Consept

I think it comes down to being anti-establishment, if you think back I'm recent history to the 80s, 90s and even early 2000s, the republicans and the right were the establishment. They were against youth movements like rap and they would attempt to censor a lot of content, Marilyn manson, Eminem, gangster rap, miami booty popping music. There are some wild stories of the fbi doing investigations. All the edgy comedians were leftist, George carlin, Bill Hicks etc. The whole point of the left ideology was allowing people to say what they want and be who they are. The right are still against all these things btw and would definitely want to shut them down. But what has happened is the left have become the establishment. The youth generally are attracted to anti-establishment, they often want to rebel against current systems. What's funny is that the left are only really intolerant against intolerance, they hate the idea of people being suppressed, that's really what their core value is. The right do actually want to suppress but they don't like being suppressed in their suppression of others they want to be able to say trans shouldnt be allowed rights or gays shouldnt be proud to be gay or black people are culturally inferior, this is what it comes down to. So because they were losing the culture war, the right basically marketed themselves as anti-establishment, brought in these ideas that they're not free to say what they want and they're being held down and now they've somewhat successfully reversed it so that they are the cool, edgy outsiders, despite the fact their ideology is way outdated for current society. In fact it most likely would've died out but Trumps reignited them and the fact that he doesn't really share their ideology, doesn't really matter because they can channel it through him, which is the idea with project 25.

Definitely and the issue is the pipeline, if you're a 15 year old kid and you watch ufc for example, it's like watching a trump rally as well as the fighting. Then their favourite streamer might be sneako or adin ross who they watch for hours a day and they back trump and paint the left as losers, it's indoctrination from early on and by the time they're voting age of course they'll vote for him. Actually Bill Burr is interesting, he's one of the few guys who you'd say is really masculine but obviously has leftist values. No one on the right would say shit about him either Yeah I guess it was actually criminal, so even though you might idolise these guys and have a scarface poster on your wall, it is actually illegal. Your sneakos and fresh and fits aren't actually doing anything illegal, Tate was but tried to make it seem normal which is why his followers are confused and don't even realise that it's illegal. For the most part these influencers just encourage then to have shitty, immature, toxic persona's. Which is why it's more accepted by society. It's very insidious though this pipeline, it also has to do with the algorithm, creators are encouraged to provide these quick solutions and hit pain points and in the case of young men who are the most online, this is what speaks to them.

What I've seen in my life is the men or boys that are insecure in their masculinity and within themselves are usually the most dangerous, in that they're more likely to be emotionally aggressive, highly reactive and they feel like they have to constantly prove themselves. The most masculine guys usually have absolutely nothing to prove but if they need to use controlled aggression they will. I'm not a violent person but when I see someone like nick fuentes, i wanna slap him, I see a slimy, weasel like pussy and I don't get why anyone can look at him and think 'oh he's such a great masculine man'. All of the guys you mentioned seem like that to varying degrees, insecure, not comfortable with themselves, they probably got bullied when they were at school and they're now living some kind of alpha male fantasy. It's like they're cosplaying being men. But it still remains that young men need positive males as role models and either there aren't many out there or they're not able to capture an audience in a way someone like Tate can. Then I wonder if it's always kinda been like this, back in the day there were probably more people that looked up to scarface, mob bosses, gangster rappers etc, there seems to be a draw to toxic masculinity.

Yeah you might be right, I think she did Howard stern which went OK but generally it seems like her team either didn't think she'd be good on those shows or underestimated their importance. Obama prob would've done well on them, but it is a new thing and presidents previously have never had to be personable in this way. The dems are way behind on this though. His advice isn't really specialised but it's not bad advice, it's just basic. I think young men need the whole masculine package to actually get motivated. There could be guys that move into that space, the left definitely needs it, as the right have painted them, quite successfully as pussys. Imo if you're following someone for your masculinity you're probably not that masculine, it's an interesting paradox

I agree authenticity is key to connect with people in politics. I've always believed that and was usually put off by politicians inability to answer simple questions. I wouldn't say Kamalas campaign was terrible but I don't think she had great strategies to reach certain demographics. Her not doing a lot of podcasts was a really bad oversight on her part. Realistically that's where you reach people these days, at least young people anyway. Trump understood this well and even though I don't think he anything really meaningful the whole campaign, he was still in the right places and reached people where they were at. I also think Destiny's strategy for this is top tier as well, the amount of reach he's had in the last year or 2 has been phonemonal. But I don't think he really sees himself as a role model, although he does have a lot of male followers but he doesn't position himself as someone to follow.

Destiny only really works with people who value truth more than personality, achievements etc. Not that he's always right but he prioritises the search for truth, with research etc. But if you're looking for a cultist type leader he wouldn't work. Hassan is just as bad as those on the right but just in a leftist persona. It's a tough one the left really need people to up their game because this alt right pipeline is like a cancer

I agree with you, there arent really strong male role models on the left. What I've noticed about men and boys on the left is that they really want someone with what they see as an ideal life to emulate and listen to. What's funny is it's not really what a traditional man would do, you wouldn't follow another man completely like that, you'd have your own sovereignty. Also another factor is that a lot of the right wing manosphere are grifters, so they will just tell guys what the want to hear, hit pain points etc and fleece their followers for money (tate, fresh n fit etc). So even if there are positive people on the left, if they do have integrity, it's very easy for them to get drowned out. Curiously I think rsd Juliens content atm is exactly what we're talking about could help people, even despite his history. But look at the difference in his reach since he changed from hard-core pick up to the self help stuff he does now. I actually think it's a really hard task to have integrity, compete with those that don't and be widely popular. The devil is always more alluring. Dems also being out of touch, missed out on collabing with the few guys who are on the left, even political guys in the left on youtube. This is something trump did very well in terms of his podcast appearances.

Trump was smart in terms of his podcast appearances though, appearing on rogan as well as neck boys, adin Ross etc would've done him a lot of favours with young men especially

He is terrible don't get me wrong, but if your democratic structures can survive it you will be stronger for it. I do agree though in terms of war in the US it's almost like they cosplay internal civil wars because they've never really been attacked from the outside. Obviously Europe has been in two world wars in the last century, which was an insane threat on people's way of life and the results of the led to the EU and relative peace in the region. It's an interesting observation the the US has just never really had something like that, they've always been the big power. So almost like this situation has manifested because of their hubris and not being able to recognise historic patterns that didn't happen to them, but that would be the case for any country in that situation. It's kinda like the rich kid that thinks he's a tough guy but has never been to the hood. The thing is whatever existential threat that could cause change could there even be? It's not like anyone would invade the US, Trump is a massive test but actually Putin is pretty big, he is basically at war with the US but it's a war of infiltration and agitation , most dint even realise what's going on to learn lessons from it.

Yeah not being conscious of it makes it so hard to address, you convince yourself there isn't any issue or you just need to get this, achieve this to be ok. It's tough. Sorry I don't think I was that clear in what I was saying, I agree with you in that you have to embrace your feminine side as a guy to be completely free, because as you say they aren't going away and also they fully round you as a man. What my point was, which you may still disagree with, is that let's say a boy grows up with a single mother, she encourages feminine side etc sometimes it can happen where she may demonise masculine qualities or if the boy is in liberal spaces they may demonise being a man or masculine. So the boy then could repress their masculine side and not properly express it. I have seen this in a lot of guys and weirdly these guys are also very liable to go down the redpill rabbit hole and blame women. Yeah for them Tate represents their idea of what freedom as a man looks like. But when I look at him I actually see someone he's completely trapped in ego and persona, he isn't free at all because without all his so called accomplishments, he's nothing. But he resonates because he gives them an easy way out of all the stuff we've discussed, even if it loving vicariously through him

The problem boys and men face is that theyre told from young they have to be 'men', if theyre not men theyll be disrespected, they wont get female attention etc. But also theyre not told how to be men in a healthy way, theres a lot of dads not being around or if they are around not being a positive influence. So when these boys get into the world they extremely easy to manipulate and corrupt, all you have to do is present them with some kind of macho masculinity and acceptance and its a wrap. But however the survive this psyche, deep down they truly believe they arent shit, thet dont want to face this and so its easier to scapegoat and blame others. I do think this issue is societies failing, men have been left behind for the most part. On the flip even if a boy grew up and embraced his feminine side, most likely he would demonise his masculine and supress that which is also not healthy, men are rarely encouraged to just be themselves, probably the only ones that are, are gay boys if they grow up in an accepting environment.

@Emerald Very interesting insights When Trump won in 2016 I was shocked but I also found it hard to like Hilary, although I wouldve voted for her if I was American. Reason being I felt the system just wasnt honest, it felt like people were putting on an act and trying to just keep the status quo despite the multitude of issues like crazy military spending, impoverished areas not getting good education etc. Obama was a good leader but i felt he was hampered by the system and also being a democrat and keeping donors happy. Bottom line something did need to change in politics, was Trump the best way to shake things up? I mean it wouldve been nice if there was another way but this seems to be the way that presented itself. What we can see Trump does well is bring a plain speaking (even if it is incoherent) being himself persona, at least thats how people take him. I think with establishment politicians, they do lack a real human connection. On the other side AOC is very good at connecting with people and i think that is because shes grown up in her area, not rich and just a normal (but quite brilliant) person. This is the shift politics needs, it needs normal but brilliant leaders, deeply entenched politicians with poitical families like Clinton and Bush are just not gonna cut it anymore, people want reality, even if its just a feeling of reality. So whatever we want to say about Trump, politics will not be the same after him and politicians really need to learn from that going forward.

I would say though I'm a fairly masculine man but and so I find myself in discussions with other guys, friends or otherwise where even if they dont outright support Trump theyll say a lot of stuff that I would say is kinda anti-left, anti-progressive, its pretty frequent actually. I dont mind holding my position and i think i argue it well, without getting emotional or anything like that. But I can imagine that within a group of guys lets say they all think anti-left it would be very hard for one of them to stand up and counter that and seperate themselves from the group. I actually think this is a big factor because a lot of the times in groups of guys, especially young guys they tend to think in the same way, moreso out of fear of being outcast from the group.

Scott Galloway talks in some depth about this on this podcast -

I had a bit of respect for Rogan for not siding with either party, but to endorse Trump is nuts. I wonder if it's just an audience capture thing as most of his viewers are probably maga aligned

What is Musk's actual argument for Trump that convinced Rogan? Can't he bothered sitting through the podcast

I hear you in that, someone could be super specialised and work really hard in one academic area and succeed despite not having a particularly high IQ. In fact I think some people can be overly confident because they have a degree in say psychology and then think that they can speak on politics without studying that (cough peterson). But where I would disagree is I dont think Trump is particularly intelligent, I actually think hes quite low intelligence, I would love for him to do an IQ test. Spewing bullshit is not necessarily a sign of intelligence, especially with how transparent his bullshit is, I think there are much better bullshitters in the world even. What I think he is really good at is being ruthless and being super confident. He believes hes intelligent, he believes he is the best man thats ever lived, his super power is his ego, when you add ruthlessness to it, it means hes willing to do what ever he needs to do to get what he wants. A lot of people are hampered by trying to appear like a good person at least, if not having actual morals and values but he doesnt have to deal with any of that. I dont know if youve heard some of the Epstin tapes that have come out, not that Epsteins the most credible source, but hes said on the tapes that Trump doesnt know anything, he knows something about real estate but has no clue about anything else, political or otherwise. I think most people that have worked with him would say the same. Also after seeing him brag about passing a dementia test i really cant take any claims about his intelligence seriously

The smartest man in the world thinks Trump has the intelligence of a harvard professor? Either I'm really dumb missing Trumps intelligence or the smartest man in the world has gaps in his perception

@Scholar Basically there are pros and cons of every form of government, but the question is do you want the system to be decided by one person that is granted complete power or at least majority power or should it be a system created and maintained by many people and every stake holder has at least some say? A dictatorship in theory could be amazing if you have a benevolent leader that cares about the will of the people, but I think it's unlikely that someone who wants that position wouldn't be concerned with wanting power for themselves. I feel a genuine leader doing it for his people would want to go more democratic to avoid a malevolent leader gaining power and ruining their country. In Trumps case it's clear that he wants to minimise the system as much as possible to consolidate more power to him, he's not interested in a democratic system. It is weird that society has regressed to point of appointing a wannabe dictator to the highest political position. You just have to look to history to see how that has always turned out.

@Joshe Very good analysis and I appreciate the detail youve included. I think its hard in general not to be audience captured as a content creator, there is also a healthy version of it whereby you serve your audience and try and give them what they want. For example if you do psychology you want to cover topics your audience would be interested in. But I think what separates Brand lets say is that he was willing to compromise his core values for what his audience wanted or to grow his audience. The other thing I notice is that their ego takes over, so they become a cult of personality and they believe it themselves because of the adulation they get. They believe themselves to be brilliant. If you look at the imagery of Brand especially, hes almost presenting himself as some christ like entity. Only the most rabid, extreme fans can give you this type of devotion, most normal people will just stop watching you, but hes now left with basically crazy, fundamentalists, who are unquestioning of his rhetoric. I also think there has to be some kind of shared condition whereby these type of characters need this adulation. Both Brand and Peterson have had addiction problems, im not saying that just because your an addict you could fall in this trap but i think that plus a combination of other factors could lead to it. There seems to be something missing in them that is getting fulfilled by going down this road.

Talk about missing the point, what I'm saying is that we are all human, you can choose to seperate bathrooms out on anything you like but that's still a construction for whatever reason. You can choose to seperate them for gender, you can choose to seperate them for race, it's still a choice that a society makes either way

Imo he's strawmanning the position that Trump is a facist. I would be impressed if he did a video saying why when Trump says things like the constitution should be ripped up or that he will be dictator for a day, or him looking up to figures like Putin. Or of course him literally trying to stop thr peaceful transition of power and leaning on states to 'find votes' for him. All these are valid criticisms that Trump has a facist play book and wants to be a dictator. But what I've noticed is that most maga people latch on to being outraged that people are calling them Nazis, even though he is literally using tactics that Hitler used. Still they aren't literal Nazis but the criticism is valid. Kisin is making light of the left being so out of touch with reality that they're calling normal people Nazis but this is extremely dishonest from someone that is supposed to be centrist, free thinker. Why is he only engaging in the strawman and not the substantive evidence against Trump that he's basically a facist. Not only that there are lots of people including generals that worked with Trump and they all say this.

@spirtualwarfare Don't really get your argument. You understand that separating male and female bathrooms in the first place was probably a decision to make things safer for women. It's like when they had seperate bathrooms for black and white people, that was a social construction made for whatever reason. If you think everyone should be treated the same the social construction either has to be a seperate bathroom for trans or no gender bathrooms or let them use whatever bathroom they want out of male and female. There's not really another option.

I noticed a real shift during covid, whereby Brand and Rogan and even Peterson previously wouldnt have outright agreed with Maga or conspiracy theories in general, but at that time i think they realised how many of the followers did actually want them to talk about that stuff. Its hard to say whether it was consciously done on their part but i think when you get adulation and money you kind of go toward it and i think thats what theyve done. Basically theyre completely audience captured. Another thing to realise is that the right pay extremely well. They are all smart people so for them not to realise in some way i find hard to believe, however they are also smart enough to fool themselves. Either way though its very sad how people can just be bought in this manner.

@zazen It depends how you see it, do you want a secular society whereby you can do anything you like as long as it doesnt infringe on the freedom of other people or should there be an objective set of values and morality that we should all live by regardless of if it is against ones personal values and morality? I think that the left generally want the 1st option and the right generally want the 2nd option. The trouble with the 2nd option is obvious in that most people may not share the values, in this case christian nationalism, in a lot of instances the right is unashamedly not tolerant of certain things like lgbtq, abortion rights etc. The left is tolerant of everything except intolerance. This is where the conflict happens because the right fundamentally cant accept the left and the left cant accept the intolerance of the right. Its like a paradox how can you be tolerant and also accept intolerance? My stance would be that a secular society whereby anyone can practice whatever religion and whatever culture they want is a better society in that it can include everyone, it can include christians, muslims, black, white, gay straight. In principle these are the foundations of America, the country was designed to be secular and to be equal, the success of the country has come from that even despite them not really sticking to it a lot of times. But the country is built on immigration essentially and really the culture is a massive mix of all different cultures throughout the years. The fundamentalist view where you say things should be a certain way, was successful at one point in history but all massive civilizations have had to become secular in some way. The general issue with it is that its too inflexible and doesnt let a society grow, its born from fear, fear of change, fear of being replaced. Even on a individual level, fear does not lead to great outcomes. Most people just want secular values that allow them to be themselves, whatever that might be. If you take 10 random people, a couple of their views are going to be extreme, theres no way around that. What i think is dangerous, both sides do this as well, is when you take the extreme view and try to present it as the moderate view of that side. This has what has taken the right v left battle to absurd level, the whole discussion over trans people who are probably less than 0.1% of the population is such a non-issue but it seems to be at the forefront of political discourse. I would argue maga is the highest level of absurd, its worse than the woke side imo in that maga will change whatever they think based on whatever Trump says, its scary to me to have a large group of people who will basically believe and follow whatever their leader says, regardless of the truth. You can say what you want about the left but they dont just follow randomly, most of he time they dont even agree with each other. The results of following a leader were shown on Jan 6th.