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.
Continental Europe could be next in line to experience the Brexit effect.
Marine Le Pen in France, the AfD in Germany, and this guy…
http://nl.pcmweb.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/articles/geert_wilders.jpg
Looks fine to me. Deus Ex:HR?
@Em
Comments policy. Please and thanks
@Valerie on pg1
Fuck you and fuck off
Good for you. Now the greater evil is claiming lives before he’s even sworn in. Appreciate it!
The sun’s energy is limited. The fuck does that even mean?
I’m wondering how it’s overzealous to treat bigots with mockery
Helluva lotta ‘their’…
Ah! So we hafta learn not to hurt their feelings, but they can caricature us just fine. It’s always the those least able to who hafta build the bridges. Everytime
*rereads whole screed* I’m tryna locate the positivity. So far, all I got was the blame game. I’ll keep searching tho. Jackass
@Cynical Optimist
It did! 8D
@Scildfreya
I’ve thought of this on previous trips, too, and I have usually refrained because of the “Great White Savior” crap you mention. I hate that, too, that presumption that they “need” me to “save” them. I have instead engaged them in friendly conversation, asked how they are, and generally let them know that I, for one, have absolutely no qualms with treating them like I’d treat any other person – kindly and with respect.
But I AM an ally (my other major concern is for my LGBTQ friends and loved ones).
Another friend of mine has joined and is recruiting people on Facebook to embrace the “safety pin” symbol that was apparently started after Brexit in the UK. Basically, wearing a safety pin so that people know you are an ally, that you are a safe person and will help them if they are threatened or uncomfortable, or even that you’ll just help stand up for their human rights. I’ve joined, but it is only helpful if people know about it, so I will see and hope to be asked what it means.
@Em
I wonder how much of it is them getting paid to not bring focus to bigotry/ not get fired by their bosses and how much is just bald faced ignorance.
@Cynical Optimist
Your Deus Ex avatar came through, and in the current state of affairs it’s quite appropriate.
@Jesalin
Mankind Divided, actually. Still the same Armblades McRobotman, though.
How’s Mexico supposed to pay for the wall now that the peso is worth nothing?
@Cynical
Oh, the last one I heard of was Human Revolution. I should check it out. Might help me to take my mind off of life for a little while.
Since I live in about as safe a place as it’s likely to get in the coming days, I kind of wish I could offer sanctuary to anyone who really needs it. But that’s off the table for now. I’ve been providing for a homeless relative since September, and there’s barely space (or money, if that’s needed) for an additional person. Also said relative would likely throw a fit if I brought a stranger in. But if they manage to get back on their feet any time soon, then that possibility might go back on the table.
@Handsome “Punkle Stan” Jack
Yeah, I know the feeling.
Thing is, it is not at all exaggerated to say that the fear of Russians is deeply seated over here. You have heard the term “Finlandization“, no doubt? But that bit under header of “Finnish perception” is extremely accurate: It was terrifying to live with Soviets as a neighbor.
When Soviet Union dissolved, it was again terrifying, but for various different reasons. The attempted coup, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and so on and so on.
Again, I stress that I was brought up by my gran, who saw war close and personal. She also made sure that I knew the truth about who had started the war (shelling of Mainila was one of those censored topics in school, although a hair before Soviet Union started breaking up, our history teachers in school said “bullshit, here’s what happened and here’s why your books say otherwise” when the textbooks claimed that Finland/an unknown party had initiated the fire) before I went to school.
Russian people, as always, are people like us: they wake up, wish that there’s enough food, shelter, jobs, etc, they hug their kids and watch TV, and occasionally come over here for a bit of shopping, if they can afford it. If I hear people speaking Russian around me, there’s no reason for me to freak out or suspect something is going on. Zero.
But there’s no fucking way I will trust their leadership: we can apply that saying “if someone claims to be a bad person, take their word for it” extremely well. For sure, there are good people, but the structure…
There’s very clear trail of evidence of troll factories in St. Petersburg, where the goal is to “adjust” people’s views around the world, including attacking internal dissidents in Russia. Then there are historical cases (and in some cases, contemporary) of disappearances, murders, assassinations, Siberian gulags. Blackmail, dirty dealings, people taking advantage of nervous jitters of Soviet Union putting pressure on Finland and yes, affecting an election. Ukraine. Other former Soviet states.
So the best you can do is “Does this match with the pattern of actual behavior and facts you know, or am I doing reflective knee-jerking here”.
@Jesalin
The Cheeto (or at least his wall speech) makes a cameo. I shit you not.
What do you lot think of the people who say that the people protesting Mr Groper’s election are simply spoilt millennials who need to grow up?
Also, I still haven’t figured out how to “create an account” here to change my avatar.
@HandsomeJack
Ewwww. Have all of the hugs. I can’t even begin to imagine how this week has been for you. I’m guessing this is near the farmland area with the giant fucking “praise jesus” signs on the side of the road?
@Laughter
You need to make a Gravatar account with the same email address as the one you have now. Should work just fine.
@Snowberry
Well it was a bit odd for me, since I’ve chowed down spicier stuff, but this felt like all that hot hot hot hotness went through me, and then came out of the other end like I had been turned into a bonnacon. It may be related to the fact that eating beans is a gamble for me: when you got IBS, all food becomes an exciting game of “will this irritate the tummy or not”, and some foods even more so.
@Laugher at Bigots, Mincing Betaboy (he-he)
I think anyone who tells someone to ‘grow up’ is just being an asshole.
I was doing okay Wednesday and yesterday, feeling angry and ready to start fighting. Last night, I started feeling doomy and anxious. Felt the same this morning and told Husbeast who offered to stay home from work but ultimately went at my urging.
Part of this anxiety is due to the latest Catbeast health crisis. I was supposed to go with a friend of mine who is also a veteran to take advantage of restaraunt/shopping offers for vets, but a.) I just don’t want to eat, and b.) I am loathe to leave Catbeast for the whole day right now. (running around with this friend pretty much means at least half the day, as she lives an hour’s drive from me.)
The upshot is, I may have to arrange some counseling for myself if this keeps up. I’ve never felt this way before. This shitty year has stripped me of my ability to allow stuff to roll off my back.
Thanks to David and everyone here, I can at least start practicing some self-care without feeling as much guilt. Hopefully soon, I can feel stable enough to do the activism I want.
@Petal
Doesn’t matter. He’ll just build it ahead of schedule and under budget, remember? Problem solv… Wait, what was that? Gingrich says Mexico won’t pay for it? Says it was all a ‘campaign device’? Welp, didn’t see that one coming. Nevermind then…
@Laugher at Bigots, you need to go make an account at https://en.gravatar.com/ . Make the account and put your picture up there, it’ll propagate out to all WordPress (and some other) sites. It binds to your email address, so any posts with that address will connect to your WordPress comments, regardless of the username you’re using.
@Valerie on Pg 1, I’ll reply to you in a bit as to why we can’t just “try and make the best of it”. Short form: we legitimize that which we accept.
(Also, I know plenty of people were all “Trump’ll bring the jobs back!”, and I’ll reply to that, too. Short form: there’ll be a phantom bubble to the economy that might make him look good for a couple of years, but those jobs come at too high a cost)
-My colleague, re: Trump protests.
…It’s going to be a long 4 years.
I heard people will be protesting by not going to work on inauguration day. I think it’s a good idea for those who can. Obviously the people most impacted by this election have the least power to do so, though.
Edit: @Skiriki The struggle is real. One day, beans are fine, the next OMG WHYYY? Yeah, IBS is no fun.
I don’t doubt that this is an extinction burst. But just to note: extinction bursts are occasionally successful. There would be no reason for that behavioral trait to exist otherwise. So it’s not like one can be complacent about that.
This is just the latest in a global trend which predated the election by at least a few years. Probably longer. My personal theory is that the “future” (in a sort of sci-fi-ish sense) which people have been anticipating or dreading is almost here. Maybe it will be a utopia. Maybe a dystopia. Maybe just more of the same, fundamentally, but in an unrecognizable form. But we don’t know where it’s going. There’s no plan for transition. If we did know, there would almost certainly be vested interests who would do all they could to block the plan, anyway.
With no plan, the transition will not be smooth or orderly. There will be chaos. Much of it will be caused by people indulging in their worst nature to protect what’s “theirs”. Even though much of it will probably turn out to be irrelevant or meaningless once the transition completes. Trump, like the other proto-fascist leaders who have been achieving power as of late, appeal to those who want an excuse to indulge in their worst natures.
If so, we’ve got the task of not just limiting the damage, but also attempting to steer it toward utopia, just in case it’s possible to guide the outcome even a little.
Hello, people…I’ve been lurking hereabouts for a VERY long time, but finally decided to take the plunge and comment.
I’m a Brit, and I’ve been watching this campaign with trepidation, replaced this week by horror and a strong need for tea, chocolate, old episodes of Father Ted, and Jack Daniels, in approximately that order. Most of the people I know (including Americans online and IRL – I live in a part of East Anglia with a bunch of USAFE bases) seem to be sharing my horror at what’s happening Stateside, and are incredulous that he ever got elected. Although, we did have Brexit not so long ago, and a short while before that I overheard an old guy in a charity shop discussing Europe and saying ‘We want that Trump over here, he’d soon sort out them immigrants…..’ NOOOOOOO.
Also re Brexit…we had, depressingly, the same sort of racist attacks on the heels of that decision as the US is getting now. Except on your side of the pond, the people doing that stuff tend to own more guns. And there’s the KKK. And I’m scared as hell for a lot of my American friends.
David, I hugely appreciate the great work you do. I wish I had your optimism that this is the last gasp of the toxic white male shit. We live in hope…and I’m working out what I can do right now, as someone on this side of the pond. Mostly, sharing practical info online for women, POC, LGBT and disabled people who may need it, and giving people a virtual shoulder to cry, or rant, on. Scary times.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-pence-christie-transition-team-1.3847547
If you think that Washington is corrupt now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Screamin’ Demon’s transition team includes his spawn and Ivanka’s husband. Gotta love nepotism /s
@Hambeast
I can’t even imagine facing this week while also going through a pet health crisis. I am so sorry.
The fight will be ongoing. no rush!