Democrats are losing young men?

[Consept]

22 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Think about Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, Andrew Tate, etc. 

Matt Walsh and Andrew Tate are in the 50th percentile of Masculine vibes where they're dead on average... while Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and Charlie Kirk are slightly less Masculine than the majority of men.

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. 

[aurum]

18 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Are you sure about that?

On average, these right wing guys don't come across as any more Masculine than the next guy. The only one I can think of that's Masculine is Joe Rogan... and he's not even the most ideologically right wing guy.

Most right wing male figures are just ideologically fetishizing their views on Masculinity. But that doesn't actually translate to them coming across as more Masculine. Like, I can't even think of a right wing guy other than Joe Rogan... or maybe Steven Crowder that come across as more Masculine than the average guy.

It's just like a if there's a woman who ideologically fetishized Femininity... it wouldn't make her more Feminine.

You can see a slight example of this with trad wives that have an ideological attachment to the idea of traditional Femininity. Unless they're influencers that play trad wives on TikTok, most of them are not paragons of Femininity just because they subscribe to that ideology. Some are truly the opposite and use their beliefs in trad Fem ideology to try to gain male validation, which doesn't actually translate to more Feminine allure in these men's eyes. 

Masculinity and Femininity are not things people can add to themselves just by believing an ideology that puts Masculinity or Femininity up on a pedestal. 

Think about Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, Andrew Tate, etc. 

Matt Walsh and Andrew Tate are in the 50th percentile of Masculine vibes where they're dead on average... while Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and Charlie Kirk are slightly less Masculine than the majority of men.

Yes I'm sure.

Your average young guy is going to value winning, domination, personal success, physical aggression, crushing your competition and feeling tough.

This is all antithetical to the values of the left. The left wants social justice, equality and to curb people's ability to dominate.

It takes some serious maturity as a guy to actually appreciate leftist values. Leftism just seems like it's for soft soy-boys when you're young.

This is not just an issue of right-wingers winning the narrative war, this is a developmental issue.

[Joshe]

25 minutes ago, aurum said:

Yes I'm sure.

Your average young guy is going to value winning, domination, personal success, physical aggression, crushing your competition and feeling tough.

This is all antithetical to the values of the left. The left wants social justice, equality and to curb people's ability to dominate.

It takes some serious maturity as a guy to actually appreciate leftist values. Leftism just seems like it's for soft soy-boys when you're young.

This is not just an issue of right-wingers winning the narrative war, this is a developmental issue.

100%.

30 minutes ago, aurum said:

It takes some serious maturity as a guy to actually appreciate leftist values. Leftism just seems like it's for soft soy-boys when you're young.

Now that being on the right is associated with masculinity, I wonder to what degree it will hamper maturation of men. If you're 18 and associate "leftist" values with weakness and if you have millions of others affirming it, I think that's going to prevent some men from maturing who otherwise would have. 

Back when I was coming up, we had gangsters, bad boys, etc, but we knew it wasn't really accepted in society and I think because society didn't really allow it, that helped us grow out of it faster. If society is accepting of this toxicity, we might see this generation mature much slower than previous ones. 

[Consept]

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

Now that being on the right is associated with masculinity, I wonder to what degree it will hamper maturation of men. If you're 18 and associate "leftist" values with weakness and if you have millions of others affirming it, I think that's going to prevent some men from maturing who otherwise would have. 

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 

 

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

Back when I was coming up, we had gangsters, bad boys, etc, but we knew it wasn't really accepted in society and I think because society didn't really allow it, that helped us grow out of it faster. If society is accepting of this toxicity, we might see this generation mature much slower than previous ones. 

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. 

[whh2222]

I will say this.

I went to college in a very liberal city at a liberal arts school during the transferring of Trump to Biden. I was a constantly feeling as if I was guilty until proven innocent, my degree required me to take 4 humanities classes, which really seemed like overkill. And I was always treated with a certain attitude from certain people in the form of 'microaggressions' with a general lack of respect and undertones of disdain. I felt as if I had to perform extra hard to not be seen as a threat.

And the funny thing is, I'm not even hyper masculine. But it seemed as if I had to either carry a certain level of shame or be lgbtq to fit into that environment. Luckily I was apart of alternative communities outside of the school that focused on what it means to be healthy men, started by one of my close friends. And I have also generally never been a right wing, racist, homophobic guy. So finding a way to be a healthy masculine man was not hard for me to navigate.

But at that time I was getting fed up with how overbearing the extreme liberal ideals were being pushed on to everyone and everything, and I remember feeling that I made a mistake choosing this university at this period of time. And if I was less developed, I could have easily slid into the traps that these young men slid into. 

One reason I'm pretty bummed about another Trump term is that it's going to rev up that paranoia and disdain again. I wonder if I am going to have to go on dates with a shirt that says 'I voted for Kamala!' 

Edited November 9 by whh2222

[Emerald]

10 hours ago, aurum said:

Yes I'm sure.

Your average young guy is going to value winning, domination, personal success, physical aggression, crushing your competition and feeling tough.

This is all antithetical to the values of the left. The left wants social justice, equality and to curb people's ability to dominate.

It takes some serious maturity as a guy to actually appreciate leftist values. Leftism just seems like it's for soft soy-boys when you're young.

This is not just an issue of right-wingers winning the narrative war, this is a developmental issue.

Of course. I didn't mean that guys wouldn't want to be Masculine and value those things.

What I meant by "Are you sure?" is "Are you sure that these right wing guys are ACTUALLY Masculine?"

They don't come across as any more Masculine than the average guy in Walmart.

[Emerald]

10 hours ago, Consept said:

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. 

I think it has to do with lacking an understanding of the archetypal distinction between the Masculine and Feminine... and seeing the Feminine as antithetical to the Masculine as opposed to a necessary component of what makes an attractive and well adjusted man.

The esoteric Masculine without the esoteric Feminine makes someone a "brain-in-a-jar". (aka a robotic hyper-nerd)

The esoteric Feminine without the esoteric Masculine makes someone a "blob-on-the-ground." (aka a lazy couch-potato)

And of course, neither of these polarizations into the Masculine and Feminine make a person attractive. 

So, there is a misconception that a man need to be only Masculine, and that the more Masculine a guy is that the more attractive he will be.

But the Feminine is what enables us to have emotional intelligence, social acuity, connection to the body and instincts, etc. as all things of the body, emotions, and social connection are in the Feminine principle. And this is what makes a man come across as Masculine and attractive in the eyes of the world.

But because there is a distinction between the cultural associations with Masculinity (which includes A LOT of archetypal Feminine qualities) AND the esoteric Masculine (which is pure raw Masculinity), so many men keep doubling down on pure Masculinity and becoming more and more socially maladjusted, nerdy, and weird because they have repressed their Feminine sides, which is what makes us more down to Earth and human.

So, these guys who seek to be Masculine and to repress their Feminine sides become total "brain-in-a-jar" robotic hyper-nerds that come across as a bit disconnected, lofty, and alien. And of course, women don't like that.

And these hyper-Masculine nerdy guys believe women don't like them because they're not Masculine enough, when the problem is that they're hyper-Masculine and not integrated with their Feminine side enough.

And they keep doubling down on Masculine polarization and making themselves more and more nerdy and less and less socially and emotionally attuned.

And then, what's the solution? Clearly they're not Masculine enough... so they keep trying to subtract the Feminine and add the Masculine.

And that doesn't work.

And then, what's the solution? Clearly they're not Masculine enough... so they keep trying to subtract the Feminine and add the Masculine.

And that doesn't work.

And then, what's the solution? Clearly they're not Masculine enough... so they keep trying to subtract the Feminine and add the Masculine.

And that doesn't work.

And then, what's the solution? Clearly they're not Masculine enough... so they keep trying to subtract the Feminine and add the Masculine.

And that doesn't work.

And then, what's the solution? Clearly they're not Masculine enough... so they keep trying to subtract the Feminine and add the Masculine.

And that doesn't work.

etc.

[mr_engineer]

Well, I guess progressives gonna learn the hard way. 

Progressives have had a lot of chances to learn the easy way, but they didn't take those. Now, have fun with Trump in the white house! 

[aurum]

3 hours ago, Emerald said:

Of course. I didn't mean that guys wouldn't want to be Masculine and value those things.

What I meant by "Are you sure?" is "Are you sure that these right wing guys are ACTUALLY Masculine?"

They don't come across as any more Masculine than the average guy in Walmart.

They are certainly more stereotypically masculine than your average leftist, yes.

And they offer a version of masculinity that is more relatable to younger guys because it is less mature, less developed.

That’s the problem with the Dave Bautista ad that @Joshe posted. I can tell Dave is trying to relate to how a young dude would think. But the reality is that integrating leftism is just out of maturity range for a lot of these dudes.

So even if they like Dave’s ad, fundamentally there is a mismatch in terms of values and development level. And no ad by itself can fix that.

[What Am I]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

They are certainly more stereotypically masculine than your average leftist, yes.

And they offer a version of masculinity that is more relatable to younger guys because it is less mature, less developed.

That’s the problem with the Dave Bautista ad that @Joshe posted. I can tell Dave is trying to relate to how a young dude would think. But the reality is that integrating leftism is just out of maturity range for a lot of these dudes.

So even if they like Dave’s ad, fundamentally there is a mismatch in terms of values and development level. And no ad by itself can fix that.

What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but how do we reconcile that young people were previously overwhelmingly left-leaning? I haven't looked at stats to confirm, but I remember that including both young men and young women. So much so that there were many talks on the left about lowering the voting age, which I assume has become less of a priority for them now.

Why was high-maturity leftist thinking within young men's grasp before, but has become simply beyond their ability to grasp now?

[aurum]

21 minutes ago, What Am I said:

Why was high-maturity leftist thinking within young men's grasp before, but has become simply beyond their ability to grasp now?

It was always beyond the grasp of many of them.

The younger generation just has the benefit of coasting off the development of previous generations. So in that sense it can be easier.

Also, as Leo has been saying recently, you always have to account for larping.

Being leftist can just be an identity or thing you do to fit in or feel cool when you’re younger. It doesn’t mean you really understand or appreciate why leftism matters and what it’s about.

[What Am I]

5 minutes ago, aurum said:

Also, as Leo has been saying recently, you always have to account for larping.

Being leftist can just be an identity or thing you do to fit in or feel cool when you’re younger. It doesn’t mean you really understand or appreciate why leftism matters and what it’s about.

This sticks out as a glaring possibility. There was probably a stretch of time where it was considered the most popular thing to do (cosplay leftism). I'm guessing the options have evened out a bit in terms of what's an acceptable ideology to profess, even if young people don't actually understand the differences.

[Consept]

1 hour ago, What Am I said:

What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but how do we reconcile that young people were previously overwhelmingly left-leaning? I haven't looked at stats to confirm, but I remember that including both young men and young women. So much so that there were many talks on the left about lowering the voting age, which I assume has become less of a priority for them now.

Why was high-maturity leftist thinking within young men's grasp before, but has become simply beyond their ability to grasp now?

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. 

[What Am I]

2 minutes ago, Consept said:

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. 

Yeah, I've noticed the establishment/anti-establishment flip as well. You could definitely be on to something in terms of young people naturally shifting away from perceived authority.

Is something similar happening in the UK, or are the politics and culture not really comparable to the US?

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

They are certainly more stereotypically masculine than your average leftist, yes.

And they offer a version of masculinity that is more relatable to younger guys because it is less mature, less developed.

That’s the problem with the Dave Bautista ad that @Joshe posted. I can tell Dave is trying to relate to how a young dude would think. But the reality is that integrating leftism is just out of maturity range for a lot of these dudes.

So even if they like Dave’s ad, fundamentally there is a mismatch in terms of values and development level. And no ad by itself can fix that.

Personally, I don't even think they're more stereotypically Masculine than the average leftist guy. I think that's just a stereotype that's widely believed.

Think of Sam Seder, David Pakman, Cenk Ugyer, David Doel, Destiny, Hasan Piker, Vaush, etc. 

All of these guys are either equally Masculine or more Masculine compared to Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Nick Fuentes, Dennis Prager, Dave Rubin, Andrew Tate, etc.

I don't sense any difference in the average level of Masculinity between these two groups of guys. They're all kind of medium level of Masculinity... except Cenk Ugyer, Hasan Piker, and Stephen Crowder who are a bit more Masculine than average.

And if they weren't directly vocalizing their ideologies and talking about politics and everyone went in blind and you had these two groups of guys to observe and you could observe the way they speak and act, I don't think most people would rank the right wing group as more Masculine than the left wing group.

The Masculinity of right wing guys is kind of like the emperor's new clothes in that way.

Unless you've specifically been taught to associate Masculinity with right wing ideologies, you wouldn't read them as more Masculine than the next guy.

[Consept]

31 minutes ago, What Am I said:

Yeah, I've noticed the establishment/anti-establishment flip as well. You could definitely be on to something in terms of young people naturally shifting away from perceived authority.

Is something similar happening in the UK, or are the politics and culture not really comparable to the US?

Urrm I think the politics and culture are quite markedly different, a big factor of that is that we're not a particularly religious country. So things like abortion rights, teaching creationism or religion at school etc are just not contested issues. In fact a lib dem leader was looked at very suspiciously and ended up resigning because people thought it was weird that he was religious a few years back. He actually seemed like a decent guy as well.

So in that way there's not like the crazy, fervent polarisation that you might get in the US. 

We also have supposedly unbiased media, so the BBC, sky news etc can not give strong opinions either way, they wouldn't even say Trump is bad for example (newspapers do have freedom though). But what has been happening is the right are trying to emulate what the US right have been doing, they started up channels GB news and talk tv in the last couple years, these are basically what fox news are. But officially they are labelled entertainment channels because of their bias and sometimes false reporting they can't be labelled news, they may not even last because they get into a lot of legal issues. 

There is of course a section of the UK that probably would vote for Trump and are against any immigration etc, I've seen reports when they asked Britons if they would vote for Trump it was around 18% so that gives some idea. 

Young rebellious people here are more likely to be left imo just stop oil, free Palestine, veganism. On the other side it's the anti-immigrant, Britain first type people, but this at least atm is a minority, 4 million voted for the reform party, which is run by Trumps buddy farage. 

But yeah generally we have some of the same dynamics but the US is a whole other level

[Consept]

36 minutes ago, Emerald said:

The Masculinity of right wing guys is kind of like the emperor's new clothes in that way.

Unless you've specifically been taught to associate Masculinity with right wing ideologies, you wouldn't read them as more Masculine than the next guy.

I genuinely don't believe they're more masculine, they've painted the leftist guys in a certain way, but the insecurity from the right is palpable. I also think their stiffness and inflexibility, to me anyway, makes them seem very weak. 

Even the younger guys like sneako, adin ross etc don't seem masculine at all. Tbh though I don't think a lot of traditionally masculine guys would be on stream for hours on end, that medium attracts less masculine guys

[What Am I]

3 minutes ago, Consept said:

But yeah generally we have some of the same dynamics but the US is a whole other level

Interesting stuff, thanks. I always wonder what's going on in an anti-establishment context around the world, and especially in other western countries. You might be surprised how little US news talks about international affairs.

9 minutes ago, Consept said:

There is of course a section of the UK that probably would vote for Trump and are against any immigration etc, I've seen reports when they asked Britons if they would vote for Trump it was around 18% so that gives some idea. 

That's surprisingly low. Though I wonder if a lack of familiarity would play a part. It's not like Trump campaigns in the UK. I imagine when polled, most people in the US wouldn't know what to think of the UK prime minister either.

[whh2222]

24 minutes ago, Consept said:

I genuinely don't believe they're more masculine, they've painted the leftist guys in a certain way, but the insecurity from the right is palpable. I also think their stiffness and inflexibility, to me anyway, makes them seem very weak. 

Even the younger guys like sneako, adin ross etc don't seem masculine at all. Tbh though I don't think a lot of traditionally masculine guys would be on stream for hours on end, that medium attracts less masculine guys

sneako is a punk. no if ands or buts about that. Adin is too, but especially sneako. Those guys are shells of a human being. Adin got punked by blueface on stream and went with it because it garnered more views.  

Edited November 9 by whh2222

[whh2222]

1 hour ago, Consept said:

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. 

I find this the most interesting. Trump at one point ran as a dem and campaigned for gay rights. he is as interchangeable as it suits him. I believe that many people on a subconscious level understand that