrats get to do segregation because they’re doing it ironically. They’re slightly poking fun at the left-wing orthodoxy that everyone gets to do identity politics except white guys. Of course, they wouldn’t want people to think they were poking too much fun at the idea, in which you ask a black guy to open your white guy event, where almost no speakers actually talk about making life better for white men.

But is “Haha, don’t worry, we’re the good ones” a winning strategy for appealing to white men who haven’t decided to vote for Kamala yet? Probably not. 

River Page is a reporter at The Free Press. Follow him on X @river_is_nice, and read his piece “How Rednecks Like Me Hear J.D. Vance.”