By David Futrelle
I thought I’d ease myself back into posting with a little note on a fellow we haven’t heard from in some time: Paul Elam, the celebrated founder of hate site A Voice for Men.
Elam, who announced his official “retirement” as a Men’s Rights Activist last year (it didn’t take), now presents himself as a men’s therapist of sorts, and an advocate for men’s mental health, despite having no professional training as a therapist and despite his support for Republican efforts to destroy Obamacare, which would of course deprive tens of millions of Americans (half of them, you know, men) of mental health coverage.
But the reason for this post today is the Tweet below, which was brought to my attention by the excellent @TakeDownMRAs on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/890172845770362882
So is Elam trying, somewhat belatedly, to glom onto the Alt Right, the reactionary movement that has largely left Elam’s favorite reactionary movement, the Men’s Rights movement, in the dust? I mean, he doesn’t explicitly say he’s a white nationalist here, but he’s dogwhistling so loudly that you don’t have to be a dog to hear which way the whistle blows.
Elam has recently offered other, well, hints that he is broadly sympathetic to the Alt Right. He’s retweeted promo materials for an upcoming “Make Men Great Again” event headlined by prominent “Alt Lite” dudes Joe Biggs and Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman. Biggs, a former InfoWars “reporter” and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist, regularly jokes about date rape and punching “trannys.” The Based Stickman, meanwhile, won fame in Alt Lite and Alt Right circles for, well, hitting leftists with a stick.
And Elam continues to retweet Indian “Men’s Rights” activist Amartya Talukdar, a Holocaust denier and literal Hitler fan (who also happens to be a plagiarist and marital rape apologist). (See here for my posts on this lovely fellow, who used to be a regular contributor to AVFM, and Elam’s unwillingness to break with him.)
He also recently posted this weirdly racialized, or perhaps simply racist, meme:
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/883394561862623232
I feel so bad for all those poor white boys whose dreams are being destroyed by black women! Or I would, were I a white supremacist.
Still, despite Elam’s earnestly expressed White Pride. he does continue to show some sympathy for individual black men:
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/878370502854692865
And despite the Alt Right dogwhistling, Elam’s central focus remains the steadfast advocacy for men he’s long been known for:
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/875529332256624647
Good old Paul Elam, forever and always a huge piece of shit!
I had almost forgotten about Elam until I saw his tweet today. Oh well. @TakeDownMRAs really is excellent, though :v
Elam can kiss my Hungarian-Polish-Russian ass.
That is all.
Many manospherians sympathise with the Alt-right. I’m not surprised at all.
He’s trying so hard.
That anti-marriage meme implies that no male astronauts, athletes, inventors or adventurers (whatever that means) are married. That’s a rather bizarre and easily falsified claim. There’s no evidence whatsoever that marriage has a negative affect on men’s careers. If anything, I think I’ve seen studies that show it has a positive effect.
Why don’t MRA memes ever make any damn sense.
Also, was Elam trying to incite his followers to murder Cosby’s victims? Cause that’s kind of what it sounds like. Given that many of the victims are younger than him and unlikely to all die before him naturally, I don’t know what else it could be.
“I am white. I am male. I am an American nationalist. Anyone doesn’t like it can….”
Yeah, whatever. What about those of us who don’t give a shit?
Lame Paul and the Dumpster deserve eachother…..
That dog-whistling is so inept, he’s basically forgoing the whistle entirely and just shouting “DOG WHISTLE” at the top of his lungs.
Elam is expressing himself with his usual subtlety and class, it seems, which means none whatsoever.
Elam’s photo at the top of this blog entry…c’mon, surely he knows what a comb is? Maybe this is a superficial observation, on my part, but I KNOW what he’d have to say if he came across an equally unkempt photo of a woman. It wouldn’t be flattering.
Uhm, why would the black girl’s dream of marrying a rich dude mean that the white boy’s dream of adventure has to be denied? What does one have to do with the other?
Paul, it’s not peanuts that get embedded in your poop, it’s corn. (sigh) As if his insults weren’t stupid and juvenile enough already…
Paul Elam wrote:
I’ve never heard that expression before. Though peanuts do tend to pass through undigested if you don’t chew them well. Perhaps we should tell Elam to spend more time chewing his food? Or anything that’d occupy his time besides tweeting?
On a more serious note, a few years ago I wouldn’t have imagined American nationalism would align itself so closely with racism. Guns and flag-waving, yeah, but not “white pride”, because after all, the idea of America isn’t about a particular “race” – right? Right?? 🙁 (I don’t know if things have gotten worse or I’m just more aware of them.)
OT, but I just heard on the news that Trump’s banning trans people from the US military. WTF. Why is this happening.
@Imaginary Petal
I saw your comment on the blog entry, “The senate is about to vote! Call NOW to defend Obamacare!”. I take it to mean, you’re going to refrain from actively commenting for awhile. Too bad. I’ve always enjoyed your comments, and felt that you were able to offer a unique perspective on Trump, and Trumpism. I just wants you to know, your comments weren’t made in vain.
I’m not affected by the Obamacare vs. Trumpcare disaster, at least not directly, but I understand what a disaster it will be for all those millions of people if they get the rug pulled out from under them. I don’t really have anything new to add to the discourse.
The strangest thing about the Elam pic is that this is the one he uses on Twitter.
Many in the manosphere sympathize with those in the alt-right and white nationalists because they hate the same things: poc, refugees coming, anything involving women, lgbtqa+, liberal-leaning folk etc. They spilt hairs on certain topics that differentiate them but in the end, they all hate the same.
Never surprised either when some mra (or mgtow) starts to talk about being pro-white, pro-“western civilization” anti-everything&everyone else
Waiting for the day for when these guys tire out but I’m afraid that day is still very far away. :/
I’m not the only one who read this:
a little weird, am I?
Okay this has bugged me for a while: What in the world does ‘Based’ mean?
Every time I see Elam now, I am reminded of this wonderful rageguy meme a Mammotheer named Xardox did of Elam channeling Hunter S Thompson:
http://i.imgur.com/EB7zi.png
Cleon,
It seems to mean super cool and bad ass. I’m not sure anymore what the origin of the term is though. I’m pretty sure it’s a 4chan thing.
Thing is, Paul, there has been massive inflation in the ‘outrageous statement’ market lately. It’s a buyer’s market, you know? And with your president basically trying to nationalise the industry, simply dishing out high-grade awfulness at the public expense… maybe you should move into a different business, is all in saying.
The term “based” originates with the rapper Lil B. It was a term applied to him negatively – “debased” essentially. He applied it to himself positively, saying that it meant being true to yourself and being good to others.
As usual, 4chan distorted the positive meaning to apply it to anyone they especially like, regardless of whether that person displays the traits Lil B ascribed to it originally.
@LindsayIrene: Yes, he’s trying. Very trying.
@personalpest
I just assumed Elan had forgotten how to eat and simply swallowed peanuts whole, which would be a tremendous inconvenience on the way out butt just desserts.
What is ‘based’? I saw it before with cristina hoff summers – but before i dont care. But now i see it everywhere and it makes me angry ?
Aw, little Paul Elam is super adorbs when he tries to act all badass.
And the hair! In their prime, the Beatles (the four mop tops) would’ve been jealous of the stuff on Elam’s head. Including Paul McCartney, the cute one.