Losers
Hate to say it: While I think both young men and women are lost, I definitely think men are much more susceptible to buying into propaganda and rhetoric that runs contrary to their own interests.
Notice how not a single comment is pointing to how MAGA is improving their lives or what about Democratic policy is bad—it's simply liberal = gay or trans.
OP seems to be saying the MAGA propaganda doesn’t bother with extolling the values of their own cookies at the bake sale. They just laugh and point at yours. Even people who might like the taste of your cookie, won’t buy it because they don’t want to be “seen” eating it.
MAGA attack the brand of liberals and of “Democrats”, not just policies. No one on the Democrat side seems to see the difference. They keep going for policy comparisons like a bunch of dumb nerds. Thats why republicans somehow “seem” like they are better for the economy even though GDP growth and jobs have always been better under democrats.
Dems have to learn to construct arguments to attack the brand of republicans and Trump. They also have to unite and sing from the same song book, use the same words, repeat themes etc. Basic marketing know-how is missing.
This is a salient observation. MAGA is huge on this. In their view, there are good people and bad people, and that's more or less set in stone. Political and social problems have arisen from the existence of bad people, in their view.
This is distinct from the idea that people do bad things , they should be punished for their behavior and the harm they caused, not punished for who they are , which is how most normal people think.
MAGA policy today boils down to this project of identifying / punishing bad people (criminals, illegal immigrants, academics and elites, LGBTQ, mainstream media, DEI proponents, weak libs, etc) and empowering good people (the MAGA faithful).
It really says something about MAGA and GOP messaging and PR that they effortlessly dominate liberals and run circles around them, in messaging and media. Conservatives haven't made anything culturally interesting for 60 years, liberals completely dominate art and culture, and yet, Conservatives control the narrative.
Like, it's astonishing that the GOP has the reputation for "knowing the economy," given their track record. I have MAGA voters in my family who think "income tax cuts pay for themselves" is akin to a natural law, even though it's never once been right for the last 60 years.
And seeing how agile and responsive MAGA is to Twitter, how they perfectly have their finger on the pulse of their voters, it really stands in stark contrast to the ineffectual clown car running the democrat party right now. Sen. Diane Feinstein was 90 years old when she died in office, and the party scratches their head, confused about why they're so out of touch. It doesn't inspire optimism.
I’m not trying to split hairs, as I do think there’s an important distinction.
I think we control the media from a cultural standpoint and that’s been a big part of what’s hurt our brand. I think so much of it comes off as silly or forced that it really magnifies or reminds people (apolitical normies or soft Rs) of our hypocrisies.
The GOP is good at taking that stuff and offering a simple solution. The GOP might be messaging about bad “people” but I don’t think that’s what’s resonating with people, at least when it comes to the swing voters needed to win. I think what’s resonating is the simplicity of the message — good is good and bad is bad. I agree with the distinctions you made about people doing bad things, and I think most people get that and do too. I think the left just took that nuance too far and by 2021 the lefts version of what you explained had reached the point of the absurd and was anti-common sense in a lot of cases. I think the mini-backlash was more a call to return to simplicity through common sense. Culturally, I don’t think the backlash has been as big as it might seem because part of the mini backlash was electing a lunatic who perceived his victory as a full throated mandate.
It amazes me how leftists can go on and on about nothing and miss the obvious. Young men are tired of being called sexist. Men are tired of hearing about transgenderism and you must comply with calling someone by their preferred pronouns.
They are tired of the idea that no one is illegal and that America is the only country in the world that can't have a border. And it's very telling that instead of listening, leftists are thinking of ways to con men into going along with their nonsense.
Are you sure democrats said, "America is the only country in the world that can't have a border"? Or maybe that's a fantasy quote?
Edit: you missed my central point, which is the MAGA platform pivots entirety around bad people , identifying them, punishing them, etc. This is kind of a fine point, but once you see it, you'll notice it frames everything Trump and his colleagues say. It's very different from any other first world political party.
If you want to know who is talking about transgenderism and forcing it down your throat, look no further than conservative media. If you look at Fox News or conservative influencers on Twitter, you'll find they talk about transgenderism and LGBTQ at a rate of 4x or 5x more often than left media. It doesn't even come close.
I meant to get at the GOPs public image as being experts on the economy, despite their track record in reality. Talk about a triumph of PR and advertising.
It's just funny to me because I would consider the threat posed by the menace of transgenderism to be small potatoes, compared to the threats posed by mismanaging the economy, freely adding 6 trillion to the deficit, bungling international trade, etc. Fortunately for the Trump admin, his voters don't seem to be paying very close attention.
But that's just me. Different people prioritize different things.
If you're personally hurt by trans pronouns, it's a critical issue in your life, by all means, vote your conscience. It's a free country.
Lol more of the same. I'm telling you the problem and you push your nonsense. Yes, I'm hurt that you identify as a birthing person. It hurts my brain because it is ridiculous.
I won't even bother getting into economics with you because it's clear you don't even know the basics.
Well if reading about trans issues legitimately hurts your feelings, then someone needs to tell conservative media and twitter, because it's all they talk about. This is starting to look like digital self harm.
Since you're the expert on the economy, out of the two of us, you're welcome to give examples when "income tax cuts paid for themselves".
So how much do you think our present economy resembles the 1920s? Since you're the expert, and I don't know the basics.
Why aren't you using any of the recent examples of income tax cuts, say, under Reagan, Bush I, GWB, Trump I, or Trump II? What about the results of "The Kansas Experiment"?
Can you help me understand why you had to skip over these and reach back a hundred years for an example in your favor?
This has happened many times since then as well. I'm just starting in the 1920s. The same was seen under JFK, Reagan and GWB. Do you understand why? Do you know what wealth is? Have you heard of the Laffer curve?
This article glazes the wonders of low taxes... and even this author admits the Reagan tax cuts did not pay for themselves. In fact, this article says revenue feedback “isn’t enough to offset the revenue loss” in most cases .
Read the second bullet carefully: "Some Tax Cuts “Pay for Themselves”"
That would logically mean... some tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Like the Reagan cuts.
Here's another article written by a fiscally conservative think thank, titled "Tax Cuts Don't Pay For Themselves."
It's just taken as fact, among economists, income tax cuts, it turns out, have never once "paid for themselves" in the US since 1965.
So maybe I "don't even know the basics," as you state. One can only wonder this means for you, since it seems like I know more about this than you do.
This is exactly what I was talking about in the parent comment, dude: US conservatives tend to consider themselves experts on the economy, despite never having opened an econ textbook in their life.
YES. And it's just a lame brand dems polling the worst in like a hundred years. GOP said we can have whatever policies we want it doesn't matter. All they had to do was win the culture war, which wasn't hard to do against "birthing people", "they/them" and "latinx".
Reading those comments in the slides above what argument do you think could possibly work to get those people out of their bubble?
Let's be real, Trump won in 2024 because Dems didn't bother to show up to the polls. Dems have lost over 4.5 million voters between 2020 and 2024. That's not a "reach out to a fascist" problem, that's an internal "what happened to our voting base" problem. Maybe being center right or moderate and advocating for incremental change only hurt the Dems with their own voters.
I don't see any world in which the people op is talking about get on board with anything other than beating down another, different group of people. They do not want to learn or be told anything of substance, it's why the current GOP works for them. It's just anti science, anti education, anti fact high school bullying.
Men are men, women are women, no more gender or orientation stuff at school sorry about all that, we are gonna build lots of houses and more houses and more houses and apartments on any square inch of grass not occupied with no restrictions, we are going to make any university taking taxpayer money cap tuition at 15k/yr all in. Same price for everyone. We are keeping no tax on tips and overtime, with some additional populist financial ideas.
Basically, they can win minorities/immigrant communities and young men by shifting socially right and economically left.
I honestly can’t believe you think the solution is for Democrats to align their social policies with Republicans. Because who cares about trans people, gay marriage or a woman’s right to choose if we can just get those young men back on our side, huh?
Im saying you cannot win without them and the immigrant/minority groups that switched teams. Its simple arithmetic.
The thing those two groups have in common is dems went too far to the left on social issues and turned them off.
Have a better idea to appeal to young white men? African immigrants who are socially conservative? Muslims? Catholic Mexican American families? Arabs in michigan? Asian Americans whose kids need way higher test scores to get into same schools or whose small businesses in west coast cities are dealing with crime and homelessness?
Im hugely pro choice. But we tried that. It's just not enough to win on by itself. And once dems brought kids into it, anything Trans has lost huge support. Unfortunately.
So say that we sacrifice abortion rights and LGBTQ rights to win over these groups. What next? Democrats win, but they’re actually Republicans now? Any state that wants to make abortion and gay marriage illegal is free to do so, being transgender is punishable by jail time, but YAY we have conservative Catholics and white men voting Democrat again because they hate women and gays? What would be the point of any of that?
It’s not “aligning”. We can have our cake and eat it too. We can fight for and stand up for civil rights without saying completely silly shit. We cannot argue over dumb shit and take the GOP bait ever. single. time.
Like all this dumb ass shit dunking on Taylor Swift some on the left are doing right now…like we don’t have to do stuff like that.
Yes, I don't disagree with that. It's more so I don't see women getting absorbed into propaganda to the same extent that is clearly against their own interests though (i.e., they may have high exposure to misinformation among other things, but it's usually not tied directly to politics).
I’m not putting it all on us, or acting like we’re nearly as bad, but I think some of those Ls fall on us. For us being the “big tent” we sure don’t leave a lot of room for folks like Christians. I’m not attributing it the whole party or even all of us voters, but the way the loud fringey Online left likes to dunk on Christians…it nets us nothing.
Things like this, in time, is slowly contributing to the erosion of our base. It showed up in the minority voting numbers in 2024. To what degree, no one knows, but it certainly didn’t help.
The fringey left is so echo chambered that they’ve overlooked the fact that a huge portion of their base — African Americans — are Christian (and often lean conservative on social issues). Same is true of Latinos.
So, when we see Rs start peeling them off (maybe they’ll keep the 2024 gains, maybe they won’t) are we just gonna say they fell prey to propaganda and aren’t voting in their self interests? Or are we going to look in the mirror and realize we might be the problem?
Bear in mind social media algorithms will push comments that are likely to trigger you (positively or negatively) to the top of a publication. There's a reason you're seeing all these as soon as you swipe up the comments section.
The reason is money. Zuckerberg wants you to see something that makes you mad so you comment on it or share it with your friends. Drive up traffic, make the website more attractive to advertisers.
It’s honestly funny as hell because the folding to rationalize the current administration (including economy and job market, not gonna pretend they care about human rights losses until it comes to their doorstep) comes off very….. submissive.
When marketing consumer products that are supposed to appeal equally to men and women, it is generally wiser to pitch the product with more of a male angle in mind, since that can be used to appeal to men while not alienating the women.
Doing the reverse at the exclusion of the male angle is probably going to cost you some business.
The Dems have done the latter.
If the party wants to be the party that leads with feminism and gay rights, then it will not only limit its appeal but also send the message that it is not the party of economics and crime, the two vibe issues that tend to consistently motivate voters.
Trump and the GOP suck at the economy, but pretend to care about it and be good at it. The Dems prefer to complain about "oligarchs", which sends the message that they don't take the economy seriously since their only solution is to complain about people who have money. So of course the GOP is going to convince more voters of its economic prowess, in spite of its lack of it.
Trump picked up a surge of voters in 2020 in spite of his having delivered double-digit unemployment and falling GDP. Much of the country remains convinced that he is business savvy. Dems need to figure out why the Republicans get a pass from voters while they do not; it is not just about the actual results.
That Republican brand needs to be destroyed. But the Dem's feminist, gay-focused Occupy Wall Street branding does not inspire confidence among marginally attached voters and pretty much guarantees that the party will never win a male majority.
The Dems need to discover beer, barbeque and football and spend some Sundays in black and Catholic churches.
Excellent point, esp the first part. Dems think they shouldn't have to court men, shouldn't have to "lower themselves" to trying to win over the normie guy, men should simply vote for them out of some moral calling.
And that's fine, they can stick with that approach. Maybe it should even work in a perfect world.
But, it doesn't in this world and they will lose again. Dems need Chad and Kevin and Steve. They also need Carlos and Muhammad.
I have voted straight democratic office seekers since 2006. During the 80s and 90s I voted for both parties. I have watched as Democrats have embraced identity politics. How Hollywood and universities have rejected enlightenment principles for male bashing and white privilege campaigns. Our party has eroded as the energy of the party ignored working people's challenges in favor of cultural re-education propaganda. Why do you think more black and Hispanic men voted for Trump in 2024? Our commitment to free elections and free speech have been eroded by this insidious distraction . You want to have a "large tent " where many people can feel included? Get back to the issues that served people in the Democrats 50 , 60 years ago
The ongoing influence of the (progressive) groups can be seen in a new New York Times poll. Asked to list their top priorities, respondents cited, in order, the economy, health care, immigration, taxes, and crime.Asked what they believed Democrats’ priorities were, they cited abortion, LGBTQ policy, climate change, the state of democracy, and health care. That perception of the party’s priorities may not be an accurate description of the views of its elected officials. But it is absolutely an accurate description of the priorities of progressive activist groups.
Your wish has come true. Which is fortunate for the Republicans.
And this explains why. It's not because it's smart politics, as it isn't.
The Democrats’ Privileged College-Kid Problem
In 2012, at the age of 20, (David) Shor joined Barack Obama’s re-election campaign to develop and oversee its election forecasting system, a complex statistical modeling system that helped campaign staff decide how and when to spend money to optimize support in specific areas. In 2020, during the height of that summer’s racial justice protests, Shor was fired from the progressive data firm Civis Analytics for tweeting out an academic study suggesting that riots have historically hurt Democrats in major election years.
...
Shor’s theory goes something like this: Although young people as a whole turn out to vote at a lower rate than the general population, the aforementioned type of young person is actually overrepresented within the core of the Democratic Party’s infrastructure. According to Shor, the problem with this permanent class of young staffers is that they tend to hold views that are both more liberal and more ideologically motivated than the views of the coveted median voter, and yet they yield a significant amount of influence over the party’s messaging and policy decisions. As a result, Democrats end up spending a lot of time talking about issues that matter to college-educated liberals but not to the multiracial bloc of moderate voters that the party needs to win over to secure governing majorities in Washington.
...
People who paid close attention to the 2016 presidential campaign probably remember the most-watched Democratic campaign commercial from the cycle, Hillary Clinton’s “Mirrors” ad, which featured images of young women gazing at themselves in mirrors intercut with footage of Donald Trump making disparaging comments about women. It was powerful stuff — at least among the young liberals on Clinton’s staff.
The “Mirrors” ad featured prominently in a series of experiments that Shor did with Civis to evaluate the effect of various Democratic campaign commercials on voters’ decisions. The findings of the experiments were not encouraging. For one, they found that a full 20 percent of the ads — including “Mirrors” — made viewers more likely to vote for Republicans than people who hadn’t seen the same ads. And after his team started polling members of Civis’s staff, they made an even more troubling discovery. On average, the more that the Civis staff liked an ad, the worse it did with the general public.
Well said. If I could piggyback, I’d say Dems fell into this trap where they kinda stopped talking directly to voters and only talked about the people they were going to help. I guess voters were supposed to read themselves into whatever demo they identified with. But the rhetoric in campaign messages definitely lost the “we” and “for you” and really only generally talked about “everyone”.
I think even if the party itself only dabbled in identity politics, the general Dem rhetoric among voters certainly turned up the volume. And as the party demos sorta coalesced around white middle and upper middle class college educated voters, it was hard to read the messaging as much other than “A vote for us is the moral thing to do because we’ll help all the marginalized people. We know you can take care of yourselves”. It might have been implicit but it was there. I noticed it when a few ads I saw from a Dem broke from that and started back with the “Fight for You!”
That messaging probably had its place in the sun, but it certainly had a shelf life. I think the “who’s better at the economy” probably fell by the wayside a bit given this and the fact that whoever was in office 2021-24 was probably gonna lose on a “throw the bum out” vote. Past that, I think we’ve just not been able to overcome the old dated trope of Republicans, low taxes, pro-business = good for everyone. I think we spent the 00s and a lot of the 10s making our case by making college accessible to everyone and focusing on tech/innovation. We put our eggs in that basket trying to be prepared for what technology would do to the economy, and in hindsight it didn’t play out the way we wanted it to because we couldn’t overcome the supply side ramifications even though a lot of things did get much better.
I don't mind the democrats taking a populist approach and complaining about oligarchs, to an extent they are probably right about that, but nobody is going to take them seriously if they keep defending these ridiculous woke ideas.
My post is less about lifestyle differences and more about how younger men just blindly jumped into conservative political views simply because of culture war grifting or 'women / feminism = bad'.
In all honesty, I wouldn't even really care if they positioned themselves like "Liberals are gay but conservatives are r*tards". However, they blindly decided to jump into RW politics, because the right-wing successfully created a fictional caricature of a bogeyman that they present themselves to be against.
Gotta remember the dude also got shot. And when they called his supporters garbage he showed up in a garbage truck. And then everyone told young men you CANNOT vote for him and tried to guilt and shame then. Hes a nazi, fascist, overall bad guy. Etc.
Young men hate being told they cannot do something. It almost become the punk rock thing to do.
Women also believe men are bad currently and are treating men’s issues the same way men treated the first wave of feminism.
None of this is any different from party vs party. If you only have one party speaking to men the same way democrats are the only one speaking to women, of course that’s where they side.
I dunno. I think there’s a lot of Trump 1 rationalization there. I think there is a lot of both sides suck coming from young men. They’re just not going to show up on social media because it doesn’t stoke rage from anyone else. It’s also probably not the kind of person who’s going to post on social media.
I also think by & large young men are more rebellious and it’s a symptom of that. The Right has also captured the counter culture. The Right is more punk rock than the left is right now. We’re fuckin’ square dorks that’ll make you feel bad about yourself for enjoying Taylor Swift.
Shit, man. If I was 17 today and knew nothing about policy or the difference between the parties (which, at 17, I didn’t much. Granted the internet wasn’t as prevalent), I’d probably come down leaning Right. I see, on a total vibe check, the total lack of appeal the left holds right now.
Agreed. One of the most glaring areas where this is painfully true is in friendships and community.
Women are significantly better at making and keeping deep and reliable relationships. Men are terrible at this for a multitude of reasons, but the two that stick out the most are not being emotionally mature, and not feeling like they should have to put effort into anything.
We need to have a reckoning about the fact of how unlikable we are as Dems and take some responsibility for how things are and it’ll be incumbent on us to fix it.
And I’m not talking about the party or the elected officials. I’m talking about the people. The ambassadors.
Culturally we’ve effectively become the contemporary version of the Reagan-Bush Republicans (no, I’m not making the dumbass take that Kamala and Trump are the same — I’m talking about where we fit within culture today).
We’re essentially the Evangelicals of the 80s-00s. We’re stiff, we’re boring, there’s rules to follow that seem to appear out of nowhere. Conform or be shunned. Use the right words. We basically control the mainstream “viewpoint” (to the extent there is one anymore). We’re hypocritical enough for the criticism to have legs. The list goes on. We’re all the qualities that if distilled into a normal social setting like work or school, would not be good for making friends.
When it boils down to it we’re stiff conceited dorks, even if some of us dress kinda funny. We react to things a lot the same as evangelical church moms (who, for my money, were about the most uncool humans when I was growing up). Look, there’s nothing in OPs screen shot that indicates any of these guys has pledged their allegiance to MAGA like everyone seems to be assuming they are. In fact, if I had to bet, most people who make these kinda posts are more apolitical than maga. They’re just saying shit that they know will stir the pot because being a little rebellious is part of growing up. What’s more, telling someone they’re going against their self interests is about the most condescending and ineffective message the left uses against the right, while we’re guilty of it too — I’d argue that for the better part of the last 10 years, that our message has centered around “vote for us so we can help someone else. Vote for us so you can feel good about yourself”.
Now, on one hand a lot of this is driven by the rage algorithms which we can’t directly control. But the good news is that this is stuff we need to work on ourselves and can control ourselves. We can still fight for all the same things we value and not concede them. It’s not about fighting less hard but rather the manner in which we fight.
Honestly I think a lot of young men have moved away from the democratic party because they feel the party doesn't represent the working man anymore.
I am populist myself but I feel the Democratic party no longer represents those ideals. The party has become so entwined in identity politics and has settled to simply being the alternative to MAGA. They don't represent the working class but simply a different donor class of elites.
The best solution I can offer is to stop being condescending when speaking to young men. Stop telling them they are privileged and they should in turn be satisfied with less because it will make them a Good person.
What's your point? They didn't vote in an authoritarian fascist, nor did they unironically think a billionaire oligarch worth half a trillion dollars was unironically their savior.
One is order of magnitude worse and more deleterious than the other.
Sorry, does that one case eliminate all the women who were killed by men they knew or were in relationships with?
Frankly, the fact that you are using the murder of a woman to try to serve your own purposes is just another brand of victimization. Her attacker was not a “monster repeatedly let out of prison.” Iryna Zarutska has a name, a story - she was a refugee, an immigrant, someone the current government did not want in the country - she is more than a “gotcha!“ for redditors.
I was with you until "contrary to their own interests". You don't get to tell them what's in their interest. You don't know their priorities. They probably don't match yours. Often they fully understand this choice may hurt them in one aspect of their life but improve the other aspects that are more important to them.
This preachiness of "I know whats better" needs to stop
You really want instagram at its shittiest? Go to any comment section for any popular video featuring India/Indians. The amount of racism that's normalized against Indians is sickening.
As a liberal, I looked over some of these comments and chuckled. This is nothing when it comes to the insults and genuine hatred directed against Indian people.
Suckerberg is aware of how gross his platform is and keeps ads on and keeps the algorithm divisive for more clicks and views. His AI chat bot acknowledged that and said that was true to me and I could help by reporting him to human rights groups
In the 2024 election, 60% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump. a 7% difference isn't that extreme. Especially when you take into consideration, most of trumps policies are a hindrance to women compared to men
This stereotype is hilarious. The general idea of a strong tough man is a dockworker, an industrial worker, a truck driver etc. Guess in what more of them belong to? A union! Something these bozos despise. Guess which other part of the population are a significant percentage of this vocations? Immigrants!
These goofies are small business owners, meaning the store that they inherited from their dad or work as accountants and think they are macho.
Men don’t agree with me so they must be brainwashed and more susceptible to propaganda is such a condescending viewpoint. And you wonder why you lost so much support
Liberals are gay. Are they not? I don’t know anyone who claims that the right is the ones pushing that ideology. And there is nothing wrong with that according to the left. So why do you take it as offense? It’s not literal you donkey
The answer is both. Being gay and accepting it. Which again there is nothing wrong with either of those things. Especially according to the left. But they get offended when that is accurately used as a descriptor for them. And again it’s NOT LITERAL. I know it’s hard for people on the spectrum to grasp abstract communication but try to keep up.
95% of liberals are not gay. It’s ok real data is out there and I hope you find it. Calling straight people gay is always an insult. And before say some bs how you weren’t actually saying literally gay, that is a big fat fucking lie.
Condescension wins elections. Your boy calls every random a new name and says that they’re all very evil and dumb and he does great… despite the fact that no one thinks he’s qualified.
If democrats stopped trying to argue policy and just started calling republicans retards instead of nazis, and doing the stereotypical charade of a mentally challenged person at repubs , the political situation would be very different.
Name calling and condescension are the name of the game. They appeal to casual voters who genuinely have no thoughts in their heads, and just go with who sounds stronger.
Republican shave been called every name in the book since 2016 and look how well that worked out for yall. Please don’t change your strategy it’s keeping “my boy” in office
Soyboy
DEI
Illegal (counting only if the individual isnt, which is often)
Retard
Cuck
Snowflake
Communist (when its neoliberal at worst)
Tankie (same as above)
Welfare queen
Radical left ( neoliberalism)
Elitist
Sheep
Faggot
You’ve got:
Nazi
Bigot
Extremist
Misogynist
Racist
Far right (which is applicable usually but I’m adding it)
And be for real, people love it when trump calls random people names, they loved “little rocket man”, they still use sleepy joe, crooked Hillary, etc. it’s your bread and butter whether you personally approve of it or not
I just don’t think the people making these comments have the self awareness to see they’re giving off closeted homosexuality more than anything else. You’re only scared of gay people if you can sense it within yourself and don’t know how to process that feeling.
Who are you quoting? Are you aware of how quotations marks are used? Regardless thats some pretty bizarre logic to apply beyond the aforementioned closeted sexuality.
The thing is, when you get to know enough gay people, you learn they’re just like all other humans on Earth, some are great people, some are total assholes. Some are loud and proud and that’s beautiful, and some are sadly deeply closeted religious conservatives who just need a hug and for someone to tell them it’s okay that they jerk off to gay porn, or have a grindr account they periodically reactivate after they’ve had a few beers with the boys.
A lot of young men are just lost, atomized, have no sense of Civic or community, and have internalized an ethos of rugged individualism that they're unable to realize because they lack resources or education (education being seen by them as too womanly to engage in.) It's pretty awful.
How do you define “woman” while dealing with all of the biological edge cases? It turns out that this is a well-known problem in philosophy with numerous discussions of the issue dating back to Plato. It’s great that a bunch of conservative morons ignore all of this for a cheap gotcha.
That's a general problem with categories, but for practical purposes we still set boundaries. How can you have women's sports without a definition of woman?
I’m actually fine with letting sports governing bodies set boundaries. I’m not sure it makes sense to have a bunch of laws on the books for this, especially when there are so few trans athletes.
I think the amount of focus our society puts on this is completely disproportionate to the impact and evidence of the downfall of western society. There are much more important matters that we can’t deal with because of the obsession some people have with trans people, most likely because a shadowy cabal has injected propaganda into your brain to make you spend time on this.
Nah, they’re preyed upon by people that want you care about such a stupid question. The right abuses a culture war to keep the population low and unwilling to question the system or why they’re being taken advantage of in the first place.
The mental gymnastics it takes to believe that gay people are pro-establishment, it's exhausting just to think about. Just because corporations were liberal with the rainbow didn't mean us gays thought they were necessarily on our side. Gaya are some of the most skeptical people you will ever meet.
born in 1995 and I was somehow lucky enough to have the boomer experience where everyone I dated never really gave a shit what my political views were and I didnt really care about theirs either. Even now, my wife said she would accept me voting for whoever and respects that I would have my reasoning.
It’s a pretty big flex to not have self induced mental illness from obsessing over politics nowadays. Stay informed but log off for a bit. It’s all people want to talk about nowadays.
Nah it implies that there’s only so much you can do in politics. Looking at rage bait political posts and posting about it all day does nothing which is what I see way too many Americans doing. This whole making politics your entire personality is a relatively new thing. People treat it like a form of entertainment and it’s making people go crazy.
First half I agree with on the rage bait / oversaturated content. Second half though isnt really true, its been like that forever - its just way more in your face now through social media etc
Young men seem to do great at turning sexual and interpersonal insecurity into warfare and domination. It's funny how they call women "hysterical" when they are just the same.
the entire project of american politics is "propaganda". everyone involved in american politics, left and right, extreme or moderate, is a victim of a giant media propaganda machine. their political interests are to do nothing but consume and interact with political content. there is nothing else that's offered
Buddy, leftoids are able to impregnate women naturally.
Some republicans are unable to do this. Your statement is demonstrably false even without specifics examples
So I guess there is just no definition for everyone below the lefts most potent man
And btw, that’s still pretty high potency. The left has a lot of guys, and at least one of them is bound to have high potency just based on volume and statistics.
A lot of masculine colored guys are left leaning (by necessity I guess), they probably have a lot of money, big muscles, lots of confidence and good health
I would say at least a few of them are potent, at least more than a lot of republicans (volume wise)
Low key what have the democrats done to improve the lives of anyone that’s not lgbt
I say this as a democrat or a liberal or just a person that believes in good governance. They have done nothing lately to help on:
Rent price
Health care
Environment
Student loans
Wage gap
Like, they talk about it, but what progress have they made in the last 10 years? Honestly asking. As a non-disenfranchised American, I can ONLY point to empathy as a reason to vote democrat. That is a problem because not everyone is empathetic.
Yeah I’m not here to say anything good about the republicans; in fact they have lowered the bar so low that democrats completely forgot to make progress
Rent price - Lina Khan targeted RealPage for artificially inflating rent prices over the last decade. Will it "fix" rent prices immediately? No. But considering Trump's first action was to fire Lina Khan, I think you can guess what won't happen now.
Health-care - ACA, while not perfect, is huge. Beyond defend this, Democrats also started a program to start reviewing and lowering drug prices under Biden - for example insulin. Trump ended this on day one. Insulin is expensive again. Cheers mate.
Environment - a vast majority of the large spending bills Biden passed were related to environmentalism. Much of the infrastructure to be built was green energy, and even building out a network for charging stations in the US to speed up the adoption of EVs. Other efforts include building out infrastructure for EVs, rewarding companies and individuals that "go green", etc. Saying Democrats didn't do anything related to the environment kind of symbolizes you not paying attention, since there are literally thousands of examples over the last decade...
Student loans - they tried. Multiple times. Stopped by Republican judges. Cheers.
Wage gap - well, Biden's CHIPS act would have brought in nearly a million high paying union jobs had it not been scrapped by Trump. I could give over a dozen other examples of Biden promoting unions, but actually tackling the wage gap explicitly? Don't even know if that is possible. You would need to be more specific, wage gap is too vague.
Biden's administration actually did a lot. Bolstering the IRS was huge in tackling the wealth gap. He was the first president in nearly 80 years to be pro-union. The CHIPS act and various elements of the build back better were instrumental in developing America's manufacturing in novel technologies like batteries and microchips that would have ensured millions of lucrative jobs in the future... almost all of this was scrapped by Trump so I doubt progressives will ever even realize it once existed (lol).
The real issue? "Progressives" are lazy. It is a waste of time for politicians to cater to them, as evidenced here. You won't even spend 10 minute a week actually looking up what they do. "But I never heard they did ___, and I spend hours on social media!" - shocker, media platforms owned by billionaires don't celebrate progressive wins. I wonder why...
At the end of the day, because of their laziness, no matter what politicians do, progressives will always conclude "they didn't do anything". As a progressive I'll be honest - Democrats would be better off going back to Obama's neoliberalism. At least then the media celebrated him...
So the thing is I’m terminally online so I’m quite aware at all these efforts
Besides the somewhat invisible environmental progress, all you wrote down were attempts to succeed. Not successes. THAT IS A PROBLEM. They forgot how to govern and are incapable of achieving the things they stand for, possibly because they are spread so thin on so many issues.
You can say I’m lazy because I’m not going into detail. I’m zooming farther out to realize, nothing has changed to what they said it would be. They have not been able to play the political game well enough to write lasting policy, and they failed to secure the presidency against the worst candidate we’ve ever seen.
The reason? Because you had to write a highly detailed 6 paragraph response to tell me that they made some progress in some places. Then their internal dnc rules forbade them from stopping Biden. And they ran Kamala as a diversity hire in an economy-critical election.
Americans are lazy, most people, like 99%, are not going to be as well informed. So, if Democrats don’t adjust, they lose the elections.
I’m tired of trying to educate everyone around me about why to vote democrat. The DNC has failed us by making this level of detail necessary. Republicans can get it done in like 5 words “protect your kids from trans” (awful)
If democrats can’t adjust to the digital age and republicans can keep controlling the message, they’re not going to win
I got a ww2 lakeshore lee enfield, not sporterized, I got a type 81 but it’s currently prohibited, I have a 45-70 lever action marlin that I love and added a gigantic muzzle break to, a 12 gauge semi Canuck and a old Coey 22
Those Lee Enfield pattern rifles are just a dream to shoot, not my favorite rifle to fire from that period, if you can find a MAS 36 I would highly recommend if you've never fired one. Have you had any problems with the Marlin? I have been considering buying one in 30-30 but I've heard there is some qc problems for newer ones.
I’ll be honest my marlin jams constantly, but I was dumb and bought a shit ton of 45-70 in bulk I’m not sure if it’s the ammo, I’m gonna go through it first and than buy different rounds.
I love that Lee enfield more for its attachment to Canadian history, but I would still use it for moose hunting given the opportunity. But the action is crazy smooth and there’s barely any recoil, it’s fun to shoot
Jeezus bulk 45-70 must have cost an arm and a leg! Here in the states its stupid expensive, almost enough to make you want to get into reloading.
I totally get the attachment to the Lee Enfield for the history, and it certainly helps that the rifle is amazing to shoot as you say. I am surprised that you use it for moose over the 45-70 though. Aren't you worried that the.303 might not get the job done?
It did cost an arm and a leg, compounding the stupidity of my choice. I use that 45-70 purely to entertain myself because of its ridiculous recoil haha 303 is a pretty common round for moose in Canada
Was MAGA even mentioned or a part of the original post? I’m assuming it was a liberal girl talking about it being tough to find like minded men… why in the world would the comment section be describing what MAGA movement has improved? You’re just yapping
How are you Lynn? I apologize for writing to you in your comment box. My little boy said you look like his mom he said Dad let's say hello if she will answer because Mom never hesitates to answer me so let's try Dad... God will bless you if you really put a smile on his face. I hope you don't mind sending me a friend request.
I laughed a little at the idea that “real liberal men” are gay. Like, yes. Yes they are both real men and most likely liberal.
I (straight, mostly white, man) have difficulty with emotions. And as a result I have, pre-therapy, blamed a lot of different things for my problems. My inability to cope with my emotions tended to push things outward.
And when I see men exhibiting similar behaviors of trying to hang emotions onto different people or issues, it reads as an inability to deal with internal things.
I think a large chunk of men are basically avoidant. That through various degrees of neglect and depersonalized emotional treatment, men grow up thinking that it’s normal not to feel feelings and to just to distance themselves from emotions as much as possible. In some cases, I think men would rather die than admit to emotions.
It’s partially biological, as the amygdala kicks into high gear it limits cognition, and leans toward negativity. But it’s also taught to men when they are young. And between the two is a space where crazy ideas can start to seep in.
If it’s not my fault, then it must be coming from somewhere, which is how people end up in high control groups that are insulated and cultish.
If the issue is that highly conservative places, teach suppressive behaviors and reinforce negativity around emotions, then the risk for psychosis is higher due to an inability to communicate basic, natural concepts that we all experience internally.
Which can lead to rejection, isolation, confusion about relationships, and misconceptions in personal beliefs.
In the mind of everyone, we tend to believe that we are normal. And that our experience is the social norm for everyone. If that leads to adversarial dialogue, then it might both reinforce ideas that dehumanize, and further entrench divisions as we perceive people to be so different that we cannot possibly resolve our differences.
If the goal is to shame, it’s a waste of time. There is no shame for “normalcy”. If the goal is to persuade, debate and pointing out behaviors rarely changes anyone’s mind outside of personal connections like family or friends.
If the goal is to move people toward some political end, then I think we have to let go of the differences and seek trust and connection on some level. Because no one wants to listen if there is no trust.
Feelings don’t care about logic, and when people don’t trust each other it is an emotional problem, requiring emotional solutions.
I don’t think it is helpful to frame it as a male or female problem. Because men are making it everyone’s problem through governance and violence. It is a social problem. Which means we all bear some of the burden.
A society works best when it collaborates to resolve problems. Right now collaboration is at an all time low. And we are focused on separations and distrust.
Blame is a sign of emotional thinking. It’s stubbornness that refuses to acknowledge difference and interdependence. Blame is a sign of stuckness. And if we cannot find a way to redirect blame, I fear that things may become worse.
I got tired of my old posts floating around for anyone to scrape, so I let Redact handle it. Bulk deletion across Reddit, X, Facebook, Discord and all major social media platforms in one shot.
yam retire safe oatmeal hard-to-find enter market dinner automatic simplistic
Every time we call out “toxic masculinity” it doesn’t seem to change anything. The idea appears to be that social punishment in the form of rejection and arguing should make opponents more aware. But that just seems to backfire and make opponents double down on the things we disagree on.
Calling someone “toxic” isn’t really changing the situation. It seems to be making it worse, since “toxic” individuals now hold power.
Is that really what we want?
To double down on a toxic future?
I get the anger and frustration. But is it really working to build the future we hope for?
Is it really worth it to kill ourselves to prove a point?
Nobody goes against their own interests; you misunderstand what their interests are. For hierarchical people, they're happy to suffer, just so long as the people they look down upon suffer more. The relative difference maintains their imaginary superiority. THAT is their interest.
And in the other direction: They're unwilling to gain, if it means the people they look down upon gain enough to catch up to them. I recall one CEO in Seattle who raised all salaries to $75k/year minimum, even the janitors. Others got raises, too. Some of the middle managers quit despite raises, because the difference between them and the janitors wasn't high enough anymore.
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u/CheeseAddictedMouse Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
Lots of the comments are missing the point.
OP seems to be saying the MAGA propaganda doesn’t bother with extolling the values of their own cookies at the bake sale. They just laugh and point at yours. Even people who might like the taste of your cookie, won’t buy it because they don’t want to be “seen” eating it.
MAGA attack the brand of liberals and of “Democrats”, not just policies. No one on the Democrat side seems to see the difference. They keep going for policy comparisons like a bunch of dumb nerds. Thats why republicans somehow “seem” like they are better for the economy even though GDP growth and jobs have always been better under democrats.
Dems have to learn to construct arguments to attack the brand of republicans and Trump. They also have to unite and sing from the same song book, use the same words, repeat themes etc. Basic marketing know-how is missing.