THREAD: Domination-based culture is what the GOP is selling. -- As the Republican Party leans more and more into what seem to be impossibly contradictory positions, we need to understand Trump's base isn't about what's rational. It's about the visceral pleasure of domination. /1
It was repellent to me, when, during the 2016 primary, Trump created nasty little nick names for every other GOP candidate. Back then, the first time I heard him call Marco Rubio "Little Marco" I was disgusted. This was straight up playground bully talk. /2
One simple act would have changed everything in the 2016 primary. If Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, who's wife Trump openly insulted, had walked over and punched Trump in the face on national television. But they did not. They took the bullying and Trump became president. /3
This is domination based culture in a nutshell. Every existing understanding of political decorum, however frayed it may have already been by decades of Fox News disinformation, went out the window when Trump went full domination culture bully on national TV. /4
Trump's domination based MAGA supporters live by a simple set of rules. One punch in the face, and Trump would have been seen as vulnerable, weak, as a clown or a fool who can't back up his words. Instead, something very different happened. /5
We look at these sitting Republican Senators and we say to ourselves, "how can you have changed your entire position so easily?" And that's only the beginning. /6
If I have seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times "What if Obama had done this?" The argument is, if Obama had done any of the acts committed by Trump he would have been thrown out of office immediately. Yes, he would have, but that's not the point. /7
It's time we understood what MAGA authoritarians love about Trump. The national debt is bad? Or is it good? It actually doesn't matter. Which argument gives an authoritarian like Trump the advantage today? That's the argument he'll use. If it changes tomorrow, all the better. /8
Jerry Fallwell, Jr. gets caught in a compromising sexual situation? He will be back. It is hypocritical for evangelicals to have him return? Domination culture thrives on hypocrisy, on chaos, on creating rage in those who oppose it. It's primary goal is to be *destructive.* /9
Hypocricy as the core expression of domination culture is spelled out in this thread by A.R. Moxon. Until we understand that domination in all it's forms is now the defining Republican Party "value" we will not fully understand the threat we face. /10
My work is about our domination-based culture of masculinity. The links between masculinity extremism and white nationalism, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and more. It all comes down to an appetite for dominance bred through trauma by a culture of disconnection. /11
The path that got us here has been incremental, rooted in the Southern Strategy when Republican's began to build a base among disaffected Southern racists. It was dramatically accelerated when Republican strategist Roger Alles took over Fox News 1996. /12 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_…
This is the end game. People pose the question, what would make working class Republicans consistently vote against their own interests? That's the wrong question. The question is, how do we fight a culture based entirely on dominating others? Because that's MAGA culture./13
MAGA voters don't care about what's rational. They don't care about what's coming next. They don't care about anything but Trump's "strong man" authoritarianism and creating chaos. Domination culture has traumatized them and only by traumatizing others can they feel validated /14
Trump's MAGA is not a political movement. The GOP has morphed into a constant cycle of domination-based violence aligned with white nationalist domestic terrorism, compromised frightened Republican politicians, and vast far right domestic media reach. The end game is here. /15
What each of us do next will decide the future of America. Me, I'm voting for Joe Biden and praying to God Democrats take the House and Senate. Because if we don't, I fully expect that sooner or later, Trump's Federal police will come calling on all of us. /16
Women outperform men because they are adopting traditional masculine strengths and adding them to their own faster than men are adopting traditional feminine strengths and adding them to theirs. We can all be fully empowered by claiming our full range of human capabilities. /1
Men hesitate to display universal human capacities like empathy, emotional expression, care giving and curiosity because in our generations old dominance-based Man Box culture of masculinity, we’ve been taught these capabilities are feminine and therefore weak. They’re neither /2
Millions of men are breaking out of Man Box culture and bringing our full range of human capacities to parenting, partnering, workplaces and communities. When we do, we discover that these so called feminine capacities are the key to ending our epidemic levels of loneliness. /3
Ya’ll see where this is going, yeah?—Republican Chair Says Only Christians Should Be Elected to Government - Newsweek newsweek.com/kandiss-taylor…
Getting the knack of spotting extremist MAGA language trial balloons. They’re testing the limits of what is acceptable; saying the quiet parts out loud out on the fringe. Next up, some GOP State Rep in Montana repeats it.
Then, of course, there’s the part where MAGA Christian nationalists take power and then start deciding who’s a legitimate Christian and who’s not. That’s a whole different kind of blood bath.
THE NEXT BIG CALL: WHITE DUDES FOR HARRIS. This group of men is stepping up. Inspired by, and following in the footsteps of Black women, it's time for white men to get 100% engaged and make sure Kamala Harris is elected as our next President. Join here: /1 bit.ly/whitedudesforh…
The reasons why white men like myself must show up in support of Kamala Harris for President were on full display at the Republican National Convention. Trump/Vance’s Project 2025 MAGA movement is a war on women, especially Black women. /2
For too long, Man Box culture has positioned white men at the top of a bullying and rigid dominance-based culture of masculinity which teaches us that the only power that matters is power we create over others. The result has been economic, political and environmental disaster /3
@Meta is now actively defending Project 2025 across all its platforms. Instagram/Facebook are tagging posts raising the alarm about Project 2025 with this statement. "Partly false information. The same information was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post.” /1
The "independent fact checkers" they are citing? The Dispatch.
Who is The Dispatch? The “neutral fact checker” that Meta is relying on? Of course The Dispatch is a self defined conservative source. Of, course it is. /2en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispa…
From Wikipedia: "After The Weekly Standard ceased publication in December 2018, Hayes, Goldberg, and Stock were inspired to start a media company with the goal of 'producing serious, factually grounded journalism for a conservative audience.'" /3
The reason men in the manosphere are so angry at women? Because empowerment for women requires accountability from men. For men, being held accountable, and moreso, *holding ourselves accountable* in relationships where women have equal power requires self-reflection. /1
For men raised in our bullying dominance-based culture of masculinity, self reflection is forbidden, punished. Who we authentically are doesn’t matter in Man Box culture, We are trained instead to model our identity on a narrow set of rules for how to be a man. /2
“Don’t show your emotions. Be tough. Have control of women and girls. Be heterosexual. Never talk about anything deep. Be a breadwinner not a caregiver. Have lots of sex.” All these rules require we show dominance over those around us, including over the women in our lives. /3
“Protect women from other women” Bro, this is absolutely comical.
Men create the predatory capitalism that starves women, the culture of violence that assaults women, the systems of power that exclude women, and the tedious bullying caricatures of manhood that bore women.
The sad reality is that our Man Box culture of masculinity provides protection to no one. Bullying hyper-competitive dominance-based masculinity leaves boys and men deeply disconnected and isolated resulting in health impacts equal to smoking. We literally die earlier.
Men’s protection fantasies born out of growing up bullied and policed by other boys and men leave us unable to imagine any other system but rigid hierarchy. One in which we’re taught women are less, trained to see empathy, connection, community and care giving as feminine, weak.