Trump isn’t an icon of positive masculinity. He also did very little for young men during his four years as president

  • @Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    12810 months ago

    The US will get the leader they deserve.

    Too bad the rest of the world will feel the consequences as well while they have no say in the matter.

    • @LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Nor does half the country. I just don’t understand why trump appeals to young men at all. He’s just some horrifically uncool geezer.

      • aramis87
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        8310 months ago

        Because all of the aggrieved male content on yt, TikTok, podcasts, etc. There’s an entire normie-to-nazi pipeline ffs, and the social media algorithms continually promote stuff that’s just slightly more “edgy”, and suddenly kids have gone from Joe Rogan to Andrew Tate. Because all of the white males behind social media - spez, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc - agree with that content and continue to find excuses to “free speech” it.

        • @shalafi@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Those boys should put in more work getting laid. And that’s only a partial joke.

          The incel thing drags them in, step 1 into the pipe. The can’t get laid, must be something going on they can’t put their finger on, but that thing is damned sure someone else’s fault.

          “I’m white, OK looking and I’m a nice guy!” The unspoken question, the unthought question, is, “What happened to my privilege?” For past generations, life seemed to work out well enough for white guys, but it sure as hell isn’t working out for me!

          Demographic shift has been wild in my lifetime. Too young to have experienced this, they get a feeling that something nebulous has changed, for the worse. They see minorities of all stripes stepping onto a more level playing field and then tune into YouTubers saying, “Yes! Now you get it! The other is the thing you didn’t realize was holding you down!” Well god damn, now it all makes sense!

          Back to getting laid, the fun part. Nothing like a good screw to smooth those rejected feels. You’re wanted, wanted as a man. But if they think going hard-right is going to land them some pussy, oh boy… The few women in that scene are strictly for the alphas! Your beta ass won’t even get scraps.

          Dated quite a bit couple of years back. That was an education. Few women had political statements in their profiles, but many wrote something akin to, “I’m not interested in politics.”, often followed by a lovey, flowery sentence to lighten the mood. Men: This is code for, “Don’t come at me with your Trump bullshit.” Yes, apparently guys often pull that horsepucky on the first date. These woman are screening for conservatives, they ain’t gonna hear it. Talking on the phone to a potential date (who I ended up dating for a few months!),

          “(laughing) Yeah, I’m a bit of a redneck.”

          Silence. Wrong thing to say there, buckaroo.

          “…uh, just how redneck?”

          “I loathe Trump if that’s what you’re getting at.”

          “Oh, whew! Just checking, can’t be too careful these days.”

          tl;dr: We need to get the word out to these young men, “This crap you’re watching is anathema to getting laid.”

          • @Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Feel like calling them incels and assuming you know every thing going on there gives them an easy out. Need to start asking these turds what gives them the right? Who entitled them to feel so fucking special? Was it popular media? Because that’s all bullshit and we’ve known that since day one, so why the fuck do they think they get to live a delusion?

          • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            410 months ago

            I cannot emphasize enough to men: nobody wants to hear how overarmed someone pursuing them is.

            But seriously, the right wing loves to imply that “real men” are right wing and that women want a “real man”. And the left can’t really counter the first part because “real man” is a concept rooted in patriarchal expectations and is partly associated with real jackasses. But the second part we only have an unsatisfying answer for: that women are people and all want different things.

            But they’re training young men to struggle romantically and be pissed about it without the emotional intelligence to deal with that anger. Oh and they’re encouraging those men to buy guns and to take offense at women being scared of men. That’s not how you make your fans into happy husbands and fathers who credit you for setting them on the path to that. It’s how you make them into suicide terrorists, it’s far closer to what Al Quadra did than what loving fathers do.

        • @fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          910 months ago

          Pair that with white males feeling entitled to things (mostly money, women, and even friends) and society currently being set up to keep them away from those things. They’re rightfully angry, it’s just their anger is being directed at the wrong things.

      • @CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        410 months ago

        Yep, he’s a very weird old man. I think they might think rallying around him is a way to reclaim their manhood.

      • @linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        310 months ago

        That’s the problem with colts from the outside you don’t get it.

        From the inside they don’t get it either but they still keep going.

    • @mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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      3910 months ago

      You’re not paying enough attention if you think Trump winning means “too bad the rest of the world will feel the consequences.” Germany just elected their first far right government since WWII, France had a massive right wing that is now in the EU council, Austria… well they keep making shitty right wing choices, down into South America Argentina shifted right, and other countries continue to do so as well. We’re not special or alone in this.

      • @Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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        1110 months ago

        Oh I’ll definitely give you that! My own little corner of the world has been ruled by fairly hard-right nutjobs for over a decade, and while not quite as dramatic as elsewhere, almost all metrics for a positive society have gone down, except employment. We too suffer from insurmountable housing costs and low wages, which is not a coincidence at all.

        • @grue@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          almost all metrics for a positive society have gone down, except employment.

          In other words, all the metrics have gone down.

          (Employment is only a positive metric when the alternative is poverty, not self-actualization. The notion that being employed is intrinsically good is some elitist/authoritarian bullshit rooted more in keeping the working class too scared and busy to demand better for themselves than anything else.)

      • @piefedderatedd@piefed.socialOP
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        10 months ago

        You’re not paying enough attention if you think Trump winning means “too bad the rest of the world will feel the consequences.” Germany just elected their first far right government since WWII,

        There were elections in two states in the east of Germany last weekend. In one of them the far right party AfD gained most votes compared to others. In the other state they finished second largest. There is nothing decisive however. Other parties have been called to set up a firewall “Brandmauer” to prevent the AfD to govern.

        France had a massive right wing that is now in the EU council, Austria… well they keep making shitty right wing choices, down into South America Argentina shifted right, and other countries continue to do so as well. We’re not special or alone in this.

        Exactly. In the last few decades Austria , Turkey and Hungary were among the first to shift to far right party based governments in Europe. An interesting read is this book by Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran (Who fled the country) which is about Turkey going downhill from democracy to dictatorship. This book also reflects on Trump winning in 2016. At some point also Poland had a far-right government but the damage from that is slowly being repaired by a new government. By now among others Slovakia, Italy and the Netherlands have far-right government coalitions. Outside Europe there was Bolsonaro in Brazil. Still, Trump winning (legally or not) would be bad for the rest of the world, especially for Ukraine.

    • @ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      I get this way of thinking, but just to be clear: the US didn’t get the leader it deserved when Trump “won” the first time, despite receiving millions of fewer votes than Hilary. And almost certainly here, even if Trump “wins,” he will have gotten less votes.

      That’s because there is a 2-3% bias in the current presidential electoral system, the Electoral College. We’re founded under a “1 person, 1 vote” ideology that our elections ignore.

      So yes, I get the frustration. But we (the sane people) are all in this together, and the majority of voters in the US appear to still be sane, even if that doesn’t win the election by default. Solidarity would be the better move here.

      • @Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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        1510 months ago

        In 2016 voters had the excuse that they didn’t know how a Trump presidency would play out. They don’t have that same excuse in 2024. Anyone who votes for him knows what they’re doing. If he wins, even with electoral college shenanigans, it will be a symptom of a much deeper malaise than just Trump.

        • @ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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          10 months ago

          Yes, I agree with all of that. But “there’s a bigger problem” or “Trump voters know who he is” isn’t the same as “the US got what it deserves.”

          I’m specifically taking issue with “deserves.”. “Deserves” implies Trump represents the US, which would only be true if the majority of the US (or US voters) chose Trump. We didn’t. That’s important because he’s not just a dangerous leader, and an autocrat, he’s one that does not have a mandate of the people.

          • @Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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            610 months ago

            He still has the support of about 80 million people. While not the majority, neither is it a neglible amount compared to the total. If about a quarter to a third of your population are basically Nazis, you do have a much bigger problem, and the “deserves” - while definitely controversial - does start to kind of figure in the equation.

            The world didn’t exactly simply forgive the German citizenry after WW2 either, and for good cause.

            • @Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              I don’t understand why you are getting downvoted. This was an incredibly salient point.

              What we are observing is that regardless of our vast technological progression, a statistically significant percentage of the population continues to suffer from a clinical form of emotional retardation that has severely stunted their ability to think rationally, to feel empathy, or in many cases both.

              At some point our species is going to have to learn how to correct for this aberration, or we will reach an untimely evolutionary dead end.

            • @grue@lemmy.world
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              210 months ago

              To expand upon that point: if y’all non-MAGA Americans think that the rest of the Germans had a moral obligation to revolt against the Nazis, well, you’d better have a good long think about your current situation.

      • @confused_code_monkey@lemm.ee
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        510 months ago

        I agree with everything you’re saying, except:

        We’re founded under a “1 person, 1 vote” ideology

        At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegates debated between Congress choosing the next president vs a straight popular vote. The former risked corruption between the legislative and executive branches, and the latter gave too much power to the uneducated, sometimes-mob-esque populous. After several debates, a compromised was reached - electors. These intermediaries wouldn’t be picked by Congress or elected by the people. Instead, the states would each appoint independent electors who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

        Overall, though some founders agreed with a “1 person, 1 vote” ideology, they were not the majority… unfortunate though that was.

        • @grue@lemmy.world
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          310 months ago

          Instead, the states would each appoint independent electors who would cast the actual ballots for the presidency.

          In other words, like having Congress do it, but with added Federalism by giving it to the state legislatures instead of the federal one.

          The “Electors as intermediaries” part was wasn’t directly about reducing corruption, because having the state legislators choose would’ve already solved that. The only trouble was that “one state legislator, one vote” wouldn’t work because different states set up their legislatures differently and with varying numbers of constituents per legislator, so they needed a sort of ‘compatibility layer’ to compensate for those differences and the solution was having state legislatures appoint Electors.

    • @Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      410 months ago

      Most of us do not deserve the orange monster. Most of us are actually good people who are just trying to survive. Don’t wish harm on the whole country because a bunch of assholes use a shit electoral college system to their advantage.