US Authoritarianism

1944 Democratic National Convention

It was during WW2 and Henry Wallace should have been VP again as this was a reelection for FDRs 4th term. Too many people saw Wallace as too progressive and too much for the working class. The powers that be replaced Wallace with Truman. He did his thing with dropping the bomb and trying to rebuild the world with his very pro business world view.

We could have had a different growth after WW2, but Wallace got replaced when FDR got to the end of his life.

I know a good one!

It's the Internet and they're ruining it because nobody will do anything without money.

Here's another one... The Men's Rights Movement, at least as it's existed from 2014-the present. Whatever knee jerk-reaction one has to the notion of "men's rights" itself, everything in the following article is equally applicable to The MRM https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/350/can-the-left-get-it-right.

Quote: "Sensing a political and business opportunity, Shellenberger and a close friend cofounded Communication Works, a political-strategy communications agency. “We were twenty-four and didn’t really know what we were getting into,” he says, “but we had the basic sense that progressive organizations had something to say and weren’t very good at saying it.”

Adaptation for our purposes: Organizations working on men's issues similarly have things they want to change, but haven't been especially effective at communicating their desires to the general public, clearly and effectively. The fact that the only time most Americans have heard the term "MRA" mentioned is in the occasional sneery, dismissive reference in a sitcom is testament to this.

"Six months later Shellenberger left the company to “question our most basic assumptions about what it will take for progressives to start winning again.”

Here in '24(The Red Pill - A much ballyhooed documentary about The MRM - was released in '16. It didn't bring about the sociopsycholgical revolution so many MRAs were predicting at the time. Just as An Inconvenient Truth didn't turn the public vegan, or create a world where everyone prioritized climate change over economic development), there's ample cause to question The MRM's most basic assumptions about what it takes to succeed at all

"He came to the conclusion that “complaint-based activism” was ultimately ineffective, and that single-issue progressive organizations and social movements had, in many cases, become special interests."

Same's true of The MRM, only in an even more disastrous way. Not only is "men's rights" itself a niche, single issue cause, but every cause under the heading of "men's rights" can also be broken up into single issue causes: Father's rights, campus due process, access to solid health care, domestic violence policy, etc etc. And once one digs into each of these topics, the wisdom of continuing to approach them as gendered problems(as opposed to American problems, which invite the attention and energies of us all)becomes extremely dubious

"Some of Shellenberger’s own prior victories now appeared hollow to him. “Nike made some commendable reforms in those factories,” he says. “They fired abusive managers. They replaced carcinogenic glues with water-soluble ones. They even allowed some of their plants to unionize. But we’d been pushing for something much bigger — that Nike more than triple the wages of its workers, worldwide — and we didn’t get close to delivering that. All we had was a set of complaints and demands. We didn’t have a positive vision for the future of the industry that would help Nike become a force for good in the world. The Nike campaign taught me the limits of protest politics.”

The MRM was moderately succeful during it's heyday, by using social media to bring attention to subjects that weren't especially new https://reason.com/1994/07/01/man-troubles/ During The Trump Administration, there were mild revisions to Title IX, and a few more male domestic violence shelters opened. All those victories have been exposed as hollow, now that The 2020s are upon us. The revisions to Title IX were promptly reversed by The Biden Administration, with no one but MRAs and Feminists taking notice. Those male-only DV shelters don't see much traffic, on account of the fact that men aren't generally eager to use them. Prominent MRAs like Paul Elam try to explain such failures by asserting "Society is just too Gynocentric and Blue Pill to understand our genius". It's entirely possible that he's correct, but I just can't shake the suspicion that the truth is far more prosaic... Like Greens, MRAs also failed to present the public with an uplifting vision of the future they could enjoy, if they support "men's issues". They also encountered the limits of protesting, yet reacted by screeching and stamping our feet on social media more loudly, rather than adopting not only new tactics, but a more productive way of conceptualizing "men's issues"

Polonsky: The New Apollo Project is pretty ambitious. You’re talking about a $30 billion annual investment from the federal government. What makes Apollo a new concept, as opposed to just a bundle of old progressive proposals?

"Shellenberger: What makes Apollo special is that there’s coherence in the values it represents, the policies it proposes, and the language it uses." The Apollo Project ultimately didn't pan out, so as such I don't propose that we put forth an equivalent for "men's issues".

The Patron Saint Of The MRM, Warren Farrell, has been on a crusade to persuade both the local and federal government to set up task forces for men and boy since at least The 90s, with very little to show for it. What I'm proposing: Whatever strategy those of us who are "Post-MRM" pursue, it must be one with coherence in the values it represents, the policies it proposes, and the language it uses.

"Talking about the millions of jobs that will be created by accelerating our transition to a clean-energy economy moves the environmental movement away from its focus on eco-apocalypse and uninspired technical microfixes, like fluorescent light bulbs and hybrid cars."

Talking about the gargantuan boost to our economy that will be created by getting several million people out of prison, off of welfare, and into steady work(plus making vocational training more readily accessible), in an era where The US is facing unprecedented competition from an endless array of emerging overseas markets moves us away from The MRM's fixation on fantasies of what prominent MRAs call the coming Fempocalypse https://youtu.be/w__PJ8ymliw?si=uLI5K4ggCJziI49v , and towards a vision of the brighter future we can all attain, men AND women alike.

"Environmentalism will never be able to muster the strength it needs to deal with global warming as long as it is seen by the American people as a special interest."

The MRM was similarly never able to gain widespread public support, due to it being a niche hobby, mostly among a handful of people online.

"And it will continue to be seen as a special interest as long as it fails to offer Americans an inspiring vision for the future."

No rewrite required here.

"The strength of any given political proposal turns more on its vision for the future and the values it carries within it than on its technical policy specifications. What’s powerful about Apollo is neither its ten-point plan nor even its list of endorsements but rather its generous, inclusive, and hopeful vision."

That'll be one of the many things which distinguishes The Post-MRM of today-forward from the movement of the 10s. Offering a generous and hopeful vision, which focuses on making America a saner, richer nation for all citizens. NOT a movement that's focused exclusively on simply helping men

"Apollo’s underlying values are about improving the lives of working families and the environment and national security and the economy. Apollo aims to put an end to the “either/or” thinking that has characterized environmental proposals. There may be all sorts of good, progressive policies out there, but they’re only Apollo-worthy if they’re big and bold, and good for workers, communities, the environment, and business."

The Post-MRM's underlying values are similar: Helping not just men who aren't doing well, but also reducing the material burdens of working families, keeping our crime rates low, reducing the number of tax dollars out of everyone's pocket at the end of the year, providing pristine neighborhoods for all Americans to live in, and strengthening our capacity to remain economically formidable, in an era where we're facing increasingly fierce competition from foreign markets. We forego the "either/or thinking" which characterized The MRM of The 2010s. Within The Post-MRM, by contrast, policy proposals are only viable if they're expansive, bold, and beneficial to workers, communities, businesses, and America as a whole. They can't just be good for men only

I think voters feel that if they were to have dinner with Kerry, Kerry would judge them on how smart they are, whereas if they were to have dinner with Bush, he would judge them on their values."

Currently, most voters believe that Woke-leaning holders of high office like Biden and AOC would judge them on whether or not their language is sufficiently "non-problematic". Whereas if they were to have dinner with possibly MRA-sympathetic politicians like Josh Holloway and DeSantis, they would be judged on whether or not their values are "Patriotically Correct"

"Polonsky: Being good for business is the difficult leg to add to the stool.

Shellenberger: None of this is easy. But neither was going to the moon. Look, the federal government has always played an important role in supporting strategic industries. We did it during the New Deal and World War II and created the most productive industrial base the world had ever seen. And keep in mind that America’s electronics industry would never have been possible had we not made strategic investments