Jack Schlossberg has a confession: He thinks Donald Trump did one thing proper.
At Fortune‘s CEO Initiative dinner in New York, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy — and now a Democratic congressional candidate working in Manhattan’s twelfth District — sat down with Fortune editor Diane Brady for a candid, wide-ranging dialog that was as a lot prognosis as marketing campaign pitch. The decision from the 32-year-old: Democrats have a major problem with younger males, they usually introduced it on themselves.
Schlossberg’s first query was to seek out a difficulty on which he and President Trump agreed. “I disagree with President Trump loads,” he instantly supplied, earlier than saying he provides Trump credit score for “getting folks fired up about politics.” Trump “poached” most of the younger males away from the Democratic Celebration, Schlossberg continued, urging his personal occasion to look carefully at how and why this occurred.
“I believe that they’re not silly, these younger males, and I give President Trump plenty of credit score for having the ability to affect new assembly environments and make politics accessible.”
It’s a putting admission from a person who spent 2024 making viral social media movies for the Biden marketing campaign — till he stop, that’s. “I went all the way down to Wilmington,” he defined, solely to listen to “no” time and again. “Anyway, lengthy story quick, I stop the marketing campaign as a result of I assumed if I don’t do that my means, I’m not going to have the ability to dwell with myself. A month later, I bought a name from the marketing campaign being like, ‘Hey, are you able to come again and make movies for us?’”
Schlossberg, who holds levels from Yale Regulation and Harvard Enterprise Faculty, has constructed an unlikely second id as a progressive content material creator, deploying deadpan humor to succeed in an viewers the Democratic Celebration has persistently fumbled. He informed Brady that he thinks his use of humor and sense of the surprising has been an efficient automobile for conveying info, and he argued that viral social media posts truly comprise plenty of info. It’s misguided to suppose viral content material is shallow or mild.
With the Democratic Celebration at an all-time low in recognition, Schlossberg mentioned it will probably’t be all the way down to dropping their means on coverage, however reasonably not reaching younger voters. “Folks aren’t searching for a superhero … They only need somebody who is aware of learn how to communicate their language, meet them the place they’re, and provides them one thing of worth.”
And he has a transparent principle: “The Republican Celebration has embraced modernity in a means that the Democratic Celebration used to personal,” he informed the room of CEOs. “Whether or not it’s area, whether or not it’s the AI race, crypto, investing in new applied sciences — the Democratic Celebration has been means anti-everything, and anti-business specifically. Anti-modernity. Trump has flipped the script.”
That framing — Democrats because the occasion of “no” — is the sharpest arrow in Schlossberg’s quiver. He doesn’t consider the occasion misplaced its means on coverage a lot because it misplaced the plot on storytelling and cultural relevance. “I don’t suppose that’s as a result of we swiftly misplaced our means on coverage,” he mentioned. “I believe we’ve primarily been out when it comes to reaching younger folks and telling them a narrative about what we’re for, not simply being a reactionary occasion.”
The Democratic Celebration’s shift since JFK
What would his grandfather make of all this? Schlossberg described a way of disappointment within the present panorama and a need to, properly, make the Democratic Celebration nice once more.
“I really feel actually pleased with being a Democrat,” he mentioned, “and that’s as a result of I affiliate Democrat not with what it’s as we speak, however what it was up to now.” He defined that Democrats used to embrace maternity, science, and new media channels, a celebration that was pro-affordable healthcare, pro-immigration, pro-education. He additionally talked about “duty” and “braveness” from political leaders to inform voters what they should hear, not one thing false and dangerous. That is the hazard of Trumpism, he argued.
“Whether or not you assist the president or not, I believe he succeeds when folks can’t actually consider in something the federal government is saying. We are able to’t even essentially consider what he says on a given foundation.” Schlossberg added that he doesn’t suppose Trump is flawed about every part, “that’s too simplistic a view.” However he mentioned Trump is failing to present Individuals confidence within the authorities. “He’s not giving us confidence in our skill to resolve the issues of the long run, and I believe we actually have too many issues that we’re not being attentive to proper now that we have to clear up.”
His marketing campaign slogan — “Imagine in One thing Once more” — is a deliberate callback to that misplaced Kennedy-era confidence. He acknowledged it’s “a bit tacky,” however insisted it captures precisely what this political second calls for: not a superhero, however a pacesetter who meets folks the place they’re and provides them one thing of real worth. “Younger persons are not a monolith,” he mentioned. “And younger persons are actually sensible. They will most likely actually inform authenticity from somebody who’s not telling the reality.”
Schlossberg is working in one of many bluest, most compressed districts within the nation — Manhattan’s twelfth, stretching from 96th Avenue all the way down to 14th — so his path to Congress runs by way of a Democratic major, not a basic election battle in opposition to Trump voters. However his argument, delivered over dinner to a room filled with company executives, is clearly geared toward a broader viewers: the Democratic Celebration, which, except it rediscovers its urge for food for modernity and braveness, dangers dropping a complete technology of younger males for good.
