@bedoyaftc.bsky.social: “Because Mr. Bezos, Mr. Musk, Mr. Zuckerberg, I am actively suing or enforcing court orders against all three of them, and so I think we need to ask ourselves, who does this help? Does this help people trying to make rent, or does it help the kind of billionaires?"

You have voters screaming - we want leaders who actually are for working people & will tell billionaires to fuck off & pass policies to raise wages, fortify unions, improve care, etc.
But consultants saying - just shit talk immigrants & trans folks.
Guess which answer centre-left parties favour?

As I've argued eleventy-billion times: You cannot beat your opposition by repeating your opposition. This both dissuades your base from voting, let alone acting as your "choir," it raises saliency of oppo's desired debate.

I'm a therapist who sends out a newsletter each week about this kind of stuff and debunking myths about masculinity, called Make Men Emotional Again. Would love if you subscribed!

makemenemotionalagain.substack.com/p/that-time-...

But now Musk and Trump run the government and the most powerful military in the world.

We have to see through their bullshit, stick together, and get them out.

I’d lost track of the Chicago tunnel project over the years & had to look up what happened. Nothing. No work was actually done. The project fell through after then-mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel lost reelection. Like so many things Musk and Trump say they’re going to do, it was all talk, no action.

Meanwhile, behind that smokescreen meant to distract and divide us, they spend tons of money electing pro-corporate politicians to slash public programs and regulations, privatize public goods and services, and attack unions, the most powerful tool that workers have in a capitalist society.

They make a gesture resembling a Nazi salute, and instead of denying the connection, they mock the controversy.

They amplify ideas like, “A republic of high-status males is best for decision making.”

That’s why they put a lot of effort into the “culture wars.”

They claim that what they’re doing is “a lot of work,” and only they have the discipline and work ethic to do it.

They make fun of the sharing of preferred pronouns.

They also need white folks to blame immigrants and people of color for our problems rather than them or the system they’ve rigged in their interest.

They need all workers to think that the only way of improving our lives is to punch down at people below us for being “entitled” or “lazy.”

The dudes at the top rely on a few things to stay up there.

They need other men to side with them rather than women and other marginalized genders. They need everyone to believe in those “traditional” ideas about gender so the exploitation can continue.

Men are capable of the full range of human abilities and experiences.

It’s just that being emotionally vulnerable, asking for help, & caring for others were shamed out of men—because the rich and powerful in capitalism rely on the exploitation of labor, which relies on rigid, binary gender roles.

I say “so-called” because what we think of as masculinity isn’t actually traditional.

Thinking of things like dominance, emotional restraint, & a focus on providing & protecting as things “real men” do is a relatively recent shift in society’s ideas about gender, only a few hundred years old.

Musk tweeted in response to my piece: “Btw, if anyone else wants to build this tunnel, please do so. It’s a lot of work.”

It’s just a few words online, but I think his response reveals a lot about the connection between capitalism and so-called “traditional masculinity.”