Evan X. Merz

My wife went into labor on a Wednesday afternoon. When I found out about it at 3pm, I immediately left work to pick up our daughter from daycare. I was working in the videogame industry at the time, which is incredibly abusive to its captive labor market of young gamers. The head of that now-defunct games company insisted we all work ten hour days, so I had only worked from 7am to 3pm that day. After the birth of my second child, I took two vacation days on Thursday and Friday.

ASIDE: I might have been eligible for some paternity leave under some laws, even at a small company, but the company didn't offer me anything or give me a mechanism for applying for paternity leave, so I was totally unaware of that possibility, and there was a lot of social pressure against taking any leave at all.

When I returned to work on Monday, my boss called me into his office (when he finally arrived at 10am). He had a new contract on his desk that he wanted me to sign. He told me directly that "since I was missing so much time" it was only fair that I was moved from salaried pay to hourly pay. Essentially he wanted to lower my pay because I took two days off for the birth of my child.

Obviously I didn't sign the contract and I immediately began looking for another job. I found one quickly, and moved to a new company, but this wasn't a blessing either. I then had a newborn baby, a toddler, and a brand new job all at the same time.

I was sleeping 45 to 90 minutes every night. For the first week of the new job I had the flu, and it was obvious. But I had no sick time accrued, so I had to work.

I didn't get much more sleep for the next two or three years. My partner refused to let the kids cry it out, so they never learned to self soothe. She had maternity leave, of course, but I didn't get anything from the startups I was working for at the time. So I had to go to work sick and sleep deprived for years.

It was awful.

One Monday I came into the office bleary eyed and groggy. My head was sore, my sinuses were swollen and I was exhausted on every level. I went to get coffee and ran into a coworker who we will call Sam. We only had a very brief conversation. It went something like this.

Me: How was your weekend?

Sam: Pretty good. I mostly just played videogames and hung out.

Me: That sounds nice.

Sam: How was your weekend?

Me: Oh I barely got any sleep or rest. I wish I had some paternity leave.

And that was pretty much it. There might have been an additional sentence or two, but it was the type of standard, perfunctory conversation that is commonly experienced on a Monday morning at work.

The next day when I sat down at the company's shared lunch table I was absolutely blind-sided by the conversation. I was so stunned by the conversation that I can't recall the exact words that were exchanged.

As I was sitting down, Sam brought up our conversation from the prior morning. Sam told the entire workforce that I was a men's rights activist and a member of the alt right. I think Sam intended it as kind of a funny conversation starter, but before I unpacked my lunch the word "neo-nazi" was said about me by one of my coworkers.

I remember sitting there in a daze with words flying around me that I didn't have enough time to ingest let alone respond to. Everyone was talking about my politics without caring about my perspective or the complexity of the issues involved.

Before I knew what was happening, everyone was looking at me, expecting me to defend myself against the accusation that... because I thought men deserved time off when their kids were born, I must be a men's rights activist, which made me alt-right, which in turn made me a neo-nazi.

Now at that point I had only lived in California for around six years. We moved out here from Pennsylvania for school and work, but we stayed because we liked the liberal milieu. We liked the liberal politics, and the diverse neighborhoods. We wanted to raise our children in a place that cared more about parks than about professional sports.

I myself was a committed liberal. I phone banked for Obama, donated hugely to the Democrats, walked in multiple pride parades, and campaigned for clean energy.

So this was a shocking, and offensive turn of events. It has prevented me from speaking about politics in public for a decade because I was scared of losing my job or derailing my career.

In fact I've never publicly written about this experience under my own name. It was a really difficult time for me, and whenever I bring up the issues that have impacted my life, I get a similar response to the one I got at work that day. People tell me that, as a straight white man, talking about the issues I face is somehow wrong or hateful, and they make the conversation about their own group.

I'm talking about this now because I'm still, somehow, a committed liberal. I know that climate change is the most important issue facing our country and our species. Since the Republicans are a wholly owned subsidiary of the obsolete fossil fuel industry, I can't possibly vote for them.

But the Democrats are busy trying to lose the upcoming election anyway.

They've searched for reasons why men are shifting right and they've come up with all the usual nonsense that avoids any actual introspection. I've read dozens of op-eds in major newspapers that treat men as inherently problematic, and explain how misogyny and toxic masculinity are the problems. They blame the "manosphere", which is slang for the convenient scapegoats of the media and men themselves. They blame messaging and suggest that going on the podcasts that men listen to will somehow turn things around. And Pete Buttigieg grew a beard, which is apparently okay now.

Democrats will do anything except acknowledge that men are just a typical constituency who want policy that improves their lives. Men are facing huge gaps in education, healthcare, parental rights, job access, and more. There are dozens of ways that Democrats could support policy that would help men.

So let's take a quick look at the California Democrat platform as of October 14th, 2026. It's less than a month until the election, and the Democrats have been trying to court men. I'm curious about what they've put in the platform to help men...

Wow, there are a whopping 23 subheadings on this platform! The Democrats clearly care about a wide range of people, issues, and constituencies. There's a subheading for Children and Families. There's one for Seniors. There are subheadings for Women, Young Adults, Immigration, and whatever "Rural" is.

But there's one constituency that doesn't appear a single time on this platform. If you guessed men, then don't tear a ligament trying to pat yourself on the back. After decades hearing nothing but negativity about men from the left, we know there's no spot for us there. I didn't seriously think there would be.

For Democrats to acknowledge that men are just regular voters is impossible. The Democrats would rather believe that men are motivated by misogyny or the scary manosphere or whatever other boogeyman they invent. They want to continue throwing around gender based stereotypes like tech bro, gym bro, incel, performative male, or some other word salad.

Because if they acknowledge that men are just normal voters who, like any other constituency, just want a government that represents their interests, then it flies in the face of two decades of Democrat rhetoric about toxic masculinity, male privilege, and misogyny. For them to treat us like regular people is to acknowledge the abuse and hate that they have supported for years.

Some people expect a blue wave in 2026.

It's hard for me to believe that Trump and the Republicans can continue winning when they do nothing but destroy the economy and the environment.

But it's a month before the election, and the California Democrat platform doesn't use the word "men" even once.

NOTE: Brothers, you are entitled to eight weeks of paternity leave in California. Don't let your employers mistreat you like I did just because of social pressure.