No Reset Button

Republicans and their budget bill mock millions of men just trying to survive.

“Thirty-five-year-olds sitting at home playing video games, they’re gonna now have to go get a job — and by the way, that’s a good thing for them. Their mom doesn’t want them sitting in the basement playing video games anyway.”

That was the message from Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — delivered with a smug grin, backed by the chuckles of the Republican peanut gallery — as they prepared to rip health care away from over 17 million Americans.

He wasn’t just mocking hypothetical “lazy” young men. He was mocking the real ones. Working-class men struggling with mental health, addiction, underemployment, or caretaking responsibilities — many of whom voted for Scalise and his party in the 2024 election believing they’d be lifted out of that basement, not shoved deeper into it.

But that’s the tell.

Scalise wasn’t offering a solution. He was revealing something deeper, the cruelty that undergirds the entire MAGA worldview. A worldview where suffering is a punchline. Where helping the vulnerable is weakness. Where public programs are just obstacles in the way of tax cuts for the wealthy. And as the country braces for the fallout of Trump’s “Big Bullshit Bill,” a sweeping assault on working-class protections disguised as reform, Scalise’s sneer couldn’t come at a more telling moment.

The CFB ’26 / Madden Releases

Here’s the irony: while Steve Scalise mocked “35-year-olds in the basement playing video games,” two of the most anticipated and highest-grossing games of the year are about to drop.

EA Sports College Football 26 lands July 10, 2025. Madden 26 follows August 14.

These aren’t just games. They’re rituals. Identity-shaping cultural events.

For millions of young men, especially those struggling to find stability in a rigged economy, Dynasty Mode and Franchise Mode aren’t distractions. They’re the last places where control still feels possible.

You take over a team. Build and mold a future. Rewrite the odds. You can turn a no-name quarterback into a legend. You win — because in real life, the rules feel rigged.

And who plays these games? Not just the caricature that Rep. Scalise threw out on the House floor. Many are working-class husbands and fathers. Some are disabled. Some are veterans. Some are caretakers of family members. All of them are human beings.

The basement isn’t some punchline. It’s a refuge. A final outpost of agency in a country that keeps cutting off the opportunity ladder.

A Broken Play

In Madden, if things start falling apart in the middle of a game, you can force quit and reset the game. You can bail on your opponent if a play breaks down. In real life, after HR 1 just passed — there’s no reset button. Republicans are going to have to own this legislation no matter how much they spin it.

This so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” isn’t about discipline, or personal responsibility, or securing a better future for young men across the country. It’s about institutional cruelty repackaged as reform, a targeted dismantling of the systems that barely hold together the poor and working-class from falling out.

Consider what Republicans just voted to gut:

• Medicaid: Stripping health care from over 17 million Americans, many of them men dealing with disability, chronic illness, trauma, or precarious work.

• Job Corps: One of the last viable workforce pipelines for young men in underserved communities, gutted in the name of keeping the wealthy fat and happy.

• Housing support: Adding new work requirements to HUD rental aid and proposing a 50 percent funding slash of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. For millions already on the brink, that means fewer resources, more hoops, and more people in basements — not by choice, but by economic necessity.

Scalise’s comment wasn’t just an insult to everyday Americans. It was an indictment on the worldview of the Republican Party. One that blames the person who is suffering instead of the policy that is keeping them there. Conservative men laughing and shaming people who are suffering and then following the same old playbook: Shame the symptom. Ignore the cause. Mock the collapse.

The disconnect is staggering. Because most of these men aren’t “doing nothing.”

They’re surviving.

They’re caregiving.

They’re healing from trauma.

They’re working multiple jobs with no benefits and no backup plan.

But the system and the MAGA worldview don’t reward that. They ridicule it. And the game? It’s rigged to keep the powerful on top, and everyone else stuck in the basement.

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Adjusting the Playbook

The young men mocked by Scalise aren’t rallying around the Republican Party. Many are quietly backing away, especially as the podcasters and thought leaders they follow like Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz, and Theo Von become disillusioned with what they are seeing from the administration. Young men are feeling disillusioned. Unrepresented.

They’re seeing Trump’s second term turn out to be less rebellion and more rerun.

These men aren’t looking for a savior — but they are paying attention. And in the coming weeks, millions of them will be logging into CFB 26 and Madden 26 on PS5, Xbox, and PC.

This isn’t trivial. It’s infrastructure.

We’ve said it before: meet young men where they are. For many, these games are where they still feel agency. The ability to build something. Win something. Control something. That’s emotional real estate — and this summer, it’s wide open.

So show up. Not to pitch policy, but to understand.

• Twitch and Discord soft engagements during launch weeks — these are spaces where trusted voices show up, not to message, but to listen. (Learn what “chat” means).

• Creative ad work that invokes gaming culture with metaphors, not boring policy points. “We’re in a rebuild and we need your help funding the roster…”

• Veteran and Pro Athlete outreach campaigns embedded in Call of Duty, Madden, and 2k ecosystems.

This isn’t about gaming. It’s about building trust. About presence. And it’s about acknowledging that not all connections are civic, that all civic trust starts with a connection. If Democrats and civic leaders want to rebuild their base, they need to treat these young men not as punchlines or problems, but as people worth showing up for.

The Fourth Quarter: Reframing Dignity

A lot of the men that Rep. Scalise mocked?

They’ve served this country.

They’re raising kids.

They’re caring for sick parents.

They’re working multiple jobs with no health insurance, no time off, and no upward mobility.

They don’t play video games because they’re lazy. They play them because it’s the one escape and the one place left where any form of progress feels real. In Dynasty Mode, you can escape and live your former athletic dreams out for a couple hours to drown out the stress of your rent being due (that’s twice what it should be.) In Franchise Mode, you can rewrite the story of an avatar because in real life, the American Dream doesn’t allow that anymore.

Republicans just made that future even harder to reach, all while mocking the people they made it harder for. As we move past the passage of the budget bill and look toward the midterms, this is the moment to flip the playing field. Not with hollow slogans, but with a shift in posture.

Democrats can meet young men on their own turf and greet them with respect over ridicule. Presence over performative talking points. And messaging that doesn’t treat them as a problem to solve — but as people who’ve been failed and deserve better. Because if you want to rebuild the roster of your voting base, you have to start by showing up to practice.

Evan Fields is a veteran who writes the News from Underground Substack and the upcoming Lincoln Square newsletter, Fourth & Democracy.