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.
Maybe Trump pays him government subsidies for creating jobs?
God these Trump voters are a whiney lot.
Or “Snowflakes” as they prefer to be called…
Shorter Robert Sieger:
WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
@Robert Seig Heil-er:
If you’re just a threadshitter, I’m not gonna wast much effort on you. If you come back, then I’ll put together a proper telling off.
@Robert
I don’t have much to add beyond what’s already been said, but I just want to ask about this:
Did you just like, forget about the beginning of the sentence when you were finished with the parenthetical? You’re more likely to hold a candidate… in what way?
I’ve been on three demos now and George Soros hasn’t paid me once. He never even offered to do so.
I might have been the only one, of course. It’s entirely possible that everyone else went because they were paid and I was the only person doing it because of my convictions.
What do you think the chances of that are?
I for one could use some sweet Soros shill money.
No shit. Where do I apply for some of that shill money? I have student loans, man…
One of my state’s reps refused to attend a town hall because of ‘paid protestors’ and another (or maybe the same one? They’re both old rich white guys, it’s hard to tell them apart, honestly) refused to attend because of ‘preplanned protests.’
And, on the state level, my local rep is either unable to comprehend how raising the minimum wage will increase state revenue through (state) income taxes and sales tax, or he’s pretending to not understand. I’m not sure which would be worse, really.
Frickin’ Republicans.
@Laughter at Bigots, PI
I, too, could use money for protesting Trump. Granted, I don’t attend marches and the like, but I still protest by pestering my elected officals.
Man I’d love some of that shill dough. I really could use my own place and be able to pay off college without shanking other students for scholarship grant money.
Re: “Paid Protestors”
Nearest thing I have ever come to this is being given Ben and Jerry’s ice cream vouchers for stewarding, not just attending, a “Solidarity for refugees and migrants” demo.
I must be missing out on an awful lot of cash, the amount of demos I have either attended or stewarded over the past few years 🙂
Hello! New here. Just found this blog via Rafional Wikki as I was researching the neo reactionary movement. That led me to the men’s rights movement, which led me here and I must say I’m glad to be here after reading all of that insanely scary stuff. Gotta hand it to Trump, he certainly sparked interest in learning about the enemy. Figured I should brush up on what the fuck I’m dealing with after several debates with Trump supporters went off into what I consider to be authoritarian lalaland.
THANK YOU for this post. These people are already gone. Long gone. I have zero desire to try and play nice with white supremacists and misogynists. Nice doesn’t work anyway. Once someone believes in something, they double down on it when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Trying to convince them of anything, even politely, will get you the same reaction you’d get for telling a deeply religious person that their god was make believe. Even something as simple and petty as the size of the inauguration crowd. There have been numerous articles beseaching liberals to play nice with these hateful mental midgets, and they’re disgustingly off the mark on what we are dealing with here.
Back when there were protests against Milo speaking at Berkley, my facebook feed was full of people (read: brocialists, mainly) wringing their hands about how we shouldn’t impinge on Free Speech, even if Milo is a dickhead.
And now that CPAC is stopping Milo from speaking there for his comments about pedophilia, I see none of the hand-wringing about how CPAC should let Milo speak regardless because Freeze Peach. Funny how that is.
@Tinkiegrrl
Comments policy, give it a read. Thanks
And hiya, I’m Axe! I found the Mammoth thru RatWiki too. Welcome package on the right side, and don’t be a stranger 🙂
Hi Tinkiegrrl! Have a welcome package and make yourself at home. I’m the Other EJ.
As Axe mentioned, our comments policy asks people not to use casual references to mental illness. (It took me a little getting used to at first too.)
Sorry about that. I’m not quite sure how else to describe what’s going on, or the movement that is fueling the Trump presidency. It’s all just…. oh this is going to take some getting used to for sure. I get why it’s the policy though, and I’ll do my best.
I’ve seen increases in authoritarian bent comments throughout the web, especially after Obama became president, but I never imagined that it would grow large enough to elect a president. I had one friend in high school who started preaching about the freedom to oppress others, and how one doesn’t have freedom with it. He also backed the freedom of religions to force those around them into a theocracy of their religion demanded it. Of course, Islam was exempt. He justified it by saying Islam isn’t a real religion. I wound up having to ban him when he joined a local militia, and started playing with assault rifles. Before that, I liked to pick his brain to sorta see what the appeal was behind this thinking. My conclusion? Aside from bannable comments, I guess I’ll go with it being like a religion. A fundamentalist one, that allows for no dissent, and he defended it like it is. He’d post bogu stats on black on white crime, or false rape accusations, I’d counter with my sources and studies linked, and he’d claim that I was being offensive to his beliefs. There’s no being nice to that. Nice leant work when any and all dissent whatsoever is viewed as an insult. The journalists calling for nice are doing nothing but handing these people more justification to ignore the facts.
Meant to say one friend FROM high school. I’m not currently in high school. In my 30’s now. I post with my phone for the most part, so please forgive my typos.
@Tinkiegrrl
Some good adjectives to describe a lot of their rhetoric i think would be ”deplorable”, ”detestable”, ”disgusting” etc. Just words that start with ”D”
As the saying goes, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”
Hi Tinkiegrrl, nice to meet you!
If it walks like a cult, talks like a cult and acts like a cult, it’s probably a cult.
And yet, it is claimed that we are the ‘precious snowflakes’ who are always offended by everything. smh
@Tinkie
It becomes way easier over time. And the miracle of backspace has saved me on more than a few occasions in my early days 🙂
And seconding @Makroth, deplorable is a great word. Noun or adjective!
@Makroth
Words that begin with D? I wanna try. *cracks knuckles*
“Damnable”, “Despicable”, “Detrimental”, “Defiantly foolish”….okay, that last one was a reach, but I like this challenge. There’s some promise to this theme. 🙂
Dastardly, dickish, deleterious dumpsters of detritus
I like substituting ‘ridiculous’ or ‘unbelievable’ for ableist words when i’m talking. They match up pretty well for descriptions of just how extreme something/someone is.
Also the word ‘extreme’ is a good sub. U___U-b
Dratted, dogshit, drip.