‘New Masculinity’ & The Zelensky Zeitgeist


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

American men have, for about a generation now, been derided and castigated as part of the monovalent “patriarchy.” It all kind of creeped up on us. Now, I’m coming at this issue as a rabid anti-MAGA New Right person. I fucking hate MAGA with a white hot rage, to the point that I’m writing five novels that lay out — in subtext — how and why I fucking hate the movement so much.

Zelensky

Anyway.

The point is –I’m very empathetic to women who want to “slay the patriarchy.” And, yet, the point could be made that “slay the patriarchy” is kind of like “defund the police.” It is a slogan that is easily used to get a crucial element of the body politic — “Traditionalists” to join the fucking MAGA New Right and destroy that precious commodity known as democracy.

And, remember, it is actually pretty rare for there to be a “vibe shift” in the way men perceive themselves. The thing that would tip off a vibe shift — how men appear — isn’t really applicable. Dudes are dudes. Either you’re wearing a suit to work and have power and influence or you don’t.

So, I’ve sat up and taken notice at how it’s beginning to look as though the standard, traditional masculinity of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky is beginning to show results. What’s key about all of this is he doesn’t follow the current American media narrative about what it means to be masculine. If this was a Hollywood movie, Zelensky would be a woman struggling to run a nation while “slaying the patriarchy.”

But, surprise, he’s a dude doing traditional dude things in a traditional dude way. There’s no plot twist or flipping the script. It’s the traditional narrative of a man rising to the occasion on the world state in an effort to protect the collective home and hearth of his besieged nation.

So, we now have something of a cultural and historical question before us. Is this just a blip as part of a broader, macro trend towards traditional male values continuing to be disparaged or is there a change that we’re on the cusp of a “New Masculinity” that harkens back to the leadership of Lincoln, FDR and Churchill.

I honestly don’t know. For that to happen, I think we would have to actually have, like, uh, WW3. Only a major global war would force us to appricate the value of traditional male roles and concepts. I’ve already suggested something along these lines when I posited that our current “woke” culture will end around 2024 – 2025 when we decide as a nation if we’re going to be an autocracy or have a civil war.

So, I don’t know. It’s all very much up in the air. It could go either way.

The Idiotic MAGA New Right: Zelensky As ‘The Moment’ For Modern Men & A Vibe Shift


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hope I don’t sound too sexist, but, plot twist, men and women are different. And one of those many differences comes in, shall we say, how the two genders have a mythical “vibe shift.”

Women are far more dynamic than men. Vibe shifts happen for women almost every fashion season. Haircuts come and go at light speed. Fashion trends pop up out of nowhere then vanish as quickly as they came.

Men, meanwhile, are a lot slower with their vibe shifts. Because most professional, and, as such influential, men just wear business suits, vibe shifts take on a whole different nature.

Which brings us to Volodymyr Zelensky. But for how fucked up and divided America is at the moment, I might suggest that it would be the RIGHT, not the LEFT that would make Zelensky an icon. Zelensky behavior of late taps into the Western man’s self-perception of what leadership and masculinity is supposed to be. The people you would think would embrace this — conservative Traditionalists — are so busy having a MAGA New Right circle jerk that they are completely oblivious to what a potent icon Zelensky could be for the things that are near and their political agenda.

So, in a sense, ETTD strikes again — but for Trump being a massive suck up Putin, the MAGA New Right would have a natural inclination to try to make Zelensky “theirs” because it’s unlikely he has time to worry about what his fucking pronouns are at any particular moment.

And, yet, they have their head up their asses so much that they simply can not, will not, break from Trump and do what political logic would otherwise dictate. Crazy man. Just crazy.