What he's promising them is simple: the chance to be the hero of their own lives, which is what the white male mediocrity has always wanted because he lacks the will, skills and imagination to make himself the hero. It's why he often carries a gun: in case "something happens." It's why he loves superhero movies: because that's what he imagines himself to be.
This is why they will find purpose as camp guards in Trump and Vance's concentration camps for their political enemies and more than 10M Hispanics. They will happily turn in their neighbors for a reward. They will persecute, attack and murder anyone not cis and hetero. They are the core of Trump's Willing Executioners, especially if they consider themselves christian.
I taught these young men in middle school from 2012-2017 in general science classes! They need to grow up. I taught them my philosophy of life and on every test or quiz, if they wrote down the quotes they were worth one point a piece. One of the quotes was “It is what it is”. I would tell kids that they were failing and they could not believe it until I brought their grades up on the computer! A second quote I taught them was “the same fire that melts the butter hardens the iron”! The young men that support Trump are the butter and the young men who support sanity and VP Harris are the iron!!!
I sure hope this is trolling, because otherwise you are generally displaying an attitude towards kids that is very much not becoming of a middle school teacher.
Gee, those same students called me and asked me to come to their high school graduation because they got together and voted me their best teacher K-12! Still an educator at age 71 and it is called tough love just like former teacher Tim Walz!!!
Oh, okay, I thought you were younger. Now that I understand your comment as a BoomerPost, it seems a lot more reasonable.
FYI your order of sentences (“Quotes and Grades.” “Students in denial about failing” “second sentence about grades”) is definitely causing some of us youngsters to read meaning between the lines that isn’t there.
I definitely thought there was a connection between the quotes and the failing and I now realize you were just sharing various things about how you taught Middle School Science.
Honestly you sound like a pretty good teacher—sorry for the slander!
"But if you asked a hundred or a thousand young men what Trump wants to do that would benefit them, or how the country he wants to create would plausibly be better for them than the one they live in now, I suspect almost none of them would be able to come up with an answer."
Oh, they have an answer.
"Trump normalizes the hate I feel for others who are not like me. That benefits me by making me feel better about my hate."
I suppose Waldman is right; at least it's the conventional wisdom of the Left...which includes me. But it doesn't get us anywhere. In fact it only deepens the problem....that is, it deepens it if is true in the first place. I don't know any of these disaffected men myself, and the description of them sounds a lot like the teenagers and even younger boys I knew in grade school who were bullies and gang members...and who grew up, I suppose, to be criminals or successful businessmen. And I personally think (trying to be careful here to not claim I actually know anything). But to shorten my story, I think that a lot of that is "human" [primate] nature when civilization does not provide alternatives for them...even if that alternative is forming war parties an raiding the neighboring village. To the extent whatever civilization we manage to develop forces them...or just provides them a path for...more civilized...behavior....this force is defeated in many cases by the negative results of harsh or (perceived) injustice itself. An example in the news today my state is enacting laws that tend to make it impossible for small and very small farmers to to make a living by forcing them to follow laws a small farmer cannot afford to follow....all this in the name of protecting the environment, but as a practical matter just making it easier for corporate farming to acieve monopoly power. I would suggest that the author of another comment here may be part of the problem...imposing his own ideas of "correct thinking" on children who do not understand why they are being punished by "failing" and would not agree with him if they did understand. Or, as Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and they are us."
my point is that we would do well to think...if we can...what "we" are doing that causes this disaffection among (not only) men instead of just dismissing them as ignorant losers.
and, to be sure, I don't like Trump or Vance or the sort of men and women who do, but we have our own blind arrogance that isn't helping the problem.
Citing “Primate Nature” as the root of strife is pretty fraught, mostly because most citations thereto can be defeated by a mere four words: “yeah but bonobos exist”.
I doubt you know any more about Bonobos than I do. I was not meaning to slander Bonobos. I was not thinking particularly of aggression as I was of primate intelligence. Wolves are very aggressive, but they are not stupid. Humans, on the other hand have developed stupidity into a high art.
What he's promising them is simple: the chance to be the hero of their own lives, which is what the white male mediocrity has always wanted because he lacks the will, skills and imagination to make himself the hero. It's why he often carries a gun: in case "something happens." It's why he loves superhero movies: because that's what he imagines himself to be.
This is why they will find purpose as camp guards in Trump and Vance's concentration camps for their political enemies and more than 10M Hispanics. They will happily turn in their neighbors for a reward. They will persecute, attack and murder anyone not cis and hetero. They are the core of Trump's Willing Executioners, especially if they consider themselves christian.
I taught these young men in middle school from 2012-2017 in general science classes! They need to grow up. I taught them my philosophy of life and on every test or quiz, if they wrote down the quotes they were worth one point a piece. One of the quotes was “It is what it is”. I would tell kids that they were failing and they could not believe it until I brought their grades up on the computer! A second quote I taught them was “the same fire that melts the butter hardens the iron”! The young men that support Trump are the butter and the young men who support sanity and VP Harris are the iron!!!
I sure hope this is trolling, because otherwise you are generally displaying an attitude towards kids that is very much not becoming of a middle school teacher.
Edit: I misinterpreted, see below for details.
Gee, those same students called me and asked me to come to their high school graduation because they got together and voted me their best teacher K-12! Still an educator at age 71 and it is called tough love just like former teacher Tim Walz!!!
Oh, okay, I thought you were younger. Now that I understand your comment as a BoomerPost, it seems a lot more reasonable.
FYI your order of sentences (“Quotes and Grades.” “Students in denial about failing” “second sentence about grades”) is definitely causing some of us youngsters to read meaning between the lines that isn’t there.
I definitely thought there was a connection between the quotes and the failing and I now realize you were just sharing various things about how you taught Middle School Science.
Honestly you sound like a pretty good teacher—sorry for the slander!
I started my 31 year at the University of Arizona this past August!
Trump offers "feelgood" about voting emotionally because you are too lazy to think
"But if you asked a hundred or a thousand young men what Trump wants to do that would benefit them, or how the country he wants to create would plausibly be better for them than the one they live in now, I suspect almost none of them would be able to come up with an answer."
Oh, they have an answer.
"Trump normalizes the hate I feel for others who are not like me. That benefits me by making me feel better about my hate."
They're just not going to tell you that answer.
I am utterly bewildered that other men have a meaningful relationship/attachment to the arbitrary and abstract concept of “manhood”.
The 3d to last para. sums it up, for all of orange's marks.
I suppose Waldman is right; at least it's the conventional wisdom of the Left...which includes me. But it doesn't get us anywhere. In fact it only deepens the problem....that is, it deepens it if is true in the first place. I don't know any of these disaffected men myself, and the description of them sounds a lot like the teenagers and even younger boys I knew in grade school who were bullies and gang members...and who grew up, I suppose, to be criminals or successful businessmen. And I personally think (trying to be careful here to not claim I actually know anything). But to shorten my story, I think that a lot of that is "human" [primate] nature when civilization does not provide alternatives for them...even if that alternative is forming war parties an raiding the neighboring village. To the extent whatever civilization we manage to develop forces them...or just provides them a path for...more civilized...behavior....this force is defeated in many cases by the negative results of harsh or (perceived) injustice itself. An example in the news today my state is enacting laws that tend to make it impossible for small and very small farmers to to make a living by forcing them to follow laws a small farmer cannot afford to follow....all this in the name of protecting the environment, but as a practical matter just making it easier for corporate farming to acieve monopoly power. I would suggest that the author of another comment here may be part of the problem...imposing his own ideas of "correct thinking" on children who do not understand why they are being punished by "failing" and would not agree with him if they did understand. Or, as Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and they are us."
my point is that we would do well to think...if we can...what "we" are doing that causes this disaffection among (not only) men instead of just dismissing them as ignorant losers.
and, to be sure, I don't like Trump or Vance or the sort of men and women who do, but we have our own blind arrogance that isn't helping the problem.
Citing “Primate Nature” as the root of strife is pretty fraught, mostly because most citations thereto can be defeated by a mere four words: “yeah but bonobos exist”.
yep. them too.
Oblivon
I doubt you know any more about Bonobos than I do. I was not meaning to slander Bonobos. I was not thinking particularly of aggression as I was of primate intelligence. Wolves are very aggressive, but they are not stupid. Humans, on the other hand have developed stupidity into a high art.