I Was at “White Dudes for Harris.” I Was Surprised How It Made Me Feel. (2024)

If you want to witness visceral proof of the vibe shift scenting the air—a brilliant excitement emerging from the fatalistic final days of the Biden campaign—then I recommend checking out the White Dudes for Harris donation campaign, which wrapped up its maiden stream Monday night.* The event was organized by Ross Morales Rocketto, the co-founder of the progressive nonprofit Run for Something, and it was positioned as a complement to last week’s hugely viral “White Women: Answer the Call” donation drive, itself a response to a Zoom of 44,000 people (mostly Black women) that raised more than $1.6 million in one evening.

“Throughout human history, a lot of time white men organized, it was with pointy hats on,” said Rocketto at the beginning of the stream. “But the reason we’re doing this is that the left has been ceding white men to the MAGA right for far too long.” Rocketto’s point is well taken. In 2020, 57 percent of white men voted for Trump, while 80 percent of Black men turned out for Biden.

What followed was a parade of liberal white guys of mild renown, and the front-runners in Kamala’s notably low-melanin veepstakes, who appeared on-screen to toast their brethren and offer a few words of solidarity to the masses. First up was Jeff Bridges, who joined the stream from a computer chair locked to a deep recline. (“I’m white, I’m the Dude, and I’m for Harris,” he said. “A woman president. How exciting!”) Then into the rotation went the perpetually nerdy Pete Buttigieg, who did a decent job eschewing his typical didactic, policy-only instincts to match the giddy energy of the moment. (“Men are more free when the leader of the free world supports access to birth control,” said Buttigieg, a sentiment I read as extending the olive branch toward Barstool listeners.) Josh Groban followed, helming a contingency of pleasantly washed-up entertainment industry veterans: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Hamill, Josh Gad, and Sean Astin, the latter of whom shared a charming story about the power of nontoxic men’s groups. Threaded between them were the likes of J.B. Pritzker and Tim Walz—two progressive, vanilla-pale Midwestern governors—who saluted men who look exactly like them.

“When I’m invited to an event called White Dudes for Harris … it doesn’t sound like something I’d usually join, but this is a great cause,” said Pritzker, in one of the more honest moments of the evening.

In total, White Dudes for Harris raked in $4 million, aided by a couple of matching bids from liberal billionaires. (Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, chipped in $50,000.) Rocketto was a game host, dutifully hawking the donate button and a small collection of White Dudes for Harris merchandise, including a white hat emblazoned with the organization’s name, which certainly seemed like a counterpunch to Trump fashion. But given its earnestness and adversarial framing—it’s rare and slightly galling to see the words WHITE DUDES up in lights in 2024—I was not surprised that a slew of prominent right-wing voices had lustfully roasted the initiative when it was first announced. Donald Trump Jr. dusted off old faithful by saying the initiative should be instead called “Cucks for Kamala,” while alpha-wave Gamergater and notorious alt-right grifter Ian Miles Cheong seemed wildly perplexed that Jeff Bridges votes Democrat. (A completely baffling misunderstanding—in absolutely no ways does Jeff f*cking Bridges resemble a Trump guy.) It also received some lighthearted blowback from less partisan sources, who found humor in the idea that white guys, of all people, are suddenly seeing themselves as the avatars of progressive success. “Everybody in the white dudes for harris zoom just naming baseball players they remember,” joked writer Ben Rosen on X.

In some respects, I understand why those folks are sensing weakness here. There is something definitively Hillary 2016–ish about White Dudes for Harris, with its emphasis on identity-based unity over clearly articulated transformational policy. Trump has soundly defeated this strategy before, and given how close the polls are, it’s possible he will do it again. The MAGA confidence is not completely unfounded.

But I tell you, man, something smells different this time around. You can sense it when you close your eyes. The Harris campaign has been around for little more than a week, and thus far it’s been singularly energized by this psychedelic co*cktail of irony and enthusiasm—fermented during the past year and a half, when a second Trump term has loomed like an inevitability and our incumbent has been visibly turning to dust. It has left me, someone who is typically unenthused by my electoral options, utterly enthralled with the potential to deliver a mortal wound to this disgraceful chapter in American politics.

Yes, Harris is younger and fresher compared with the ossified gerontocracy, and there is evidence that she might be quicker to embrace some progressive causes faster than her predecessor. But frankly, for as much as the election of the first Black woman to the Oval Office is a historic beginning, it could also represent an immensely satisfying end. Or at least a diminishment of this era of the Republican Party, which ran more and more on policy platformsthat truly appeal only to freaks, weirdos, and Christian nationalists. In other words, I have never felt more like a dorky, majoritarian, mainstream liberal, totally susceptible to becoming inspired by Lance Bass speaking on a Zoom call to his fellow white dudes. And friends, it feels great.

Is this what it’s like to be a part of a movement? One of the more interesting aspects about the White Dudes for Harris stream was how all the speakers resisted the desire to scold or lecture the assembled Caucasians about the many, many world-historic crimes they have unleashed upon the face of the earth. The tone was positive and empathetic, confident that white men are capable of goodness—a departure, I think, from the hectoring morality that would go on to doom the momentum of Clinton’s 2016 campaign. The opportunity to extinguish MAGAdom is so enticing that it has purged one of the most self-sabotaging inclinations in the American liberal’s coalition: the fractious adjudication of identity that can too often become a priority over winning elections. The White Dudes for Harris cause grows stronger every day. We are cringe, but we are free.

Correction, July 31, 2024: This piece originally misstated that the White Dudes for Harris stream was Tuesday night.