Matthew Remsky (55:13)
It's worse than we thought. It goes back a century. But Reeves whole deal is that it's getting worse, right? So where Reeves says that the GPA gap has widened with A being the most common high school grade for girls and a B for boys, what's actually happening is that both grades grew proportionally and the girls crossed the threshold. One good thing that Reeves pushes for, even if the reasoning is flawed, is that he wants to see more men go into primary school, school teaching. And he thinks this would be better for boys for reasons that are kind of vague. But they're about representation, they're about modeling. I think there's something there. But what I really agree with is that more men in caregiving labor makes for just a more feminist culture. I think so. I mean, I think Bethea maybe was told by the editors that we need some sociology in there. But it is kind of frustrating to watch Reeves's kind of like, Arrogance Airport book become this key source. But it's not Bethea's focus, you know, likewise, his attention isn't on like, deindustrialization or union decline or the gig economy or the opioid epidemic or any of these, like, material things that, like, are slamming men in, you know, material ways. So I get this unfocused picture. There are standard ugly themes of misogyny, pseudo three therapy, pseudo religious discipline, manufactured authenticity, cheap ritualism. But I just keep asking, like, what does it all connect to? Right? Like, Butthea flags a relationship between these themes and the overarching structure of MAGA masculinity. And he does this at the top through this rogues gallery of officials. So he talks about Hegseth and his tattoo tattoos. He talks about RFK jr's workouts. The shadow of the UFC is over everything. They're going to have, you know, fourth of July on the White House lawn fight. He talks about Musk's fondness for leather and Zuckerberg's masculinity. Glow up. He opens by noting that Trump, you know, wrote the forward for Adams's book, as Derek said. But like, I'm left with this. These questions, which, which are, like, how do these cultural movements intersect with the clear state patriarchy that Bethea is pointing to? Like, are these groups, for instance, feeding into ice because, you know, where they're trying to hire like 50,000 new officers over the next couple of years? Because, like, I think that would be a solid measure of the difference between a kind of nasty but diffuse and reiterative cultural movement and something that has real political legs. And I think this is the issue that's the subtext of the article, given the timing. He makes these references to the White House team. But I don't know the extent that these movements are growing, coalescing with, transcending their workshop retreat economies to support MAGA and inspire its masculinity. Like, how do they intersect with the prerogative to fascist militarism? So sub. You know, at the same time, I'm coming across all of this other research in journalism that gets at those very questions by looking at a different types of a type of men's group that is emerging. I don't know if you guys have heard of active clubs, but these are mostly male fitness groups that train members in MMA tech techniques for literal fascist street fighting and a future race war. And they do this while throwing in some of the self management and hygiene tips that you would find on the Rise Weekend in Canada. Here there's an excellent independent journalist named Rachel Gilmour who just published an investigation into the Frontenac active club in Montreal where there's like a dozen guys who have been meeting after hours in the gym. And they got led in by one of the members of the gym who worked there. He's a former Olympian in boxing coach, and they do these training exercises, you know, through, you know, at midnight sessions for fascist street fights. And the gym owners, gym owners didn't know and when they became aware because of the reporting, they fired the coach and they shut it down. But some of these active club guys here in Canada have been charged with like, terrorism offenses. So, you know, this is a thing. There's 200 active clubs globally. There's 30, 30 in Canada, there's about 80 in the States. Over a couple dozen states. There's an extremism researcher named Alexander Ritzman who talks about how some active clubs have been bragging about tactical casualty care training, which is, you know, code for shooting events. So I think there's probably Some overlap with gun culture, you know, because, you know, if you. During casualty care training, you're talking about evacuating wounded people from violent confrontations. So there's probably a paramilitary crossover. And then there's the obvious piece that we know that ICE is actively recruiting white nationalists. DHS ads include references to the 1978 book which Way Western man, which is standard reading for neo Nazis. And, you know, it's also a recruitment song that is very beloved by blood and soil racists. So, yeah, there are these connections and resonances between Bethesda Bethea's study and more organized influences on maga. And I kind of want to see where those gel together a little bit more.
