The 'Bro-Culture' Has Prevailed
It elected Trump. It is dangerously misinformed. It is cowardly. God help us!
I watched a young “Bro” from Atlanta speaking to Don Lemon about why he voted for Trump. His reasons were solid enough, but there was one small problem: He was wrong about everything he said. These are the “Bros,” or, as some of them like to say when dragging out the “O” making it sound like an “A,” — “What’s up, Braaa?” They love Mixed Martial Arts, have spent an inordinate amount of their lives gaming, and now they feel as if liberals and the culture of political correctness are shrinking their balls.
As I wrote last week, they are fighting back, and I contended that we need to find a way to incorporate them into the conversation. While I stand by this sentiment, I also appreciate it won’t be very easy because they are willfully dumb-as-hell. Take the guy Don Lemon was speaking to in Atlanta. He was well-dressed and seemed to be out on his lunch break from a local insurance or stock market job. The hair was perfectly coiffed with too much gel, and he even had his glasses hanging on a strap around his neck, suggesting a sort of “cool-guy-meets-modern-day-Gatsby-look.” If I had seen him on the street, I would have wrongly assumed he was well-spoken and a Harris supporter.
The young man told Lemon he voted for Trump because Harris and the Democrats were against democracy. The exact message, with all of its urgency and predictions for our imminent collapse, communicated by Democrats was simply not heard by Trump-leaning voters. When Trump saw that Democrats were making inroads with the anti-democracy narrative, he hijacked it. The bro in question, with his cool red sweater and untucked shirt hanging protruding from the bottom over his waist, then said that proceeded to talk about the “propaganda” being peddled by Democrats.
“What propaganda?” Lemon asked.
“Umm, well, you know, all the propaganda Democrats put out all the time. It was just so much so it made me think they must be lying.”
“Lying about what?”
“Well, I mean, the propaganda.”
At this point, Don Lemon gave up because he realized that if Democrats were “lying” about the “propaganda,” then that would surely have been enough of a reason for this young, college-educated bro to vote for Trump.
Another bro with a cool goatee was interviewed, and his sole reason for supporting Trump was because Kamala wanted to use taxpayer money to give prison inmates gender reassignment surgery. Trump’s team saturated the airwaves in swing states with a clip of Kamala Harris in 2020 talking about how he would “follow the law” when it came to letting inmates get taxpayer-funded assistance. Don Lemon then showed a clip of Trump signing that “assistance” for transgender inmates. He also showed the young man the written law with Trump’s big, goofy signature.
“The vice president said in 2020 that she would follow the law in place at the time. She did not say she supported it or thought it was a good idea,” Lemon explained.
The confused bro looked at the paper and simply said, “I don’t believe this. Trump wouldn’t do that.”
“But here’s the signing. Here is the law. Here is his signature.”
“It’s fake.” The bro, aware that he had been caught with his pants around his ankles, referenced poor, overworked Jesus and excused himself.
Suggesting they might be in information silos, Lemon asked both of the bros from where they get their information. They insisted they maintained a good balance of information. Neither watched mainstream news, meaning CNN or Fox, but instead relied on Joe Rogan, David Crowder, and other right-wing podcasters.
Folks, the bro culture is toxic. It is expected that women will be obedient to their men, and if they aren’t, then punishment is warranted. David Crowder was recently viewed threatening to “f*** up” his wife thanks to a doorbell video camera. The pair were having a discussion on the patio, and the camera captured the whole thing.
The bros are not smart. They don’t know history and have little or no moral compass regarding society’s injustices. Their main grievance is that they have been mistreated and even emasculated by women. The time has come to recalibrate the scales and regain the power and privileges men deserve but have lost. The only truth that is worthy of believing is the one that men and this means white men, should be in charge of society. They viewed a Harris presidency as just another nail in their collective coffin for men. Donald Trump, however, is focused on liberating them, and if that means quashing some freedoms or sending immigrants back, the means justify the end.
Bro culture is real. It is ubiquitous. You see it everywhere and might even think it’s harmless. It’s not harmless, though, and there are many similarities with the culture of the brown shirts in Weimar Germany. The most frightening thing is not how far they have gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracies but how comfortable they are residing in the rabbit hole. For them, anything above the surface is just a lie and to be feared.
When something is feared, it must be destroyed or tamed.