So...Asmongold. Interesting guy to say the least. On the one hand, the dude is like, the most tolerable right winger to listen to. On the other hand, he is a right winger and sometimes has crap opinions. Still, I tend to actually find at least partial agreement on at least some issues. The dude has come out as pro UBI and anti work before, so he has that going for it, but yeah, his stances on cultural issues and the trump administration often leave a lot to be desired. Still, I did watch a few of his segments tonight and wanted to discuss them.
In this clip, he basically goes over the whole idea of Fox news ripping into young men for being lazy and not wanting to get jobs. Honestly, this is a talking point Fox News has been leaning into recently because they're trying to drum up resentment politics from the "I work so hard, get a jerb" crowd, but honestly, I hate it. Quite frankly, my own stance on this is that we don't owe society anything, and if anything, society owes us a living, because society exists to serve us, not us it. I support stuff like basic income, medicare for all, and believe they make society better. I think this idea of attacking and blaming men for dropping out of the workforce is dumb, and the traditionalist angle of 'they dont wanna date women and have families" is even dumber. Like conservatives are just obsessed with the lifescript. And I reject the lifescript, like many on the left do.
Of course, Asmongold has a different take on it, being a bit more conservative, but still having that whole NEET vibe to him. He looks at it from a perspective of society failing men, and how as a result, men don't think they owe anything to society. I kinda framed things that way above, but I come at it more from a humanist and anti traditionalist perspective. For asmongold, it's more cynicism. I tend to agree with it. Quite frankly, you don't get to be like me (or him) if you have a society that works. Society socializes people to be good little worker bees. And most people dont really realize how messed up things are until they get older. I guess asmongold himself had an early start since he mentioned seeing that resentment in school when someone else had an opportunity he didn't. With me it came later as life fell apart after college, I couldn't find a job, and I had this college education in the social sciences that allowed me to deprogram myself of all of society's nonsense.
And I guess I kinda agree. Young men drop out of the workforce because the economy doesn't work for them. They dont have the right opportunities and as a result, they crash out. Even worse, Asmongold talks about double standards in society and how these blonde fox news women love to lecture others, but in reality, they come off like "karens" in a way. Idk if it was this clip or the next one but there was a lot of discussion in one of them about how basically, men still have all of these expectations put on them, often by women, while women themselves still demand guys to adhere to traditional expectations as far as getting a job, being a provider, paying for dates, etc. It's no surprise a lot of men just end up dropping out. I mean, I'm one of them in a way.
And yeah, being conservative and having a conservative audience, some guys had a perspective that you should sink or swim and not expect anything from society. I disagree. As I said, society exists, in theory, to serve us. We dont exist to serve it. And the fact that it doesn't serve us is why many of us, both me, and asmongold in our own ways, kinda come off as a bit selfish and not caring about society. I admit, asmongold is a bit more "burn it all down" than I am, but I get the impulse.
Clip #2 - "This is democrats connecting with young men"
So this one is much longer and involves a 40 minute discussion between a young democrat man and a woman discussing why the democrats have trouble connecting to women. While it was a long clip and i kinda forgot significant amounts of it despite just watching the whole thing, there are a lot of parts I do wanna focus on.
I do remember largely agreeing with asmongold that democratic outreach to men sucks. To go into my experience, I was an ex republican who came over to the left in 2012, and by 2016, I was having a falling out with my new adopted "team." A lot of this was over the clear mismatch in priorities. I wanted economic populism a la bernie sanders, and HRC embraced...well...an almost strawmanesque version of the same "liberalism" I grew up hating. Ya know, caring more about "diversity" and identity politics than economic justice. I was told to stfu and check my privilege. I was called racist and sexist. And while it didnt change my core convictions and drive me right (since I already left the right once and was innoculated against their BS), it greatly soured me on the party. It's simple, embrace good policy that makes people wanna vote for you. But they can't be simple, they gotta do weaponized incompetence instead. So basically, for me, it was a matter of "you better vote for us or else" and after basically insulting me and trying to strong arm me into voting for them, I kindly told them to F off.
In a sense, those kinds of vibes came up here. He mentioned how the diversity stuff can be a turenoff. He has a harder stance on it than me, refusing to support anyone who adopts socially progressive stances on identity issues as a matter of principle, comparing it to voting for a flat earther, whereas I'm a lot more nuanced, and Im like, well as long as it's not negatively affecting me or impacting my goals, I dont care. The problem is that it does negatively impact me and my goals when they hyperfocus on it and use it as a cudgel.
There's a lot of discussion of stuff, either in this one or the last one or both, of how zoomers grew up being hounded by this crap and then they grow up into an economy that doesnt work for them. Ya know, same as me in a sense, but we didnt have the toxic idpol that exists today. he discusses the abortion issue and how most men are pro choice, they just resent that they can be forced into parenthood while women can get out of it. Of course, being "anti choice" or "pro life" for those reasons is insane. That's crab mentality that isn't helpful. But yeah, I will admit that a lot of feminists do have a lot of double standards here. Like....I've raised the idea of financial or paper abortion in liberal circles before, only to find feminists outright HOSTILE to the idea and acting like traditionalists with the same "you had sex therefore you agreed to be a parent" logic pro lifers use. it's disgusting. Same with dating. We're expected to be breadwinners, providers, pay for crap, but then feminists want women's rights on their terms. It's a double standard and it pisses men off.
Asmongold also talked about online environments and how there's more censorship and the like and how a lot of this was to create more inclusivity with women, and uh...yeah I kinda agree. I'm a bit older and my formative internet years were from the wild west days of the 2000s. Moderation was lax, we could be more aggressive in general, and basically, it was just....how we did things, and there was nothing wrong with it. But then in an effort to be more inclusive and sanitized, now we can't say certain things, and while asmongold was mostly meaning in the "racism" way, it's just...in general for me. Like I can't even tell someone on reddit to go F themselves any more without breaking TOS because omg that's mean. I could tell in 2016 when we were talking about banning people for toxicity in chat in video games that this was setting a bad precedent, and yeah, they werent wrong. Now the internet is too restrictive compared to what it was, and I miss the old days. Back then, unless you said the N word, you were good 95% of the time.
And yeah. Of course, once again, I also disagree with asmongold on a lot. Like he was talking about stoicism and how men like it and how we've been that way for thousands of years and how we cant be soft and sensitive and we gotta be tough. That's BS man, and toxic masculinity.
Also, asmongold is just way too vindictive for my tastes. He really does have this own the libs mentality sometimes where he's against certain sjw behavior almost to a fault where he wont bend with them at all. I am more willing to bend with them, I just have a "dont F with me" mentality there. Like he mentioned refusing to support anyone who supports trans women in sports, and honestly, i just think the issue is dumb. And mostly, I am for trans rights.
And yeah, I am for abortion rights, and gay rights, and I actually do lean left on social issues myself. Asmongold just seems way too vindictive, he's kinda gotten caught into this loop of "burn it all down" sometimes and even when i partially agree with him, I also find myself having very significant DISagreements with him at times where my agreements are only partial.
Honestly though, I would agree that yeah, the democrats need to appeal better to men. I won't always agree on how and to what extent. A lot of conservatives do get trapped into their own culture war BS and asmongold is no exception, but honestly? With me? I feel like Im a bit more constructive. Yes, there are massive double standards. yes, men get pissed off by that. They dont like how the democrats dont seem to give AF about them. They dont like how on economics, suddenly the democrats sound conservative when talking to white males with the "learn to code" BS and all.
But again, there are times when asmongold just goes into basically actual conservative and traditionalist attitudes, when i just see these double standards and hypocrisies and approach them from a more consistent LEFT position.
Like on economics, I DO want more social programs, UBI, etc. Asmongold does too in theory but then he still leans into this doctrine of toughness. On social issues, yeah the dems are hypocritical and in some ways I guess I am a cultural moderate these days. But at the same time, my own heart is on the left, just not this current toxic brand of left, whereas asmongold does lean into a bit of the masculinity crap too much that I just can't stand.
Idk. I look at asmongold and i feel like it's kinda sad. In a lot of ways we started off in similar places being NEET gamers rejected by society. But he has gone full trump, whereas Im still more liberal.
I guess, in a way, given asmongold's sheer popularity in recent months, like, seriously, he's displacing all the more traditional conservative commentators like ben shapiro, steven crowder, nick fuentes, etc. I mean, it does tell me something about MAGA and where THEIR heads are at. Like, they really are pissed off at the way things are and want something different. It's just that their fixation on trump as a way to own the libs is extremely harmful. Like, they're just bitter and vindictive to the point that they will burn society down to bask in the warmth of the flames. They're at that point. They dont care any more. It's dangerous. But....like fire, it can also be used toward useful, and more constructive ends if utilized properly. The problem is society isn't utilizing this anger properly. It hasnt been transmuted in a positive way that makes society better. In the 1930s, in the US, we had people like FDR and Huey Long using this anger to advocate for solutions that made peoples' lives better. In Germany...well...they got hitler.
In 2025, we're also...getting hitler. Because the dems screwed up. They made the wrong moves in 2016, they lost a lot of people, and now we all suffer for it as the masses line up behind a populist demagogue who not only will not make their lives better but seems hell bent on making everything worse, while the democrats are just there with the glasses down at the tip of their nose being like "gee, how did we end up in this predicament?" It's kinda sad. It's not rocket science, guys. You F-ed up. Everything I've said since 2016 was dead on, and you guys didnt listen. Maybe it's about time you did.
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