Anyone wbo has read this blog for any length of time is well aware how adept Men’s Rights Activists are at convincing themselves (if not necessarily anyone else) that they are the true victims in any given situation.
Indeed, writer and workshopper Warren Farrell, whose books have provided much of the intellectual underpinning of MRA ideology, has argued in complete seriousness that men are victimized by women’s butts. A shapely posterior, you see, has such a hypnotizing power over your typical horny man that young women have what he once called “miniskirt power” over their male bosses at work.
An article in today’s New York Times suggests that many Trump voters are equally adept at painting themselves as the victims — in their case not of butts but of liberal meanies.
It’s an absolute must read. Not because it’s a good article — it’s terrible — but because it is so revealing, not only about Trump voters but also about the strange reluctance of so many in the supposedly liberal press to hold Trump voters accountable for anything they say or do. Indeed, the basic thesis of the piece — titled “Are Liberals Helping Trump?” — is that liberals are being so mean to Trump voters that they’re pushing them even further into Trumpland.
The piece starts with a brief portrait of Jeffrey Medford, a South Carolinian who voted “reluctantly” for the most dangerous man to ever occupy the Oval Office. Trouble is, when he brings this up in any venue also frequented by liberals, they’re like all mean to him.
Mr. Medford should be a natural ally for liberals trying to convince the country that Mr. Trump was a bad choice. But it is not working out that way. Every time Mr. Medford dips into the political debate — either with strangers on Facebook or friends in New York and Los Angeles — he comes away feeling battered by contempt and an attitude of moral superiority.
“We’re backed into a corner,” said Mr. Medford, 46, whose business teaches people to be filmmakers. “There are at least some things about Trump I find to be defensible. But they are saying: ‘Agree with us 100 percent or you are morally bankrupt. You’re an idiot if you support any part of Trump.’ ”
He added: “I didn’t choose a side. They put me on one.”
Uh, dude, you put yourself on the side of an unstable, authoritarian bigot by voting for him. If you didn’t know what you were getting when you voted for him, then you weren’t paying attention. Trump started out his campaign with an explicitly racist attack on Mexican immigrants, and it pretty much went downhill from there. During his campaign, he revealed himself to be a bully and a chronic liar with no understanding of the job he felt he deserved, a man morally and practically unfit to be president.
And now Trump is making good, or at least trying to, on his terrible promises. His only redeeming feature is that he is so ignorant and inept that he’s fucking it up.
Oh, and did I mention that he’s hellbent on taking away the insurance I and literally millions of other Americans depend on for necessary treatment for the chronic health issues that insurance companies like to call “ongoing conditions?”
So, yeah, some of us are a bit testy.
The article’s author, Sabrina Tavernise, sets forth a thesis that more or less mirrors Medford’s self-pitying “argument.”
Liberals may feel energized by a surge in political activism, and a unified stance against a president they see as irresponsible and even dangerous. But that momentum is provoking an equal and opposite reaction on the right.
“Provoking.” I don’t want to sound, you know, mean here, but this is the logic abusers use to blame their victims for their own abusive meltdowns. It’s a kind of argument that seems to come naturally to MRAs, Trump supporters, and Trump-supporter enablers.
In recent interviews, conservative voters said they felt assaulted by what they said was a kind of moral Bolshevism — the belief that the liberal vision for the country was the only right one.
Assaulted? You know who else feels assaulted? The longtime residents of this country who have been arrested and deported by ICE, including one woman picked up at a courthouse after she complained of domestic abuse. The Muslims held for hours in airports as a result of Trump’s profoundly un-American executive order.
Is it “self-righteous” for those opposed to Trump to point out the actual effects of his bigoted policies?
Protests and righteous indignation on social media and in Hollywood may seem to liberals to be about policy and persuasion. But moderate conservatives say they are having the opposite effect, chipping away at their middle ground and pushing them closer to Mr. Trump.
Again, it’s the logic of an abuser: “You made me hit you!”
“The name calling from the left is crazy,” said Bryce Youngquist, 34, who works in sales for a tech start-up in Mountain View, Calif., a liberal enclave where admitting you voted for Mr. Trump is a little like saying in the 1950s that you were gay.
First, it’s not “a little like” that at all. Second, are you seriously complaining that the left is … calling you names?
I mean, you do remember all of this, don’t you?
I feel just terrible for these people.
Mr. Younquist wasn’t quite so open about his Trump support.
“The only place he felt comfortable wearing his Make America Great Again hat,” Tavernise informs us,
was on a vacation in China. Even dating became difficult. Many people on Tinder have a warning on their profile: “Trump supporters swipe left” — meaning, get lost.
POOR BABY
“They were making me want to support him more with how irrational they were being,” Mr. Youngquist said.
I hate to tell you this, Mr. STEMLOGIC, but that’s not a very rational response at all.
Tavernise weighs in again with her equally stupid opinion. Which is pretty much the same opinion as all the Trump supporters she interviewed.
[I]f political action is meant to persuade people that Mr. Trump is bad for the country, then people on the fence would seem a logical place to start. Yet many seemingly persuadable conservatives say that liberals are burning bridges rather than building them.
How “persuadable” is someone who gets so mad that some women don’t want to date guys they violently disagree with politically that he decides he’s just going to SUPPORT TRUMP EVEN HARDER SO THERE TAKE THAT!!!1!!
But no Trump supporter may have suffered more for her beliefs than Ann O’Connell, a “retired administrative assistant in Syracuse who voted for Mr. Trump” despite being a registered Democrat. (She apparently liked Trump’s promise to build a big old wall to protect her from all the evil Mexicans who are creeping over our southern border and then I guess for some reason creeping all the way up to Syracuse, NY, not far from the Canadian border, where the percentage of Hispanics is far below the national average and which is actually a really terrible place to look for jobs right now.)
Anyway, Ms. O’Connell has suffered mightily for her beliefs. For she can no longer enjoy Meryl Streep movies! You know, because that mean actress lady gave that speech about how shitty it is to mock disabled people.
Mrs. O’Connell feels hopeless. She has deleted all her news feeds on Facebook and she tries to watch less TV. But politics keeps seeping in.
“I love Meryl Streep, but you know, she robbed me of that wonderful feeling when I go to the movies to be entertained,” she said.
BOO HOO HOO
Here’s my question: is it possible that these Trump supporters are feeling so defensive about their vote for president because on some level they know what they did was indefensible?
Or am I just being mean for even asking that question?
H/T — @ParkerMolloy, who posted a couple of the pics I used on Twitter.
My “Boo hoo, poor baby” moment in the article David linked was this
I moved from North San Diego County to the Inland Empire 16 years ago with one of those “Coexist” bumper stickers on the shell of my 91 Nissan Pickup. Within three weeks, someone had keyed right through it and tried to pry it off.
Husbeast and I were both Pagan at the time (I’ve since shifted to agnostic) and have been keeping a low profile here ever since. We had to add on a broom closet to the Progressive closet we inhabit here.
Closet inception, Mr. Younquist; your move!
Well, their god-emperor is the biggest whiner on the planet, so it’s not surprising that they imitate him.
Thank you, David! I tried reading that article, but quit out of disgust in the second paragraph . . .
Didn’t these guys win? They should be celebrating. But instead, they demand that we celebrate with them?
I’m glad that they don’t feel like they can celebrate. I’m glad we’re sticking in their craw. I’m glad they don’t feel good about this.
@JennyWren
They probably expected us to reject our progressive values and cheer them on just like their not racist sport films/zealotrous media.
JennyWren, these people are the sorest winners I’ve ever seen. If it’s possible, they’re whining more, post election.
I mean look. There IS a conservative vision for the future of the United States that’s acceptable. It’s just not being represented in mainstream politics at the moment and we’re getting Trumpism instead.
People are getting “conservative (focus on retaining the things that are going well)” confused with “conservative (what the Republican Party is currently doing)” and as a result when they hear “conservatives are shitty” they are hearing “the idea of a conservative ideology is wrong” rather than “the Trump administration is running the country into the ground”
In general I think the left wing/right wing analogy has broken down. It no longer reflects the broad political ideologies it’s supposed to and has become very specific to Democrats/Republicans, but then when one side is attacked suddenly reverts to the original meaning so that people can claim an attack on Trumpism is an attack on any and all possible conservative ideas
(I should note that conservatism is not my preferred ideology, but I acknowledge that it has a place in the discussion and may in fact be the best thing in some limited cases. The thing I have a problem with is Trumpism)
weirwoodtreehugger-
“These weak ass losers crumble after only a few brief months of the left finally deciding to fight fire with fire. These hypocritical little shits need to get the fuck over it because we are still not treating them anywhere near as badly as their ilk have treated us over the years.”
Yeah, that’s what’s so disgusting about this. These people are receiving the most mild of social consequences for voting for an open fascist and still supporting him despite the fact that he’s incompetent, dangerous, and his edicts are actively hurting and killing people. And despite the fact that he’s still shouting bigotry that would have been unacceptable a mere 10 years ago as a “mainstream” opinion.
And they voted entirely on the thought that we would suffer and die under a Trump presidency. And yet, we’re supposed to respect that? Honestly, every day we’re not breaking their nose with a baseball bat is a day we’re showing inhuman level of restraint to these whiny nazis.
Like, congratulations, you turned yourselves into nazis and aided his rise to power and instead of being angry that the thing you supported, you spend all your time trying to gaslight the rest of us into pretending this is somehow okay and normal. Fuck that noise and fuck right off out of our lives for good.
Because you were never “moderate”.
It’s also important to note that Trump voters are dismissive of protests. They are either sincerely or disingenuously ignorant of why people are protesting and like to pretend that it’s just about democrats begin sore losers. They don’t make mention of any of the issues that the protests address. And by the way, they don’t do this in a nice way. The meme I saw portrayed protesters as crying children.
Trump voters also don’t seem to understand that the proposed policies have real-world effects and that real people will suffer, and not just “got called a bad name”. And Weirwoodtreehugger pointed out that it’s not like conservatives don’t name call, or say “America love it or leave it” or whatever other non-argument they have.
Finally, Trump himself said that Republican congress people only represent those constituents who voted for them.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/17/14640376/trump-protests-obamacare
“…. He said that “they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.” He said that Republican members of Congress aren’t elected to represent the people who live in their districts, or even the citizens of their districts — they’re elected to represent the people who voted for them, and free to ignore everybody else.”
These are people that think only their problems are the real ones. They are fine, and other people can go screw themselves.
personal anecdote time!
On extending voting days and hours, my mom said she didn’t have a problem getting to the polls on Tuesdays so why should they change anything? She didn’t care that other people have jobs and transit and other challenges.
@SomeGuy
That’s nice, dear.
@Some Guy
I agree that there should be a place for a conservative ideology. There needs to be at least two parties that get into power and ideas need to be discussed with various points of view considered.
Just where the fuck is that ideology these days?
“We’re backed into a corner,” said Mr. Medford, 46…..He added: “I didn’t choose a side. They put me on one.”
Axecalibur-
Yeah, this is also key.
They want to pretend that we somehow need them to win. We don’t. What we need is to stop the mass disenfranchisement and outright electoral theft that was allowed to occur so that everyone has a chance to have their voices heard.
The bitter ragged last ditch defenders of whiteness are only “winning” because of mass cheating rendering us no longer a full democracy. End that and you’ll see the end of these fucks ever mattering again.
@Someguy
Give me the alternate reality where the US is allowed to have multiple viable third parties. Or better yet teach me this alternate reality where conservative politics has been anything but catering and consolidating power for the pleasure of rich, white, racist assholes.
This can’t possibly be true. I’ve been told that people voted for Trump because of economic insecurity. It had nothing to do with racism at all!
ScarlettAthena- It’s the democratic party. The problem is that the Overton Window has shifted so much that “occasionally disagrees with nazis, but still thinks they have some good points” is considered the nice safe “moderate” position that lets you feel morally superior to both sides, because our broken ass system has been propping up the myth of the swing voter in the swing state to the detriment of actual policy and education.
@Some Guy
OK, I’ll bite. What does this vision look like, who’s vision is it specifically, how is acceptable defined here, and acceptable to whom? Not having a go, legit interested! 🙂
@Cerberus
Right on
Dear MRAs, MGTOWs, PUAs and Drumpf supporters (did I repeat myself? I did, I did, and I did):
NOBODY OWES YOU ANY FUCKING LOVE.
NOBODY OWES YOU ANY FUCKING SYMPATHY.
NOBODY OWES YOU “CO-OPERATION” OR “A CHANCE”.
NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING.
YOU RUINED YOUR OWN LIVES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND THE POLITICS OF YOUR LAND BY VOTING FOR THIS PIECE OF SHIT.
YOU SIGNALLED THAT EVEN IF YOU YOURSELF ARE NOT A PUSSY-GRABBING BIGOTED PIECE OF SHIT, BEING ONE ISN’T A DEALBREAKER FOR YOU.
YOUR MORALS ARE NIL.
YOUR VALUES ARE NONSENSE.
YOUR BRAINS ARE CABBAGE.
YOU CARE ONLY ABOUT YOUR OWN FEELINGS.
FUCK YOUR FEELINGS.
Sorry for the ALL CAPS shouting, but it’s apparently the only thing you bozos can type. Or read.
@Ooglyboggles
I’m not necessarily saying that American conservatism has EVER been anything but that. The main point I was trying to make is that a false equivalence between “conservative ideas” and “the current conservative party’s ideas” is being used to repaint “opposing the current conservative party’s ideas” as “pre-emptively opposing all conservative ideas forever” (also known as “attempted thought policing”)
and I’m not sure this is being called out enough (it’s essentially the thread behind “liberals are saying we’re not allowed to have certain ideas!”)
tl;dr conservative politics has unfortunately always been like that, so ironically the best place to look for good, ideologically conservative ideas (which I would argue do exist, because while MOST things are broken and need fixing I don’t think literally everything is) has sometimes/often turned out to be the Democratic Party.
To avoid any further confusion, I should clarify that I am defining conservatism ideologically as “taking things that work and refining them” (in contrast to progressivism, which is “replacing things that don’t work with things that do”). Progressivism is necessary for most things at the moment because there’s a lot going wrong, but 100% progressivism would mean constantly overhauling everything which means conservatism needs to exist if only to provide the level of stability required for progressivism to function at all.
(and yeah that previous paragraph is completely ignoring the situation on the ground at the moment. I’m not expecting it to be useful, I’m providing it for context into the fantasy world that’s being used to attack liberals as thought police because I think the right is largely getting away with assuming that fantasy world without being criticized for it, we’re only going after the results)
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Basically it looks like iterating on current functional systems to produce better outcomes. Random example: Dealing with gerrymandering
A progressive approach would be to introduce an independent, government-funded body to prevent the practice, and to give it authority to effectively do so
A conservative approach might be to put regulations in place to prevent the practice, and to iterate on these regulations to prevent them being subverted by future politicians
For decreasing wealth inequality, progressives might introduce new, progressive taxes to pay for social safety nets while conservatives might try to increase the prices of luxury goods instead, or tweak the existing tax brackets (notable: tweaking tax brackets to increase taxes on the rich is, I would argue, an ideologically conservative action! At the moment though it’s considered leftist)
Honestly, I’m probably not the right person to ask because I’m more in favour of the overhauls. But nevertheless.
EDit: bit more detail, the most conservative action possible is “nothing” and the most progressive action possible is “destroy every trace of the old system and replace it with a new one”. It’s hard to identify an EXACT midpoint between these, but anything to the right of such a midpoint would be conservative.
@Some Guy
Sure, that’s what progressives do. Never seen anybody identifying as “conservative” do it though.
@Cerberus
That’s what I’m hoping for, now that the damage is already done.
Hey, they want ethnic cleansings. I’m only calling for an ideological cleansing in political bodies, and they call us mean.
As long as Trumpistas keep lapping up the shit he craps and lies he vomits, well, I’m not going to give any quarter here.
The latest victim of his lies: people are now believing that something actually happened in Sweden, and it is being covered up.
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/833362296600670210
@Sinkable John
I’d argue that “progressives” are currently taking on both halves of the spectrum, yeah, and that “conservatives” aren’t actually conservatives but people who want to blame others rather than self-examine and essentially loot disadvantaged areas of society for their own benefit.
In essence, “progressive” and “conservative” as labels for people have become entirely divorced from the ideological “how should we get things done” concepts they are SUPPOSED to represent. The original meaning of conservative is then used to paint anyone who opposes “conservatives” as opposing “keeping anything we have that’s currently working”, and key to refuting that argument is highlighting the distinction between the people currently CALLING themselves conservative or right-wing and what conservative/right-wing actually ARE
I’d love to get some of those Teen Vogue writers to hold some seminars over at MSNBC. I mean, I love me some Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, but they don’t exactly go hard on their ‘conservative’ guests. Well, except for that one time when Rachel had Rand Paul on and grilled him about whether he’d have voted for the Civil Rights Act (he didn’t answer and has never been back.)
There are two commercials running on MSNBC that kind of make me smirk. One is a blatant political ad for Neil Gorsuch*. Don’t know whose mind they’re trying to change, but they should stick to Morning Joe.
The other one is an AARP ad that says president Orange Julius Caesar promised to leave Social Security and Medicare alone and to petition Congress to do the same**. They talk about Dump’s “promise” AS IF WE SHOULD BELIEVE TRUMPLETHINSKIN WAS EVER TRUSTWORTHY! bah.
*My objection to Gorsuch is allowing the Rethuglicans to change the rules to suit them on a whim, not whether some legal assistant (from both Bush’s AND Obama’s Justice Dept.) thinks he’s totes fair and impartial. The Rethugs can confirm Merrick Garland or go pound sand.
**I agree that this is a good idea and have contacted my congresscritters about it. But seriously, if Congress manages to pass a bill ending SS and Medicare, Mango Mussolini will gleefully sign it and we all know it. It’s naive to believe otherwise, AARP!
Oh, and bonus round of “be nice or else” pointed out:
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/833401915165794304
To use a math analogy, progressivism/conservatism are the left and right directions on a political axis, and “progressivism”/”conservatism” as they’re used in common parlance are up and down on a moral axis. Together, the two axes deal with the “how” and the “what” respectively, with the fundamental semantic problem I’m describing being that we’re criticizing people taking actions that are down on the moral axis but being interpreted as criticizing people taking actions that are right on the political axis
To be clear, this confusion has been intentionally fostered by “conservatives” to make the morally repugnant actions acceptable under the guise of being “on the right” instead of “down” and thus a legitimate political position rather than a naked call for discrimination and oppression, and I think it’s THIS deception that we need to be attacking.
(To further illustrate the point, Mao Zeodong’s Great Leap Forward was an example of an action that was “left and down”, or progressive and evil. I must stress that this uses the term progressive in the sense described above and NOT in the sense that “the Left” as it currently exists would agree with Mao’s policies, because pinning down semantics is a giant headache)
I do apologize for clogging up the comments to such a degree. I’ll shush up until I’m engaged again at this point.