this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
218 points (100.0% liked)
Politics
10181 readers
406 users here now
In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I read a great WaPo article on this recently. Basically on the left, no one can define healthy masculinity and it's really opened up a spot for the right wing to swoop in and define it for us.
The left side of politics has always struggled to bring people along for the journey, they can advocate for people but building a coherent argument and inspiring people to come along for the ride will always be their downfall. They cannot achieve progressive change if they fail to recognize the concerns of the right.
Shame that the concerns of the right are mostly just disguised misogyny, racism and classism.
You're right. Nothing that's truly valuable in legislation is simple. It's hard to turn something complicated into a sound byte without making shit up, and the Left in most countries have to be careful alienating the intellectuals if they start making shit up. We don't vote for bullshit.
The Right has no problem making shit up and those who vote for them are not really affected by it. When the Notch Baby bullshit was going on (a US thing... there was basically a big hoax about a generation being owed money, and a lot of politicians ran with it), I didn't know a single right-leaning voter who would give the least bit of a shit that they were voting for people who were willfully taking advantage of the elderly. I guarantee a left-party candidate who pulled that shit would lose by a landslide.
So the Right can bad-faith point out a concern that "toxic masculinity" is just "masculinity" and a good thing. They know the Left can't soundbyte their way out of it because it's not a one-liner to say "it's not about masculinity or feminity, it's about not being a dick and all of us helping the underdog". It's VERY easy to sell people who aren't the underdog on victim complexes.