The left and Muslims/Arabs in general being the main reason why Harris lost, I think?
Yeah, I really see no proper indication for both these claims right now. But we can agree to disagree here, because I also do not claim the opposite (that there is hard evidence that the arab vote or leftist vote didn't matter). I think it is just too complex right now to say these generalizing things anyway, which is also why I am against saying "this issue would have helped/hindered Harris", as it is just too vague to say.
Why do you think people conflate those kinds of attributes with specific political leanings though? I get that the stereotype of a male on the left is some sort of emasculated soyboy but when we think of older left ideologies and the imagery that was used was anything but that.
I think that older left movements gaves these types of men consierably more respect. If you look into the violent uprisings in england, france, germany and Italy (and the US, too), oftentimes, these movements were built around physically fighting the police or sabotaging their workplaces.
What is different right now on the left is that we want to be inclusive (which is good in my book). Before, you had a workplace with 100% white men from the same kind of upbringing who had to do the same tasks as one giant workforce. So the fought for better conditions and pay together. That is not true anymore. It is easy to explain someone you know, who is like you, that it is worth fighting an abusive boss. It is a lot harder to someone that he needs to fight for the rights of someone who is unlike him and maybe even has tensions with people like him.
The big tragedy of the first worldwar was that the heads of leftwing movements in france and germany both knew it was wrong that workers fight each other for a senseless war, but thought they would lose influence among workers (who had considerable support for the war) and joined in. Because it is easy to say "workers unite" when all workers are equal, but when nationalism and culture come into play, that is harder.
And in our world, we have to bring the mexican worker with a nonlegal job together with the struggling miner who is afraid for his job. And we also need to bring these two together with women's right activists and talk with them about ecological causes. Bringing all these things together and finding empathy even for people who strongly critisize you is easier for a very empathetic men than it is for the more physical men that would have been an asset when fistfighting scabs.
To sum it up, because the world is so interconnected and diverse, someone who wants to be fair to all people needs to have a very high level of empathy and will to change themselves. And these people (paradoxically) are often letting loose against the people who are not instantly willing to change themselves or do not share the same kind of enthusiasm for altruism. Which are often underpivileged young men.
What do you mean by this specifically? I could see the argument for vanity of some sort but I don't think liberals scoff at pride in someone's work.
What I mean is: If you take the average leftist and imagine him working in a low paying job. Would he be proud of doing so? I think not, because the average leftist is like me, studied and if he worked in a low paying job, he wanted to get out of it and calls it abusive workign conditions now. The idea that a leftist is a proud steelworker who tells everyone around him that they control the steel site, not the bosses, is not true anymore. The leftist sits in university or in office and tells people that steelworkers should be respected, but he would never do that job.
For young men, they often want to have a career. They have dreams of making it big. That is why they fall prey to bitcoin or why they do "the hustle". In any case, they want an ideology more in line with their idea of fighting your waay up. Which is usually libertarianism or something of the sorts. In leftwing circles, at least in my experience, you will have a very hard time to find respect from someone for trying to get up the chain in a company or for pursuing your own business. They will tell you they respect small business owners, but only if they do not learn what kinds of capitalist things these owners have to do to stay afloat.
In general, leftists nowadays are talking more about UBI or the 4 day work week than about work being valuable or work giving your life more purpose. These ideas were very popular 100 years ago but they are unpopular now.
That is another difficulty that plays into the break with older left traditions. Before, leftists had no qualms to demonize lazy unemployed people, criminals and so on. These people were seen as another enemy. Many modern day workers still see them as the enemy, but now leftists say criminals and unemployed people are that way because of capitalism and need our solidarity. I think that is right, but it is clearly not very appealing to people who take pride in legal work.
