Boyz 2 men 2 boyz
Via Glenn Reynolds, Claire Lehman pens a perceptive paean to manhood, culled from chatting with a few twenty-something MAGA-men in, of all unlikely places, a Lower East Side watering hole. SIDE NOTE: Lehman’s piece is ensconced behind a paid-sub-only protective wall, thus the link is to Glenn’s Substack article, whence the excerpts below also derive.
Nothing about the young men I spoke to appeared particularly conservative or “right-wing.” Yet it was easy for them to explain why they voted for Trump. And if we zoom out and look at broader cultural trends, it should be easy for us to understand too.
If we take a macro perspective, we see that such young men have never known a culture in which males are not routinely described as “problematic,” “toxic,” or “oppressive.” Going to university, and working at modern companies, they live in a world of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies—many of which promote an insidious and pervasive form of anti-male discrimination. Yet to talk about it in public invites social ostracism. To criticise DEI is to risk being called a Nazi.
These young male voters know about theories of patriarchy and white supremacy, but they have never known a culture which celebrates the Great Man Theory of history. Thomas Carlyle’s nineteenth-century framework for understanding the past is seen as an anachronism, not worthy of serious thought. Today we acknowledge historical figures not for their feats, but for their crimes. Whether it is due to slavery, colonisation, racism, or sexism, we tear down the monuments of our past, while building no new heroes for our future.
The problem with this way of viewing the world is that it is alienating and self-defeating. It is also wrong. By any objective standards, Elon Musk is a great man of history, who is influencing the course of human civilisation for generations to come. As one party-goer told me, “He caught a fucking rocket with mechanical chopsticks.” Yet despite his achievements, Musk is more likely to be scorned than celebrated by the Democratic establishment.
This tension between achievement and resentment explains much about our current moment. The young men I met that night in Manhattan weren’t just voting for Trump’s policies. They were voting for a different view of history and human nature. In their world, individual greatness matters. Male ambition serves a purpose. Risk-taking and defiance create progress.
Reynolds picks up the ball and scampers downfield with it, headed for the endzone with Elon Musk running a pick.
There are lots of consequences to this week’s election, ranging from economics, to diplomacy, to outright freedom. But I want to focus on one in particular, what it means for Elon Musk.
It’s quite possible that had Musk not become actively involved in Trump’s campaign after the first assassination attempt, Trump wouldn’t have won. It’s certain that, had he won, it would have been much closer, not the landslide it turned out to be. And had Musk not bought Twitter earlier, thus disrupting the Democrats’ message-control strategy, Trump’s chances of winning at all would have been much, much lower.
But let’s look at what it means for Musk, and what that means for America.
The first-order effect is that the campaign of bureaucratic harassment aimed at Musk under the Biden Administration, which likely would have escalated, will now recede. After facing a suspiciously simultaneous assault from the SEC, the EPA, the FAA, and various other regulatory agencies, Musk can now expect reasonably clear sailing. He won’t be free from regulation, of course, but he will be free from bureaucrats’ efforts to weaponize regulatory powers, and bureaucratic discretion, against him. Knowing his clout with the White House – and possibly his own budget-cutting powers if Trump actually makes him efficiency czar – they will be reluctant to cross him.
The second-order effect of that is that Musk will be able to move his space plans forward more rapidly. Instead of having to fight against bureaucratic headwinds, he’ll be able to move at the speed that his technological capabilities permit. Musk’s plans for 5 uncrewed test missions to Mars in 2026, followed by human missions in 2028, will proceed if the rockets are ready.
There will also be Moon flights, Moon bases, at least one new space station, and possibly orbital solar power stations and asteroid mining beginning within a decade. The second-order effect of Trump’s election is that humanity will likely take over the solar system, and do so decades earlier than it might have. (It’s also much more likely that the humanity doing so will be largely American, instead of Chinese.) The result of this takeover will be incalculable amounts of resources available to humanity, and eventually a diversity of human settlement rivaling or exceeding that of Earth.
The third order effect, however, will be the biggest. This space expansion will turn America into a dynamic frontier nation again. As I wrote a few years ago in America’s New Destiny in Space, the existence of the frontier had a huge impact on the character of America, making opportunity a positive-sum game rather than a zero- or negative-sum game.
And even beyond that, it imbues a sense of purpose. For her next book, my wife has been interviewing men of all ages, but what has struck her most is that younger men are looking for some grander purpose than working in a cubicle or going to school. (Many of them mentioned Elon Musk or Jordan Peterson as role models or influences.) And that search for purpose, and Musk’s role in providing one, already bore fruit in this election.
No wonder libtards are having such a tough time with Trump’s crowning achievement. Let me count the ways in which they’ve been stung:
Space exploration in and of itself, which shitlibs have always decried as a near-criminal squandering of time, resources, attention, and effort
American preeminence in same
The rebirth of American dynamism, assertiveness, and that old-time frontier spirit
A free hand for the dread Elon Musk (AAAAACK!) in the capitalist exploitation of Luna’s considerable mineral resources
Trump’s/Musk’s/Amerikkka's unconscionable, self-evidently RAYCISS!™ big-footing of our infinitely more deserving Chinese betters and their amazing, Gaia-respecting, and wholly noble space program—which is, like, TOTALLY better than stupid SpaceX, because reasons
A resurgence of self-confidence and unabashed pride among young American Pyrsynz Of Penis, who are without exception White, obnoxiously cis-het, TransIslamoFemIndigenoHispaLatiNegrophobic, intractably misogynistic, un-evolved, innately violent, and Literally Hitler
The resurrection of an appreciation for traditional masculine virtues which Leftards believed they’d killed off for good, after many decades of arduous, thankless labor
I mean, can you think of even one among the numerous salutary knock-on effects issuing from this week’s Trumprising© that they don’t hate with the heat of ten thousand suns?