Which of these behaviors would have been nipped in the bud of a boy’s life had the women in his world taught him other behaviors?
Why women in the young man’s closest world do not teach them to be good; Why women lose the battles trying to teach them:
One reason among many for the huge Democratic party losses in 2024 is Male Supremacy and America’s Male Toxicity Problem. I agree that voters, politicians, journalists, sociologists, and historians should study the data. However, I know that a few issues will be avoided, especially on televised news media and inside Democratic party leadership.
They will agree to disagree about Gaza and the U.S. policy of giving Israel unconditional military support in the Middle East. The Harris/Waltz ticket lost millions of votes because of this unconditional support. Democratic leaders and influencers, including never-Trump Republicans and Independents, will avoid discussing LGBTQ+ policies and women’s access to safe abortions. They will avoid also what should have been announced from every rooftop, in every political ad, and in every Democratic rally before the November 2024 election, that Donald J Trump’s mental and physical health was then and remains in rapid decline, that the world’s security is at high risk because of Trump’s imbecility.
But above all else, if the Democratic party and its progressive base want to unify around any issue, desire election wins, intend to demolish MAGA power and end the Project 2025 Republican assault on democracy, they must confront Institutional Racism and its parent, White Christian Male Supremacy. Enough of wishing it would go away and hide under the rocks from whence it slithers, do the hard work over time to eradicate it.
Our male toxicity problem ties together most of the issues on which an honest evaluation of the election losses can be based:
Unconditional military support for the Netanyahu regime is based on a toxic mix of these core issues: white male supremacy prevails in both the U.S.A. and Israel (Rape is an acceptable routine behavior among military men, especially if done to the enemy); Violence, intimidation, and oppression are routinely used to WIN corporate, government, political, religious, and international disagreements.
Democratic party leaders’ refusal to spend most of its policy initiatives and campaign in so-called swing states and states controlled by Republicans is based on an authoritarian man’s philosophy -- You should be grateful for what I give you and for my patience with you; it’s your fault that you’re hurting.
Swing and Red states have heavy populations of rural dwellers and workers, blue-collar workers, minorities, unemployed and under-employed young people, Americans without university degrees, sick Americans, imprisoned Americans, immigrant workers, Americans dependent on government assistance, and Christian Nationalists. Why would Democrats ignore them or worse, pretend to see but refuse to help them? Because Democratic policies over the last three decades ignored the reasons that the Swing and Red states are what they are: the wealthy class are a bunch of self-serving insatiable deluded Americans who avoid the businesses, neighborhoods, schools, healthcare, and jobs around which most Americans live. Instead, they demand more private prisons, better detour roads, more upscale shopping centers, more private security, more tax dollars for private education, and fewer taxes on their incomes and properties.
These are government bodies and policies controlled by white men. Result: a growing population of resentful, angry, poor, uneducated men who blame everyone except the white wealthy class who control the levers of power.
Democratic leadership does what abusive men do to their partners and coworkers: blame the victims.
Finally, voters everywhere knew in 2024 as now, that Democratic leaders in their states and in Congress will put minimal effort toward listening, learning, and doing while maximizing their efforts toward building and protecting powerful networks. Their motto is much the same as Republican leaders’ motto: Use power for personal profit.
Republicans could not have so easily obliterated women’s rights and voting rights had Democrats enshrined those rights. Republicans could not have easily enacted Project 2025 had Democrats denounced the potential policy initiatives from every soapbox, pulpit, media outlet, and townhall available. Republicans could not have easily protected their useful idiot from the ‘Epstein-Maxwell’ sex trafficking allegations had Democrats exposed from 2015 on that Trump’s sexual behaviors and Epstein-Maxwell relationships were not only illegal and immoral but also a huge national security risk. Republicans could not have easily dismantled the public education system and routed public dollars toward private education had Democrats made the nation’s public education system K-16 a top priority in and between every election over the last forty years.
Odd that what we choose to ignore and willingly tolerate often becomes our worst problem. Odd that Democrats and Independents assume we should vote for them, like business owners assume their workers are so grateful for the paychecks that they will ignore what owners do not do to keep them happy and healthy.
The male toxicity problem will not go away without local community and national efforts. One midterm election cycle will not fix the problems that several decades of neglect, abuse, insult, and injury created. At least one generation of men are so angry and resentful that they refused to vote for an intelligent, kind, talented, experienced, well-qualified woman as President. They chose a rapist, sexual predator, mentally deficient, unqualified, demented, old, sick, narcissistic psychopath instead. That is disease we cannot heal with a bandage and aspirin.