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
“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.
@shannonrwatts In every election since Roe was overturned, Republicans have lost. Traditionally red states Kansas and Ohio voted to protect abortion rights by wide margins. Republicans performed very badly in the 2022 midterms. We can win if we vote! Register here. Vote.org
‘Too Many Women Are Going to College!’-There’s a narrative out there that more women are going to college than men because of educational bias, unfair advantages, and so on. It’s based on a male victimhood narrative, cuz that’s how male supremacy works. /1medium.com/equality-inclu…
These narratives always have a grain of truth. Yes, boys are struggling in many educational contexts. Yes, a lot of programs have been implemented to encourage women in STEM and other areas. Fine. We get that. We need to address what’s going on for boys. Thanks for that grain. /2
But why do women gravitate towards education? First and foremost, women and non-gender binary people pursue education because there is great joy for all humans in exploring the issues and ideas we’re interested in. /3
THREAD: has been posting about "femme phobia", men's fear of the feminine. Really important framing in that term. /1MamaMuse.nyc
I explore the harmful masculine cultural influences by which universal human capacities for connection, caregiving, empathy, are falsely gendered by our dominance-based culture of masculinity as female, and then bullied and shamed out of boys. /2
When boys express too many emotions or need too much connection we say to them, “What are you, a sissy? What are you, gay? What are you, a girl?” /3
I have spent years in the trenches of social media, battling all manner of MRA, inches, extremists. It is an art form to respond in ways that are effective. I'm here to tell you that @barbiethemovie is the most powerful act of gender aikido that I have EVER seen on film. /1
The @barbiethemovie movie flips gender privilege over and over as a driver for men, (women and non binary folks') self reflection. -->Male viewers feeling like men are second class citizens in Barbieland? Felt it myself "Gee imagine life being like that every day... Oh, wait." /2
@barbiethemovie The central tenant of the film, that once we name the insane contradictions inherent in patriarchal "never good enough" roles for women... once the words are spoken clearly, women snap out of the trance of patriarchy. And I firmly believe many men will too. /3
Countless men have directly benefited from abortion. Few say so. My partner chose to get an abortion when I was a young man. I supported her in making that decision and I benefited from that choice. Other men who are willing to share how they benefited from abortion, please do.
Many of us clearly see in retrospect the inflection point suddenly raising a child in our early 20s would have had on our educations, careers, so on. We saw it at the time it was happening. We would not have the children, relationships, paths in life we have now.
Yet millions of men remain silent about how abortion benefitted us. We are mute as abortion is criminalized by men in the extremist GOP, many of whom have benefited from abortion in the past or hypocritically continue to do so today. Extremists who only seek to control women