Is it Time to Tone Down the Wokeness, Especially about the Past?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Sherrerd

The Right has been making use of this feature of human psychology forever. Tell people that they are the righteous ones, the True Americans (or whatever), the ones who should be receiving deference from the lower orders. Many humans crave that kind of flattery and will vote to get more of it.

A left-leaning (potential) inspirational figure for disaffected young men isn’t going to be able to tell them that they deserve to be served and kowtowed to by their inferiors, because that’s simply not a left-wing way of looking at humanity. We don’t divide people up into castes (not as a matter of principle, certainly).

Maybe there’s something that could be substituted for right-wing flattery, and be just as attractive. But human psychology is the same all over. Some people crave a diet of flattery and grievance. Can they be reached by offering something more emotionally healthy?

I think so. It’s like this:

“Guys, women think it’s sexy when you’re confident, funny, interesting, and kind. Be kind to children, and be kind to dogs. Pay attention to the women in your lives–nothing’s more manly than not freaking out all the time about whether you’re man enough! Play football and video games and scratch your balls if you want, none of that makes you less of a man, but it’s also not what being a man is about. Look at this fine-ass man getting laid by being kind and funny and interesting and confident! You’re a sexy man too if you’re kind and funny and interesting and confident.”

Because it’s true. Kind and funny and interesting and confident dudes DO get laid. And the sex is much better, because you know the people you’re with want to be with you.

You can lay on the flattery, and hype the values of being a good person, at the same time. You don’t have to hype dominance.

[RitterSport]

That’s all that is, though, an anecdote. On average, real wages are up, and up more for hourly workers, so there are certainly people who offset your lack of real wage hikes.

[DemonTree]

@Sherrerd

Maybe there’s something that could be substituted for right-wing flattery, and be just as attractive. But human psychology is the same all over. Some people crave a diet of flattery and grievance. Can they be reached by offering something more emotionally healthy?

I think young men want to be cool. They want the chance to gain status and impress young women. They want to be part of something bigger. They often want to fight. Taking part in a communist revolution does that. Defying elders and sticking it to the man can do that. Modern leftism isn’t offering those things. If anything it’s telling young men to shut up and take a back seat, to put others first, and not in a ‘heroic sacrifice’ kinda way but by voting against your own interests and volunteering to have a worse life.

[Sherrerd]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

You can lay on the flattery, and hype the values of being a good person, at the same time. You don’t have to hype dominance.

I’d love to see that put to the test by some charismatic young (or youngish) podcaster. I mean, it sounds plausible. (Though telling people You Should Rule is always going to provide tough competition to You Can Get Dates by Being a Decent Guy.)

@Der_Trihs

… there’s no point in trying to “tone down the wokeness” since it can’t be done, anything the Democrats do real or imaginary can be labeled “woke”.

I agree with this, but I also would like to see Democrats be more careful about associating with self-righteous scolding and with identity politics (in this case defined as messaging that crudely implies some groups should be elevated above other groups. I’d prefer to see Democrats acknowledge the existence of racism, etc, while emphasizing that we’re all in this together.)

[Sherrerd]

@DemonTree

I think young men want to be cool. They want the chance to gain status and impress young women. They want to be part of something bigger. They often want to fight. Taking part in a communist revolution does that. Defying elders and sticking it to the man can do that. Modern leftism isn’t offering those things. If anything it’s telling young men to shut up and take a back seat, to put others first, and not in a ‘heroic sacrifice’ kinda way but by voting against your own interests and volunteering to have a worse life.

Yeah. This needs study and attention by the Democratic Party.

[DemonTree]

@Odesio

What kinds job jobs do these young men have? Are they jobs that pay very little and have no room for advancement? I’m not here to point fingers at anyone. I’m pushing 50 and I really don’t have my finger on the pulse of todays youths. There’s obviously a problem here but I’m not really sure exactly what it is so I don’t know how to fix it.

Boys are doing worse than girls at all levels of education, and this is reflected in more young women going on to university. Young men are falling behind, and feel the expectations put on them have not changed, while their opportunities have been reduced.

But I think the real issue is dating. More young people are single than ever before. Real life socialising has drastically reduced, leaving everyone reliant on increasingly-dysfunctional online dating. Women are often flooded with attention and unable to find the guys worth dating, and feel they are being taken advantage of. Many men get no dates at all. It affects both sexes, but men seem to be coping worse, maybe because being a virgin/unable to attract women is considered shameful for men, and because men typically rely more on girlfriends and wives for emotional support that women can get from female friends. Most of these ‘manosphere’ things - incels, red pill, PUA, Tate - are about (lack of) sex and relationships.

@Sherrerd

(Though telling people You Should Rule is always going to provide tough competition to You Can Get Dates by Being a Decent Guy.)

Especially when plenty of decent (or at least average) guys are not able to get dates, because of cultural and technological changes outside their control.

[Lamoral]

Andrew Tate, it needs to be said, offers career advice and promotes various hustles and pathways to financial success. They might be really dumb ones, but obviously many young men find them compelling. It’s wrong to think of Tate as solely “someone really cool who boys want to be like,” he’s one of many avatars of hustle culture.

Young men want to do something, ideally to make money, but I really think the money is secondary to the doing. They WANT to be productive. Tate encourages a form of productivity that’s self-serving and unethical, but there’s nothing stopping an influencer from being the anti-Andrew Tate but still focused on productivity and success.

One of my favorite YouTubers is Andrew Camarata. He’s a young guy in Upstate New York who taught himself how to operate heavy equipment and build interesting things including his own “castle” made from shipping containers, and has a substantial following. There’s pretty much nothing he can’t repair or restore, and through sheer hard work and determination he’s attained a level of competence and capability, more or less on his own, that is seriously impressive. He started out mowing lawns and shoveling snow, and gradually amassed a fleet of machinery, and also taught himself superlative video production skills to promote himself which has resulted in a channel with 1.43 million subscribers, bringing in substantial income.

I’ve never heard him speak a single word of negativity about anything. He’s just a humble and hardworking guy.

Now, he is not trying to be an Andrew Tate type influencer, and he doesn’t push any kind of narrative about the world. But to me he is an ideal example of aspirational, productive energy that would appeal to Tate’s intended audience, or maybe a more blue collar version of the same.

[Banquet_Bear]

…you are never going to manufacturer a “left-wing Andrew Tate.”

Because firstly, you need to stop viewing this through the lens of the messaging, but instead through the eyes of distribution channels, marketing, and propaganda.

A young white kid starts watching a YouTube gaming stream, an advertisement pops up for the Joe Rogan podcast, next thing they are on the road to conversion.

Its too late to play catch-up here. A left-wing version of Tate ain’t ever going to be able to compete. Its like the Democrats having a Republican-lite immigration policy of giving billions to the police. They are trying to compete in this space. But if you are giving the voters a choice between authoritarianism-lite and authoritarianism, they may as well go all in.

With all due respect, this discussion is giving real “how are you doing, fellow kids” vibes

Probably the most prominent left-wing person to make headway in this space is Hasan Piker. He is most notably not white. And he is unabashedly pro-Palestinian, something that puts him at odds with establishment Democrats, with the likes of Rep. Ritchie Torres actually calling for a probe into his “rhetoric”.

And so this is where the establishment Democrats are always going to fail. They want to take on the likes of Tate and Rogan. But they fail to understand just how much the alt-right have taken control of both the media and the social media sphere. They’ve got a pipeline. They are spending BILLIONS of dollars. They own the platforms. And the message they are sending doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand.

And the other thing establishment Democrats insist on is that they’ve got to be in control of the message. It needs to be “focus tested” and not upset the donor class. They literally kicked Hasan out of the Democrat convention.

The counter to this isn’t “somewhere between Taylor Swift and Andrew Tate.”

It’s about being genuine.

Authenticity.

The single greatest moment in the Harris campaign was when Walz called the Trump camp “weird.”

“I got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate the guy [Vance]. That is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”

For a very brief moment, the Democrats were just telling it as it is. MAGA are just fucking weird. And the Republicans were on the back-foot. They didn’t have a response. Because here’s the thing.

They are fucking. Weird.

But then the establishment kicked in. And they put the muzzle on Walz, so instead of letting him kick Vance’s ass during the debate, he handed him a lukewarm victory.

They just couldn’t help themselves.

The left are behind the eight-ball. The only way to compete, especially under what will now be a semi-fascist regime, is to stop trying to micro-manage the message. Resistance is uncomfortable. You can’t sanitize it.

And to bring it back on topic, resistance is unabashedly woke. It doesn’t leave anyone behind. So it isn’t time to “tone down the wokeness.” It’s time to step it up. All of the power structures that the Social Justice Warriors have been railing against are going to be used by the Trump regime to destroy you. Cop cities. The industrial prison complex. The surveillance state. Global warming.

They are coming for trans rights. They are coming for same sex marriage. They are coming for reproductive rights. They will destroy what is left of international humanitarian law.

The dictionary definition of “woke” is:

aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)

If we are all going to survive the next ten years, and eventually win our respective countries back, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we all have to get woke.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Banquet_Bear

With all due respect

This is one of those phrases that is always followed by something insulting and disrespectful.

@Banquet_Bear

this discussion is giving real “how are you doing, fellow kids” vibes

And there it is!

Look, if you think that clip applies, you are fundamentally misunderstanding what I’m saying. I am not offering myself as a peer to these kids. I am speaking as a veteran educator and as a father of children who has noticed a disparity in the media available to and consumed by the children in my care.

if you have not noticed that disparity, or if you think there is not a void there that can be filled, you may be speaking from a different perspective. And if you think it could be filled by somebody who is explicitly political, I really think you misread the situation.

Edit: perhaps you think I am suggesting the Democrats manufacture someone like I’m hoping for in a lab? 100% not what I am talking about.

[Babale]

@Banquet_Bear

Probably the most prominent left-wing person to make headway in this space is Hasan Piker. He is most notably not white. And he is unabashedly pro-Palestinian, something that puts him at odds with establishment Democrats, with the likes of Rep. Ritchie Torres actually calling for a probe into his “rhetoric”.

That’s because he’s also unabashedly pro-Hezbollah and pro-Houthi… He’s precisely the poster child of people who completely cross the line from pro Palestinian to pro Hamas.

[Ash_trav511]

I am curious if there is any data to check if celebrity endorsements like Taylor Swift, JLo, Katy Perry, CardiB, Oprah, Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney etc caused any additional votes to flip to Harris.

Same with endorsements on the right like Joe Rogan and Musk etc (are there any other significant endorsements ?)

Of all the endorsements on the left and right I feel perhaps the one endorsement which moved the needle a bit was Musk…not because he donated huge sums or he is popular with the geeky tech crowd but because he controls X and amplified his messaging on X in a huge way.

I may be wrong but celebrity endorsements (on left and right) may possibly cause feelings of “elite preaching down” and to some extent have the reverse impact.

What is the net impact of celebrity endorsements finally ?

Would love to see if there is any data wrt celebrity endorsements and whether they actually matter in convincing voters to potentially change their voting pattern or induce infrequent or apolitical voters to vote a certain way.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

if you have not noticed that disparity, or if you think there is not a void there that can be filled,

…of course there is a disparity!

Of course there is a void to be filled!

But you are competing with the algorithm.

Young white girls don’t “look up to Taylor Swift.” They see themselves in her. It’s part of a manufactured, over-produced, marketing machine. White people don’t “look up to” Andrew Tate. They are Andrew Tate. They are racist, misogynist, horrible pricks. Some of them didn’t start out that way. And of course many of them are redeemable. But “the left” is fighting a rear-guard action now. They’ve been out-flanked and over-run. It’s time for a radical change in tactics and strategy. To acknowledge that you aren’t ever going to reach those who don’t want to be reached, and instead focus on the battles you have a chance of winning.

And It ignores the real problem. That the left have no real control of the pipeline. The stuff that breaks through is genuine, authentic, and it disrupts the algorithm.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Edit: perhaps you think I am suggesting the Democrats manufacture someone like I’m hoping for in a lab? 100% not what I am talking about.

There is no formula to breaking through. We are all locked into our silos, our own, personally curated information ecosystems.

Let’s get woke about it and not beat around the bush: we fundamentally live in a white supremacist society. White people voted for Trump because white people want to be in charge. White boys flock to Andrew Tate because he gives them permission to be in charge.

It doesn’t matter how many “models of attractive, young, sexy masculinity who embodies the left’s values of respect, compassion”, you can find. Because there are plenty. On their own, they are never going to break through. The total control the alt-right have over the eco-system that feeds into their ego won’t let them.

The left need to win on the fringes when they can. But focus on inspiring the base. There are more of you than there are of them. White guys are getting radicalised by a billion dollar propaganda machine, and it won’t be defeated by presenting a dollar-store version that doesn’t feed into their fragility.

The establishment Democrats got it badly wrong this election. This defeat will go down in history as a turning point: where we slip into the dystopia. As I said: the very things that woke people have been fighting against and railing against are going to come back to haunt you. They’ve constructed an entire apparatus that gives them complete control over everything. Even your doorbell camera. The time to try and win back the disaffected white person was before you lost control of all the levers of power that could have possibly wrested back some measure of control. It’s now a matter of trying to win back the millions of voters who feel abandoned by Biden, Harris, and the establishment dems.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Babale

That’s because he’s also unabashedly pro-Hezbollah and pro-Houthi

…there’s a reason for that.

But this isn’t the time nor the place for that debate. As I said: Resistance is uncomfortable .

[Babale]

@Banquet_Bear

…there’s a reason for that.

But this isn’t the time nor the place for that debate. As I said: Resistance is uncomfortable

It may or may not be “wokeness”, but Democrats need to tone down (by cutting out people who engage in) the sort of extremism that makes one “unabashedly pro-Hezbollah and pro-Houthi”.

[DrDeth]

@Ash_trav511

I am curious if there is any data to check if celebrity endorsements like Taylor Swift,

Swift did get a lot of her fans to register to vote- maybe 400K visited the cite she shared, but of course not all registered or were new registrations. Let us say 300K, mostly Dems it seems. That could have had a huge boost if allocated where Harris needed it, but of course it wasn’t. I guess it helped the popular vote some.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Babale

It may or may not be “wokeness”, but Democrats need to tone down (by cutting out people who engage in) the sort of extremism that makes one “unabashedly pro-Hezbollah and pro-Houthi”.

…personally, I think that being unabashedly pro-Israel is also the sort of extremism the Democrats need to tone down. I think it helped lose them the election.

But again: subject for another thread. I think Hasan’s arguments need to be listened in totality, and not just dismissed out of hand. Its a lot more nuanced than what can be explained in this thread. But in the context of this thread, this will always be the downside of so-called “woke” arguments. They are very easily distorted. It makes it harder to dig deeper and find nuance when simply mentioning somebodies name prompts a highly charged, talking point response.

[DocCathode]

@Banquet_Bear

personally, I think that being unabashedly pro-Israel is also the sort of extremism the Democrats need to tone down. I think it helped lose them the election.

At least one of my friends refused to vote Harris because he considered her anti Israel. In one of the Yiddish groups I belong to on Facebook, I saw one of the members had made a comment ‘Thank G-d Trump won and not that anti semite!’

If being pro Israel cost Harris any votes, I haven’t seen it.

[Banquet_Bear]

@DocCathode

If being pro Israel cost Harris any votes, I haven’t seen it.

…just look at Dearborn.

[Mijin]

@DocCathode

In one of the Yiddish groups I belong to on Facebook, I saw one of the members had made a comment ‘Thank G-d Trump won and not that anti semite!’

Frustrating isn’t it? The only way this administration could have been more pro-israel would be if Biden joined the IDF. Seriously, what more could he have done?
Also, it’s pretty clear antisemite has lost all meaning at this point.

[DrDeth]

@Mijin

The only way this administration could have been more pro-israel would be if Biden joined the IDF. Seriously, what more could he have done?

Hardly. Biden temporally cut of the flow of arms a couple of times, and pressured Israel to accept the UN ceasefire deals. But yeah, overall, Biden was clearly pro Israel. Pro peace, sure, but a staunch defender of Israel.