When I began this blog six years ago, the Men’s Rights Movement was little more than a curiosity. I’ve watched, with both amusement and alarm, as this small movement has inspired, and ultimately has been eclipsed by, a broader anti-feminist, anti-woman backlash, online and off, driven largely by the same white male rage.
Each new iteration of this backlash has been more toxic — and, sadly, more influential — than the last, ultimately culminating in the rise of the alt-right. Which is to say, the newest incarnation of fascism.
Now the openly racist, openly misogynistic idol of the alt-right has been elected president. Obviously, not everyone who voted for Trump was white or male. But his candidacy was powered in large part by the same kind of white male rage I have been writing about virtually every day for the last six years.
While Trump’s election is, without question, a catastrophe — in ways I will be chronicling in detail over the next few months and years — Trumpism isn’t built to last. Trump’s victory was a narrow one — indeed, he actually lost the popular vote — and the demographic group that served as the backbone of his movement (white men) is shrinking relative to those groups Trump has railed against.
In many ways, Trumpism seems to be a classic example of an “extinction burst,” a term used by behavior psychologists to describe a weird and seemingly paradoxical pattern of behavior. As Popsugar summed it up in a post earlier this week:
[W]hen a certain type of behavior or action isn’t really getting its desired results any longer — say, a child’s tantrums failing to get Mom or Dad’s attention — there’s often a period when a subject struggles even harder, makes more noise, and generally throws an extremely loud fit. In other words, extinction burst is that last-ditch ramping up before an inevitable flame-out.
Trumpism, like all backlashes, is doomed to fail. Unfortunately, it is likely to do a tremendous amount of damage before it goes, not so gently, into that good night. In the meantime, I will do my best to make sense of the toxic stew of racism and misogyny at the heart of Trumpism, and to provide support for those fighting against it or just trying to get by). And so I’ve changed the tagline of this blog from “the new misogyny, tracked and mocked” to “surviving the Trumpocalypse” to reflect this broader focus.
Don’t worry: I will still be writing about MGTOWs and MRAs and the other strange misogynistic creatures that I’ve been writing about from the beginning. While I recognize they are but a sideshow in the era of Trump, I just can’t quit them, and I suspect that a lot of you can’t either.
None of those things you can grow out of. ADD, ADHD and autism are conditions in which brains are wired differently, they’re neurodevelopmental. For ADD and ADHD there’s medication and therapy to help with it. Autism requires accommodation. (Not that ADD and ADHD don’t require it either.)
@Jesalin
That’s definitely the case for me.
@Jack
I’m currently leaning heavily towards an idea I’ve seen floated by a few autistic bloggers that they’re in fact all part of the same constellation of conditions.
Yes, in fact, they are neurodevelopmental.
If I had to guess, I’d say “growing out of” these things refers to the person adapting around their neuroatypicality in order to function well. It’s not so much “not being autistic any more” as “making your autism work for you”
Source: I’m autistic and this is how I feel about my personal progression
Oops I missed Valerie. Yeah she (or he) is clearly a sock/troll. And her/his “I have a Native American friend who voted for Trump” bullcr*p is a BIG RED FLAG. Because the pipeline being built runs through sacred land destroying it and releasing oil that will pollute their water source and the orange hitler has stock in energy transfer partners and is pro energy.
http://time.com/4548566/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-sioux/
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/10/what-trump-victory-means-standing-rock
and now that orange skinned Hitler is president he’s going to be a whole lot worse towards natives not just assisting donating to build the pipeline, he is another Andrew Jackson. The president who forced natives out of their homes.
So either Valerie’s friend is clearly a white person lying that he or she is native or Valerie is lying all together about everything because no native in their right minds would vote for someone who will make their lives worse.
And the “both sides are bad” is bull. I don’t like Hillary either (I wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein) but she and her supporters don’t go around yelling threats, make swatiskas symbols on property, yell racial and sexist slurs, attack people trying to kill them, etc and then use the victim card when they get caught and stood up to saying “we are all supposed to be united, you are all so mean and so very sensitive!” They’re not terrorists like the orange skinned Hitler’s supporters. Yes not all of them are bad like that but they voted for someone who is a bigot and defended him and others like him. So yeah if you’re silent you’re just as bad.
Valerie, you are the one here who is very fricking selfish for telling people who’s lives are in danger to stop being hysterical when you lived such a privileged life and sensitive as h*ll for crying about us telling you to shut up. And sexist and racist as h*ll for using the “I have female and non white friends so it’s ok for me to be sexist and racist!” F*** you just f*** you.
Yeah, that makes sense in that way. Usually when people say they’ve “grown out” of something, it means they’ve passed it, that it was a phase, they’re over it. Adapting would have been better wording than “grown out”, imho.
Dalillama, encouraging women – who are most likely to be unable to afford their own health care, let alone anyone else’s – to obtain drugs for other people is not only selfish, it is illegal. Women you are not responsible for the health care of anyone else. Women, please don’t feel obligated to take care of others at the risk of your own health and personal freedom. I’m surprised that that comment has been published or that anyone would even ask that of a woman. Yes we are in dark times, but exploiting the compassion and empathy of women who need support, compassion and empathy more than ever themselves is going too far. Asking them to put their own needs last and take care of other people at their own expense is classic sexism, no less at a time when women have just received a major blow politically which has reinforced those very same attitudes. Asking women to commit a crime at risk to their personal freedom and their own needs is unacceptable.
@Lee
Dali is a woman asking women to help other women. Not “others”, other women. See, you don’t acknowledge that a single time in that post of yours. I don’t know why you didn’t, but I think it’d be just swell if you did. Just to put my suspicions to bed. Pretty please. I’ll wait…
@Lee
One) Fuck you, two) fuck you harder, three)
and four) fuck you to the fifth power.
@Lee
What Axe said, but also: It’s called solidarity, dumbass. Few groups of people suffer more from Republican policies than trans women. We don’t like to pit oppressed groups against one another. And nobody’s forcing anyone to commit a crime. Dalillama gave a suggestion of a way in which cis women can show solidarity with trans women. That’s all. Now stop clutching your pearls and gasp your way out of here before you drop your other monocle too.
@Lee
Dalillama asked, in a legal form of procession, for cis women to help other trans women by obtaining the hormones they need to function. So please enough with that pearl clutching and trying to make out Dalillama a bad person for suggesting a way to help trans women get by in a gov’t that will do everything in its power to eradicate them in all but name. Also nice use of others to otherize trans people.
@Lee
Most likely to be unable to afford their own healthcare as opposed to whom? Considering that women are half of the population, saying they are less likely than men to be the main providers of health insurance for their families isn’t particularly interesting, unless you have some sources with staggering statistics showing a really big discrepancy. Or are you saying men are more able to pay for their own health care without insurance than women are? Still not very interesting unless you cite some source that shows a staggering discrepancy.
Oh, fuck it. WTF is this supposed to mean?
And can I just mention that “most” is a superlative and only comes into play if you are comparing more than two things. So what are these more than two? Women and men and what? I can’t give you credit for considering cis and trans in this argument. I mean, surely you are not saying that cis women are less likely to be able to afford their own health care than either trans women or men.
Um, ouch, that sounded bad. I didn’t mean to say I think trans women or men are necessarily less likely than cis women to be able to afford their own healthcare, either. Just that it didn’t seem to be likely that Lee was asserting that.
@Belladonna
Actually I’m pretty sure that (statistically speaking) trans-folk are less likely to be able to afford health-care. We tend to be under-employed (or in many cases un-employed) and tend to have a lower income compared to cis-folk.
@Jesalin
Thank you, I’m not surprised at that statistic, but I didn’t have any data. And I didn’t want to state dumbass shit based on assumptions alone.
@Lee
http://kuzmitch.ru/files/2010/gif/father_ted-middle_finger.gif
Also, fuck you.
Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll address what you appear to consider arguments: Fuck you. Your obsession with the minutiae of law in the face of open fascism marks you as an asshole. So does your unwillingness to read for comprehension, as all of your other ‘concerns’ were actually addressed in my original post. Also, fuck you.
Holy sweet God, many of you are hateful as all get out. The minute someone has a point of view that is different from yours, you immediately attack. No actual debate, just pure venom.
How dare you consider yourselves tolerant.
No punkin’ I’m not a troll (and I don’t know what a “sock” is in this context). And, now I’m a racist? Yes, exactly; I made a super creepy, convoluted, master racist plan to marry a black man and have two children with him so that I could have some convenient people of color to rant my hysterical racist comments at. I must be some kind of genius. Oh wait, while I was at it, I made sure my husband was also a foreigner. Mwahahahaha.
I will be sure to let my friend know that he’s a white dude. I’m not sure how that is going to go over with him, but if you say he’s white, then I suppose your right.
And Lee simply said that no one here should be encouraging others to commit a federal crime, and your instant reactions were “fuck you”.
You people are just as bad as the kids that tell my children that they have no right to speak about the black lives matter movement because my children are only half black. In fact….while we’re being all sorts of illogical here. My children must hate themselves, because ya know; the white half of them is a privileged racist. Oh the duality.
How about you get outta here with your nonsense.
My mom fucked a black dude once and doesn’t understand how her white ass shouldn’t say the n-word and think foreigners steal government assistance so I’m pretty sure you can be a racist and be sexual with PoC.
@Valerie
It’s probably way too late to say this, but I have mostly understood your side of the conversation when you’ve commented. I really, truly don’t believe you are a troll. I even think I would like you a lot if we met in person. I’m a gamer. I’d love to hear more about your game.
I get where the other people are coming from, too, and why they didn’t like some of the things you said. You maybe haven’t learned some basic prerequisites of feminist theory that a lot of us take for granted as a base. It just means we’re not always quite speaking the same language. But I still think there may be a lot of common ground, here.
If it’s worth anything, anyway, I actually, really hope you don’t leave. But I don’t retract my question about Lee’s post. I still have no clue what he or she meant by the statement I quoted.
@Belladonna
Thank you. No, I don’t know feminist theory. My thing has always been human anatomy and making things. I read books on medicine, mechanics, theology, etc.. I have never read a book on feminism. It pretty much seemed common sense that women shouldn’t be treated differently and inferior to males. Honestly, this blog was my first look into the world of misogyny .
Seriously, I am the only daughter and the eldest. I did everything with my father; he never treated me as the weaker sex. So yeah, this world of sexism crazyness is rather new and shocking. As far as being called a racist constantly, yeah, it’s going to start to upset me because I am someone that actually has been harassed for having mixed children. I’ve had people scream “nigger lover” from passing cars. My children have been referred to as “niglets”. It isn’t fun, it sucks, it’s made me scared. Ive learned how to call out a racist and humiliate them in public. I don’t put up with that crap, and I taught my kids how to fight back if they had too.
I’ve also been confronted (only once in 18 years) by a black women that told me that my white trash ass had no right taking black men from black women. That sucked too. I didn’t even respond because I didn’t know what to say.
I’ve been lucky in life to have a wonderful father that taught me how to do a “man’s job”, to have a very diverse set of friends and family, and to attempt to look at the positive rather than the negative.
As far as the game, I was super excited to come here and tell all of you. I wanted to wait so that I could show you guys some good game play, and I was hoping to get some feedback (good and bad). Ive worked really hard in the last year learning something completely unknown to me, and I made it my goal to make a game with a lead female that wasn’t sexualized in any way.
Now, if I cross some unknown line, how about I get a lesson in proper etiquette rather than a “fuck you troll”?
Earlier Valerie:
A few questions, Valerie.
After you listen to them, and respond, do you ever change their mind? Or do you at most win a small personal concession like not yourself being called a libtard to your face?
When one of these people, whose point of view you have willingly explored, will not listen to yours and convert to it, and shits all over it, what do you do next?
Do you call them hateful, and tell them to get out, even if you are arguing with them in their own home? I bet you don’t. I bet you are polite.
But here you feel entitled. Why are you more willing to denigrate people whose values you claim to share?
I’ve changed minds twice, and only twice.
The first one was my friend who calls us libtards. He ended up super apologizing and sending out personal apologies to everyone he offended.
The second was my father. He was hugely against the Syrian refugees, and he would spew off Fox news nonsense about how they were all rapists and murderers. We ended up in a massive fight in my garage over it. My dad is a devout christian, so I used it to my benifit. My last words were “Dad, these are human beings; and they are dying in horrible ways. What did Jesus teach you? I think you need to remember.”
The next day, my Dad came over and told me that he thought about what I had said, and that he was ashamed of himself. That they are humans first, and that is all that mattered. That we needed to help them.
My father made me so proud. He really thought about it, and he felt immense shame over the way he was thinking.
I don’t downplay any of your values. I’m just different in the way I deal with adversity. I guess that i would say that i am more defensive than offensive. The enemy must prove that he is the enemy before i go all rambo. I would never attack someone that was asking questions. Questions are good, they mean that your trying to understand. So, if I ask why your scared, I really want to know why. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, or hurt your feelings.
@Valerie
Sister, I so get where you are coming from. Feminism does seem like common sense if all you think it means is “everyone should be treated equally, regardless of gender.” The same is true for race-equality. I’m very sad that you’ve had to suffer through some of the awefulness on that front that you have.
The thing is that for those of us who have studied critical theory, the everyone should be treated equal thing is also the goal and seemingly common sense, but we know that if we don’t constantly examine our unconscious biases, we may be acting against that kind of common sense. And we know that people who do not constantly guard against those biases probably are making racist or sexist choices.
Every time you make a choice like who to root for in a contest or who to hire or whose books to read or whose words to listen to, these unconscious biases may come into play. If you don’t examine them, you may simply think you are just choosing the worthiest contender, but if you are versed in critical theory, you always stop yourself first and ask, am I sure I’m choosing that one just because I think he or she is the worthiest contender, or is there some kind of “the man” or “the white one” or “the straight one” or “the youngest or oldest one” is most likely the worthiest contender? This is what “privilege” means.
I want to hug you. I also want to say that I think I remember in one of your earlier posts that your advice to your gifted daughter who was having social problems was to basically “dumb it down.” I can’t judge you for this and don’t know your social arena, but I do want to say that that is the kind of advice girls always get. Just appear dumber than you are. Don’t threaten anyone. Look dumber than the guys, and everyone will like you. Only you know what your social situation really looks like, but how much more important is it for your daughter to excel socially than intellectually? A hell of a lot of women are conditioned to think the former is more important, and I think it holds us back a lot.
And whether you stick around with us or not, I’d love to find a way to stay in touch and be updated about your game!
We here in South Africa are experiencing a prolonged and devastating drought, scientific papers have informed me, as a direct result of climate change. But I am much heartened to hear that Trump insists climate change isn’t a thing. I’m sure that’s a relief to the families of farmers who have committed suicide.
P.S. Fuck you, Trump supporters.
@Dalillama
Your motivation is good, but I’m gonna have to disagree with this advice.
People shouldn’t share prescription drugs.
A patient should take only prescription drugs that have been prescribed by a doctor for him or her. And a doctor needs to monitor that patient.
Even if a patient has been prescribed the same drug many times, maybe he or she can no longer handle that particular drug or that particular dosage. That’s why a doctor needs to monitor the patient.
Here’s an example of prescription sharing gone awry. My aunt shared a Valium with my mother. They were both RNs, so I don’t know what they were thinking. My mother fainted — so clearly Valium wasn’t appropriate for my mother.