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.
@Ooglyboggles
Sorry, I think I may have inadvertently caused some confusion there. I’m not the ancient seagull-eater himself, but a completely different poster who added “329 year old Contributor to Society” to my nym to mock him. (And I linked to that article not because I agree with it but because it’s making a similar point to the one in the OP; I came across it a while back and knew people here would do a better job of articulating what was wrong with its superficially plausible argument than I could, and this seemed like a good opportunity to post it.)
@SomeGuy,
No, but you already know that. It’s what got you banned last time, remember?
@Ooglyboggles
Hmm…yeah, that’s probably fair, but the thing we apparently hate is, like, liberty or rule of law or something. There’s a bunch of vaguely defined values like that which conservatives claim to have so they can claim that their opponents must hate them in order to hate conservatives.
(see also: “WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM???”)
And to be fair, pointing out how hypocritical this is HAS been a strong point of the progressive movement. There’s a lot of talk about how conservatives only favour liberty and justice for some, which…isn’t how those work, because as soon as ANYONE is excluded a rationale can be made to exclude anyone ELSE.
But I’m not sure if the final link of “…and so, what they call conservatism is not in fact conservatism and due to constant lies they shouldn’t be getting to define with words what conservatism is any more. Instead, we should look at conservative actions and use those to define conservatism.”
Kind of like what happened with GamerGate, I guess. Only in this case it’s way more entrenched as a named movement than GG ever was.
Anyway part of that is making sure somewhere exists for people who have the actual legitimate concerns conservatives CLAIM to have (similar to attempts to actually talk about ethics in game journalism somewhere else once it was recognized that GG was utterly useless for the task). I guess the argument is that that place is the progressive movement.
@Hippodameia
Oh ugh, I’m guessing it’s part of some awful analogy or something then. Mind elaborating? Even if you’re convinced I’m having you on, humor me.
I’m not sure if David can verify that I’ve never posted here using any name other than “Some Guy”, but if you tell me who you’re saying I was previously and what opinions I apparently had I can probably vomit sufficiently hard to demonstrate that I strenuously disagree with them (if previous banned commeneter’s comments are anything to go by, anyway…)
I’ve got like, two or three much older posts with this name as well, but I probably can’t find them at this point.
EDIT: I probably sound familiar because I sound like a pseudo-intellectual windbag who thinks he’s smarter than he is and has a bunch of Very Interesting Ideas that don’t do anything to help the oppressed and are a waste of time at best. I imagine there’s a few of them floating around, and I imagine they all sound pretty similar.
Nice try.
@Neremanth, 329 year old Contributor to Society
In that case then, I’m sorry for blowing up at you.
@Some Guy
Yeah that would also be part of the progressive movement. Stuff like prolife actually meaning anything between soldier age and fertilized egg or keeping journalism useful is the stuff that progressive groups typically advocate for.
@Hippodameia
Okay well whatever, it’s not like it matters, since presumably once you’re confident enough to state that accusation you’ll assume anything I say afterwards is an attempt to not look like whoever this person was. Serious question: Is any of the stuff I posted in this thread a problem from an upsetting people perspective? I don’t care who you think I am, that’s important for me to know. (EDIT: Also might be worth talking to other people about this other identity of mine to see what they think about it)
@Ooglyboggles
Righto, well maybe next time I’ll try to reach that conclusion BEFORE running my mouth off in a public forum…honestly, I don’t comment/post much, like, anywhere, so.
SomeGuy,
be a dear and just fuck off already.
@Ooglyboggles
No worries! We get enough socks round here (and Miggy in particular has returned under so many guises) that it’s reasonable enough you might have thought I was him. And while I’m a frequent lurker, I post rarely enough that I don’t really expect anyone to recognise me. Given my occasional posting, I probably should have made it clearer where I stood on the article rather than just posting it without comment. So my fault too.
@Hippodameia
Uhm… Why?
And also… Huh?
Cos I’m confused…
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger,
I don’t have much patience for tedious returning trolls.
During the Prop 8 battle here in California (to take away same-sex marriage), I read some article by a dude who supported Prop H8, but wanted marriage equality supporters to quit saying mean things to him. I thought: How about I forcibly take away YOUR marriage, and you tell me in a very gentle inoffensive way how you feel about that? amazing how they always seem to think their actions should get a free pass, but our words must never never offend.
@Hippodameia
Okay that’s quite enough. I understand you don’t want to give benefit of the doubt or set a precedent of putting up with trolls or encourage other banned posters to try again or whatever it is, but clearly your opinion of who I am is:
a) Someone very unpleasant, and
b) not shared by other people
so I think you need to at the very least say who I’m accused of being and while I don’t expect you’ll listen to ME when I predictably say I’m not that person, maybe you’ll listen to other people.
Also seriously taking everything I said in this comment thread in a vacuum is any of it a problem? While I’m not the recurring troll you’re looking for, I AM concerned that my posts made it possible for me to be mistaken for one (in the same way that someone claiming I was a Nazi would make me want to know what gave them that impression so I could, y’know, stop doing it)
Also also, what’s my endgame here? I came in, had a big conversation, learned some things, maybe made some people think (probably not), someone got rightfully pissed at me and I changed my opinion because of what they were saying, and…?
@Hippodameia
Uh huh! *leans in*
…
Oh, that’s it? Aight *moseys away from whatever the fuck this is*
@ Some Guy,
One thing you might want to consider if you ARE
returning troll:
You have come in, lectured authoritatively on a subject where you now you admit you aren’t actually knowledgeable.
A bit trollish.
Then you attempt to smack down Hippodameia, as if you had authority over them or anyone else here.
A bit trollish.
I think I know who Hippodameia thinks you are, but I’m not going to go re-read their very tedious past efforts to see how closely you resemble them. Because tedious.
@OoglyBoggles, re: hair of the Jack Russell Terrier
Hard work and determination. That’s all I’m saying.
The “smackdown” was mostly born of irritation. Specifically irritation at non-specific accusations. I shouldn’t have done it, but being told to “fuck off already” for no concrete reason I could understand annoyed me to the point that I did anyway. I apologize for that, and I really shouldn’t care who suspects me of being who anyway.
The “lecturing” was more or less a result of my personal style, which is to start out with one opinion, collect criticism and information, and then rapidly switch to new positions as it comes in. I can abandon this if it’s widely considered to be annoying and/or putting an undue burden on other people. I additionally THOUGHT I knew quite a bit more than I actually DID, a situation which has now fortunately remedied itself (at least, I hope it has >_>).
Thanks for that, and never mind my request to know who I was duplicating. Understanding why I came off as doing so is enough.
EDIT: http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/2/9/14558684/immigration-ban-history-exclusion-trump — I don’t know how well Vox is regarded as a news source around here, but this article definitely demonstrates that I was talking out of my ass for most of that conversation :/
@Croquembouche of patriarchy,
Well, the name in and of itself was a pretty good clue. It’s also the same MO – come into an interesting thread and try to derail by dropping walls of text at best only marginally connected to the issue at hand, all the while JAQ-ing off and getting passive aggressive all over the thread.
And this:
is a pretty telling comment.
@Hippodameia
That quote was actually me trying to demonstrate some self-awareness of why what I’d just done was dumb. It wasn’t suppose to be insincere in any way, that’s literally actually how I felt about most of the stuff I said. I’m not sure how else I could have portrayed that, really.
I’m…also not entirely sure who I’m supposed to be accusing of what here. The progressive movement in general of not addressing certain specific things, perhaps? But I’m just asserting that accusation rather than trying to hide it behind a bunch of questioning. I honestly didn’t think I did a lot of questioning. I asserted a bunch of stupid things, sure, but…
Like, yeah, I should have held the latter part of the discussion in my own head instead of in here. But like I said earlier, I’m not sure how else I could have changed my opinions beyond exposing them to scrutiny. (Wait, did I say that before?)
EDIT: Oh also walls of text are a perennial problem I have EVERYWHERE. Like, it even crops up when I try to play forum games. My success at managing it varies.
DOUBLE EDIT: Also, “Some Guy” is a default name I use in a few places (Skype, for instance, and in a couple previous isolated comments on this site)
Those two in the top picture trying to be so edgy. Bless their non-existent hearts, aren’t they just adorable?
In the interest of furthering your self improvement, have you ever considered starting out by collecting information, then forming the opinion, and then subjecting it to the feedback / alteration loop?
@Hippodameia
If you’d just come out and said the nym, this wouldn’t have gone on nearly as long. Some Guy isn’t MAWG, and has been around here before MAWG.
He is kind of a putz, (no particular offence meant, dude), and you’re not obligated to talk to him, but I for one would appreciate it if you’d limit it to that.
@Some Guy:
I say this in the nicest possible way: stop posting.
Even if you are acting in good faith, you’ve messed up in such a way that your situation isn’t salvageable. IF you are indeed trying to make a good-faith contribution to the community, you should stop digging the hole you’re in any deeper. Lurk some more, get a better sense of the norms at WHTM, THEN use what you’ve learned to make better posts. If you’re not making a good-faith effort, then you should go away and not come back unless/until you stop being a troll. Either way, you should quit for tonight.
@ Hippodameia, Some Guy:
It is both telling and very very true.
Some Guy, assuming you aren’t a returning troll, have you read the comments at WHTM here if they weren’t about some aspect of semantics or other thing that floats your boat before?
Presumably not, or you would have noticed an overabundance of old ideas and tactics in new commenters’ clothing. Go back, read some threads from end to end to better learn what trolls do, if you don’t want to do trollish things.
@Some Guy
Not really. They’re telling the truth as they see it: conservativm doesn’t (visibly*) hurt or oppress anyone they consider to be people. Which is rather the problem, really.
That’s because it’s wrong.There is nothing that can meaningfully be described as conservatism and isn’t oppressive. There never has been and never will be.
But their ideology doeshurt people. which, once again, is the problem.
That’s us. Leftists, progressives, and even liberals all address
those concerns. Conservatives never do.
Worse than what? Worse than Jim Crow? The Japanese Internment? The Chinese Exclusion Act? The residential schools? The genocides of Natives? Race based chattel slavery? And that’s not even mentioning th violent suppression of white political dissenters, from Homestead to Kent State , and thousands of lesser known incidents besides. Or the economic devastation from the boom bust cycles, or…
Trumpism is the U.S. normal; what we’re seeing now is the default, and it’s because of conservatism.
*It actually destroys economies, increases crime, and leads to massive increases in military casualties, but the connection isn’t as blatant.