@HereAndGone comments on "Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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Gillitrut Reading from the golden book under bright red stars 2d ago

Who else up watching election results? As of the time of this writing Decision Desk has called all of:

The Virginia governor race in favor of Abigail Spanberger (D).
The Virginia lieutenant governor race in favor of Ghazala Hashmi (D and the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office).
The Virginia Attorney General race in favor of Jay Jones (D lmao).
The New Jersey governor race in favor of Mickie Sherrill (D).
The NYC mayoral race for Zohran Mamdani (D, projecting a majority of the vote too lmao).
Both statewide Georgia Public Service Commissioner races for the Democratic candidates.

Polls are still open in California so no word yet there on the redistricting ballot measure. In other Jay Jones news the house delegate who leaked his texts is on track to lose her re-election, as part of dems winning a trifecta in the Virginia government.

The county by county level results I've seen show pretty much all of the above running ahead of Harris and Spanberger even running ahead of Biden in 2020. Is this indicative of what we might see going forward? Dems had previously overperformed in special elections this year but this is the closest to a general until next years actual federal elections. If these trends hold up not a good sign for Republicans!

Context

faceh Gillitrut 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

If these trends hold up

That "IF" is doing absurd amounts of work here.

Anyway, literally none of these outcomes was too surprising or even concerning to me. I have managed to studiously avoid caring too much about these elections since my state has mostly just been a beneficiary of other states self-immolating.

The outcome that was ALSO unsurprising but I think has some really noticeable import is the Young Female Vote*:

81% for Mamdani in NYC

80% for Sherrill in NJ

78% for Spanberger in VA

and on the male side:

64% for Mamdani in NYC

54% for Sherrill in NJ

56% for Spanberger in VA

*Exit polling, so the real margins might look different.

Dems can pull a basic majority with young men, but still have 40+% going republican even in a good year. But are pulling huge majorities with the young women.

So there's a sizeable gendered political gap even in blue-leaning states.

If you're a young conservative dude in any of those states, good freaking luck finding a romantic partner. For the <20% of women who might partially agree with your politics, your competition is your 'fellow' conservatives, who overall outnumber the available pool of women.

Oh and then there's the recent research that "Male students show more tolerance for political enemies than females show for their own allies"

So in terms of 'trends,' What do you think eventually happens if young women continue voting for Democrats/lefties in droves... and have extreme intolerance for anyone who doesn't, while young men tack further right?

Gillitrut Reading from the golden book under bright red stars faceh 1d ago

Complete Democrat political dominance? 80+% of women consistently voting for Democratic party candidates would be a nigh insurmountable electoral advantage.

Right.

Unless men decide they don't like that.

I've said it before, Women are a potent political force but an incompetent military/policing one.

If 60ish percent of men vote one way, and 80ish percent of women vote the other, and win, seems like a problem if the men who are in that 60% are ALSO the ones who would be tasked with carrying out/enforcing the laws they expressly disagree with.

Oh, and paying for it all too.

So here's the question I really want answered:

If less than half of the young men buy-in to the ideal of gender equality, what happens to a Democracy that tries to enforce gender equality?

WE'RE PROBABLY GONNA FIND OUT.

What are you envisioning here? Are police going to refuse to make arrests for crimes? What crimes? Prosecutors refuse to file charges? Judges going to toss cases? Are you under the impression all parts of the justice system today think every law they enforce is just? I am very skeptical that is the case.

If fewer than half of the young men buy-in to the ideal of gender equality, what happens to a Democracy that tries to enforce gender equality?

What do you think is going to happen?

Depends. If the issue is most prevalent on a state-by-state basis, I think we see Police quit and move to more favorable jurisdictions., which worsens the crime issues in the Blue areas, which either 'forces' a political correction, or it spirals into decay a la Detroit.

Likewise, why, do you suppose, did Military recruitment surge in 2025 after literally hitting an all-time-low in 2022 under Biden?

Guys choosing to simply not join military/police forces would be enough to undermine a government's legitimacy in a given territory.

I think we see a political figure arise who notices and exploits the disconnect between the political priorities of the government and the actual political grievances expressed by a majority of men.

I think we should be very hopeful that its J.D. Vance or a guy like him. Vance clearly NOTICES the issue, and he's good at credibly establishing himself as "one of the guys."

Whether Vance will exploit this to the hilt remains to be seen.

But someone will.

I also think that an economic contraction will re-assert some 'reality' to the discourse, should it occur. We had a long era of economic growth post the 2008 crash and the Zero-Interest-Rate era. Plus the Covid Hiring boom.

lotta people getting laid off from cushy jobs, in many cases maybe the only real career-type jobs they've ever held. Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

If they can't marry a corporation who will take care of all their needs, and the Federal Government, for once, isn't bending over backwards to accommodate their complaints, well, the default fallback is probably either prostitution or marriage. And there's already a lot of prostitutes.

I do personally expect things to get worse before they get better.

HereAndGone faceh 1d ago

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Golly gee, I wonder why those uppity females are not rushing out to marry men who think they should have the right to beat and rape them just like the Good Old Days when the choice was between economic destitution or making concessions regarding marriage.

This is why there was a whole thing about women having careers of their own, so there wouldn't be the risk of economic destitution. This kind of statement is one step away from "and in fact being enslaved was better for the slaves because owners were obliged to feed and shelter them".

You are not going to solve the problem of "why are men and women not getting on? why isn't marriage and children happening?" by telling one side "we want to force you into marriage with someone you would not choose and who can be abusive thereafter, because the alternative is indeed literal starvation and he knows you will be trapped".

Why the hell are you making it "being a whore is better for me than being a wife"? Don't we want women to choose to be wives and mothers, instead of "well if it's sex for meat, then at least let me not be tied to one provider"?

BreakerofHorsesandMen Sweet Sejenus HereAndGone 1d ago

Serious question. Do you think concessions in a marriage are a bad thing?

HereAndGone BreakerofHorsesandMen 19hr ago · Edited 18hr ago

Do you think concessions in a marriage are a bad thing?

No. I don't think there's such a thing as the romantic soulmate, the twin flame, or whatever other nonsense new term is floating around. There is no perfect Mr or Ms Right out there waiting for you. Settling is not a bad thing, and both of you need to work at the marriage to make it work. It's not going to be perfect bliss all the time, and probably yeah both of you will wonder about the other guy/gal you could have married at least sometime.

But that's not at all the same thing as "finally women, under the threat of starvation, will be forced to marry men they don't want or like". Men, too, can be forced into undesired marriages. I don't think forcing anyone is a good thing. And if you find out your spouse only married you as a meal ticket, what then? Do you demand they love you like the perfect romantic lover you dreamed of, in addition to being your coerced bondservant? People want to be valued for themselves. Being realistic about your chances and your options is not the same as being coldly calculating or dreaming of finally being able to force those haughty bitches who turned you down in high school to fawn on you for scraps.

To quote Tolkien from a letter to his son Michael in 1941:

A man's dealings with women can be purely physical (they cannot really, of course: but I mean he can refuse to take other things into account, to the great damage of his soul (and body) and theirs); or 'friendly'; or he can be a 'lover' (engaging and blending all his affections and powers of mind and body in a complex emotion powerfully coloured and energized by 'sex'). This is a fallen world. The dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell. We will leave aside the 'immoral' results. These you desire not to be dragged into. To renunciation you have no call. 'Friendship' then? In this fallen world the 'friendship' that should be possible between all human beings, is virtually impossible between man and woman. The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favourite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones. This 'friendship' has often been tried: one side or the other nearly always fails. Later in life when sex cools down, it may be possible. It may happen between saints. To ordinary folk it can only rarely occur: two minds that have really a primarily mental and spiritual affinity may by accident reside in a male and a female body, and yet may desire and achieve a 'friendship' quite independent of sex. But no one can count on it. The other partner will let him (or her) down, almost certainly, by 'falling in love'. But a young man does not really (as a rule) want 'friendship', even if he says he does. There are plenty of young men (as a rule). He wants love: innocent, and yet irresponsible perhaps. Allas! Allas! that ever love was sinne! as Chaucer says. Then if he is a Christian and is aware that there is such a thing as sin, he wants to know what to do about it.

There is in our Western culture the romantic chivalric tradition still strong, though as a product of Christendom (yet by no means the same as Christian ethics) the times are inimical to it. It idealizes 'love' — and as far as it goes can be very good, since it takes in far more than physical pleasure, and enjoins if not purity, at least fidelity, and so self-denial, 'service', courtesy, honour, and courage. Its weakness is, of course, that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for its own sake without reference to (and indeed contrary to) matrimony. Its centre was not God, but imaginary Deities, Love and the Lady. It still tends to make the Lady a kind of guiding star or divinity – of the old-fashioned 'his divinity' = the woman he loves – the object or reason of noble conduct. This is, of course, false and at best make-believe. The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril. But combined and harmonized with religion (as long ago it was, producing much of that beautiful devotion to Our Lady that has been God's way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions, and also of warming and colouring our hard, bitter, religion) it can be very noble. Then it produces what I suppose is still felt, among those who retain even vestigiary Christianity, to be the highest ideal of love between man and woman. Yet I still think it has dangers. It is not wholly true, and it is not perfectly 'theocentric'. It takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man's eye off women as they are, as companions in shipwreck not guiding stars. (One result is for observation of the actual to make the young man turn cynical.) To forget their desires, needs and temptations. It inculcates exaggerated notions of 'true love', as a fire from without, a permanent exaltation, unrelated to age, childbearing, and plain life, and unrelated to will and purpose. (One result of that is to make young folk look for a 'love' that will keep them always nice and warm in a cold world, without any effort of theirs; and the incurably romantic go on looking even in the squalor of the divorce courts).

...No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that — even those brought up 'in the Church'. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it. When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. The real soul-mate too often proves to be the next sexually attractive person that comes along. Someone whom they might indeed very profitably have married, if only —. Hence divorce, to provide the 'if only'. And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgement concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the 'real soul-mate' is the one you are actually married to. You really do very little choosing: life and circumstance do most of it (though if there is a God these must be His instruments, or His appearances). It is notorious that in fact happy marriages are more common where the 'choosing' by the young persons is even more limited, by parental or family authority, as long as there is a social ethic of plain unromantic responsibility and conjugal fidelity. But even in countries where the romantic tradition has so far affected social arrangements as to make people believe that the choosing of a mate is solely the concern of the young, only the rarest good fortune brings together the man and woman who are really as it were 'destined' for one another, and capable of a very great and splendid love. The idea still dazzles us, catches us by the throat: poems and stories in multitudes have been written on the theme, more, probably, than the total of such loves in real life (yet the greatest of these tales do not tell of the happy marriage of such great lovers, but of their tragic separation; as if even in this sphere the truly great and splendid in this fallen world is more nearly achieved by 'failure' and suffering). In such great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an unfallen world. In this fallen world we have as our only guides, prudence, wisdom (rare in youth, too late in age), a clean heart, and fidelity of will

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