Social media is abuzz with a survey showing 12th-grade boys are twice as likely to identify as conservative. The reality is a little more complicated, writes Arwa Mahdawi
I 100% believe there is a growing segment of the population of young white boys who are becoming radicalized. They see a world that is crumbling just like everyone else, but they have been shunned by the Left, and seemingly every other day the world’s problems are being blamed on them for some reason. Many of these folks feel like society is pushing them out and see that right wing extremist groups are accepting them. They keep hearing that racism and sexism is bad, and yet racism and sexism against white males somehow seems to be perfectly acceptable.
This is the exact type of exclusionary tactics that pushed so many post WW1 Germans into supporting the Nazi party right before WW2.
For years I’ve been hearing that Republicans are only rich white men and that once they all eventually die, the GOP will be toast. Except that’s not true at all. Google image search the Proud Boys and tell me those guys are old. And there is that other group that wears the tan khakis (can’t think of their name). None of those people look older than 30.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Young white boys hear how horrible white men are, and because they’re kids, they don’t always understand the parts that are left unsaid. They just hear that the world is ending and it’s because of people like them. Then if they have trouble finding a girlfriend they get told they are incels and losers.
And suddenly you’ve got a whole demographic of young angry people ripe for exploitation. Telling them they’re stupid and evil for listening to the right wing nut jobs doesn’t help, they’ve been told how stupid and evil they are since they were children, they’re going to listen to the person who says “we accept you as you are”.
It’s been going on for a couple of decades at least, and look where we are now.
I 100% believe there is a growing segment of the population of young white boys who are becoming radicalized. They see a world that is crumbling just like everyone else, but they have been shunned by the Left, and seemingly every other day the world’s problems are being blamed on them for some reason. Many of these folks feel like society is pushing them out and see that right wing extremist groups are accepting them. They keep hearing that racism and sexism is bad, and yet racism and sexism against white males somehow seems to be perfectly acceptable.
This is the exact type of exclusionary tactics that pushed so many post WW1 Germans into supporting the Nazi party right before WW2.
For years I’ve been hearing that Republicans are only rich white men and that once they all eventually die, the GOP will be toast. Except that’s not true at all. Google image search the Proud Boys and tell me those guys are old. And there is that other group that wears the tan khakis (can’t think of their name). None of those people look older than 30.
This is a big problem that will only get worse.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Young white boys hear how horrible white men are, and because they’re kids, they don’t always understand the parts that are left unsaid. They just hear that the world is ending and it’s because of people like them. Then if they have trouble finding a girlfriend they get told they are incels and losers.
And suddenly you’ve got a whole demographic of young angry people ripe for exploitation. Telling them they’re stupid and evil for listening to the right wing nut jobs doesn’t help, they’ve been told how stupid and evil they are since they were children, they’re going to listen to the person who says “we accept you as you are”.
It’s been going on for a couple of decades at least, and look where we are now.