Three years ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted a defense of aggressive activists getting in the faces of politicians, writing, "The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable." This week, she experienced this for herself when some nutjobs from her voting base confronted her and her fiancé Riley Roberts as they exited a movie theater. They harassed her down the escalator, out the door, and down a few city blocks, while videoing her and demanding that she label "genocide" the act of Israel defending itself against bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists.
We have enjoyed schadenfreude aplenty at the irony of the activist poodles biting the hands that riled them up. But hey, cheers to AOC for refusing to parrot what they commanded her to, as most Republican representatives would have done with their eyes down, shoulders slumped, and hands pocketed. What struck me about the video was Roberts, who stands there the entire time, doing almost nothing to intervene on her behalf.
If you seek out chinless, submissive, easily intimidated men to lead around by the ear because you think that's the proper feminist antidote to the "patriarchy," that's your prerogative. But don't expect your partner to grow a spine and "man up" when it's damsel-in-distress time. In the real world, the George McFlys walk away and leave the Biffs to sexually assault at will.
My advice to progressive women holding out for a politically left but "traditional" gentleman is this: When you inevitably start buying cats, make sure not to buy all twenty of them at once, because they'll start dying off at roughly the same time. You have to stagger your cat purchases to one or two annually; that way you'll have a consistent supply of companionship. You can give them names like RGB, Blasey-Ford, Bunny Boiler, etc., it'll be great! You can brag to them during tea time in your single, childless final years about how independent and empowered you are.
My advice to conservative men worried about the societal implications of being labeled "toxic" is this: You know if your behavior is toxic or not. The guy who reciprocates a polite rejection from a woman by immediately calling her every insult his pea brain can muster is toxic.
The guy who speeds through neighborhoods with his amplified muffler is toxic. The guy who bellows as loud as he can while lifting weights at the gym, the guy who is drunk by the third inning and dropping F-bombs within clear earshot of children, the guy who starts fights on planes, and the guy who bullies restaurant staff and department store employees because he can... all these guys are toxic.
Holding open a door, pulling out a chair, paying for a meal, and, yes, protecting your wife and children are not toxic. The desire to work year in and year out to provide for them is not toxic. Walking curbside down a city sidewalk together with your wife or girlfriend is not toxic. Changing the flat tire in the rain while your wife waits in the car is not toxic. Retaining the ability to physically defend your wife if need be, with humility and quiet confidence, is not toxic. It is noble, respectful, dignified, and chivalrous, and it is what women should expect and demand from men.
The one thing worse than a toxic male is an emasculated male. The emasculated male is either a videogame-addicted, edible-ingesting manchild who uses leftist politics as cover for his pathological immaturity or a man who is instinctively noble but has been demonized at every turn into thinking his very existence is evil, and that any masculine behavior, no matter what values it defends, is oppressive and patriarchal.
The emasculated male sits motionless on the train and hopes not to make eye contact with the two-bit thug directly across from him slapping his woman around. The emasculated male agrees to "gentle parenting" and consequently is both unwilling and unable to control his five-year-old having a public tantrum. The emasculated male stands in the museum, doing nothing, while rubbery juvenile climate activists destroy priceless art mere feet from him.
The emasculated male has no clue how to fix anything in his house and routinely calls non-emasculated males to come to fix things for him. The emasculated male allows his son to degenerate into a disrespectful slob and his daughter into an Instagram prostitute. The emasculated male doesn't hold the line. He retreats quietly against the cultural barbarians at the gates of his comfortable existence in the hope that he'll be dead and gone when they finally overrun the last redoubt.
Social emasculation was always the strategy of the Left, the eventual goal being the dissolution of the nuclear family. Unfortunately, legions of third-wave feminists who bought into blanket statements about "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" are now suffering the consequences. Hence, we have women like TikTok user @ms_petch, who recently lamented her inability to find a man who behaved like a conservative... without actually being a conservative. But it's a package deal. A man who votes against the so-called "patriarchy" isn't going to then behave in ways that uphold it.
But the shrinking pool of traditional men affects all women, not just progressives. The swelling masses of incels, passport bros, mom's basement types, and Tinder scavengers are the logical result of convincing entire generations of males that they are unwanted and unneeded.
As I conceded above, there are plenty of pajama boys who are all too happy to use these cultural trends as an excuse to sleep until noon before rolling off the couch and navigating around the expanding islands of pizza boxes and cereal bowls to grab a fresh Miller Lite for breakfast. But there are still plenty of real men who are trying their hardest to provide for, protect, and honor their wives. They do this against the increasingly frenzied, irrational narrative that ranks them somewhere between O.J. Simpson and Hitler.
Which brings me back to AOC and her fiancé Roberts. I can only guess why he didn't intervene. Maybe he was just more annoyed than concerned. Maybe AOC had previously told him that, in such confrontations, she needed to be the one seen sticking up for herself. I don't know. But there is also the very real possibility that he straight-up wimped out, which, if that's the case, is pretty sad.
The way to handle that situation is to give the harassers one verbal warning and one verbal warning only, through which the man conveys in no uncertain terms that he will repel any continued harassment with disproportionate physical force. If the harassment continues, he must apply that force as promised. Leftists, by nature, are bullies. And bullies are cowards who retreat from potential threats. It doesn't make you a bully to bully the bully.
I've had the unpleasant experiences of having to use threats and eventual force to protect the woman I happened to be with. In every instance, the bully backed down and left us alone. That's not to say the next time I won't get pummeled, and in some of these instances, I'm amazed I didn't. But as Malcolm Wallace in "Braveheart" said, "We don't have to beat them, just fight them."
My instinctive reaction to "man up" didn't stem from a mistaken belief that I'm some sort of hero or tough guy. I'm not a hero, and I'm not a tough guy. I reacted that way because it's the bare minimum that should be expected. And if you set up a hidden camera stunt to see which men did intervene in staged situations like this, 99 of 100 would be conservative men.
I wish nobody misery in their marriage simply because I disagree with their personal politics or inept job performance. I sincerely wish Ocasio-Cortez and Roberts decades of love and happiness together. But if I were her, I'd make sure my condo association allows cats.
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