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Richard Weingarten's avatar

I'm with you. I spent 2 years on active duty with USAF during the Korean War and learned a hell of a lot about my fellow Americans that served me well all my life since. It is what is lacking in current day youth whose outside cultural experience is confined to TikTok and other social media.

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Gianna's avatar

The most common theme I've seen with young men, as a 28 year old woman, is that they see everything as zero-sum, as you said in the article. Knowing young, successful, pro-MAGA men, I have seen that they still want more than they have, and they're difficult to satisfy. I think the rise of social media/influencer culture and dating apps has generally made it harder for people to be content. Pro-MAGA young men think they deserve more than they have earned and blame DEI taking away what is rightly theirs, even if they never had anything in the first place. There's an absolute loser mentality and scarcity mindset that has become normalized by the right.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

I think "Pro-MAGA young men think they deserve more than they have earned" really sums it up -- they want things to be handed to them, and I think they're really lazy in working for what they want. I mean, look at all YOU have done to advance your career, and excel at your skills and talents -- I don't think those MAGA types are willing to put in the work like people like you DO.

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Richard Weingarten's avatar

I think your analysis is welcome and productive. Consider as well that religious teaching, reaching back to biblical and Quran times, is male oriented as was most society until fairly recently. I think that a mandatory draft for military and/or civil service might provide a remedy for this malaise.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

The US military? Where they are now going for a complete all-white, all-Christian force?

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Richard Weingarten's avatar

A universal draft of men and women (LGBTQs included) with an option for civil service allowed, might solve that problem as well.

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Tim Dineen's avatar

I joined the Navy because I had a low lottery number. The military was full of people who didn't want to be there - and I was damned sure one of them.

While I had friends growing who were of different cultures, it was The Navy that taught me how to get along with and understand color and things like regional differences in the USofA, Hell, I grew up in San Francisco. I didn't know what Hoppin' John was for New Years, but I definitely knew Pancit, Lumpia, and Adobo - along with Dragon Dances and real Chinese food.

By essentially being civilians in military clothing, we were able to help dilute the gung-ho-kill-the-gooks mentality that was being fed to us.

Plenty of good transferable to civilian life trades come out of the Military. I say yes.

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Susan D Miner's avatar

I agree 100% with your premise and observations. I so hope you are wrong about them all being a lost cause at this point though!!! I found this Reddit post to be super relevant, as it talks about how to break through a "cult" mindset: https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/comments/1k4elm5/converting_trump_supporters/

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

Years ago, when this documentary was partially complete, and the filmmaker was looking to raise funds to finish is, I went to one of her presentations. https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashing-My-Dad-Matthew-Modine/dp/B01C6AFDM6

Also there were a team who had successfully deprogrammed a number of people who had fallen under the spell of Rush Limbaugh, and his brethren. I learned a lot, and I understand how the process needs to work neurologically - and from what they said, it's done on an individual basis -- that is, you can't get a crowd of these folks in a room and work them all together.

I hope you're right that they can be changed, but I'm not all that hopeful.

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Libby's avatar

How about an article on why women voted for #47 & did so again?

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

We know who they are -- they are women who honestly believe men should be in charge. They are mostly poor and uneducated. Plus, a cohort of very rich women who voted for fewer taxes and less regulation.

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