The comments here on this Lemmy post can serve as a perfect demonstration for the reason behind men turning right-wing. Any comment trying to point out some specific aspect of life where men are experiencing more hardships is immediately shut off and getting told these experiences and concerns are invalid.
There is a limit to how much “fuck you” one can hear before going “well, fuck you too”.
There’s an art to diplomacy, and sometimes it involves omitting truths or carefully framing it, even when dealing with awful people, and compromising or postponing grand strategic goals for short-term gains.
I feel like many young men are being alienated by people pissed off with the status quo that fail at or refuse to engage with them diplomatically. I get it, I don’t want to compromise or negotiate on basic human rights and dignity either. I don’t want to wait for things to get better. I don’t want to coddle the sensitive pride of chauvinistic dickheads.
But reactionary grift thrives on the (negative) reaction to being told your way of life, your habits, your norms are bad and wrong, and particularly to the (exaggerated) impression that you are bad and wrong for reasons beyond you control (like being born with a dick) or that you are irrelevant.
We need to find a way to communicate issues more diplomatically and include these men in the conversation and solution rather than making them “the other”.
And we also need to reign in the hardcore misandrists who genuinely do want to turn this into us vs. them.
we know how do it. bernie sanders, aoc, and mandani show us the way.
the issue is their ‘way’ is wholesome and isn’t based on self-righteous rage and self-importance, so people don’t like it and it freaks them out. the issue is so many people use politics as nothing more than a drug to fuel their self righteous superiority complex, where they are ‘right’ and everyone else is ‘wrong’ based purely on the beliefs, not any objective reality or facts.
the issue is their ‘way’ is wholesome and isn’t based on self-righteous rage and self-importance,
No they are very few, we need more of them on community levels, and before you jump “be one then” I would have surely tried if I had resources.
no dude. i have tried myself. it’s pointless because the delusional psychopaths will push you out. they can’t stand anyone who doesn’t agree with them and then will character assassinate you, lie, and spread rumors and hateful things behind your back. for them social solidarity and control takes precedent over truth and justice, because truth and justice derives from belonging to the group, not from an external objective reality.
because to them there is no wrong-doing for a just cause. violence and even murder is justified as long as it’s towards the non-believers.
Thanks for putting it in words, people from the left at core want to help but they attack anyone who is in close proximity to them and appear to be the part of the statues queue, like " if not privileged why privileged shaped"
The whole situation becomes like:
“hi, I have problems with my job…”
“But you are a man, you are working for a multi-billion dollar company founded by men, who are part of oppression and putting the world in a dangerous place…”
“But I am a server at McDonald…”
“Is anything factually wrong with what I said… No right, see you are part of the problem”
The above example is over simplification but that’s how many of the conversations have felt when I tried to explain my position.
the issue is people need an enemy. the left pretends it doesn’t ‘other’ people because that’s against it’s values… but they do. they just other what is perceived as the dominant sex/ethnicity because that’s punching up, but the issue is they lump in everyone when the demo they should target is really quite small. they go on and on on about incels, but incels are not a significant population anymore tham femcels or radicals are.
and they should get courting the average office worker and mcdonalds worker. they used to. bernie and mandani do, but for some reason they have brainwashed themselves that the average white guy is the problem with society… turning him into some evil boogeyman that must be eliminated/converted and if not eternally punished.
and while they go on and on about incels being evil they just genrealied to all men and of course… alienate men. nobody wants to hear how awful and shitty they are when they have done nothing awful and shitty. men are guilty by default in the eyes of the left, very similar to how the right wing seeks women as guilty by default.
Honestly, I am not sure how we can deal with that “enemy” thing, As of now, distancing from the online communities is one of the few measures one can take. But even on that I am not sure how much it works.
What you’re describing is exactly how these echo chambers naturally form.
You’ll have a group of active people that share a set of beliefs and anybody who doesn’t share all of those beliefs is treated as an enemy and bullied. Name calling, downvote brigading, strawmanning their position, etc. until that person leaves and the community is just a bit more of an echo chamber.
This happens in video game communities and in social justice communities. One thing that everyone has in common is that as soon as someone is identified as an enemy then there is little that you can do to them that is immoral.
I thought of sharing my experience but people here were already shouting “you are lying or exaggerating” to anybody who shared their experience opposing the narrative, So I didn’t bother, I reach out to some communities when I feel down or hopeless but don’t expect any support,I know I am not entitled to help but gaslighting that your suffering doesn’t matter or are not real sometime hurts, I’m just trying to find ways to deal with them alone.
i shared my experiences. nothing but insults and abuse were thrown at me.
if anything bad happens to a man its’ because we deserve it for not being leftist enough, apparently. oh and even if you are leftist, and you are critical of leftistm or sympathic to non-leftists… well then you deserve to suffer and be in pain until you are ‘reeducated’ to the proper way of thinking where you are a true believer and never critical of any leftist talking point or belief…2
it’s just all masked misandry where their rage at the social elites is projected onto working class and younger people, as if men suddenyl voting democrat is going to radically change our society… it won’t.
oh and even if you are leftist, and you are critical of leftistm or sympathic to non-leftists… well then you deserve to suffer and be in pain.
I have experienced this one too, and it’s disheartening.
it’s just all masked misandry where their rage at the social elites is projected onto the working class and younger people.
I mean I kind of get it, social elites are so well protected and out of reach that angst people attack anybody who appears like them in their closest proximity.
Anyway chin up we still have much more individual control over life than we think, Socializing is hard even more in developed countries and I don’t know your background to suggest that, but try therapy or counseling if not financially troubled, try finding some sports or gym community too it helps, don’t be hopeless there are still some people who are helpful and not hostile with misdirect anger. cheers!
I mean I kind of get it, social elites are so well protected and out of reach that angst people attack anybody who appears like them in their closest proximity.
yeah man. that is the real rub. much easier to attack the average guy working to get buy and blame him for child-rape or something, than go after the social elites who actively do rape children.
it’s so self-defeating. and why the left is so bad at coherent organizing and shit at social issues. the left does much better when it focuses on economics, but economics doesn’t morally outrage people as much as does rooting out the ‘wrong’ people from their political tent.
socializing is easy as long as you avoid leftist idiots who spend all their time being hateful bigots who are shouting about how it’s the right a that is hateful bigots.
social elites who actively do rape children.
One even became the president.
socializing is easy as long as you avoid leftist idiots who spend all their time being hateful bigots who are shouting about how it’s the right a that is hateful bigots.
I would not encourage that charged approach, I know some are very dismissive but yet that attitude will have net negative output.
I’m interested in my own happiness. Not making myself miserable for the sake of other people who choose to be miserable hateful bigots and take deep pride and joy in doing so.
Sure is weird how none of my boys have issues dating and maintaining relationships.
It’s almost like these right-wing “children” were raised poorly, and by the same people that scream and cry when they hear the phrase “it takes a village”.
Noting is a good excuse for being a fascist.
I cant find any stats to suggest there is any difference in the relationship status of right wing men vs left and its not a good idea rhetorically to punch down on men struggling to date.
Thank you for proving his point
His point is shit. If they are on the right wing they naturally dont find women who are interested in them. The only one to blame is themselves but since right wingers are incapable of this they blame everyone else.
If this was some one off case yes, I would agree with you. But since the sample is big enough that it affects statistical data for a very broad segment of the population, I think he might have a point. Or let’s keep the head in the sand, and then cry about why Trump is going to win every next election.
You also provided only empirical evidence (mine are fine therefore it’s everyone else fault). Not the best kind of proof.
Here is a video that highlights some of the problems. It’s two years old and still relevant: https://youtu.be/rQv8VuLpKN4
Men have real problems that don’t get talked about, sure. That’s not an excuse for being a fascist, because nothing would be
No one has mentioned anything yet what the right offers to help men as a solution. They only said going right as a ‘fuck you too’ threat towards the left.
You have a choice. Be the change or make threats.
If you got a flat tire you can pull over to the side of the road and either:
1: repair it
or
2: punch a hole into the rest of the tires and bitterly yell at all the other cars for having working tires.
If the second was your choice, you can’t pretend for a moment you got involved legitimately to fix a tire. It is a choice. It is your choice. Not everyone else. Not the left. Yours.
The right offers community for men and a traditional pathway to life milestones that are a core part of happiness for men. This pathway of work hard, go to church, meet a women from church, have kids is very appealing for a lot of men.
They offer structure, discipline and motivation for young men to better themselves.
There is more but these are core I think.
yep. for some reason the left thinks men wanting these things is evil and wrong. it’s bizarre. but if a woman wants those things they are 100% on board. tons of comments in here shitting on men for wanting stability, family and community.
right thinks men are people and offers them what people want. left doesn’t’ see men as people, it seems them as monsters of entitlement who deserve nothing and should have zero complaints because they are ‘privileged’.
right thinks men are people
I’d disagree here and say that the right see men as ‘useful’ and play off that.
And take any chance you get to troll online to threaten hostility to the left. That is after all why you’re here in this thread on this topic. It isn’t offering much in the way of dealing with feelings and handling challenges of life.
The whole thing hinges on a fragile balance on a very specific mindset that isn’t sustainable without following a very specific path.
Easy to melt a snowflake under that kind of pressure.
And throwing away homosexual men. Their safety isn’t even considered in your one little check box box when they face some of the biggest challenges among men.
Not really convincing me that men’s health is the forefront of your interest here.
Fuck off. I’m not trolling or “threatening hostility to the left”. I offered my perspective on what attracts people to right wing ideo
they listen and acknowledge their problems. instead of telling men to shut up and fuck off and die.
the fact you think the left having to acknowledge men as legitimate human beings who suffer is sacriled5igous is precisely the problem. the right treats them like people, and isn’t ‘ashamed’ to ask for their support
So you think joining in threads just to rub threats in faces is the help men need. You’ve chosen Poking holes in all the tires and yell. That was your choice. The left didn’t make you this. You chose this.
Man, thats some high quality projection right there.
I hope you’re getting paid well, because holy hell to be able to say that shit with a straight face is almost impressive.
Nah dude, i am just not an ideologue. I don’t view politics as one side good, other side bad. I don’t treat politics as if it’s religion where we must shun and kill the non-believers.
And sadly that is a perspective so called ‘open minded tolerant’ leftists cannot abide. the possibility that maybe they are just as wrong and stupid as the people they hate because their politics is governed by belief and tribalism above all else. and how totally alienating that is the average person goes right over their heads, because they are true believers who think belief it and of itself justified all their shitty actions and words towards non-believers.
"Im totally not an idealogue, I’m totally open minded, thats why I can safely say that liberals are evilbad and republicans are flawless and love and respect everyone equally, despite 15 mount everests of facts and proof showing otherwise. Also its totally the democrats that want to kill non-believers, its totally not my pure, loving republican party that wants to do that. "
i never said any of that, but i’m glad you can’t take any criticsm of the leftism without devolving it into good vs evil. which is precisely why young men are anti-left. they don’t want to be told how evil they are. nobody does.
Yeah, Thats why young people are anti-left.
It has nothing to do with the fact that there are entire youtube and facebook groups engineered for and dedicated to funneling the vulneralbe into the right wing hate machine, and how every one of them has family members concerned and saying they changed and became so hateful after starting to listen to whatever right wing predator dejure they picked up.
No no, its the evil left, for being super evil with their calling out republican nonsense, propaganda, and lies.
Truly, Republicans are the greatest, most oppressed victims on earth. Even Jesus weeps for the unfair cruelty of their plight.
Look at you. You’re blaming an entity for ‘abandoning’ you.
You know who doesn’t sit around being bitter and live in fragile worry about being abandoned?
People who actually reach out and deal with their mental health and take some ownership over it.
Doesn’t sound like the right are helping you. Sounds like they are Just feeding you a victimhood complex.
i don’t support the right or the left. they are both largely ignorant ideologies that most get off on opposing each other than caring about real people and real problems.
you realize that is a possibility, i hope. i’m a big gay weirdo who thinks everyone has the right to be happy and secure, no matter their beliefs or identity. i dont’ regard happiness and security to be awarded to people based on their political beliefs.
Trollollolloloooloo
Nice profile.
as anyone who has ever done any amount of volunteer work can confirm…you can’t help someone who doesn’t even think they have a problem, all you can do is try your best to inoculate yourself to their bullshit
it’s basically ‘if men don’t believe in left wing causes then fuck them’ and then they are like ‘why don’t men support us’.
the irony is totally lost on these douchebags who think anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe is wrong/bad/evil/deserves to suffer. then some rant about how pathetic anyone who isn’t as enlightened as they are deserves to suffer. it’s simple pure arrogance and cruelty.
deleted by creator
I mean I’m on the left and even I’m getting tired of hearing how all men are trash, which seems to be the only message about men I hear. Young men are only being courted by the right, and the left doesn’t seem to care or even seems proud about it.
Young boys are exposed to near constant right wing internet programming and are increasingly attacking girls in school, verbally and physically, starting as early as elementary school.
Combine that with largely apathetic and inattentive parents + very few male teachers and school is becoming an absolute nightmare for everybody
This essentially reflects the rise in incel school shooters except these young men just grow up to become bitter right wing misogynistic bigots instead. They have nowhere to go but right
the incel thing is such a self fulfilling prophecy - they embrace it then can’t imagine why women recoil from them. so they further radicalize.
nice job conservatives, you really fucked up an entire generation
its a negative feedback loop. J peterson, and joe roegan, shapiro achieve that by negative reinforcement.
yep. I feel bad in some ways for the male youth population, they’re surrounded by these opposing views and it’s hard to separate the signal from the noise. when I was a kid, it was rush, he was obviously a conservative loon and that was that.
fuentes, groypers, incels, chan boards etc., phew… a harsh env to grow up in
it isnt by accident, since russia/gop needs to shore up thier numbers in order to be voted in power. thats why they have such a large propaganda apparatus. Youtube is another one people seem to miss.
valid, and, run the country into the ditch hard enough and you don’t even need to keep investing in propaganda…
I like how the maga women are leaving their maga husbands even in White House it’s like yeah…just wearing an maga hat doesnt make you as alpha as you thought bro. On that note I wish Steve miller gets swallowed by his top lip one day.
we can’t expect women to stand by their man when their man is literally making the handmaidens tale a reality.
those misogynists’ may expect it, but it’s unrealistic and those women deserve support escaping their shitbags
in r/teacher sub, the hs students are doing that, specificaly the male students have become more disrespectful towards female teachers.
I have had my share of struggles and hardship, definitely not the worst anyone’s had it, but enough to empathize I think. I lived in a camper for 5 years, was lucky to have that tbh. Shit jobs, shit pay, no respect. I live in the boonies so I work with all these guys. I’m a white straight guy too, so I pass, and I get to sit with them while they share their terrible opinions.
I guess what I mean to say is that somehow the exact experiences that are turning these man children into hateful far right weirdos have happened to me. Somehow I went hard to the left instead. I wasn’t a “radical” before I moved out here, it’s a response to the last 10 years mostly. Was it because I was raised differently? Probably, my mother is one of the most compassionate people I’ve known, and selfishness was ‘punished’ when I was young. Was it the psychedelics? Also probably. There are lots of other experiences that I know most of these guys haven’t had that helped me be a better person, travel, volunteer work I had to do, I’m sure I am forgetting a lot. But what helps me understand also makes it more difficult to excuse. A lot of these guys have had every opportunity I have, some a lot more. It’s difficult to listen to somebody that has had a chance at promotion complain about their pay, for an analogy that comes from reality. When I also know so many other groups of people are flat denied that opportunity. They don’t have solidarity because they are selfish. I think that’s what it boils down to.
Terminate Stoned Sunday ramble/
What I’m gleaning from the worst of the posters I’ve seen and responded to on here, it’s not even the hardship so much as low self esteem from making comparisons about the hardship they are feeling and getting most hung up on.
Every one of them get hung up on their perspective someone else’s thoughts about them. It’s always about someone else who ‘hates them’. And they cannot overcome it.
they aren’t seeing this as a self esteem problem but a problem with the world for not gifting them what they are missing from themself. Self acceptance. And living in that resentment and taking it out on everyone around them. You can see it in how their first go-to is ‘to tell the left to fuck off’ as being their entire reason for going right. They don’t even lead with what they are getting on the right unless you dig more than one conversation from it. So that tells you right there how little they are willing to work on themself when you have to basically pull teeth to get it out of them that there’s supposedly any depth in their decisions to go right.
this isn’t growth. This isn’t the trait of a survivor. This is not someone who is getting their needs met. This is victimhood mentality. You see this kind of rhetoric in full blown addicts who won’t seek therapy to stop their carousel of self destruction.
These incels are their own worst enemy. Not the world. Themselves.
I’m going to guess that you are speaking well about your mother as she’s helped you gain some good tools to see your self worth and regardless of what possible mean thing another person might even say to you: that’s a reflection of themselves. Not you.
And you said it yourself: others have had it as bad or worse than you. And you can recognize this.
you’re not alone in your struggle. No one is really. In group therapies you especially see this as each person tells their story : it’s the same thing for every listener (who is working on the self) that regardless of where they come from’ , we’re all struggling. And we’re not here to compare ourselves to others.
Looking at your situation as well as any survivors of hardship: they understand that they have to make a decision every day to commit to surviving. It isn’t something given, it’s something you do for you with intention.
I’ve not yet heard anything yet that at the right are actually offering them that helps them deal with this problem. There are no tools. All there is only anger and spite towards the left and a healthy side of a ‘poor me’ attitude.
Group therapy was the best thing that has ever happened to me
did it ever occur to you other people aren’t you? that maybe other people’s issues aren’t your issues, or that it’s not about you and your struggles?
all you are saying is ‘i had bad expereinces and i turned out this sway, therefore anyone who turned out different is wrong and bad’ your post is one long circle jerk about how great you are for being a leftist and if others had bad experiences and aren’t leftists they shitty people.
and self aggrandizing yourself only to shame others is precisely the fucking problem. ‘be like me or fuck you’ isn’t how you win people over to your side.
Your comment is the most helpul unhelpful reply I’ve ever seen. The fact that you took their pondering as a clan challenge says way more about you than anything else. Now, whether you realize how insecure you are and how your reaction proves it… well I won’t hold my breath on that one.
I’m not a part of any clan dude. They objective said anyone who isn’t like them is ‘selfish’ while pontificating about how glorious their suffering was because it lead to their leftist. They are treating their politics as if it’s religion.
weird how all my right wing family are the least selfish people i know… and weird how most of my leftist friends are often self absorbed jerks who think of nobody but themselves.
lol @ “least selfish right wing family” who actively supports one way tickets to el salvador for brown people. You’re right… sounds more like a klan than a clan. My mistake.
they don’t support any of that. not all conservatives are the same.
Did it ever occur to you that the other way is objectively corrupt and immoral? It’s not even unspoken immorality anymore. It’s just plain old comic book levels of evil. We just blew up another fishing boat, because they’re brown. It is pure unabashed racist villainous behavior.
So yeah. He did say that. So what?
Ewww
The joke is on the right-wing men. Good luck finding female partners. Also, the best time to be a left leaning progressive guy.
Might want to check the dating app statistics before talking about how good men have it, regardless of political leaning. Something like 10% of men get like 90% of the attention from women. That’s part of the problem making a lot of the young men are miserable. A huge amount of them have reported as not dating, not approaching women, etc. And a lot of that is because it’s not socially acceptable to approach women in public (get called creeps) and dating apps seem like the no brainer option that uses mutual consent, but fails to address the gamification and filtering issues that result. Most women want a man that makes more than them and is at least 6 feet tall. That’s automatically eliminating a HUGE amount of men from the dating pool.
Feels like a recipe for disaster down the road.
This means that left-leaning men will raise happier families, while the incel-aligned will have their own bloodlines end in deserved extinction. 🎉
As a man I would genuinely like to thank women for holding the torch of progressivism.
I think toxic podcasts have a big influence on young men, especially those who grew up without strong father figures. My own dad wasn’t perfect (I joke a bit about it on my profile), and many of us went through that risky “2015 phase” of consuming unhealthy online content.
What many politicians and advocates on the left often overlook is that toxic masculinity isn’t solved by telling men to be “less masculine.” You can actually counter unhealthy masculinity with healthy masculinity. Instead of shaming men, we should be teaching a better version of manhood one that includes therapy, emotional intelligence, and being able to talk honestly about what’s going on inside.
As corny as it sounds there’s a reason when there’s a bad take by a misinformed feminist calling all men evil on twitter ganders a response like “This is why men turn right” and sure while that stuff doesn’t work on me anymore, It’s not 2015-2016 there’s still some vulnerable people that unfortunately fall for it, does that mean though that the feminist is wrong in her views? Not really, but I’m not talking about myself I’m talking about a lot of men that do fall for it.
Most working-class men who grind through 9–5 jobs, going from shift to shift, are worried about affordability and stability. If someone comes along and says “I’m going to make your life easier,” that’s who they’ll vote for even if it’s Trump. You can call them naïve or say the leopards ate their face or whatever , but the reality is that many of these men are desperate for change. And they’ll keep voting for whoever promises that change. When society pushes these men aside or dismisses them, some end up looking for someone to blame. That’s when you get people saying, “Women are the reason my life is hard,” or “Jews control everything.”
Of course, some people are genuinely racist or sexist, and there will always be trolls who just want attention. But why do those trolls exist in the first place? Often it’s because they feel insignificant, and attaching themselves to extreme movements gives them a sense of identity and purpose they don’t have otherwise.
One of my favorite counter-arguments (so to speak) against Toxic Masculinity being the “true” masculinity is that it’s based so much on toughing out emotions, denying them, not showing physical or emotional weakness, etc. Yet, this misses the incredible display of deep confidence and self-image that come from being able to display humility, compassion, and sadness without feeling like that’s a risk to your “manliness”.
If what defines someone as a man is based so heavily on what others think of them or code them as, they are actually saying other people control whether or not they are considered masculine/manly, which is not very Alpha Male of them.
On Parks and Recreation, Ron Swanson wins an award and teases Leslie Knope about it. She ends up saying to him, “That’s not really the attitude I’d expect from an award winner.” He responds, “Everything I do is the attitude of an award winner, because I have won an award.” I feel like this can be adjusted for anyone self-identifying as “masculine”, “feminine”, or any other such thing - “Everything I do is inherently manly, because I am a man.” (adjust as appropriate)
That last part reminds me of a 4chan (?) meme of the Chad saying that he knows that trans women are women because he’s straight so everyone that he likes is a woman.
jordan peterson, and joe roegan under putin played a big part in shoring up gop support in the usa, and then the other right wing talking heads. tate brothers is just a side benefit, which are borne out of the toxic pickup artist games.
Could you name a few books by “advocates on the left” that criticise masculinity but argue for less masculinity rather than a redefinition of masculinity?
To be honest with you I don’t know a lot, and yeah I guess that’s your point but I remember reading The will to change: men, masculinity, and love by beli hooks back in my 2015 phase and I don’t remember a lot from it, but I think it made some good points.
go look at all the OG rad fems and gender theorists of the 70s. butler, dworkin, etc.
You boys better start getting real into fucking each other
Young men are more left leaning than any generation befire them.
The good news, I guess, is that people can get better. I was one of those people who moved further right in young adulthood. I’m glad the social media and such didn’t exist then as I was not equipped to handle that by my upbringing and would have fallen right into that trap. We just had Limbaugh and Beck and the like. At some point, I pulled a 180 and, now in my mid-40s, find myself probably somewhere around center-left to left as most western European countries might define that.
Not really a coherent philosophical narrative for them to latch onto; ‘the world is fucked, they’re fucked’ is the main message they hear.
not to mention
‘nothing you do matters, so might as well just do whatever you want and fuck everyone else’
‘nothing you do matters, you can’t even hurt anyone else, so you’re actions really aren’t important’', is more of the nihilistic message.
Huh, interesting that Limbaugh and Beck had that effect on you. I feel like they weren’t as readily accessible as modern right wing talking heads. What changed for you? What made you realize things and turned it around?
I had a lot of issues growing up. Neurodivergent kid in rural Ohio in the '80s, lots of conservative people around, abusive people in my family making stuff hard for much of my young childhood, and a number of other things. I wanted the same thing anyone joining a gang wants, really. Acceptance, feeling like I belong, and feeling like I was fighting something or for something better.
I came from a place where I, very much without knowing it, was very entitled and privileged. I was kept away from others a lot as a kid (lived with my grandparents for a bit and wasn’t allowed to play with the other neighbors (who were in my class) because they were not white. Other perspectives were few and far between when and where I grew up. There are some other reasons that there were huge gaps in my critical thinking and bullshit detection (partly due to not questioning people in power and getting heavily punished when I did). I got taken advantage of a lot when I first got out on my own and had to basically do a lot of lessons that most kids/teens learned as an adult with much more dire consequences.
I felt like I was working hard and that others’ failures were because they didn’t work hard enough (and that I didn’t work hard enough when I was failing). In reality, a lot of people attribute way too much of their success to their own skill not luck and circumstance. At the same time I was thinking other people were lazy, I was also helped by some of my family through some financial hard times more than once (though I was briefly homeless another time). I came to realize, as I met more and varied people, that some of the hardest workers I knew were getting fucked over. Two jobs, caring deeply about their families, and barely able to tread water to support themselves and those that relied on them.
Contradictions between people claiming to be christians and anything that christ would have done. People thinking they were holy and great for holding some coat drive and stuff, but any tax dollars for a safety net were just terrible and those people were just going to spend it on drugs. People who kept pulling up every bit of safety because “fuck you, I’ve got mine”, for lack of a better term was just more and more visible when I looked at what was going on. Also being out on my own and working when 9/11 happened and the crazy amounts of hate and racism that followed that. I slowly started actually seeing all of these things, losing that entitlement, not othering people, and realizing things for what they were. I traveled to other places, saw other ways of life. The early internet and chatting people from around the world via IRC and the like also played a role in that.
Living as a minority in another country (I moved to Japan in my early 30s), getting randomly stopped and searched, struggling to find housing, and other things also cemented many of the other things I had already been learning. I am a deeply empathetic person, but I had always assumed that everyone was acting in good faith in a lot of situations and that merit would see me treated “properly”. That’s not the reality. The reality is that people are messy and flawed, that people are mostly good but often wary. This can manifest as racism in the guise of “protecting our culture and way of life” where those others getting stopped and searched (often in front of their communities, peers, clients, etc. who have no idea what is going on and assume the worst) was just a mild inconvenience. That experience in particular showed me exactly what white, male privilege in the US was. I could never see it clearly since I always had it.
This is a very long and rambling response. I guess the TL;DR would be seeing my own entitlement and privilege, realizing that people in power and authority often don’t get there through merit and/or hard work alone (if at all), and generally getting more experience and seeing and experiencing inequity.
My husband has said your TL;DR verbatim when we were early in dating. He got there a different way, but he said what he went through was an eye opener for him, changing him profoundly, while giving him a lot of gratitude for what he does have, and is able to do.
My teen observed …… guys are more likely to appreciate edgy, crude or offensive humor. Guys are more likely to be entertained by those assholes, even if they don’t agree with their message
Most queer folks have a darker, edgier, more offensive sense of humor than the average right-winger and they tend to skew left so I don’t think it’s the humor that’s winning them over.
I guess that’s true, but you’d also have to qualify that as being self-deprecating humor that’s clearly tongue-in-cheek, as opposed to straight-up hateful messages being passed off as humor. Like, “What up, f-slur”, “That was homophobic” for whenever something doesn’t go their way, and “Gays don’t deserve rights” for whatever silly thing they pretend to dislike. It’s all very self-aware and actually funny. The quality is on another level.
I think they mean dark humour as in “scream a racial slur as loud as possible and call it a joke.”
Reminds me of a time I was at a party and this dude is like “hey I’ve got this super funny song, wanna hear it?” Then after folks agree to hear it he thinks for a second “also it kinda has some bad words, is that okay? You’re not gonna get offended?” Then plays a song that just has a bunch of racial slurs for shock value and nothing funny or redeeming about it. I don’t think a single person laughed and I hope it was as awkward for him as it seemed like it could’ve been
its all punching down, they just dont understand the nuances
I’m reminded a lot of a discussion I read about people saying they don’t want tomvote for Dems because “Dems care too much about identity politics”, but “identity politics” just turns out to be code for “let me be transphobic”
I guess what I’m getting at is we shouldn’t let them get away with claiming that they like humor when they clearly just like bigotry. Humor takes nuance.
Being in this demographic, I don’t get this. How is right wing even an option, how do you tell yourself you’re okay with all the bullshit they’re pushing. I get if you were already right-wing, chances are you’ll stay like this, but how do you even go from ‘everyone should have rights’ to ‘maybe we should cripple ourselves, the rich deserves more’.
Shit’s wild
My honest opinion. The right pipeline is meeting boys where they are. The left needs to stop pontificating about shit and get on their level.
It’s no different than the fact that the education system as it’s been designed is easier for girls to navigate than boys. Look at post-secondary attendance by gender over time.
This is a problem that has been brewing for decades and we have done nothing to stop it and the right wing despite all their faults are actually engaging these boys where they are.
If you are a parent. Hell if you are a mother, you should be scared as shit at how your sons are checking out of society writ large.
I’m a 48 year old dude with 3 kids. My daughter will be fine. My boys on the other hand? I’m doing my best to make sure they’re adjusted and successful but it’s exceedingly hard.
The down votes on your comment are a head scratcher. No matter what you as a parent (or even young men commenting in this thread) say, that perspective is shouted down as manosphere brainwash propaganda.
It’s almost like retrograde toxic masculinity. Vulnerable young dudes trying to explain why left messaging makes them uncomfortable are being told to man up/grow up/get over it.
Vulnerable young dudes trying to explain why left messaging makes them uncomfortable are being told to man up/grow up/get over it.
it was referred to as “positive discrimination”: discrimination, but about “white (old) men”, sometimes also just white men or men in general.
some crazy feminists actually thought that was a good idea, to “hit back”; instead it just creates further problems.
anytime the left is criticized by a man, they just scream at you and insult you. they don’t value any input as to why men don’t listen to them anymore.
and if you ask the left what a man is to do… they tell you to fuck off and figure it out, or they just espouse traditional values of masculinity… but also saying how they are wrong and bad and ‘problematic’ those trad values are. the left has no positive agenda for men because it sees me as inherently bad until proven otherwise by their hypocritical values. they just want you to be a traditional man who gives your money to leftist causes, and attributes the struggles and suffering of minorities to systemic issues, but the struggles of men are never systematic. if a man is struggle it’s entire his own personal fault and what he should do is shut up and give his money to people who have it worse than he does. and what if he doesn’t have money? he’s broke and struggle? well he’s a lazy entitled piece of shit who should get a real job so he has money to give to other people.
it’s simple. the left offers young men nothing other than shame and harassment. so why would they want to deal with that? the right at least gives them a goal to strive for and actually acknowledges their problems aren’t their fault.
they are checking out of society because society offers them no reward anymore.
there is no point in be a part of it when you can’t own a home, can’t find a wife, and can’t have kids. all of that has been priced out of the market for any guy who isn’t in the top 10% of income/wealth. average men has no chance at any of that anymore. and they see that and they are attracted to the right because the right says ‘you can and should have those things’ the left says ‘you don’t deserve them’.
secondary
How come every fucking time. Every. Fucking. Time. Every time y’all talk about “men’s issues” you talk about “how difficult it is to find a wife”
Get. Your. Own. Shit. Together. First. Then you “find a wife”
And what does “finding a wife” have to do with money? How are you “priced out of” finding a wife? “Cause all women are golddiggers” or what?
And never fucking ever has the left said “you don’t deserve to start a family”
You know what, my dude? Vote MAGA. You deserve it
Tfw when someone says men’s issues, and you think they’re gonna talk about the suicide gap or education gap or being victims of non-sexual crimes at higher rates; but then they just complain about being lonely
I think you’re hitting some good points, but the thing we need to teach these boys is that they shouldn’t be looking towards society for rewards. Society’s rewards have become a gamified rat race, so the way out is men to look inward. Not gonna lie though, that’s easier said than done…
I recently wrote a post too that touches on this topic: https://philosophyofbalance.com/blog/the-emancipation-of-men/
right, let me sit around on my ass and look inwards, while my costs go up faster than my salary.
surely that will fix things.
the fact you think men need to look inwards tells me you come from a position of massive privledge and wealth. those of us who have had to struggle to pay bills, and feared being homeless don’t care about ‘looking inward’ we care about not being broke.
most young men can’t afford their bills dude. no amount of inward emotional work is going to fix that. and they are being told to fuck off for even daring to ask that maybe if they work hard the yshould be able to afford the basics of a life. a home, a family, healthcare, security and community.
and all those things are actively being denied to them by the world. college grad can’t even afford to live with roommates anymore because rents are so high and wages are so low. how is a 24 year old guy ilving at home making 35K a year supposed to feel? while the left endlessly shits on him what a loser he is for not makign 250K a year.
How is any of that exclusive to men?
Though I agree it is somewhat of a privilege to have the time and security it takes to allow for self-actualization, that’s a struggle that a lot of us have to deal with, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
How is any of that exclusive to men?
Not the other person, but my guess is that women have a lot more to immediately fear from the right and/or “gain” from liberals so it makes sense for them to stick with the center. Meanwhile men tend to place more value on their ability to (and be expected to) provide for themselves and their current or future families, so they care more about costs of living. Basically women are too busy running away from the psycho trying to kill them, while men have enough room to stop and say “doesn’t my life kinda suck.”
That still doesn’t make sense. Women still have to pay the same costs of living. We’re all in the same boat, trying to survive on the scraps the capitalists offer us.
I don’t have a magic “vagina pass” that makes my wage higher or rent more affordable. If I were running away from a psycho, I’d still have to somehow make ends meet while also dealing with hostile people. That’s where I get confused. Pride is one thing, but when your ability to live in society is hanging from a late-stage capitalist thread, pride is no longer the primary driver - survival itself is. Man, woman, non-binary, we’re all struggling in this same way.
it disproportionately affects men due to the gender stereotypes we have about men.
a woman living at home in a low wage job is not seen as a social failure. she’s seen as normal. because for most women the expectation is still that it’s men’s job to be the economic provider who brings in the majority of the income to the relationship. and men who are economically dependent on women are seen as failed people.
these are simple the facts on the ground. the primary ‘concern’ about young men is that they aren’t earning as much as their female peers, and are therefore not qualified to be good husbands. and that this is their own failing, as if every guy who isn’t making 200K a year is a loser. this is the social messaging young men constantly receive. whereas young women are often celebrated as’ strong and indepdendent’, even when they are economically depending on their famillies or a partner.
the genders are view very different and socially rewarded and punished according to often hypocritical standards. men were never liberated from traditional gender expectations, they still expected to adhere to them, while women are not. this obviously a huge social problem and it’s unfair. for a lot of men the juice is no longer worth the squeeze because no matter waht they do, they are seen as worthless and shitty unless they can break into that top economic strata, and by definition the vast majority can’t do that. thin
there are a million other things. like how schools are now organized to benefit women and not men. how parents tend to invest more time and resources in their female children and largely ignore and divest in their male children. the massive lack of male role models. all these things start adding up to major social changes and we are starting to see the consequences. and the consequences are largely that women are doing much better than men and that is seen as a social victory, while the men doing worse is seen as entirely their own personal fault, not the fact that society has systematically decided to boost women up over men for 20+ years now.
and the constantly popular feedback to all the systemtic, well documented, changes is simple ‘well men just need to go to therapy and then they ill magically all become good strong liberal men’. which is nothing more than a massive dismissal of the social issues that are affecting men, especially young men. the response from the liberal left is akin to a rich person telling a poor person to just have rich parents and all their money problems will be solved. it’s a clueless and stupid response that systematically denies there is any problem other than that boys are responsible for their own outcomes… but yet we decided 20 years ago for women they needed ‘help’.
so the question is, if we want a better outcome from young men, when are we going to help them? the right is capitalizing on this by acknowledging the issues, the left acts like the concept of helping men will destroy all social progress we’ve made with women, as if we can only help one sex at at time…
and the root of all of it is the shitty economy that everyone is in adamant denial about.
In what way is the education system easier for girls to navigate? That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
the education system changed in the 90s thanks to the no child left behind and other inisitaives that forces tons of standarized testing down kids throads. recess was cut, arts were cut, lunch was cut.
the past 30 years due to these changes women have greatly outpaced men in educational attainment because they are better suited mentally to being test takers. all the curious, impulsiveness and physical of boys is actively oppressed and dismissed, and frankly, tons of boys are not drugged into submission from as early as 6.
the diffences in edu performance start from the time they enter school.
school wasn’t like this 30-40 years ago. we changed education vastly start in the 90s/2000s and now those kids are entering college and teh workforce and we are seeing massive changes in their educations and incomes due to this.
a further reason is that male teachers have all but disappeared from the educational system apart from high school and coaching roles. there are virtually no male teachers in primary schools or middle schools anymore. further exacerbating and accelerating boys struggles and lack of role models in schools.
it goes on and on like this. we’ve basically decided to setup our school systems to be for and by women, and the obessiong with testing benefits girls over boys.
also, don’t worry, the differences in achievement between upper quartile boys and girls is not that bad. if you go to elite rich schools boys/girls are mostly treated the same and perform the same.
it’s most the bottom 3/4s of the economic ladder where this goes on. women from single parent househoulds do WAY better than boys from single parent households.
but hey, don’t let all this complicated facts and social changes get in the way or your political beliefs! let’s just explain all tehse social trends doucmented for decades away as boys are stupid incels who just need to vote for democrats and magically they will be able to get to college and get good jobs.
the past 30 years due to these changes women have greatly outpaced men in educational attainment because they are better suited mentally to being test takers. all the curious, impulsiveness and physical of boys is actively oppressed and dismissed, and frankly, tons of boys are not drugged into submission from as early as 6.
Do you have sources for this?
But WHY. Why do boys need shit like extensive art and recess and adults to model thar girls seem to just not need
Testosterone
I’m trans, I was on that shit for 20 years, and I did fine without any of that, so it can’t the only part of the equation.
On average that’s the male experience. It’s genetics. Not for every individual as you clearly understand, but population statistics are pretty telling that there are huge differences between development and behaviors.
You’ve received a tonne of responses and I’m not even sure if this has been posted by someone else already, but there’s a YouTube video called “How to Radicalize a Normie” which goes over at length exactly how the alt right gets its hooks into young people and why it’s so hard for them to break out.
I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.
Millennials are apparently the first generation to move “left” as they grow older, instead of right.
There are changes. Some positive.
Presumably meaning the percentage. Not all GenX went right, but I will admit I’ve been disappointed in seeing how many around my age did lose any semblance of critical thinking. And some of them very early, so it may not be age at all that’s a factor, but something else that affects people. Maybe millennials have managed to avoid whatever that is.
I think there is something to the “millennial’s refuse to grow up” mantra that boomers and genx accuse us of.
Like, if growing up is adopting a “fuck you i got mine” mentality… nah.
It does help that most millennials didn’t get theirs.
Zoomers didn’t either but they’re perhaps even more conservative than boomers were
Will be interesting to see if that changes when the millennial’s boomer parents die and pass on the wealth. I think it will further divide the have and have nots with the wealth concentrating in fewer hands.
As a 50 year white guy old who has never voted for a conservative, and always tries to support the most progressive candidate, let me assure you, we exist, and we are tremendously disappointed in our demographic peers.
Tiktok and the like. Millenials grew up at the perfect time, where the internet was at its peak, then it all became consolidated into large echochambers which are more easily manipulated. Generations after millenials don’t remember the internet outside of tiktok, instagram, snapchat etc. they don’t what they missed out on.
But the trend is immediately back for Zoomers. That hope dissipates 9nce you realize it’s not a new trend and Millennials being decent people is actually just weird
That article was about Australia and even then the headline didn’t support the claims. Millennials have always been like 14 points more liberal than Gen X before them, but they haven’t moved more liberal over time.
deleted by creator
people move to the right when they buy homes and have kids. elder millenials are already there. younger ones haven’t started yet.
all of my friends who have bought a home and had kids have been way more conservative. both political and personally, they want to conserve things and not change things and see development/progress as a threat to themselves, their family, and their finances.
This is the story.
It’s also survivorship bias. Wealthy people live longer, and wealthy people are more conservative. As a cohort ages, the poor liberals die off and the wealthy assholes remain.
What is it about having a kid that makes you stupid though
You stop paying attention to big things and focus on your child. “Think of the children” starts to work more because you think less about everything else.
Also women who are independent tend to be more liberal than men, but women who are dependant on their husband tend to be more conservative. Have a child, quit your job, adopt your husband’s political opinions because what’s good for him is good for you.
It’s also being annoyed and fed up with people harassing the shit out of you for being ‘rich and privileged’ when you live a pretty basic life. I paid for my own undergrad and graduate educations, lived cheap and saved up for 15 years, and finally got a house and some stability in my life.
I can’t tell you how many ‘leftists’ love ot mouth off at me now that I’m some rich privledged asshole. to them i might as well be a billionaire because if i ‘really cared about other people’ i’d let homeless drug addicts live in my spare bedroom or sell my home and give all the money to some women’s shelter. I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years, meanwhile they are living off mom and dad and trust funds and traveling abroad 3x a year and screaming about how ‘underprivledged’ they are and how anyone who has a nominally better life than them is bad/wrong and they are some heroic struggling figure because they are ‘above’ traditional employment that might actually give them a better income.
It’s the hypocracy and the irony that I can’t stand anymore. When I grew up the left was more about equality and bringing people up, now it’s about tearing everyone else down to boost whomever is the most ‘oppressed’ at the moment.
ironically when leftists focus on economics, and not identity politics social justice bullshit… they get tons of support and votes from men of all ages.
i almost never hear that from a so called liberal, you mostly had some very conservative views enough to enact a response, but saying things like a conservatives, makes you kinda wonder if you are just on the fence.
Focusing on economics is social justice. Black, indigenous, immigrant, LGBT, are all more likely to be poor. Make healthcare more affordable, raise wages, strengthen unions, and all those groups benefit.
Pretending that social justice is at odds with kitchen table economics is a psyop by the right. They want us fighting the culture war instead of making life better for the majority.
Statements like these require the burden of proof. Voting habits show otherwise.
The Boomers designed (and then aggressively defunded) the education system that these kids are being raised in, so it’s not really a huge surprise that they aren’t learning critical thinking.
Then combine that with the social media/advertising landscape that they’re constantly exposed to, and it’s really a losing battle.
Social media is an incredibly strong tool. It started off pretty nice, so we thought once the boomers died out we would be better off and for a while it was looking good, but it has quickly turned into algorithmic slop which can easily feed people propaganda without them even realising it.
One reason why so many are turning bigots, you expressed it yourself: your refusal to consider them on your same level, as intelligent and critical thinkers as you. Somehow everyone is stupid but you (and I don’t mean “you” specifically, rather everyone who approaches discourse in the same way).
Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.
If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.
If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn’t usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.
Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.
The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.
If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.
This works because you consider intelligence as something congenital, but I am of a different opinion.
It is just an opinion, I am not a sociology scholar, but at least maybe we can agree than if I turn out «intelligent» it’s thanks to the resources and attention that I have received as a child.
Take it as a joke, but let’s say: I am intelligent because my mother always read me novels in bed before sleep, and found pride in doing maths by thought. What about who didn’t receive this privilege?
I don’t intend by this to nullify the individual agency. But maybe you should be open to teach if you want others to learn. Because it would have only taken the lack of that little pushes in the right direction, and I would also be «on the other side».I wasn’t intending to draw a distinction between intelligence and ignorance. I was just using repition for emphasis.
against the horror of the alternative.
Which could also be that they are correct.
That is also horrible. The right’s view of human nature is that people are fundamentally violent, greedy, selfish and cruel. Life before governments was “and endless struggle of man against man for control of women, land, and wealth. It was nasty, brutish, and short.”
Governments provide a check on our natural impulses by centralizing power into a single authority. Capitalism harnesses greed and selfishness into mutually beneficial business deals. If you don’t work, you a deserve to starve. Big you can’t work, you live by the grace of Christian charity.
This is all nonsense of course, justifications post hoc by the powerful so of course they deserve their power. But if they are right… The mind recoils.
It can be true and people still have the freedom to create a socialist society.
Sure, under the Soviet Union, or something like it. They weren’t a the arch villains I grew up being told they were, but the USSR had a long list of flaws and broken promises.
We have more than enough evidence of exactly the opposite to dismiss this possibility. All the problems are less extreme in the countries with public healthcare and that don’t worship corporations
Wrong thread? This is about
How is right wing even an option,
Yep.
I have a graduate degree, been left/progressive my entire life. Only in the past few years have I been told, to my face, that I’m a bigoted ignorance stupid piece of shit. It’s almost as if the left has gone off the rails and basically thinks anyone who won’t vote for them should f off. And they wonder why they don’t get votes or population.
I used to be proud to be a Democrat. Ever since Clinton I’ve been ashamed and all the party has done is double down on their stupid sexist bullshit.
I remember talking about how clinton was a bad candidate and was going to lose in 2016. all i ever got in reply was ‘you’re a sexist piece of shit’. yeah, god forbid i be critical of clinton’s shity campaign, and her crappy policies that alienated huge swaths of america.
I am not based in North America, so at least here in Central Europe the public discourse is still decent.
But it hate to be judged negatively if I say that spreading stickers saying «FCK AFD» is not doing any good. Those guys get so much free advertisements…Plenty of us also criticized Clinton, we just recognized Trump was that much even worse and we’re willing to hold our nose. Because we care about getting our policies and will settle for closer to it, we aren’t going to go for whatever merely says theyll fuck over the powerful when we know the policies won’t actually hurt them.
This bias is real. Everyone thinks they’re the smart one. There also do exist huge differences in intelligence.
Being in this demographic, I don’t get this. How is right wing even an option
it’s very simple. men have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. at least that’s what they think.
My ex-friend went from disbanding a server over an accidental swastika someone posted in s video, to becoming tate-pilled somehow.
Maybe we should cripple ourselves
Naaaaah
Maybe we can become rich and dominate others
That’s what’s actually on their mind.
The entire right-wing propaganda goes as: “if you work hard and make smart choices, you’ll become rich too and will be able to exploit others for your benefit”. The rest are seen as passive doomer mob that just aren’t dedicated enough, and so end up subjugated by the alphas who pushed hard to pursue their dream (to dominate others and live a rich life on their backs).
This kind of propaganda works beautifully well on young folks who didn’t yet get to experience just how hard and unlikely it is to build a successful business or high-payed career, especially without compromising on one’s principles.
You’re making the assumption that these kids had a proper education that taught them critical thinking skills and how to spot propaganda.
I’m curious what would be the bar for proper education. Yesterday I was lectured by my fucking dentist (8years of college) on how poor people are all abusing the system and should lose all social protections. And he’s absolutely not an isolated case. Most of the engineers I manage are exhibiting similar thoughts about the jobless or immigrants. Again, at least 5 years of college. This shit is a poison. This is being relayed more and more by persons from 26 to 40 and I guess above all around. It feels like a national sport ; always shit on the one perceived below.
Just because you do a lot of it doesn’t mean it was a proper education. In the US education is all about making you ready to be useful to “The Economy”, not to train you to be more intelligent.
Belgium here but I guess it’s fair enough.
Yeah, even if someone participates in what would be considered proper education, it doesn’t guarantee they learn from it. No one is safe from propaganda, and we’re living in the worst propaganda era so far. Who do you even believe nowadays if you are incapable of thinking for yourself? And if you can think for yourself, how much can you trust yourself to not fall for fake or misleading information?
Yeah sure but then it’s not so much about « getting a proper education » anymore. Or the education system is failing us which is even worse because then what’s the way out? How can I / we steer this situation so that people suck less? Man I’m terrified my kids will end up like that.
If my dentist ever said stuff like that to me I would tell them to shut the fuck up, and just do your job taking care of my teeth. If you don’t I’ll go to another dentist.
Pretty brave, telling someone who has already admitted they are a sadist to shut the fuck up, right before they get all in your mouth with metal tools!
MANY people are just dumb. They will react and fear the way their favorite newsperson wants.
Pushing fake alpha male bullshit is my guess. See tate and the likes.
but how do you even go from ‘everyone should have rights’ to ‘maybe we should cripple ourselves, the rich deserves more’.
You compare ideal left versus bad consequences of right. They do the reverse. Both of you feel good about your choices.
Both of you don’t see that it is divide and conquer and that the positions of the parties would shift if people started voting differently to allow the elite to choose their politicians.
To overcome this, you can learn to see the strong arguments of the right and the shortcomings of the left.
Money. And acceptance. If you are loudly left wing you don’t get trust from those with the money. All the money is dedicated right wingers.
The death of the American dream is a big one. Speaking very generally, men want a better future for themselves and are willing to follow whoever promises it, while women are being specifically targeted by conservatives an don’t want anything to do with that shit. The weakness of the American left means that the average person only sees establishment centrism and far-right fascism as options.
because the left actively hates young men.
imagine yourself being a 19 year old kid:
one side is saying how shit you are and how you deserve nothing. it’s only women who are worthwhile and you should just fuck off and die.
the other side is saying ‘do this and you’ll be successful’, it sucks right now but you will get there if you try.
which one are you going to find more appealing? pretty sure you’re not going to want to hang out with people who tell you how shitty and awful you are, but the people who tell you that you have a shot at a good life.
one side is saying how shit you are and how you deserve nothing. it’s only women who are worthwhile and you should just fuck off and die.
Except this is a right-wing talking point and a misrepresentation of what left-wing ideals encompass.
the other side is saying ‘do this and you’ll be successful’, it sucks right now but you will get there if you try.
Except that’s not what they communicate, because while they offer “solutions” (mostly towards a rather suppressive and overly strict understanding of gender stereotypes) they immediately find in and shift the blame for young men’s problems towards an out-group, such as the “radical left” and LTBGQ people.
In fact, I find it’s the right that actively hates me for just being me because I don’t conform to their idea of what a man is, even though I’m a cis-hetero white male.
“Don’t try to find your own way because this is what you need to be, and everything else is degenerate and shameful.”
I know which I find more appealing.
dude i am a man. i have been a leftist man my entire life. i don’t wnat to be a part of the left anymore because it’s so pathetic and shameful to be a liberal these days. the left wants me to support them, give them my votes and money… but their political agenda does absolutely nothing to benefit me or men in general. we are told that because of historical oppression we ‘owe’ giving our work/money/time to minorities and women, that we should just endless sacrifice… that’s not how any of this works. and men are not interested in being used and abused and told me to be grateful for it.
what you fail to get is that it is a talking point… a talking point that is absolutely true. one that the left adamantly denies, but is true of the lived experience of tons of men and men are going to listen to who talks to their truth and their experience. not the left which adamantly denies we have any inherent value or worth… to the left our only worth is what we give to women and minorities.
dude the left hates me way more than the right does. that’s been my experinece. i went to college only to get harassed, assaulted and screamed at. people on the right don’t scream at me and tell me how i am a threat for minding my own business at a bar/cafe because my penis is a ‘threat’ to them. i’m glad you have enough white guilt to be shamed into submission, but i don’t. i worked my ass my entire life from the age of 14 and i am sick of being shamed and harassed for simply providing for myself. of being told that i’m an asshole for not giving more money to women and minorities when I was broke as shit and eating expired food. maybe you never had to provide for yourself because you had a well-off family to pay your bills, but a lot of us didn’t.
when i was in college i had rich women and minorities screaming at me how i shouldn’t exist becausei ‘stole’ their opportunity by getting a scholarship and their parents had to pay full tuition. Fuck the left, fuck their anti-penis obsession. men have every right to health and happiness as women do. and until their messaging and political goals become more inclusive, they are going to continue to alienate younger men.
people vote for their own self interest. they don’t vote for the interests of oppressed minority groups.
Okay, it’s very important to note that liberal =/= leftists. Liberals are centrists, and as you noted their program other than minority rights is basically all smokes and mirrors. However, look at Mamdani, AOC or Bernie and tell me there’s nothing in their programs that would benefit you. Liberal politicians want to distract from their own ineptitude, and batshit people will always exist, but there is an alternative other than rightwing scams.
Be as specific as possible, what policies or goals are you objecting to
I will get down voted for this. But if you want an answer, here’s what I believe happens:
Initially young men were mostly okay with social left, because: “let gay people be gay”, “don’t treat women worse than men”, “don’t be hateful to foreigners” are easy to agree to, they follow the principles of “let people do whatever they want if it doesn’t affect you”, “every human should be treated equally” and “don’t hate entire groups of people for attributes they can’t control, some individuals are good and some are bad in every group”.
However, social left has moved the goalpost. Now it is: “we have to change the rules for the trans”, “we have to give women privilege to compensate for misogyny”, “we have to give minorities privilege to compensate for X-ism” which follow different principles than the first paragraph. And with the moving of the goalpost comes “if you are to the right of the goalpost after being moved, you are a fascist and a Nazi and I don’t wanna hear what you have to say”.
I liked and agreed with the first paragraph a lot. But I don’t like the second one at all. And I believe this happens to a lot more young men.
That being said, I’m not retarded, I would never fote for a right wing party, specially since they are doing the same and moving the goalpost to the right so much that most of them are actually fascists.
You’ve hit the nail on the head but not in the way you think. Let’s dig into the things you state made young men no longer accepting of the, (1) “let people do whatever they want if it doesn’t affect you” and (2) “every human should be treated equally”.
The goalpost-moved, “we have to change the rules for the trans”. What do you mean? The whole trans issue was invented by the right wing as a new bogeyman to attack. Gay people were accepted (after many decades of abuse) by the general public - so they were no longer an effective target. New target: trans. I had honestly heard about trans people about a couple dozen times in my life prior to 2010, and I knew two of them. It was just not any kind of big deal. Very easy to file under (1) and (2). Zero impact to anyone’s life but their own. Then all of a sudden: bathroom bans, Jordan Peterson talking about them a lot, Trump banning them from military service, and so on… And so forth. There was no great request that trans people suddenly made to society - they were just thrust into the spotlight as a new target for people who are scared of anything they’re not familiar with (conservatives) to fearmonger into the right ("teachers want to let your boys wear dresses to school and turn your kids trans!").
Next “we have to give women privilege to compensate for misogyny”. What privilege? Honeslty. I’m really at a loss on this one. The privilege of police having to actually take reports and follow then up when they claim they’re sexually assaulted or raped, as opposed to the 90s & prior standard of “are you sure you weren’t asking for it?” & filing it in the back of the drawer to never see light again? The privilege of MeToo which is where many women came forward about sexual assault that they were pressured against mentioning in the past? Again, anyone on the left was fine with the ‘privileges’? as they firmly slot into (1) and (2).
Please elaborate, because details matter on these two issues you list as prime examples of the left moving the goalposts ‘beyond their original principles’ - because to me, a leftist, they seem perfectly in line.
Elaboration:
By women privilege I don’t mean anything to do with rape or sexual assault. Although laws that say “doing X to a woman is sexual assault” could easily say “doing X to a human is sexual assault” and nobody would complain, but that doesn’t score as much political points for leftist politicians.
I mean things like scholarships, entrepreneurship subsidies, gender-bas hiring quotas.
And many other things that used to be “micro-sexism” when it was done against women, now it’s done against men.
As an example, here’s some anecdotal evidence: my girlfriend studies mechanical manufacturing in a public school, they are about 10 people in class, 2 of them women. Every year they take photos/videos of students working to advertise their school. 2/2 times they “chose” the 2 women to appear in the mechanical manufacturing adds, 0 men.
Later on, each group made a project and submitted it for a government program for entrepreneurs. They only chose 1 group from her class (guess which one, the one with 2 women). When they attended the gathering of the awarded ones, they asked the organizers and they admitted that no group for their class was good enough, they only got in because they were 2 women in a mechanical manufacturing class.
Every time I say cases like this there is one of 2 responses from the left:
- Of course! We have to compensate since men have it easier!
- That’s just anecdotal evidence. The thing you describe never happens
I never hear this reaction: 3. Yeah that’s fucked up, the men in that class are 2nd class citizens in the presence of women.
So, a thought. The mechanical manufacturing school your girlfriend goes to wants to encourage more women to enrol in the majority male class. How do they do it?
Do they promote the women actually already in the class in advertising, or… Do they take photos of the men in the class, which implies it’s mostly men, or do they photo the entire class, which shows it’s 80% men?
As you said, ‘the left’ will generally first point out that your story is anecdotal… Because it is. What makes it essentially useless to a discussion is that we don’t know the drivers for the decisions of the school… they are only inferred by our biases. Maybe the marketing team just chose the most attractive people, and that happens to be the two good looking girls in a class full of guys with neck beards and barrel chests?
Whatever they choose depends on their marketing degree advice and their professional experience. Is this womens privilege or is this just marketing exploitation of what they know will drive demand?
Bias is only a privilege if it helps the person experiencing the bias. Does it help these ladies to be in the adverising material? Will it help them land a job? Do you think them adding it to their resume will give them any meaningful benefit? Because I doubt it. As someone who has been responsible for hiring people if I saw them include this in a resume I would think it was an odd thing to mention, it has no merit on their skills. Meanwhile, they’ll go into the manufacturing workforce and then they’ll get a job where they get paid ~85% of what a man does in the same job, statistically. That is not a thing of the past… It exists today in the USA. Earning 15% more because you were born male is a privilege that actually does have significant benefit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/josiecox/2025/03/05/over-the-last-two-decades-the-us-gender-pay-gap-has-hardly-moved/
I note you have no examples for the demands trans people have made. Yet their demands are a big enough problem in your initial comment to warrant first mention.
Gotta say, these big unfair reverse-bias microsexisms you cite seem pretty damn insignificant in the grand scheme of society. Meanwhile… trans people are literally being murdered quite regularly for being trans, being told which bathroom to use by legislation (and then regularly being attacked and beaten for using the legallg mandated bathroom), being banned from sports, banned from military service, constantly maligned in the mainstream media (sadly OAN and Fox are mainsteam), etc. Women are being legislated against using birth control and dying from easily preventable complications of childbirth due to draconian anti-abortion laws. Still experiencing domestic violent and sexual assault at rates absolutely dwarfing those of men.
Right wing guys: society hates men. Left gone too far. Ladies and trans get so many the benefits. Lady got to be in photo! 😡
Ah. I see you completely ignored one of the 2 examples. You’re also assuming I’m in the US (which I’m not, I’m a Spaniard). You only mentioned the photo thing, but completely ignored the entrepreneurship program.
I only mentioned the photo thing because for years I’ve been hearing that we live in a sexist society because some films don’t pass the bechdel test (idk if it’s spelled like that, I hope you know what I mean). Yet when men are completely erased from media then it’s because they are neck bearded fat guys. Again, this is not the US, this is Spain, the boys are fit good looking young men. Of course, my girlfriend is way prettier, but the boys are not ugly.
I didn’t give examples for the trans thing because I thought it to be self-evident and writing these posts take quite a bit of time. But here you go:
(Below when I say trans I mean “some trans and allies”, of course not all of them think 100% the same)
- Trans demand the rules of sports be changed so they can participate in their preferred league.
- Trans demand they change laws so they are based around their belief of how gender works.
- If there are gender-specific subsidies (which again, I don’t think they should be), trans demand it is given to them.
- Trans demand official documents reflect their view of gender.
- Some trans even demand their cosmetic surgeries be paid by the government.
Also, the order of the issues neither in this comment nor in the previous one is in any way related to importance, IDK why you assumed that in the first place. And again, IDK why you assume US, most of the 7th paragraph only applies to the US. If trans were just saying “we exist, let us exist, don’t hate us just for existing” like the rest of LGB, I don’t think it would be an issue. Instead they say “we exist, and even if we are the 0.001% (made up number), we demand 50% of society’s focus, and if you don’t treat us exactly the way we want, then you’re a nazi”.
EDIT: sure, just ignore the concerns and read only the “weak” ones. And young men turning right will be as surprising to you as people not liking AI is surprising to Microsoft execs.
I didn’t presume you were in the US, all of the examples I used of recent trans oppression apply to more than just the US but it’s true I was thinking of them while writing it. I’m not in the US either.
Mate, your five examples of trans demands are literally all wrong.
Gender is not sex. Gender is not binary, nor is sex. These are not scientifically controversial ideas. They are long studied norms.
- Some (very few) trans women want to play in women’s sports. There have been trans athletes for many decades. It only became an issue when conservatives started complaining that they were in sport. Then the rules have been changed to ban them. Literally the opposite of your claim.
- As above you’re wrong about gender.
- Never heard of this would love an example. Seems like an incredibly niche issue.
- Trans women are women. They ask to be named as such on their forms. Who does this affect?
- So in the past, in countries with good social support networks for healthcare governments have offered to pay for gender affirming care. Its recommended by psychologists, psychiatriaata and was the standard of care recommendes by leading health bodies. Im aware of governments now beginning to stop offering these surgeries and gender care based on pressure, again, from anti-trans folk.
What is the impact to you or anyone else of 2,3,4,5? Remember we’re discussing issues that are not falling into the category of “if this isn’t hurting anyone then hey none of my business” and “everyone deserves equal care”. Very, very few women are impacted by 1, most female (at birth) athletes are trans-inclusive - can easily Google hundreds of examples.
You have it flipped. Trans people weren’t asking for shit, dude. They just got turned into the scapegoat of the right wing. I pay my taxes… And if some guy gets testosterone therapy because he’s 50 and his testosterone has started to decline and he needs gender affirming care, that’s fine - that’s good. Same for an older woman needing oestrogen therapy - great, help her out. Why would I suddenly give a crap if some struggling person wants trans treatment and it’s recommended by the medical establishment?? Likewise if some lady who used to be a boy 20 years ago is really embarrassed and harassed every time she passes through an airport by customs and security questioning why her passport says ‘male’ - fair enough, that must suck.
And then there’s people like you, who unquestioningly accept these ‘demands’ as unreasonable - because someone told you they are.
Reconsider.
P. S. Love that it’s ok for you to gloss over direct questions, but for me to accept points and not respond to every single one is to “completely ignore” them. I do not have to acknowledge every single point in long comments. We’d be here forever.
if trans were just saying “we exist, let us exist, don’t hate us just for existing” like the rest of LGB, I don’t think it would be an issue. Instead they say “we exist, and even if we are the 0.001% (made up number), we demand 50% of society’s focus, and if you don’t treat us exactly the way we want, then you’re a nazi”.
I realize you’re being flippant and over-exaggerating, but statements like this make you look exactly like the right-winger you claim not to be. Trans people do just want to exist without being subjugated and stigmatized (which is definitely currently happening). None are making any such overbearing demands as you claim.
First of all. We probably don’t agree on what gender is. You’re treating it as a matter of fact and that you’re right and I’m wrong. And then you’re using that definition to base most of the rest of the arguments.
So if you want to convince me with those arguments, you have to first give a definition of man/woman that satisfies me.
You claim that those demands don’t affect me, but they do. Every financial help that the government offers affects everyone, since everyone is paying for it. In general changing any rule/law affects everyone in one way or another.
The gay movement was different, they mostly demanded societal change. The only rule/law I can think of that was changed for them is about marriage. Which we mostly all accepted since we as a society were more accepting because of the previous societal change.
With trans, however, they are demanding changes to rules/laws without previous societal change. They haven’t yet come up with a definition of gender that most people agree to, you can’t change rules/laws for things that most people don’t even agree if it exists or not.
You said no group was good enough. Is it possible they had to award somebody and just picked the group that’d look better? Because most of us will instead see the problem in needing a winner at all. If noones qualified, just don’t award anyone
I don’t know if they had to pick someone. But even if they did, they should choose the better of them, instead of whichever had more women.
A 4.5/10 project is still better than a 3/10, even if neither would pass.
They said none of them were good enough, but how do you know they weren’t the least bad even if that’s not what the guy told you
If that was the case, why would they lie and say that instead of saying that it was because they were the least bad?
You are spot on. This is my personal beef with the left. Young men hate authoritarian bullshit, even if it’s leftist.
Also the same myself. I am now a Nazi because I believe in equality, not inequality based on sex/race/gender. I’ve also personally experience environments where a woman/trans person can assault another person and gets off scot free because they are treated like toddlers, but if a hetero or male person did that, they’d get the cops called on them.
Young men are well aware the world has stacked the rules against them and they are going to support/listen to people who tell them how unfair and fucked up that is.
But the deck is far more stacked against the working class than it is men or women. They need to understand that they are workers first and everything else, gender, race, sexuality, etc, comes after.
I don’t have a clue how to get there though.
Hit the nail on the head. This is something the majority can agree with, that the elite are exploiting us all for their gain no matter who we are. Man, woman, lgbtq, whatever, the elite exploits them all and left wing parties should be promoting this.
I’ve been in the leftmost spaces most of my adult life. Accommodations for nuance have generally cost me a few calories in processing thought and not misgendering people but tha’ts it. It was annoying at times to learn new things but the impact on my ability to experience and navigate the world was nil. The benefits were that i got to have deeper connections with my friends of various genders and ethnicities.
I think if someone’s coming from an unchallenged experience of masculinity that when people ask for accommodation they feel it as a personal attack because they never had to expend a single calorie of energy on it before, and now someone is asking them to.
It also just takes a looooong time (decades even) to get over one’s own insecurities because it’s easy to hide those behind a mask of masculinity. That part takes a lot more effort whereas the manosphere tells you that you don’t have to climb that mountain because actualization is achieved hiding behind that mask.
I think if someone’s coming from an unchallenged experience of masculinity that when people ask for accommodation they feel it as a personal attack because they never had to expend a single calorie of energy on it before, and now someone is asking them to.
This is it.
Equality feels like oppression when you’re privileged.
Me too. leftist spaces used to be about freedom for everyone. Now they are about screaming at everyone who doesn’t agree with whatever the most ‘progressive’ point of view is that they are horrible and awful people.
Like, it’s fine if you wanna be a transgender poly person, but it’s not fine if you want to shit on everyone else who isn’t and act like they are ignorant nazis and spend your days shitting on anyone who isn’t in total agreement with your lifestyle.
Bull fucking shit. Try suggesting militias to those groups once and watch how quickly they appeal to order and reason and not going too far.
Yeah it’s definitely not a monolith. There were always those cis-hating types of spaces around and that’s just counterproductive. Luckily my experience is in the “let’s figure it or together” types of spaces which are far and away the majority. But everyone remembers the most irritating voice which is often also the loudest.
I think there’s also a phase a lot of people go through in their journey where they feel a need to over-express their new identity. That can lead to social growing pains.
Yeah, keep antagonizing everyone that doesn’t have the exact same opinions you do. It’s gonna end great.
Also, that’s a lot of assumptions you made there.
I meant the Royal “you”. Fixing.
No wonder they are trying to suppress women’s ability to vote again. I’m fairly certain women outnumber men just given by a statistical outcome of X vs Y chromosome at birth. I’m not certain but there’s probably a statistical study somewhere out there that a left leaving woman married to a right leaning man will vote right due to proximity. I’ve seen the former example in real life many times over sadly.
For those who need it on here and actually want to address the biggest problems they are facing I’ll leave this here: https://www.choosingtherapy.com/15-best-books-on-self-love/
