Straight White Puppets

White Privilege and Toxic Masculinity have long been articles of faith in progressive, woke, and social justice circles. Unlike many other such catchphrases, they have been mostly immune to the re-branding, re-imagining, and re-marketing that is part and parcel of woke culture. I expect that this is because straight white males, in the style of the 50+ crowd’s uselessness to Madison Avenue, have long been of no interest to the Left.

That is changing.

For decades, being born a straight white male (SWM) has carried with it the equivalent of original sin and the demand for a lifetime of penance, individual circumstances notwithstanding. The narrative behind this is that SWMs have held a dominant social position (and concurrent bigotries) for so long that they need to atone for it somehow. Unlike the Christian form of original sin, however, the promise is not an eternity of heavenly reward, but rather a “we won’t call you as many names as we currently do” crumb of stale bread.

Thing is - the SWMs alive today aren't the SWMs of a century ago. Someone born in this millennium has never known those past eras where racist and sexist bigotry were a social norm. That it's unjust to demand that Generations Z and Alpha pay penance for whatever biases the Silent Generation and predecessors held. Nor is it just to judge an individual based on race and gender. They got names for that.

No matter that. In identity politics, individuals don't matter.

The decades-long exclusion of SWMs from woke society has precipitated several reactions that bother the excluders. A third of able-bodied working age men have opted not to work, and are instead finding ways to get by off Other People's Money. This has major repercussions for both the economy and the nation's social fabric. Probably not coincidentally, there's also the growing number of men who have dropped out of the dating scene, deeming it a minefield and a sure-lose proposition. The behavior is common enough to warrant its own name: Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW).

I'll save a related discussion on the War on Boys for another time, but it deserves mention here, because it is a notable part of the picture.

Since no one can be left alone or uncriticized any more, MGTOW has been criticized as anti-feminist and misogynistic, and associated with the Incel (Involuntary Celibate) label (deemed white supremacist by the same busybodies).

Hucksters like Andrew Tate have made bank on leaning into the pejorative labels, probably as much from the outraged as from the inspired. But, that aside, SWMs have been granted one safe space: the gym. It has been acceptable for guys to lift their frustrations away, to get big or buff or ripped, and to go "dude-bro." They continue to get mocked, but beyond that they've been mostly left alone.

Until now.

Seems that someone realized that the Presidential race may be a nail-biter, with small margins in swing states tipping the election one way or the other.

So, suddenly, SWMs are no longer to be left to the predations of the Right.

Behold, "White Dudes for Harris."

With the big reveal:

North Carolina governor Roy Cooper said if just 1–2 percent more of the white male population voted for Democrats, Kamala could win.

Tellingly, the first speaker wasn't even white. This is in the vein of the "we aren't actually going to do anything for you, but you should vote for us anyway" line that the Left has been peddling to blacks for half a century.

Later on, the usual pandering emerged, with union bosses talking up the piles of Other People's Money that the Dems have lavished on, you guessed it, white dudes. But, only the favored ones, as in the union types. Since they only need a small slice of the SWM vote to tip their way, they don't have to commit to anything that a Deplorable might like.

Don't worry, SWMs, your bottom of the barrel status is not in jeopardy. This is just another pandering stunt from the people who've elevated pandering to a professional sport.

A brief bit of pandering aside, the cultural shift required to re-engage men in society is at utter odds with wokism, so the MGTOW movement will persist. This is a Very Bad Thing, and bodes ill for the future.