Swiping Left on MAGA

Among the many evils the 2024 election released into the world was a renewed round of discussions of the woes of young men, and how we’re being failed by liberalism, or feminism, or the Democratic Party. This narrative has been around for some time, but has been slowly gathering momentum. It runs something like:

Young men in America are lonely, struggling to find community and romantic partners. Many are permanently single. Whereas modern society affirms women, boys are looked down on, scolded, treated like dangerous predators post MeToo, their concerns arrogantly dismissed by feminists, a culturally dominant liberalism, and the Democratic Party alike. Liberals fail to provide young men guidance, role models, or a narrative that will give their lives meaning. As a result, men are moving to the right. The right signals that it values them; it wants a world that has a place for them in it. It gives them advice on how to pick up girls, or that they should clean their room. This may not have good consequences, but it is only to be expected given our (liberal/feminist/Democratic) treatment of them.

Unlike a narrative that centers economic desperation and poverty, this story (hereafter called the ‘masculinity narrative’) does at least have some supporting data: young people (of both genders) are seeing friends less in person, dating less, having less sex. Less quantifiably, there does seem to be a general malaise around gender roles, an ambivalence on whether a feminist society was really the right goal. And young men have definitely shifted right: Men under 45 have gone from supporting Biden by 8% in 2020, to supporting Trump by 8% in 2024. From a purely pragmatic point of view, the masculinity narrative’s proponents on the left (there are many) are correct to say we can’t simply eat a 16 point swing in such a big chunk of the electorate, especially if there’s no compensating gain among women. By and large, there wasn't.

But facts—even relatively incontrovertible empirical facts—don’t interpret themselves. We have to interpret facts, and build stories around them. I do not think the masculinity narrative is a good one. I do not think it interprets the above facts well. I do not think the implicit values it draws on are good ones. I do not think it helps us work out what to do going forward. 

What did you say to make him hit you?

At its simplest, the masculinity narrative imagines young men reacting to a failure of liberal feminism to provide certain things for them and, as a result, turning to the right. This means the story frames liberals as having caused men’s rightward lurch. Implicity then, we bear responsibility for its consequences. The onus is on us to talk them out of it and repair the harm. 

I have an intentionally ugly term I use for this moral sleight of hand: ‘What did you say to make him hit you?’ politics. Our (often implicit/subconscious) ways of thinking about moral responsibility are gendered and this is reflected in, and reinforced by, how we use language. A classic example is ‘Mary is a battered woman.’ Mary is the object of the sentence. Being beaten is presented as a property she has, not something done to her. The agent actually responsible (let’s call him John), is nowhere to be found in that framing. ‘John beats Mary’ invites us to ask why John does this. ‘Mary is a battered woman’ invites us to ask what Mary does that makes her so. And people do: women who are abused are often asked what they said to provoke it. Common advice is to avoid saying things that ‘set him off.’

We likewise perceive political ideologies and political parties in subconsciously gendered ways. In contemporary American discourse, liberalism is female-coded, conservatism male-coded. As a result, rivers of ink are spilled to frame liberals as possessing sole agency, and hence responsibility. There is a palpable aversion to saying voters who loudly proclaim the most extreme racism, sexism, threats of violence, or deranged conspiracy theories are doing anything wrong. They are just reacting. Reacting to alleged liberal disrespect, to alleged liberal cultural dominance, to some kid hundreds of miles away on a college campus using obtuse social justice terminology, to Democratic politicians getting their messaging a bit wrong, not ‘talking their language.’ We shouldn’t even be thinking about what is wrong with them—we should be asking what we did to provoke it. We should be careful, always so careful, not to ‘set them off.’ 

People who treat conservatives as without agency often defend doing so on the grounds that liberals are persuadable; the right isn’t. It makes sense to focus on people they can reach. This is doubtful on its own terms—Republican politicians are susceptible to public opinion (see the failed ACA repeal), and they do respond to incentives (although gerrymandering often means they have more to fear from a primary electorate than a general one). Assuming the right is unpersuadable creates a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy in which we don’t even try. The masculinity narrative however assumes the right’s followers can be persuaded, if only liberals could find the right words.

The armchair generals pushing these ‘don’t set them off’ criticisms never imagine it’s their job to dissuade those drifting toward fascism. Instead they lecture Democrats and liberals about their messaging. The most efficacious strategy may well be the reverse: your Fox news-addled uncle isn’t going to listen to what Kamala Harris has to say, but he might listen to you. I hear people, all the time, say some version of “my friend/relative gets really mad at liberals. Here’s what you should say/stop saying so you don't set them off.” When I ask—and I usually do ask—what they say to this person, the response is an awkward pause. It has often never even occurred to these armchair generals that they themselves might join the fray and test their proposed persuasive tactics. 

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the masculinity narrative is right about this much: Whatever is going on with men is now a political problem. Men are moving right. It’s worth unpacking the claims it makes so we can start to think through possible political solutions. 

When you take off the ‘conservatives don’t have agency’ glasses, it becomes obvious the narrative has it exactly backwards: The modern right messaging ecosystem—the Republican Party, but also the manosphere, the anti-woke podcast bros, people who use the word ‘cuck’, meme pages of ‘women’s Ls’, the incels, get rich quick scammers, MGTOW, ‘how to be an alpha’ charlatans, pick up artists, and so on—is not responding to a crisis of masculinity. It is creating a crisis of masculinity. 

The problem

I don’t have children myself, but I’ve recently been staying with a number of family and friends, most of whom, as it happens, are raising boys—from toddlers to young teens. Something that has come up again and again is how difficult it is to protect them from vicious anti-women and anti-LGBT messaging online and how young the far-right’s recruitment starts. Your seven year old is watching some perfectly fine Minecraft video on YouTube, appropriate controls enabled, you turn around for a second and BAM—the algorithm has shifted them over to an Andrew Tate style misogynist. Again and again, I’ve heard from parents and teachers just how much standing men like Tate have with boys of alarmingly young ages. 

To be a straight young man today is to stand under a Niagara of messaging telling you that women are promiscuous harlots, that they take glee in rejecting good men, that the problems of the world are a result of it being ‘feminised,’ that it (and women) are against you, that it has no place for you, and that to succeed you must be an alpha—unpleasant, angry, and unconnected. To an extent it was ever thus—we’ve always raised our children in gendered narratives—but the hatred and resentment of women in today's online world is of a totally different intensity and saturation than a generation ago. Most young men of course are not incel school shooters, but many are something adjacent to that. Many, many more have picked new right views up through scrolling or chatting. To some degree they’re not even aware of their influence, but the saturation is so great it's gotten into the back of their minds. 

All of this is making it harder for men to form friendships (of either gender), to succeed in the world, and—as we are continually informed—to have sex and form relationships with women. Since liberals are allegedly ceding the ground of relationship and dating advice to the right, I’ll offer my own advice to young men: Don’t be a conservative. That’s it. Never mind the morality or philosophy of it, there are far more liberal young women than conservative ones, and they are increasingly unwilling to date across ideological lines. For all the excuses that have been offered for men turning to conservatism because they’re lonely, becoming a conservative is probably the single worst thing you can do for your romantic life. 

This isn’t ‘liberal intolerance,’ but a sensible, practical, and defensible line for women to draw. Modern conservatism of the sort that attracts young men is premised on being bitterly angry at women. It is quite rational for women themselves to conclude that men holding these beliefs will be less capable of stable, loving relationships. Surveys show ‘manosphere beliefs’ specifically are a dating deal breaker for an overwhelming majority of women. Further, most young liberal women have LGBT friends and family. It's perfectly sensible to not want to risk a social interaction between Black, gay, or trans family members and a right-wing partner who's been trained to mock and antagonise them. 

Dating and its discontents

Am I saying there’s no problem with modern dating, apart from how the right is training men? Well, no society anywhere at any time in history has achieved frictionless romance and harmonious relationships for all. We’re in something of a technological transition moment, with dating apps increasingly the main forum. I think it’s fair to say neither men nor women think the current set up is perfect. But let's be cautious of narratives that catastrophize or pit one gender against the other. 

And dating apps aren't the only game in town: A cursory scroll through a ‘What’s on’ in any major town will reveal plenty of singles meetups, speed dating nights, and the like. I’d also suggest joining clubs, volunteering, a church even, if you’re religious. Anything that will help build a mixed-gender group of friends. That’s both going to be a good thing for you in itself, and will increase your odds of meeting someone organically through friends of friends or being set up. Again, we find the modern right is deeply hostile to its followers doing this: The entire focus is on ‘manly’ pursuits; on creating a fierce hostility to anything female-coded; on relentlessly defending male-coded hobbies (like video games) against perceived female encroachment. This ethos is objectionable on its own, but it also sabotages its followers' romantic prospects. The thing about a ‘no girls allowed’ treehouse is it doesn’t have any girls in it. 

Being a straight man has its challenges and contradictions when it comes to dating. For instance, we’re both potentially dangerous to others and expected to be strongly agential, to ‘take the lead.’ With that said, have you seen what we’re competing against? Core life competencies like being able to produce edible food, or decorating an apartment with something other than empty beer cans, will win you a preposterous amount of points. 

Ultimately, dating isn’t this awful, impossible thing. The main correlation between young men not having sex or relationships is not having asked someone out in the last year. The defining attribute of people who are single for long periods is that they stopped trying—something the right urges them to do, not the left. They want men to feel angry and alienated because that keeps them in their political camp. 

Feminism and its frustrations

The right also impresses on its followers that feminists hate men as a class and have remade the world to disadvantage us. I’ve heard many young men voice some version of the following (sometimes with an eye roll, sometimes jokingly, sometimes with real anger): Feminism means competing for jobs and promotions on equal terms, but men still have to pay for dinner. Conversely, I’ve heard many older women complain that feminism ‘screwed them over’—they had to work a full time career, but still ended up doing all the childcare. 

In both cases, the ‘trick’ is fairly simple: We live in a society that doesn’t have one coherent set of gender norms but a ‘mixed regime’ of two (it’s a bit more complicated than that, but we can simplify to two): A ‘traditional’ set of norms that ascribes different roles and responsibilities to men and women, and an ‘egalitarian’ one that stresses equality. Sometimes one set of norms is operative, sometimes the other. 

This incoherence is frustrating. If you’re not doing well, it feels like you’re getting the ‘worst of both worlds’: as a man you don’t gain any advantage when it comes to promotions (egalitarian), but you still pay for dates (traditional). Or, as a woman, you’re expected to work as long and hard as a man (egalitarian) and also do most of the childcare (traditional). It can also feel like other people are getting one over on you by appealing to whatever norm happens to advantage them in the moment. Both genders may feel like they’re fulfilling their half of the patriarchal bargain, while the other is skating on theirs. 

The right ascribes all the discontents of this mixed regime to feminism. The right also tells men that the mixed regime privileges women. It doesn’t. While men can get the worst of both worlds under it, the total sum of inequities it imposes on women is still greater. (The total time cost of women doing more childcare is greater than the money cost of us paying for dinner more.) It is this largely fictional view of feminism that young men are voting against.

And that is the most charitable account of anti-feminist anger. At best, it is about men being tricked into thinking the world is against them, that the pendulum has swung too far the other way and now women are unfairly advantaged. Much of the time however the core impulse is anger at losing social inferiors, fury at women for not ‘knowing their place.’ 

Are you sure you didn’t say something to make him hit you?

The right is targeting young men and boys with a propaganda campaign the scope and scale of which feels like one of the more intentionally exaggerated passages from Orwell. And yet, people who know all this still can’t seem to let go of the instinct that we—Democrats, liberals, feminists, the left—must have done something to drive them to it. 

Liberals can certainly acknowledge some sins of omission—we needed to aggressively contest the online space much earlier. We’re a decade into this new media landscape and only starting to belatedly recognise a yawning communication gap. Likewise, liberalism just hasn’t been as robust, as self-confident, as it's needed to be. But as for sins of commission—what we supposedly did to young men to provoke this backlash—I just don’t see it. 

Feminists get portrayed as ideologically inflexible, as dismissive of contrary opinions. ‘Feminism is a religion’ was a common refrain in the old days of the male-dominated New Atheist movement. That’s not my impression of it at all: I’ve interviewed many, many feminist philosophers on my podcast. I can say from considerable experience these aren’t people who have not considered different points of view, or are arrogant or dismissive when you challenge theirs. 

Most of the people I’ve been closest to in my life have been women—I have three sisters, I dated women, I’m married to a woman, and most of my best friends have been women—and their politics run from center to far-left but almost all would consider themselves feminists. I’ve basically never felt any of them to be hostile to me as a man. Feminism as an ideology has been unusually willing to grapple with its own history with regards to racism and trans inclusion, as well as to reconsider and discuss key commitments, like its position on sex work and pornography. 

That the Democratic Party is saying something bad enough to provoke sweet young men into fascistic hatred is an even stranger claim. The party's messaging is almost defined by its inoffensiveness. It can be a bit bland—vacuous even—but when has any Democratic leader ever said anything as offensive about men as what Trump and Vance regularly say about women? 

We’re told we need to offer young men meaning. I’ll be the first to say I think modern liberalism and socialism alike have failed to provide an inspiring vision of the future, but that’s not the same thing. If Harris had better articulated her vision for the country, that wouldn’t make your existence complete. Ideologies can’t do that. They’re guides, they help or hinder our perception of things, and inform the moral judgements we make, as we journey from this world to the next. But being liberal or conservative in and of itself doesn’t provide purpose. Nor can a political party. Except for a few unfortunates whose vocation is being a politician, that’s manifestly not what they’re here to do. Parties are vehicles for better or worse policy, nothing more or less. 

Telling people their lives are meaningless unless they join your group is a cult recruitment tactic (which makes sense, fascism has many similarities to a cult). Meaning is something we have to find and create for ourselves. That’s both the beauty and the challenge of our fleeting lives. Different people will find meaning in different projects, different struggles. For most of us, meaning will be found in relationships, our families, friends, and partners but how that looks will be different for different people. There is no ultimate authority that imposes a single, universal meaning on the universe. People who insist there is—religious fundamentalists, cults, political authoritarians—are usually trying to sell you something you shouldn't buy. Contrary to much self-involved angst from philosophers, that there's no ultimate source for meaning isn’t terrifying, depressing, or absurd. It isn’t even, when you think about it, particularly interesting.

We’re told we need to offer young men more role models, people who are both credibly masculine and embody our values. But wasn’t that Tim Walz? He was selected overtly for that purpose. The response from the poor, lonely young men we liberals have apparently been failing? Pure, visceral anger. “Tampon Tim” was arguably subject to more gender-based attacks than even Harris precisely because he didn’t validate their misogyny. The problem isn’t the left’s role models, it's the right’s. Men have been reached first by the influencers and politicians they hold up as the masculine ideal: people who, almost to a man, have been credibly accused of rape or assault, who have failed to maintain their long-term relationships, who, in the final resort, are cleary not happy, or even capable of happiness. In the internet age, they are aggressively importing the beliefs that so damaged their own lives directly into the minds of young boys who ordinarily might be kept safe, or at least distanced, from them.

We’re told we need to offer dating advice or assistance. Sure, that seems like a bit of a gap in the market. Apparently, there have been efforts to fill it in the form of socialist singles nights and speed dating. The result? Not enough straight men showed up. And this failure was mocked by the poor, lonely young men we’re told we’re failing. They weren't any more willing to accept non-misogynistic dating help than they were non-misogynistic role models. I strongly suspect the same will be true of non-misogynistic life advice.

Men aren’t moving away from the left because of something we said. They’re moving away because they’re getting taken in by the right’s propaganda. This is the thing that people who push any ‘what did you say to make him hit you?’ narrative just don't get: People aren’t listening to the messaging of individual liberal politicians anymore. If they think Democrats said X, it's not because they said X, it’s because the media they consume told them they said X. There are no ‘magic words’ that will reach the white working class, or men. We can say everything the appeasers want us to say—a lot of the time we already have—and it wont make the slightest bit of difference. 

What is to be done?

It seems like every political writer in the age of Trump thinks that their article is a failure unless it ends with ‘and that’s the one weird trick to defeating MAGA.’ ‘What’s the solution then?’ is a question I’m often asked. There may not be one. We‘re not really in a ‘solution space’ right now. America is currently at the intersection of multiple, profound, interconnected, system-level failures: an unserious electorate drifting right, unprecedented levels of misinformation, institutional safeguards like impeachment no longer working, a justice system that cannot perform its most basic functions, a slow-moving constitutional coup from the terrifying zealots who’ve captured the Supreme Court, an always biased media now fully capitulating to fascism, and, yes, whatever the hell is going on with men. 

My main concern with the masculinity narrative is it urges a mindset that is actively harmful: We’re asked to respect young men, to empathise with them, to see if from their point of view. Throughout the entire Trump era we’ve had this omnipresent theory that Trump voters could be swayed from voting Trump if liberals learnt more about them and it's never made the slightest bit of sense. The demand is that I put my values, my facts, to one side. I don’t know how to say this more basically: validating men’s false feelings of persecution will not reduce the power of ideologies who feed on those feelings. It will make them stronger. 

This feels like one more shakedown. When it became clear that liberal democracy would be on the ballot in a series of disturbingly close elections, multiple groups rushed, not to support those of us who wanted to save it, but to see what they could leverage from our fear. ‘If you want Democrats to win in 2016 you’d better make Bernie the nominee or we’ll sit it out,’ ‘I don’t like they/them pronouns, knock that off or I’ll elect people who will kill you all,’ ‘Democrats should stop talking about race altogether if they want my vote.’ 

Now, in the 11th hour, the last free election we may have, when all hope seemed lost, young men run in to decisively throw their support behind the fascist and then start yelling some incoherent nonsense that we couldn’t capitulate to if we tried. The hostages are all dead, the negotiator has fled, and you’re in the middle of the destroyed building confidently telling the wreckage you can’t get laid. The Bernie-or-bust demands were at least intelligible. This is a bad joke. 

What is to be done? You already know what we can do. We can be still more rigorous about what our boys are exposed to online, we can teach them online literacy, and teach them early. We can practice better digital hygiene ourselves—this stuff gets in the back of your head. Many on the left pushing the masculinity narrative frame it as being about other men, but clearly buy into misogyny themselves on some level. (Socialist discomfort with anti-Trump liberalism—the derision of ‘wine-moms,’ ‘girlbosses,’ liberals ‘at brunch,’ etc—is clearly misogynistic.) 

We liberals can more aggressively contest the new digital media landscape. No more complaining about people not reading broadsheets anymore; that’s not coming back. We can invest the time, energy, and money into building a presence in this new world. And when we do so, let’s make it one for us, not a sad imitation of the right—there won’t be a liberal Joe Rogan in the same way there never did end up being a liberal Rush Limbaugh. Their audience is different to ours, different behaviourally, different psychologically. What works for them won’t work for us. We need to find our own way. 

Finally, when we see men around us drifting into this worldview, we do need to try and talk them out of it. In times like these, there is a duty to persuade. Not by silencing ourselves to validate false and pernicious grievances, but by directly and respectfully telling people they are wrong. That they are being lied to. And that these lies will make their own lives harder. That’s all hard. Misogyny is a particularly stubborn mental software to uninstall. It makes people unpleasant, and often dangerous. That’s the path. It’s steep, but at least it's real. 

We are where we are because we’ve been pretending we’re somewhere else. Pretending that fascists aren’t serious about what they’re telling us they plan to do. Pretending that people don’t really buy into their ideas, that it's actually about something else. Pretending, most perniciously of all, that liberals said something to provoke them, that we can stay safe by staying quiet, by not setting them off. 

At this point it may be too late. I don’t know. But let’s at least stop pretending. I promise you; you’ll feel better for facing the world as it really is. 

Featured image is Drinking Alone, by atmtx