The Army hitting its recruiting goals in 2024 was largely driven by women, as young men are increasingly uniquely unqualified for service https://t.co/1RV6DeTGnn
— Steve Beynon (@StevenBeynon) January 9, 2025
With the GOP Senate determined to expedite their God-Emperor’s demand that Pete Hegseth be installed as head of the Department of Defense, the current status of military recruitment is gonna be… fraught. Per Military.com, “Surge of Female Enlistments Helped Drive Army Success in Reaching 2024 Recruiting Goal”:
Last year marked the first time in several years that the Army achieved its ambitious recruiting goals — primarily due to an increase in female recruits, according to internal service data reviewed by Military.com.
Nearly 10,000 women signed up for active duty in 2024, an 18% jump from the previous year, while male recruitment increased by just 8%, the data shows. The hike comes as the service continues to struggle with recruiting men, who have traditionally filled the bulk of its ranks but have become more of a challenge to enlist in recent years.
The numbers mark the continuation of a trend reported in a Military.com investigation that found a yearslong Army recruiting slump was centered around men, while female recruiting numbers have remained relatively strong. They also point to young women as an increasingly vital recruiting pool, especially as young men are struggling to meet the Army’s eligibility requirements.
Female applicants may have an advantage over their male counterparts for a variety of reasons.
They are less likely to have criminal records, accounting for just 30% of juvenile arrests, according to data from the Justice Department. They’re also outpacing men in higher education, with nearly half of women aged 25 to 34 holding bachelor’s degrees compared to 37% of men, according to Pew Research data from late 2024.
Since 2013, male enlistments have dropped about 22%, from 58,000 men recruited that year to 45,000 last year.
The increase in female recruits comes despite the Army not changing much about its recruiting strategy. The service’s public-facing social media and ad campaigns still predominantly feature men — by as much as two to three times more, especially when it comes to speaking roles, according to a review of marketing materials from the past four years…
Meanwhile, the Army’s biggest recruiting challenge isn’t just convincing men to sign up — it’s finding eligible ones. Academic standards have become a major barrier for recruits, with a significant portion failing to meet the minimum requirements for enlistment.
The Army requires a high school diploma, and many roles demand strong scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, a standardized test that assesses math, science and language skills and with which applicants often struggle. That trend coincides with falling test scores that schools have been seeing for decades but which were worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2022, the Army started the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a pre-basic training camp that takes otherwise ineligible applicants and gets them up to snuff for service — either to meet academic or body fat standards. The lion’s share are recruits who came up short on the entrance test, and roughly 70% are men, according to internal Army data…
I ran across this story when some of the people I follow on social media were talking hopefully about a post-WWII analogy: National school lunch programs were originally initiated because a frightening percentage of would-be recruits turned out to be chronically malnourished. Perhaps, glass half full, the educational shortfalls among today’s young American men might inspire similar improvements to our chaotic ‘local control’ school system? (Can’t say I’m hopeful about that, myself.)
This is a follow-up to a larger story I worked on with @kelsbbaker last year. The Army's recruiting woes are almost entirely attributable to men and the complicated societal problem of males falling behind in education, among other issues. https://t.co/PDDnXkg7mY
— Steve Beynon (@StevenBeynon) January 9, 2025
I really want to stress something the article states outright: absolutely nothing has changed about how people are recruited and women are NOT pandered to.
Young men are just getting worse by every objective measure as the years go by. Whereas women are excelling. https://t.co/bqZe0VktiH pic.twitter.com/LmtDENUzu7
— Di'Rico L. Baker (@DiRico_Rants) January 10, 2025
I suppose — I’ve read enough Vietnam-era sf — we could set up a military where cadres of soft-handed educated technicians supervise hordes of ambulatory meat units with weapons from a safe distance. But honestly, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is really demonstrating the limitations to that model, even on a relatively modest scale…
Ironically the exact opposite of what Pete Hegseth says is happening: The US Army created a pre-basic training camp to help ineligible applicants and roughly 70% of the candidates who failed the entrance test are men. It's a DEI program.
www.military.com/daily-news/2…— Eric Michael Garcia (@ericmgarcia.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 9:02 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,058: A Brief Thursday Night Update
sab
The men who have the requisite math and science and educational skills can now get well paying blue collar jobs without risking their lives overseas. So they are becoming machinists and plumbers and electricians back here at home.
The Biden economy, which they then voted against.
John Revolta
Hmm. We’ve been hearing this in regards to colleges too. Of course the answer to that was “Who wants to go to school with a buncha dopey old girls anyway?” This might be a little harder to swagger away from.
Baud
We need the same thing to happen in politics.
satby
The preponderance of recruits have normally come from red states. The same states that have an insurrection problem with our national government. The same states groups like the Oath Keepers are targeting for their own recruitment. The same states where public education has been so under assault for over two decades now that a healthy proportion of the target recruiting group (male and female) get virtually no education at all in “home schools”. Female recruits see the Army as an escape from the stifling life their environment is planning on imposing on them.
satby
@sab: Well, the former coworker at the doctor’s office who left to get a doctorate but had to become a h.s. teacher because the program was defunded just joined the IBEW’s apprentice program last year. I read an article in a local news site about how happy the union was with the higher quality of candidates their apprentice program is getting. Lots of young former teachers with degrees.
Things are not going to improve in the next few years for the army or for schools.
mapanghimagsik
Well, won’t Pete “Mouth of Sauron” just lower standards? Holding men accountable for their behavior is so … emasculating
Baud
@mapanghimagsik:
I can attest to that!
Baud
Via Reddit, Mistermix bait.
frosty
@John Revolta: Who wants to go to school with dopey old girls???
Ooh, ooh, pick me!! I went to a STEM college. Out of 112 in my freshman class, 4 were girls. More is better!
frosty
@Baud: That’s awesome trolling!
JoyceH
This is nothing new. It’s been that way since at least the ‘70s when I joined. There were fewer opening for women so the standards for them were a lot higher than for men.
sab
@satby: But we will get excellent tradesmen.
We bought a new to us ( vintage 1966) house that had only had one owner. It needed a lot of things fixed. I was frankly amazed at the quality of workers trooping through here.
The only screwup was a bad product. ( Boiler motherboard.) The actual people coming through to repair things were great.
sab
@Baud: Not with RWNJ oligarchs financing things. Republican politics will be the last refuge for the underqualified.
Baud
@sab:
How did people build movements in the past without access to immense wealth?
sab
@frosty: When my female cousin ( 3 years older) went to my law school she was one of three women. When I went three years later women were half the class.
I don’t think things have changed since that change.
I am an the edge of retirement, and my accounting firm can’t get replacements. They are a high quality firm, but nobody wants to go there. Focused too much on high quality low pay women ( married moms) . I don’t know. I would work there in a heartbeat if I was 25, but they can’t find recruits. Weird.
I think working from home during Covid hurt. New recruits were just left to flounder, so they left. Those of us at home could have helped train, but we weren’t in the loop at all. Management failure.
Anne Laurie
Comes a point where military training can’t be simplified to ‘Point bang-stick at enemy, pull trigger’. This is not a new problem; finding & training recruits capable of hauling themselves & their gear to a place where they can (try to) use a weapon on Thee Enemy seems to be an issue going back as far as every civilization advanced enough to leave records!
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
With belief in their goals and a fixation on organising. That’s how. Like always.
Pity US liberals have lost that insight. Maybe you wouldn’t be hurtling towards the most stupid and destructive government in my lifetime if US Dems and their partisans were less fixated on their ‘moral superiority’ and more on being responsive to the US electorate that actually exists, rather than the one they think should exist.
sab
@Baud: Good question. Solidarity (how do you spell that in Polish?) Apparently we just don’t care enough yet.
Good point there guy.
I laugh at Baud’s jokes daily, but good head on those shoulders.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
I know it’s fashionable for MAGA and their left wing allies to dump on “liberals,” but I just tune out that propaganda. But don’t stop. It works with well minded people on our side.
p.a.
And more of them. Now a chance your call will get a response!
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
Au contraire. US liberal bashing is a new phenomenon for me. But it’s well deserved after this debacle. Simply shocking to read here on this blog, the excoriation of the electorate that followed the narrow electoral loss in November.
You really ‘show’ yourself and your electoral chops when you blame your electorate for a loss.
Absolutely inexcusable.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
Enjoy!
sab
@p.a.: I am fine with that. They have a job. I get repairs. Isn’t that what economics is supposed to be about?
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
I’ll certainly enjoy your discomfort. But not the outcomes for the people in the US less well situated than you, let alone the rest of the world.
You are typical of a certain kind of US arsehole. Your contempt for your own ‘electoral base’ is only outdone by your contempt for anyone critical of that fact.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila:
I do have a lot of contempt for a lot of folks. Can’t disagree there.
p.a.
Also too, given the population of the various states, I wonder the %-age of recruits that actually come from blue states might not be that much less; Cali, VA, NY, Illinois against TX, FL, OH. Maybe recruits from red parts of blue states…
One way, of course, for Hegsick to get his way; if you have to lower standards to maintain effective force levels, you will have to adjust the system from a high-tech force back towards a, shall we say, Russian model. If the men can’t handle the current equipment, simplify, but that means more of a “you are now cannon fodder” system.
Baud
@p.a.:
Every blue state has deep red areas.
sab
@p.a.: Yikes! Maybe we should just demilitarize, instead if tricking our young into being cannon fodder.
If Putin cared about anything in Russia besides himself he would be doing things differently.
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
You and me both.
raven
@mapanghimagsik: I was part of Project 100,000 where the military took that many per year that didn’t meet basic physical and mental requirements. My diss was about the GED and it was originally a military program so I had to look at recruitment criteria. When the shit starts flying standards are always lowered.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Australia will have elections later this Spring. I expect you, Mr. Albanese and Australian Labor Party to show us Democrats how it’s done. Go git ’em!
Elizabelle
@Aussie Sheila:
Oh. Shut. Up.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Tee hee.
Good morning, jackals.
satby
@Aussie Sheila: you’re not even a good troll. Baud’s comments are usually snark. But as always, you’re tedious. Phaser set to ignore again.
sab
@Elizabelle: Woof woof.
Fuck, it’s morning already. I took the dawg out late last night, and here I still am.
Elizabelle
Quite aside from recruiting standards, I wish voters cared more about the PTSD stemming from what we put our existing service members through. We badly underfund resources to help them, too, which is inexcusable.
Then there is the “just suck it up” mentality that discourages service members from seeking help or treatment in the first place.
sab
@Geminid: Yep.
MagdaInBlack
Aaaand we’re off……..
Good Morning!
Anne Laurie
@raven: IIRC, Molly Ivins never forgave the GOP for Project 100,000. She said it was designed to take advantage of young men who couldn’t fully understand what they were getting into, without messing with the high-status draft exemptions for those like Dubya (or, of course, Trump).
Elizabelle
@sab: I know. Time to commit to the new day here. Coffee o’clock. Alas.
satby
@Elizabelle: Good morning Elizabelle!
Anne Laurie
@Aussie Sheila: You’re not doing your argument any favors, but I understand from experience how much comfort an elderly shut-in can take from arguing with strangers she’ll never have to meet in person.
Elizabelle
@Anne Laurie: Good to see you here. Have really appreciated your posts.
May hijack this one — or wait for the morning thread — with two overnight observations. #1: the vastly different headlines on results of Musk’s launch yesterday.
#2: high grade snark by WaPost readers on the impending freezing Canadian coldfront arriving for The Felon’s inauguration. Even the AI summation was funny.
sab
Watergirl’s image down below for the last day or so has scared me. All those people on that icefloe. Do they not worry about avalanches?
Elizabelle
@satby: Hello there. Had not meant to commit to your lark lifestyle. Just never got back to sleep, and following how the news is covered actually struck me as funny. Which is an improvement on recent mood.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
Well the ALP may lose. But we won’t be electing democracy destroying fascists if we do, so there’s that. And if we do lose, I can guarantee we won’t be blaming the electorate.
Way to go losers.
lowtechcyclist
Completely aside from the military, ISTM that this is worrisome:
I knew more women than men were in college nowadays, but I didn’t know the disparity had become that wide.
I don’t know what’s wrong with young men and boys, but the sooner women are running things in this country, the better AFAIAC. Too bad we didn’t take a big step in that direction a couple months ago.
sab
@Elizabelle: Too old for coffee plus bad ticker. Tea for me.
Pitbull is still frantically sucking on her ( formerly my) quilt. There is no antianxiety pill for pitbulls. Cats have feliway. Dogs have owners quilts. Seems unfair.
mapanghimagsik
@Geminid:
Make the Great Barrier Reef Dead Again? MGBRDA?
They’re gonna need bigger hats!
Aussie Sheila
@Anne Laurie:
Oh dear! Adding ageism to the affront!
I’m older than you probably, but also probably healthier and fitter. And if I’m a shut in, there’s plenty of people who would be surprised,
Get a life.
satby
@raven: When the shit starts flying standards are always lowered.
As they were for Shrub’s great Mesopotamian adventure. When my foster son, a h.s. dropout with an arrest record somehow magically qualified for the Marines. He survived 5 combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was cheated out of the bonuses they promised those kids when he got a (I think) general discharge for minor discipline infractions, which I believe were partly PTSD and the stress of a premature baby (driving on base). Can’t use the VA either, I think. We’re no longer in touch, but he got into the carpenter’s union and is doing ok.
He was meant to be cannon fodder, a lot of those unqualified kids were.
satby
@Anne Laurie: 👏👏👏
And now I’ll quit toggling, but let’s not feed the troll.
mapanghimagsik
@raven:
Hopefully we don’t get to a point where we’re shovelling bodies like Russia. Normally I would have thought the US wouldn’t put up with that, but I’m surprised how much that seems to have changed.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Ableism on your side, you spry young thing.
I hate shovelling snow ( men’s work) but husband with three back vertibras fused simply cannot do it. Do I mock him? No I don’t
ETA Oops!, the ableism was AL’s.
Baud
@mapanghimagsik:
Yeah, who knows?
raven
@Anne Laurie: It was implemented by the Johnson administration and known as McNamara’s Moron Corps. It was framed as a “boostraps program” that would give “opportunity to the undereducated and underprivileged”. We had guys in bootcamp that were just like the guys on the bus in Forrest Gump and they could not read a lick. I was taken in on my 17th birthday with only 3 years of high school.
Elizabelle
@sab: Maybe Ponyo (?) needs Brahms or Schubert, even Mozart. Or other dogs on TV.
ETA: I think you mentioned you have cats that enjoy classical music? So maybe doggo is impervious to that …
raven
@satby: Fuckers, they upgraded many general discharges after the Nam but I don’t think they will now. Part of the rationale came on the heels of pardons for draft evaders and that’s not an element now.
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
Well you shouldn’t . No one can should be shovelling snow at any age or level of fitness. Ugh!
I’m so glad I haven’t had to endure cold like that for 60 years. Yay me!
sab
@satby: So glad he survived cabnon fodder phase,
Elizabelle
I hope Hegseth is not confirmed. He truly is a ridiculous nominee, and SecDefense is too important a position.
Say what you will about the military, it lives in the modern world more than a lot of organizations. They are cognizant of women’s abilities, and climate change, and the need for a code of conduct and ethics.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Professor Bigfoot recommended an excellent electric snow shovel/blower. They are sold out this year. Hopefully by next year it will be mine.
If we don’t shovel then we can’t get up the steep driveway. Bad choices we made.
mapanghimagsik
I hated shoveling snow so much I moved out west for the sheer joy of not doing it — and the job situation in Michigan is terrible.
Mackinack Island is beautiful to visit, but only as a tourist. Still need to get to the Keweenaw Peninsula someday, but as heartbreaking as middle of the mitten was, the UP is going to be worse.
mardam422
Well!!! I certainly hope they don’t decrease the standards just to recruit more men. I mean, decreasing standards are bad, right Mr. Hegseth?
The standards should be equal. Right Mr. Hegseth?
Meet your petard, Mr. Hegseth.
sab
@Elizabelle: The cats are picky. They love Baroque and Classical, but Richard Strauss was a step too far. ( I agree. All those damn walzes.)
Ponyo prefers tv sitcoms with humans in the next seat. I hate sitcoms. Just don’t find them funny or interesting. Ponyo and husband are bonding a lot. Tv.
mapanghimagsik
@mardam422:
He *is* kind of the poster child of lowered standards.
Geminid
From Saudi-based Al Arabiya, two hours ago:
Assuming this plays out like with the smaller deal in December, 2023 the full cabinet will meet after the security cabinet and “discuss and vote” again. The government is expected to ratify the deal Israeli, US, Egyption, Qatari and Hamas negotiators finally worked out in Doha this week.
The Qatari PM said yesterday that ceasefire will commence Sunday, and the Israeli government has put out a list of the 33 hostages slated to be released in the 42-day first phase.
sab
@mapanghimagsik: I am sorry. I used to live in Michigan. “Middle of the mitten” made me laugh out loud so loud I scared the cats.
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
Well I’m sorry you have to shovel snow at all. But a mechanical device to assist sounds like a good life improving move.
What a terrible chore.
Elizabelle
@sab: With your cats on Baroque. Love it! With you on sitcoms. Although enjoyed them (in first run!) in the 60s and 70s. (And Dark Shadows! When it was a soap opera.)
Baud
@Geminid:
sab
@Aussie Sheila: To me there is nothing quite as beautiful as snow and trees.
sab
@Baud: I will believe it when I see it.
Elizabelle
@mardam422: Truth!
mapanghimagsik
@sab:
I grew up about there and I learned quickly I needed to get out, and it wasn’t just the snow. I recently re-visited, to take a last look at the place I grew up. It was heartbreaking on so many levels.
Baud
@sab:
Same. And even if there’s a cease fire, what comes next? Hard to believe bygones will be bygones. I guess it’ll come down to who has Trump’s ear.
raven
@sab: Headline in Athens paper!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@frosty: Yeah my first screening criteria for weeding out colleges was is the guys outnumbered girls I ruled that college out. As it turned out the college I picked was roughly 50/50. I didn’t mind even odds but didn’t want to go somewhere where the odds were significantly stacked against me.
Had a buddy in HS who went to Michigan Tech but drank himself out of the place within a year. I was like all the Michigan state schools – from Michigan and MSU down to places like Central and Western – have engineering programs. Why go somewhere where your chance of getting a date is 9 to 1?
Baud
I like shoveling snow. It’s a good workout.
Elizabelle
@mapanghimagsik: Was it the people? Their circumstances?
mapanghimagsik
@Baud:
I confess when a coworker told me about the ceasefire, I couldn’t get excited about it. The situation with settlers won’t change, I fear, and this is just a pause and the Palestinians are getting played. Again.
When the genocide resumes, everyone will have forgotten. Sorry, not a ray of sunshine today. I suppose I should just be happy that the mass murder has come off its peak for a little bit.
zhena gogolia
Deleted
raven
@mapanghimagsik: I almost froze to death hitching across the UP in August!
Elizabelle
@Baud: Or what remains of the ear after that attack. LOL.
Still think it could have been flying glass.
sab
@mapanghimagsik: Sorry. I was in Grand Rapids 1980 to 1986. Not middle of the mitten, but I agree. Afraid to go back, although NE Ohio not much better.
We do have more jobs here lately
ETA I lived out west, Nevada and California. Too hot, dry and expensive for me.
Geminid
@Geminid: Earlier this week, when it looked like the Gaza ceasefire deal was near completion, The Economist’s Gregg Carlstrom gave this assesment:
Baud
@Geminid:
Netanyahu won.
I’ll be surprised if the cost to Israel is all that great. The world will move on.
mapanghimagsik
@Elizabelle:
The lack of employment opportunities was a big motivator. The giant sign of “God Guns and Guts made America Free, at any price keep all three” on the side of a building was another.
I’d at least gotten enough of a taste of the world to know that I wanted a lot more than slinging yoghurt and I didn’t have a head for automotive engineering. Little did I know at the time those were going to implode.
Parts of Michigan are beautiful, but its easier going back and visiting with money, than living there in poverty.
Elizabelle
@mapanghimagsik: Got it. You made an excellent decision.
My parents were both from Indiana, and I am grateful every day that they fled to Virginia before we were born.
mapanghimagsik
@sab:
Grand Rapids has some pretty cool section now — Max’s South Seas is a really great tiki bar — part of a trip that started in Indiana and The Inferno Room, which was, unexpectedly, an even better bar.
The water in Indianapolis was still terrible, though. I don’t know how people drink it.
sab
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: On the other side, my best friend in middle school, a girl, went to Colorado School of Mines for college.
Geminid
@sab: Just watch. This will be a good time to pay closer attention to the Gaza conflict, and Middle East matters in general.
Al Arabiya, the Times of Israel and Middle East Eye will all provide sound reporting, and none of them are paywalled.
sab
@Baud: We will see.
mapanghimagsik
@raven:
Yikes. Cold, big stretches of not-people is one of those weird ‘somehow I survived moments’ that pretty much define survivor bias!
mapanghimagsik
@Geminid:
Al Jazeera has an article about how the ceasefire made a lot of people from the region even madder at Biden because he should have done it *sooner*
I’ve already said that I cynically believe the Middle Easter ex-pats are getting played *again* so Ill try not to beat that drum too much.
sab
@Geminid: You are my news service.
Baud
@sab:
Ditto.
raven
@mapanghimagsik: I got picked up by a UPS driver who took me to Menomonie after the border patrol made me get out of a car that was going to take me all the way to Chicago. They didn’t like my flowing locks!
Baud
@mapanghimagsik:
It’s safe to hate Biden.
mapanghimagsik
@raven:
Back when long hair was a hippie thing and less of a Kid Rock thing?
Looking back, its amazing how much was read into hair and how you wore it. I don’t miss that.
Elizabelle
@Baud: And that is the tragedy of our present era.
Tragedy, just as the Weimar Republic played out.
raven
@mapanghimagsik: 72, my sis’s boyfriend split the draft and I drove her up to the Soo and hitched back
sab
@sab: She was pretty but not quite cheerleader material, but she was a fucking whiz at math. As I remember, her father was a chemical engineer.
sab
@raven: Did he ever get back?
Baud
@Elizabelle:
All the players in the Middle East are right wingers.
mapanghimagsik
@Baud:
So much truth there. Easy to punch the people just trying to do their jobs as opposed to the ones who hold a grudge and have no reservations about using it for revenge.
Cowardice comes to mind…aaaand I’m back to contempt. I might as well make it my zip code.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Yes.
And I was thinking of the expats. But, too many people, for a lot of reasons, most of them bad. Ah well.
mapanghimagsik
@raven:
Heck of an adventure to get up there and survive. A *ahem* few years after ’72 was my first time on Mackinak Island. I was driving a wedding ring up from Lansing to the Island so he could propose. The ring wasn’t ready by the time he had to go up for tourist season and he needed someone to schlep it up there. Drove across the bridge in a Yugo the same year someone drove *off* the bridge in a Yugo, prompting the joke “Yugo right off the bridge”
Baud
You’re early morning schadenfreude.
sentient ai from the future
it sounds like:
a generation ago, poverty was a significant barrier to recruitment/readiness, and we as a society, with the leadership of the military, addressed that.
now, systemic male privilege is the barrier to recruitment/readiness. i am genuinely optimistic that the military writ large can mitigate this, but not with pete fucking hegseth at the top of the DoD. which is why he is perfect as trumputin’s nominee.
sab
@mapanghimagsik: Grand Rapids has always had cool sections. The Van Andels and DeVoses created the wrong impression.
Have you ever seen their American Pie thing? Lip dub video 2011.
mapanghimagsik
@Baud:
“Damnit, Biden!”
mapanghimagsik
@sab:
Yeah, but Cascade was racist as fuck, so the good parts didn’t quite balance it all out. It seems a bit less racist now, but I deliberately avoided Cascade.
Catching a lyft ride Sunday night was bloody eye opening, too. I wasn’t in Oakland, anymore, Toto!
I didn’t need the Van Andels and DeVoses. I’m white enough to have had a friend from there who kept trying to impress people that he came from ‘Prussian Nobility’ and was the face of a counter protest when a mostly black organization had a sit in at the Michigan State University Administration building a *cough* while ago.
I was still stupid enough back then to think he wasn’t the bad kind of racist.
sentient ai from the future
@Baud: he will do it. the local power structures won’t give a shit, and will shout down the voices that do because that’s what smalltown hierarchies do.
these urban folks highlighting his hurting smaller communities on the assumption that this is going to result in some kind of outpouring of opposition is nonsense.
they are small hierarchies. they like hierarchy. he gives them license for hierarchy and to hurt those they hate.
there is a place where internecine rural conflict butts up against gerrymandering, but i dont see that place anywhere nearby. and besides, THE VOTES ARE IN THE URBAN AREAS
tobie
@Elizabelle: The only thing that gives me pleasure about the arctic temperatures that have hit the mid-Atlantic this season is that it will be bitter cold at the inauguration and those too vain to wear a hat will be terribly uncomfortable.
Baud
@sentient ai from the future:
Oh, I agree. I doubt this would create a backlash that benefits us.
Too many people on our side are slaves to their fantasy of a populist solidarity movement taking hold. Rural whites are not going to abandon the GOP and the GOP is not going to abandon oligarchs.
ExPatExDem
You should keep sneering at them and trivializing their struggles and concerns. It will pay off big at the ballot box. Like 2016 and 2024, when the Dem sisterhood came together to sweep women into power.
Oh wait. White women vote Republican. LOL
Kay
young men really are in trouble and we have to figure out why.
The Right blaming women and Black people and liberals isn’t helping – it’s making it worse for young men.
We, OTOH, are at least trying to address the problem but “education” doesn’t really make sense because boys attend the same public schools as girls and girls aren’t tanking and this is a red state AND blue state problem.
Democrats have been investing in trades programs since Obama. In order to enter a skilled trade apprenticeship you need a high school diploma and you have to pass a math test and you have to stick with it for 3 or 4 or 5 years. They’re simply not interested. They don’t want to do it. There’s a common route in health care where one “stacks” certificates – a series of 6 month or 1 year trainings to add skills leading to a good hourly wage – boys won’t do that either.
Now that media and Republicans screeched for years and we’re shutting down all efforts to achieve equity, hopefully the bullshit “DEI” excuse these lazy thinkers have seized on will evaporate but we’ll still be left with half the population of young people who have no ambition and no interest in doing anything other than complaining.
Elizabelle
@ExPatExDem: ExPatExDem. AllTroll.
tobie
@mapanghimagsik: The Israeli left is mad…at Netanyahu for refusing to negotiate until Trump was elected. There is also real fear that the male soldiers set to be released in the third phase will be killed and returned as corpses.
tobie
@Elizabelle: Cool! This will be my first time at the pie table.
Baud
@tobie:
Good for the Israeli left. Too bad there aren’t more of them.
prostratedragon
For the cats:
“Chorus of Cold People” and “‘Tis Love that has Warm’d Us,” Henry Purcell.
Elizabelle
@tobie: I was surprised to see that DC had ice and snow early last evening, and a car went off the Memorial Bridge. They brought the driver up after an hour; “life threatening” injuries. The Potomac is (partially?) iced over. Shades of that Air Florida crash, on a very small scale.
Just bitter cold in central VA.
mapanghimagsik
@tobie:
I’m no expert on the area, but The Israeli left seem to be only slightly more effective than the American left.
It would be sad if they did kill all those people, but seems like it would be pretty much on brand as every bad actor in that farce has already gotten what they wanted.
And all the performative American left that sat out because of ‘Genocide Joe’ will be curiously silent.
Kay
If they won’t do workforce training of any kind and they won’t do either community college or a bachelors, I’m sorry, I got nothing.
Because girls WILL do those things and boys are going to have to compete.
You could not find a more “masculine energy” group than that in skilled trades, but they’re not interested in those programs either.
Baud
@Kay:
Prime targets for crypto scammers.
Ramalama
While waiting for my Earl Grey to kick in, I’m wondering what a new motto for the military could be:
“America: where men are men but women are fighters.”
“America: where men are men but women are combat-ready.”
Needs work.
tobie
@Baud: It used to be that the rule of thumb was that when 10% of the population protests, the govt falls. Israelis came very close to that number when protesting Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms in September 2023 and surpassed it when demonstrating for a hostage/ceasefire deal some time early this year. I don’t recall the exact date but one million Israelis turned out. On the issue of hostage exchange they are the majority of the electorate.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I know. It is puzzling.
mapanghimagsik
@Baud:
That’s not fair.
There’s a whole host of scams those rubes will be ripe for.
I think it was someone here who recommended “Number Go Up” which was a very depressing look at how whole populations are scammed and victimized by crypto scams.
ExPatExDem
@Elizabelle: I’m going to guess that you’re one of those caucasian ladies who gives your demo a big, fat pass for their consistent Republican votes.
Baud
@tobie:
The right are a very unified everywhere in the world today. They, often correctly , believe they can persevere longer than their opposition can. Old rules don’t apply.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
Well, white women vote majority Republican is true but white men voting even more Republican is also true, so I always attribute the singular focus on white women as “safe” for people – it’s easier to shit on women. We’re safer to attack than men are.
If we help men it won’t be to get their votes. They’re solidly Republican.
Geminid
@Baud: The cost to Israelis has been great already. They really did a lot of damage worldwide to their reputation as a nation that will take years to live down if that is even possible.
The Israeli economy is in shambles they’ll be hard-pressed the to recover from this war in this decade. I guess they can bounce back sooner, but Israel is very reliant on foreign trade and the reputational damage could have economic effects beyond the diplomatic ones. Plus, there has been a drain of talented people and not all of them are coming back.
The IDF is exhausted, and (I think) losses since-but not including those of October 7– are over 600.That’s 600+ people who definitely aren’t coming back, and there are many more wounded. That’s a lot in a nation of 9.5 million people, especially for the ~6.2 million who bear almost all the burden of military service..
And this war has deepened and embittered Israel’s political and social divisions. It could take years to mend those torn relations, if they can even be mended. These societal costs are human costs too.
* Israel’s 20% Arab and 13% Jewish Ultra-Orthodox communities are exempt from the draft and provide few volunteers.
Two Arab-speaking communities, the Druze and Circassian, have been subject to draft since 1949, and the Druze in particular provide a lot of career soldiers and officers. But there are only around 130,000 Druze citizens and maybe half that many Circassians.
mapanghimagsik
Open thread?
Misery loves company. Someone decided to “AI” Anne Frank
fediscience.org/@ct_bergstrom/113841989828451758
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
Nary a mention of the fact that white men vote even more solidly GOP than women do, in a thread about men.
How did I know a story about how men are underachieving was going to turn into a discussion about how women suck?
Baud
@Geminid:
We’ll see. I’m not saying Israel was unaffected, but I stand by my view that Netayahu won.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Well said, Kay.
Kay
We probably won’t be able to help young men as long as we’re focused on how much we hate women.
tobie
@mapanghimagsik: In terms of the formation of govt, yes, though the problem is that Netanyahu hasn’t called for elections because he doesn’t have to. Thus far his coalition remains intact. Still it’s quite a feat for a country of 7.5 million to have regular, large protests against the govt for over a year. I believe the demo in March reached 1 million participants.
JWR
@Baud:
Can’t find it right now, but I was reading earlier pretty much the same thing about his desired education policies.
tobie
@Elizabelle: We had a light dusting of snow in Maryland. I don’t recall a winter with such an unrelenting cold front…on the heels of a summer with 100 degree days on end. Stay warm!
mapanghimagsik
@tobie:
I don’t mean to make too light of the feat, considering Americans can’t be arsed to get up and *vote* while they can, but, when you look at the results, we’re comparing elections to horseshoes — he’s still in power and Palestine is a wasteland with not a few aid workers murdered for trying to save lives.
But just wait. In a few weeks we’ll see what real fail looks like, though our press will be happy to spin it as victory.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
Young men are going Right because there’s an entire US ecosystem telling them women and Black people and immigrants suck and it’s our fault they won’t get off their ass and take advantage of how the whole fucking world is set up for their success.
Theyre going Right because there’s Right is lying to them, pandering to them, saying “oh, poor you, these bad people are TAKING what you’re entitled to!”
Its only made it worse. It’s not helping.
Just another group of Americans who choose to live in a fantasyland because that makes them feel better about themselves.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: You know what? They’re gloating, but they’re not happy. They’re miserable. The people who have a kind of deep-down happiness (despite depression and fear) are our people.
Chief Oshkosh
@satby: These are all great points/theories. I would be interested in seeing data on the last concept, the one that maybe women are joining up more as a means to get out of their home environments. Sounds about right.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: there are days when I think that Heinlein’s idea about banning men from voting and holding public office was correct. Bring back the matriarchy!
mapanghimagsik
@Kay:
Painfully true.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, they desperately need us to respect them and view their oppression of us as righteous. As long as we hold onto our justified disrespect, they’ll be miserable.
Raven
@sab: yea, he came back, went in, went awol, went to the joint and go pardoned. All his buddies went in and my sis kept the letters they wrote. They all agreed that he shouldn’t go in. Back in the time when people didn’t care what you decided.
eta It’s cold at the dog park!!!
Kay
@Elizabelle:
They know that women have been socialized to be responsible for everyone’s happiness and success, so if they attack us we won’t hit back like a man would, instead we’ll say “oh, how can I make you happy! Clearly I have failed since you are not doing well!l You know, I DO suck, it IS my fault you can’t pass the fitness test for the Army”
Its safer to attack us.
Professor Bigfoot
@Aussie Sheila: The white ones, maybe.
The Black ones are the ones that get crushed and destroyed by the authorities.
BLM? GTFOH, Black lives are not supposed to matter.
tobie
@mapanghimagsik: The hope after Oct 7 was that Netanyahu’s coalition would collapse and new elections would be called. This didn’t happen, so the next election will not occur until October 2026.
Raven
@mapanghimagsik: Yea, it’s much more of a story. She had a Volvo and it had a blowout and trashed the rim. I made to a gas station and they got me a rim that didn’t quite fit. I took a file and filed out the lug holes and made it fit.
satby
@Chief Oshkosh: I only have anecdata, but the two young women I know who joined or wanted to join recently both wanted to escape restrictive expectations of fundie or dysfunctional families but without the military didn’t have the means or cover. One is gay and was facing being forced into a hetero marriage in the future. So no data, but these can’t be the only two.
Kay
Railroads are all hiring in the upper Midwest. Railroads train from within so if they get hired they can move to skilled status and make a really good wage – 90 or 100 and in a strong union.
They won’t do it because railroad work is 24/7 so they have to work weekends or second or third shift. I can’t offer them bankers hours for an hourly trade. Sorry. Trains don’t run only 9 to 5. If they want 9 to 5 they’ll have to go to college.
In five years you’ll read about how women are all running railroads. So unfair!
Geminid
@Baud: If Netanyahu “won,” he won on the backs of the IDF and the security services Shin Bet and Mossad and I think most Israelis understand this. Anyway, we’ll get to see in coming days and weeks what they think of Netanyahu’s wartime leadership.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Not around me it ain’t.
TBone
Harry Bellafonte knows!
m.youtube.com/watch?v=mAHfo49iN1w
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: Or, and just hear me out now, we could bow to their fear of a Black planet, ditch any support for human and civil rights for marginalized people, and then white people will vote for us.
Well, they’ll vote for socialism for themselves after the rest of us are dead.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: WHITE men.
We absolutely have to be specific about the demographic that is really the root of all our problems.
WHITE men.
Geminid
@tobie: In this case it’s the Israeli opposition, not just the Left, that’s mad at Netanyahu. They include Left, Center and some Right wing elements. It’s a majority of Israelis, even though it might not be by much.
@Baud:
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: I went to college in Grand Rapids. The weather was grayer and snowier than in Detroit, where I was from
Kay
Green energy jobs are a real thing now. They became almost a punchline on the Right and in media because we promised them for twenty years but it really is true now – there’s a lot of good hourly wage jobs in solar and wind turbines. Wind turbines is skilled but anyone can enter in solar. Young white men could take those jobs. I wonder why they won’t? Probably someone else’s fault. DEI or some shit.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: I agree wholeheartedly… but when the majority of white women vote for those same misogynists, it’s hard to take them seriously at all.
Edited to add– THAT’S the reason why white women are attacked– because they’re voting for their own oppressors.
White men are the oppressors, and it’s only rational that they will fight tooth and nail to maintain straight white Christian male supremacy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I think that used to be true of young men too. Maybe still is?
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: two and a half centuries of being coddled and supported and listened to have made white men (as a demographic) lazy, ignorant and stupid.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
The immediate cost? Probably close to nil.
Longer term, fewer people, outside of those who believe we’re near the End Times, are going to see Israel as anything besides the neighborhood bully. Western nations are going to reconsider whether there’s any justification for goodwill towards Israel. They’re going to be increasingly isolated over time.
Kay
@Geminid:
The US did Israel no favors with the blank check. International law and humanitarian orgs were waiting for the US to act on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It was only when that didn’t happen they took action and issued indictments, etc.
Our insanely biased I/P policy isn’t good for Israel either. The worldwide condemnation built and built and built because the US did nothing.
tobie
@Geminid: I’ve been saying for some time that both sides prolonged this conflict for horrible reasons. Carlstrom is a good reporter and the Economist’s reporting has been sound. I don’t trust Middle East Eye, though I do believe one should read far and wide on any topic.
ExPatExDem
@Kay: I’d say you won’t be able to help young men when the Democratic Party keeps looking for the opportunity to talk down at them.
Barack Obama won 18-29 year old males by 28 points in 2008. Trump won them by 2 in 2024. I don’t believe the minds of young men are substantially different now than they were then. The problem is messaging. Obama was campaigning on big ideas like healthcare reform, and a positive message: Hope.
What was the big idea of the Harris campaign that was going to benefit young men, or anyone else for that matter? Trump offered at least the vague promise of “Make America Great Again”. The Harris campaign was a jumbled mess.
The sad part was Walz did know how to talk to young men, and his “nosy” and “weird” descriptors of Trump/Vance were gaining traction. But he was quickly silenced for fear he might offend the mythical Liz Cheney voting bloc.
It was like watching a slow motion train wreck.
Soprano2
@raven: I think that’s the program my husband told me about where they took people who scored as low as 70 on an IQ test. He talked about a program like that because he had to deal with some of those recruits. He said the program was mostly a clusterfuck. My first boss here got his GED to join the Army, where he became a surveyor. He’s retiring as head of collection systems in Wyandotte County, KS in March. Pretty good for a guy with only a GED.
tobie
@Geminid: Yes, that is true. I was using shorthand but the ideological diversity among the demonstrators is quite large.
ExPatExDem
@Professor Bigfoot: Young men voted for Barack Obama by 28 points.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Maybe. I don’t have faith in predictions, including my own, but I also don’t have much faith in the idea of reputational harm, especially in the context of right wingers.
Soprano2
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I had a friend who went to Rolla for a Masters in Physics Engineering after graduation. His girlfriend highly approved of his choice. LOL They’re still married, they were made for each other.
TBone
Where is this fucking guy getting his ideas, out of a crack pipe filled by rubles?
Geminid
@tobie: It’s true that elections are not required by law before 2026. But when Netanyahu put this rotten coalition together at the January 1, 2023 deadline, a senior Likud member predicted that it would not complete its four-and-a half-year mandate.
He could be proven right. In a sense, this war has frozen Israeli politics for 15 months. I don’t think people can predict with certainty what its aftermath will bring, because this situation is so unlike any other in the State of Israel’s 86-year history.
That certainly won’t stop them though!
tobie
Does someone have a source for the claim that Walz was told not to use the word “weird” to describe J. D. Vance and Trump on the campaign trail? First we heard he was picked because of this line, then we heard he was told not to use it. None of this makes sense.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Either you believe in women’s rights or you don’t. It shouldn’t matter what percentage of other people do. If it goes to 51%/49% + D for white women you’ll then “take them seriously”? That magical shift is what’s needed?
It doesn’t even make sense politically because it’s a national number. The majority of white women in blue states vote D. So you take women’s rights seriously in Massachusetts but not Ohio? A Massachusetts white woman is called to account for the Ohio white woman’s vote?
TBone
@tobie: hence, my crackpipe filled by rubles comment.
Geo Wilcox
The God Emperor in the Dune series had an all female army, just saying…
WereBear
@raven: Everyone needs somewhere to go. That isn’t where they are right now.
I will say a lot of people in my area love what the Job Corps did for their kids.
But stacking the deck at both ends, in luring them in and kicking them out, is not fair at all.
tobie
@Geminid: I dunno. You could be right. I’m stunned Netanyahu’s coalition has held together this long. I would think that someone with blue hair, visible face pancake, and an adenoidal voice would turn off the public, but, as we see in the US, even a vainglorious fool with bad make-up can become the embodiment of masculinity to large swaths of the public. I give up on predicting.
tobie
@TBone: Yes…you’ve been pointing that out with humor no less!
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
The key to getting young men’s vote seems to be nominate men.
Im okay with that, just win baby, but let’s not engage in this bullshit that Harris wasn’t enough of a young white men whisperer. I voted for liberal men for thirty fucking years although they didn’t do shit for women and I have actually LOST rights, but our precious snowflake boys can’t suck it up and vote for the girl for ONE cycle.
E.
@ExPatExDem: Anyone who doesn’t think the social environment for young men hasn’t changed in dramatic ways in the last 15 years is not paying attention. Go ahead and lob your criticism from 2008 if you want to, but don’t expect me to listen to you any more.
Ramalama
@TBone: I was wondering where your crackpipe was aimed at.
ExPatExDem
@Kay: In bright red Missouri, voters easily passed ballot propositions for abortion rights, increased minimum wage, and paid family and medical leave…then pulled the lever for Trump.
How is it that the Dem candidate was only loudly campaigning on 1 of those 3 issues? The voters there literally went around their red state government to make them happen. Such a missed opportunity.
Harris waited until 13 days before the election to support raising the minimum wage. Too busy campaigning on how much she loves her gun, how much she’d spend on the military, and chasing the imaginary Liz Cheney voter.
TBone
@tobie: my dick jokes directed to and/or about trolls during The Great Tribulation didn’t go over so well here, except with Tony Jay. Required fine tuning.
WereBear
True, because they were ordered to, and they did. Their history of desegregation is the best, for that reason.
They aren’t the electorate, but they work better at what they do.
It’s obvious being ordered to join the 21st Century WORKS. Maybe, we should try it.
Perhaps their evolutionary JOB is to do stupid things so blatantly and stubbornly until all those who have a brain to learn with has done so.
Then change happens.
TBone
@Ramalama: hahaha
Vatniks!
ExPatExDem
@Kay: Harris underperformed Biden and Clinton with women voters.
She ran a bad campaign. Unless you think embracing the Cheneys was a masterstroke.
TBone
So tempted to make a masterstroke dick joke…
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: Thank you for bringing such delightful things to us so early in the morning.
Ramalama
@TBone: I think the situation requires it. This thread has taken a turn.
PS Am reminded of high school softball team – intramural? The grade ahead of us called themselves the “Master Batters” until some fey monk got involved.
Baud
@TBone:
I see what you did there.
TBone
@Ramalama: i should have spelled it masturstroke
Elizabelle
@WereBear: I always thought that one reason Truman’s approval ratings were low, at the time, was desegregation of the Army on his watch. People could not say that by the time his presidency was reassessed, 20-30 years later.
Princess
@satby: Since it’s night in Australia, I always figure she gets on here after she’s had a few too many and no one at home wants to talk to her, and I ignore her. But I think it’s pie for breakfast for me from now on.
Soprano2
It seems to me that their struggles are mostly of their own making. Many of them don’t seem to want to do the work to be successful – they all think they can be crypto billionaires without any real effort. Plus now they seem to believe college has “girl cooties” so they don’t want to get a degree. I don’t know how society fixes those problems. As for their “concerns”, they mostly seem to be that they aren’t at the front of the line for everything anymore and they can’t say slurs about people without blowback.
Another Scott
@sab: +1
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: It seems to me that Israel is already isolated except for having the US as a powerful patron.
Over the very long term, the people who withheld votes from Democrats over Gaza may have made the right choice, because they voted to annihilate the United States as a global power. The only way to undermine Israel is to undermine the United States, and Trumpism is like a rot consuming us from within, one that will ultimately weaken Israel by implication. We can’t support them if we’re busy eating ourselves.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
In fact, Harris deliberately downplayed women’s rights and role in a careful strategy NOT to offend men. The thinking in politics was Clinton had relied too much on that and it had offended our SO easily offended male voters.
And they still fucking hated her. So please don’t assume because I’m a woman I’ll sit around and brainstorm how women can somehow Goldilocks’ their way into pleasing male voters. It’s never enough.
I like boys. I had three. My juvenile practice is 80% boys. I like them enough to tell them that this sad sack self pity is not going to help them.
TBone
@Baud: glad to see you up and at ’em!
I have appropriated that photograph for distribution amongst my comrades.
Princess
@Elizabelle: I hate to say it but I think they’ll all get confirmed. Still worth fighting like hell and having the backs of the senators that do. RFK jr is the most likely to fail but I think Trump truly believes the woo.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: I really don’t see myself in any description that involves “deep-down happiness”. But I’ll take happy people as allies.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: you can’t win if you don’t play. What would happiness look like if you kept your expectations simple?
Soprano2
Because lots of men will blame anyone but themselves for their problems. That’s one reason so many men like TCFG, because he never takes responsibility for anything, he just blames other people for his problems. They love that. It’s also why he’s so successful with them, because they want to blame everyone else for their problems too.
Soprano2
@Kay: If helping young men necessitates holding young women back, I’m not sure I want to do it anyway.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Is it really solidarity if I’m not at the center of it?
TBone
@Baud: LOL again!
Soprano2
QFT. This is why I find it hard to listen to programs where people talk about this issue, because they pretend that the young men have nothing to do with their own plight. Especially young white men who aren’t poor have every benefit and opportunity, what’s their problem? Could it be that they’re causing their own problem? That’s never mentioned. Why doesn’t anyone ever say that they need to lower their standards and expectations because they’re too high – that’s what they tell women to do.
TBone
@Ramalama: I just saw your postscript HAHAHAHA
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: the white ones, though?
No.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: No, I’m just saying as long as white women continue to vote for white male Christian supremacy LIKE THEIR MEN, they will continue to get the side eye.
If white women are uninterested as a demographic in defending their own rights, why should the rest of us put ours in danger to protect Missy Ann?
ExPatExDem
@Soprano2: Yes. It’s definitely the fault of 18-29 year old males that wages have stagnated for half century, the cost of living is up in every respect, and the US has the worst worker benefits of every developed country on earth.
Why did they do those things?
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: for daughters. Regardless.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBjKCs5yHsc
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS PERCEIVED AS THE PARTY OF BLACK PEOPLE, and therefore white people will SHUN them, even when they offer policy prescriptions that they like.
Y’all are so unwilling to recognize the role of white supremacy in how white people vote.
You gonna blame Harris for losing to a goddamn FELON who was supported by THE MAJORITY OF WHITE PEOPLE? gtfoh.
Princess
@tobie: I’ve been asking this question about Walz and weird for days. Are the scary anonymous Democratic strategists in the room with us now? Crickets.
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: She was Black and female, and white men like you fought her tooth and fucking nail.
ExPatExDem
@Kay: Just say it with me:
Harris ran a bad campaign.
To be fair though, Biden’s decision to seek a second term kneecapped her from the start.
ExPatExDem
@Professor Bigfoot: The problem with your hypothesis is that Obama won easily, twice.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: that’s all it is.
This is why GenX white men went so hard for Trump— they were the first ge3neration of American white men who had to actually compete for jobs, colleges, and everything else, and they fucking hate it.
Ramalama
Deleted in favor of pastry.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It doesn’t. It’s just more lazy thinking by our thought leaders and “public intellectuals” . Young men are falling off a fucking cliff so of course the problem must be liberals, Black people, women and immigrants. It’s like how the mayor of LA caused the 100 mph fire hurricane. They search for excuses instead of solving problems, because the problems are big and scary.
TBone
CHINCHILLA for the vatnik scum
m.youtube.com/watch?v=W2mCRfZFD_k
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
Oh, bullshit. Don’t worry. We won’t nominate any more women. The discussion can be solely about men, forever. Then we’ll miraculously pick up those men we lost. You yourself have to cherry-pick to avoid it. I noticed you cited the losses in 2016 and 2024 but skipped 2020. Which we won, although young men were in bad shape then too. Hmmm. What was different, I wonder?
Don’t skip inconvenient facts. You won’t fool anyone but yourself.
Shalimar
@Professor Bigfoot: We need to bring slavery back, except put in the fine print that only white men can be bought and sold. Most of us don’t read anyway. White men would be the largest group in favor.
Elizabelle
@ExPatExDem: But, he was a phenomenon, the economy had been tanked, and social media was not as prominent.
I think social media is killing this country. It is some good stuff hiding in there among multitudes of fakery and quick (wrong) takes. Simplistic.
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: Young white men who expect things to be handed top them for their maleness and their whiteness, just like their fathers and their grandfathers.
That’s what they mean when they wanna “Make America Great Again”— take it back to a time when white men were the absolute masters of all they surveyed, when women had no options and Black people were all but Enslaved.
And here you are, acting exactly like a fucking entitled white man.
Glory b
@sab: Ive mentioned this here before. An NPR story from a few years ago called union apprentice programs “The New Grad School,” because so many folks with Bachelors degrees have realized they can make substantially more money in the trades than in cubicles.
Let’s not forget the benefits of belonging to a union.
Professor Bigfoot
ALL OF THIS and LOUDER FOR THE ONES IN THE BACK
Elizabelle
@Glory b: That is fascinating to me.
And: out of cubicle farms, and not so much at the whim of big corporations.
Professor Bigfoot
ALL OF THIS and LOUDER FOR THE ONES IN THE BACK!
(but I repeat myself) 😉
Gin & Tonic
Still waiting for the dick jokes.
Another Scott
@Kayla Rudbek: +1
Relatedly, … NPR.org (from yesterday):
Mirror-Alito: Whereas ancient societies in Britain, motherland of America’s jurisprudence, had women at their centers, we demand reversal of Dobbs and remand. NEXT!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Starfish (she/her)
@ExPatExDem: Aww. Has anyone lost their sockpuppet?
ExPatExDem
@Kay: 2020 is difficult to use as an apples to apples comparison because pandemic. But Biden had an easy to understand message regardless. Restore decency and normalcy. Obama had an easy to understand message. Hope.
What was Harris’s simple, overarching message? Vote for me and I promise to maybe make something or other incrementally better for you if you squint and turn your head sideways?
Gin & Tonic
I’m reminded of the words of Thin Black Duke: “You don’t have to go to every argument you’re invited to.”
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: I am terrified that if I were truly happy it would make me complacent; I would just accept the evil of this world. The refusal to accept it should be a knife in the heart.
Maybe it’s because my political instincts are still fixated on the world of Ronald Reagan, how he made optimism his brand to a pathological degree, even though he had all these really emotionally dark fucks working for him.
Jackie
@ExPatExDem:
Hmmm… what is different about Obama from Harris…?
Kay
If you know some young person who needs a career but doesn’t want to go to college tell them to look at railroads. They can Google the big freight outfits and just apply directly. They have to pass a drug test, including weed, and they have to work the worst shifts for at least a year, but railroads offer certifications to become signal people, electricians, etc. They’re hiring due to the EXTREMELY good for working class and blue collar Joe Biden economy.
They also might have to travel, but the ones who have something on the ball will like that.
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: DId he win white people?
Fuck no he didn’t.
And you white people have made goddamn sure that no other Black person can ascend to that office, haven’t you?
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: AND that was before the red state onslaught targeting black voters.
The Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, literally THE NEXT DAY, Republican red states passed laws restructure the right to vote.
That so many in the party leadership are now black, that lefties blame Clyburn and black voters in the South for Bernie’s loss, has hardened the idea that it’s the black party.
And people like Aussie Sheila dismissing our concerns as “something something white people something” doesn’t help.
scav
@Another Scott: Oh NO! Revisionist history. Stop the data!
All that DNA stuff is revealing too many too dark people buried in the hallowed soil of Brexlandia and then there’s those wimminz buried with weapons too. Speaking of armies.
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: We’re not going back.”
It was to solidify gains made under Obama and Buden and to build on them.
You couldn’t understand that?
ExPatExDem
@Professor Bigfoot: I think you’re overthinking this, Professor. Most voters don’t think about things that deeply.
What they see is that their fathers and grandfathers could get jobs that paid a living wage and pension with their high school diploma, and buy a house at age 25. None of those things are available anymore to anyone.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jackie: And he STILL didn’t win white people.
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: Thats not new, they’ve done that before.
Ballot initiatives give them to pick out the policies Dems offer that they like, without making common cause with black people.
Ohio Mom
@WereBear: The Jobs Corps was great for my late friend’s FAS nephew — though it probably wasn’t alcohol, probably a combination of many other other mind-altering substances.
Poor guy, his heart is in the right place even if his brain sometimes backfires. Still, he has real marketable skills and can support himself.
raven
@Soprano2: Yea, he mentioned his troops a great deal in the video I watched of him. I got my GED in Korea before I went to Vietnam and, 50 years later, did my doctoral dissertation on folks who got theirs.
Soprano2
@ExPatExDem: That was not easy. The pro Amendment 3 people spent $30 million to get a little over 51% of the vote. White people in MO won’t vote for the party that respects women and non-white people. The decline in the population of St. Louis is another factor. I live there, BTW, in red Springfield. I’m a native.
ExPatExDem
@Jackie: What’s different about Obama than Harris?
Obama was a much more talented politician.
Soprano2
@ExPatExDem: So why are women in the same age group succeeding?
ExPatExDem
@Glory b: But are Dems really supporting those things like they used to? It’s a very corporate party now. We still have the same Federal minimum wage that we had in 2009.
Obama was the last time a Dem ran on big ideas and not incrementalist, around the edges bullshit that excites no one.
Geminid
@tobie: I had doubts myself about the Middle East Eye’s coverage of this war. But they seem to provide very good reporting on issues in the larger Middle East/North Africa region. Their reporting on Syria is a good example.
So they could be a good source for someone to read about the Gaza ceasefire over the next few days and weeks, at least if they read the Times of Israel for balance.
Al Arabiya is the most neutral of the three outfits, in my opinion. They are an arm of the Saudi government like Al Jazeera is an arm of Qatars’, so you’ll never see reporting at all critical of the Suadi government on this site. But Al Arabiya editors and reporters seems to have a lot of latitude otherwise.
Overall, the Saudi rulers seems to have taken an effectively neutral posture towards this war, and they have been roundly denounced for this by advocates for Hamas and the other members of Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
But although the Saudis are serious about the establishment of a Palestinian State in a way a lot of pro-Palestinian Westerners are not, they see this as a medium-term project of medium importance.
Regional stability is an existential issue for Saudi Arabia’s rulers. They took Iran’s decades-long project to eliminate Israel by means of proxy warfare as the greatest threat to themselves and to Jordan right next door.
Also, they’ve long thought that Hamas and the ideology that moved it were a burden upon and a threat to the interests of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank They saw the October 7 attack as proof of that.
Being an instrument of the Saudi government, to the extent Al Arabiya has a bias it’s towards regional stability. That is not a bad thing, I think. They are still realistic, because they’ve watched the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at close hand for decades, but they have real interests in seeing it resolved, and not just managed as Western nations were content to do for too long.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I know many white men think that should automatically be at the front of the line.
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: Such disingenuousness ill becomes you.
Geminid
@mapanghimagsik: Al Jazeera wasn’t one of the three media sites I recommended. I think Middle East Eye covers that base, more or less.
But, reading Al Jazeera is a good way to learn the policy and posture of Qatar’s rulers, and that’s important because Prime Minister al-Thani was and is one of the key mediators of this ceasfire.
scav
In an odd way, this thread has highlighted some of the lesser acknowledged benefits of immigration to the US. I am currently thankful for some who have not immigrated here and some who have vastly improved the nation by leaving.
RevRick
@Anne Laurie: Pete Hegseth is stuck in the Spartans at Thermopylae model of masses of warriors contending face-to-face. But that model has been long gone. The fact is less than a quarter of the troops are in actual combat positions. Most of the military nowadays is found in the tail of logistics and repair, servicing the front lines.
And then there’s the reality of combat itself, which is being revolutionized in Ukraine as we speak. The Russians may still be hurling masses of men into the combat zone, but most battles consist of artillery shells being shot from miles away and bombs being dropped from above… and now suicide drones. Most combatants never see who they killed or wounded in battle.
The prized skills are not muscles, but the ability to methodically plan or be able to execute decisions on the fly. What’s needed is not so much the ability to point and shoot, but to manage other people. The hardware provides the punch, but the soft skills of working with others is what delivers it effectively.
And let’s face it, all too many men, and especially young men, suck at that.
Glory b
@Matt McIrvin: AND also to annihilate Civil Rights, Voting Rights, education, the environment, etc, etc.
You think it’s worth all that?
Have you asked a black person?
Glory b
@RevRick: Trump is too, that’s why he picked him.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
The Left’s misogyny is a real problem. You all should work on it. It’s obvious to anyone outside your clique.
I could have predicted The Men Of The Left would be the first to horseshoe and go far Right. There’s always been a nasty streak of misogyny there. Taibbi, Greenwald, Freddie deBoer, Russel Brand, all MAGAs now, because women are cringe (!). Ick!
Stop romanticizing WWC. It’s patronizing and pandering. They hate you as much as they hate liberals. More.
Don’t fret. I promise we’ll nominate a big swinging dick next time and you won’t have to be ashamed. We learned our lesson. The US is as backward on women’s rights as it’s always been. But by then you’ll be a Glenn Greenwald Republican.
Nukular Biskits
@ExPatExDem:
I only have a second to throw this out there and I doubt I’ll see your response tonight (no time for me to peek during the workday):
You seem to be finding all sorts of excuses to exonerate those (primarily young white) voters who voted for Trump by claiming Harris did not pander (my words, not yours) to their demands.
That would seem to be more an indictment of those voters than it would be of Harris’s supposedly poor campaign.
Matt McIrvin
@Glory b: I don’t think it’s worth that. I’m saying if I cared about absolutely nothing else but ending Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, and was willing to countenance a many-times-larger amount of death and misery in the process, I might think it was worth that.
RevRick
@Jackie: What’s different is the first time Obama ran he was aided by the financial crash caused by Bush 2 policies and the 2nd time he was running against a bog standard Republican, whom Obama could easily characterize as heartless.
Harris, on the other hand, was running with the albatross of inflation tied around her neck. Both the Harris and Trump campaigns agreed that the most effective ad against her was the one where she declared, “Bidenomics is working!”
President Biden is leaving office as the most unpopular President since George W. Bush. The fact that given that anchor, Harris managed to make it so close is astounding.
satby
@Princess: Good hypothesis!
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: Very few people make minimum wage, only around 1%.
Biden & Dems win the fight for $15 without a fight & lefties are big mad about it.
Harrison Wesley
@Kay: And Railroad Retirement beats the living daylights out of Social Security.
Geminid
@sab: I take that as a compliment and I appreciate it, but– this war and the larger Israeli/Palestinian conflict are things people really about. I figure when these things matter enough to people they would do well to learn more about them.
There’s a lot of information about them to be found on this forum, but much of it (including my own efforts) is expressed through argument. Advocacy can have value, but it also has limitations, I think. That’s why I try to recommend good outside sources.
And I would encourage people to hang with them even after a given crisis is past, because this situation isn’t static between the wars which grab our attention.
It can actually be a nice break. I mean, I like to keep up with American politics, but that could become a full time job if I let it, and I don’t want to. I try to stay current on the more consequential events heeeand put the time I save into looking at how people in the Middle East are dealing with their problems.
They may do a better job than we do. I could see an editorial posted by some Damascus newspaper in early 2030, titled, “Is America a Failed State?” They’ll base it on a panel discussion on the topic at Damascus University, between ambassadors from Egypt, Iran, Israel and Turkiye and mediated by Syria’s Foreign Minister.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
The far Left and the far Right are the people fucking up young men. Both groups insist they men have zero agency and both win elections by pandering to them and telling them their self-sabotage is someone else’s issue. Well, the Right wins elections on that. The Left can’t even do that.
Blue collar jobs are hard and dirty with shit hours. The same was true for the blue collar jobs of the romanticized past, where their grandfathers worked. They find out that putting together cars or pipe fitting or putting up turbines is hard and dirty and menial and they’re crushed.
My son is a union electrician. He worked a ninety hour week at Honda last week. Mandatory. He’ll clear 150k this year but don’t kid yourself – they earn every penny.
But keep telling them the world is a hard place for white American men (lol) and they shouldn’t even bother trying. That shows how much you love the working class. You’re killing them.
Harrison Wesley
@TBone: Well,of course Tony Jay would. He lives in a place where they eat Spotted Dick instead of treating it with antibiotics.
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: As I’ve already said, a union apprenticeship will get them that, with just a high school diploma.
It’s the new grad school. Their seats are being filled with college educated folks who realize they can make more money as carpenters, electricians, boilermakers/HVAC than in office buildings.
Glory b
@Matt McIrvin: BUT people focused on only one issue aren’t reliable enough to be given a lot of consideration.
Remember, a significant group of Muslims were turning to the Republican party based on buying into the trans/LGBTQ scare.
Kay
@ExPatExDem:
That the far Left and the far Right managed to convince hourly workers that the best economy for them OF THEIR LIVES sucked and offered zero opportunity is all I need to know about how much the far Left and far Right care about working people.
You assholes spent the last four years telling them liberals only cared about “social issues” (by which you mean civil rights) so they sat in their mom’s basement smoking weed and getting up a good head of resentment listening to Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, two multi millionaires, instead of getting ahead in a great job market. Good job. Excellent work. Then you show up here blaming THE result on Hillary and Kamala assuming every woman here will throw herself under the bus, apologize for how much she sucks, and make it all better. That’s entitlement.
Donald Trump and Joe Rogan can fix young men. They refused our help. In the meantime working class young women will keep getting ahead.
Miss Bianca
@ExPatExDem: Gee, nobody of my or my parents’ generation was buying a house by age 25. They were all in their 30s and even with good jobs they needed help from their parents, because down payments were up to 25% of sale price and interest rates on mortgages were at about, oh, 13% in the Detroit area, at least, so I don’t know where your fucking fantasy ideas about 25-year-olds being able to buy houses in the Good Old Days come from, or whatever other BS in your brain justifies your excuses for white male malaise, and I don’t fucking care, either.
Go back under your bridge, troll, and whine and snuffle from there about how misunderstood and unappreciated the white male troll is these days.
Jackie
@RevRick: What’s different between Obama and Harris is GENDER.
Plain and simple.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Whilst there are a few Black faces in there, they are damned thin on that ground.
The men of both the Far Left and the Far Right are white men.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Truman won (unexpectedly) in 1948 after he desegregated the US’s armed forces. The Korean War is what crushed his popularity in 1951 and 1952.
A lot of that was due to McCarthur’s reckless campaign to the Yalu River bordering China, but Truman and the Joint Chiefs could and should have stopped McArthur. They could have ordered him to fortify a line north of Pyongyang, ehere the peninsula was still narrow, and contain the fragmented and depleted North Korean forces.
Truman would have taken a lot of political blowback for that but nothing like the blowback he got when China intervened with 350,000 troops. It was a huge shock for Americans when their Army was almost thrown off the Korean Peninsula for the second time in a year, and by troops from the most populous nation in the world.
General Ridgway was able to salvage McAarthur’s mess, but it was a costly effort that left the border pretty where it had been before the war started. After that, Truman didn’t even try for a second full term.
Professor Bigfoot
Watching these young women who have internalized “…a man is not a plan. A man is a companion.”
I’m watching these young women get degrees (had a chance shortly before I retired, to work with a young Black woman with a PhD in chemical engineering), buy houses, and live their best lives like a proud grandpa.
“Git it, girl. Do the thang. Don’t EVER settle for one of these useless meatheads. YOU GO, GIRL.” ✊🏾
Geminid
@Kay: Amtrak is probably hiring too, what with the expansion of its service map and schedule made possible by the $66 billion in investments that are funded by the Infrastructure act.
Kay
@Professor Bigfoot:
Its always been true and a few brave souls on the Left have even admitted it. I’m on the Left side of the Democratic Party which can be frustrating because we’re a political minority in the Party but I’d never join the Left. I’ve worked with the men on referendums in Ohio – and you’re right its always white men. They have a sexism problem. That and while Democrats lose sometimes, the Left loses always. I prefer not to be on the “lose every time” side.
Its amusing to watch. They’ve turned on AOC for not being ideologically pure but Saint Bernie, who is kissing MAGA ass, is still the Golden boy. Because AOC is a girl. The Men of the Left brook no disobedience from the womenfolk.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
My experience as well, enlisted Sept/Oct 1969 boot camp early January 1970. My concept was that the military had some limits as to what, where, and how women could serve. And the concept to me had as much to do with how some men see/saw women – as something they could own, and never as their equal. I imagine that many young males still hold that view. A view that much of life back then tried to provide as, if nothing else, a guideline for what women could or could not do, and what males were like compared to women. It was of course BS but many men seem to strive on BS. It has changed and gotten better, but many men have a concept that they will always be stronger, faster, (Not so sure about smarter…) I owned a metal machining business my father started and he would hire women to work in the shop, but it was more difficult for them to get any kind of training, often high schools would not allow them in “shop” classes, like woodworking, machine shop, etc. That was “MANS” work. It was of course BS but they often were better at it because they actually wanted to learn, while many males had long before decided that they knew everything. They were wrong.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: My husband said he came to prefer hiring women over men because they didn’t think they already knew everything.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Any business that requires learned skills takes time, effort and DESIRE to actually learn the skills and use them. And that means most jobs. Now the learning curve might be short and somewhat easy but it may take a long time and require an actual brain. I was in the USN and there were no jobs on board ship that didn’t have a learning curve. I owned the business my dad started longer than he did and every single thing we did had a learning curve. An apprenticeship was 4 years long. Pompous, arrogant jackasses who “knew everything” were absolutely useless. Of course they always are. Anyone want to list jobs that do not require some training
And to answer your point, this is absolutely true.
ExPatExDem
@Jackie: Harris couldn’t hold a matchstick to Obama in terms of political chops or acumen. Pretending otherwise is laughable.
Professor Bigfoot
@ExPatExDem: Damn, you are white as fuck, aren’t you?
The typical white male American, spouting disingenuous bullshit when you damned well know better; but you’ll never acknowledge your defense of straight white male supremacy.
So I say, with all due respect, fuck you.
sab
@Ruckus: I am still pissed about not being allowed to take shop in 1970 when there were a couple of boys in my cooking class.
I never thought it was because they didn’t think we could do it. They said if we could round up thirty girls for an all girl class they would give us one.
We figured it was because the boys were such idiots that they would accidentally cut off a hand if distracted by girls in the same room as power tools.
Annie
@ExPatExDem:
these trends all affect women too, so how does this explain why women are graduating from high school but men aren’t?
Gretchen
@Annie: More boys than girls have adhd, learning disabilities or are on the spectrum. The first thing budget cutters go after is school budgets and especially special education, which is expensive but so effective at preventing later problems like school failure. And Christian Academies and homeschoolers don’t have special ed at all, and often don’t even have the testing to realize that something is wrong.
Soapdish
My SIL took a prof position a Purdue twenty years ago. My brother told me the story about how while they were driving around to look at houses she just broke down and cried.
So yeah, I get it.
The position was good for her, tho, and she eventually turned it into a departmental chair position at a big SUNY college, which is exactly the right thing to do when in Indiana; extract what value you can and then get out.
Soapdish
@TBone: Again, I’m late to the party, but I’m def here for the dick jokes.
Or given the planetary alignment, the Uranus jokes.