Luke Ford

The central tension of the Jacob Savage essay can be understood as a generation raised to be “Buffered Selves” colliding with institutions that have suddenly become “Porous.”

1. The “Buffered” Expectation (The Millennial White Male)

Charles Taylor defines the Buffered Self as the modern individual who is “insulated” from outside forces. This self is autonomous, possessing a clear boundary between “me” and the “world.” Meaning comes from within (inner thoughts, talents, hard work), and the self is protected from “enchanted” or cosmic forces.

Mapping to the Essay: The “Lost Generation” described by Savage (white male millennials) entered their careers operating as Buffered Selves. They believed in the classic liberal, meritocratic myth: that they were autonomous individuals whose professional fate would be determined by their internal output—their scripts, their articles, their grades.

The Disconnect: They expected a world where their “identity” (race/gender) was irrelevant—a mere biological fact that didn’t breach the buffer of their professional merit. As Savage writes, they had the “naive” idea that “professionally everything would work itself out” based on their work alone. They thought they were “masters of the meanings of things” for themselves.

2. The “Porous” Turn (The New Institutional Reality)

The Porous Self (historically pre-modern) has no hard boundary between self and world. It is open and vulnerable to outside forces (spirits, demons, blessings, curses) that can cross into the person and shape their life. The individual is not an isolated agent but a node in a web of cosmic forces.

Mapping to the Essay: The essay argues that post-2014, institutions (Hollywood, Academia, Media) underwent a “re-enchantment.” They shifted to a worldview where invisible, structural forces (Systemic Racism, Patriarchy, Privilege) are treated as real, causal powers that permeate everyone.

The Loss of the Buffer: In this new “Porous” reality, the “buffer” of individual merit is dissolved. A person is no longer just “Jacob the writer”; they are a vessel for the historical force of “Whiteness” or “Maleness.” The “spirits” of the age (DEI mandates, historical guilt) can now reach inside the individual’s life and dictate their fate, regardless of their personal talent or “inner” worth.

Vulnerability: Just as the pre-modern Porous Self feared curses or malevolent spirits, the subjects in the essay feel “the world is deliberating rooting against you.” They feel vulnerable to forces they cannot control or appease. The “curse” of their demographic category is an external force that has breached their professional defenses.

3. “Liturgies” and “Confession”

Taylor notes that the Porous Self lives in a world of ritual and high stakes, where one must perform correctly to be safe.

Mapping to the Essay: The essay describes the new professional landscape as filled with religious-like rituals that the “Lost Generation” cannot perform authentically. Savage mentions “performative allyship,” “confessing” privilege, and “racial climate assessments.”

The Failure to Adapt: The interviewees (like “Andrew”) fail because they are stuck in the Buffered mode—they just want to be reporters or writers (autonomous agents). They cannot effectively adopt the “Porous” posture of “allyship” where one’s identity bleeds into one’s work. As Savage notes, they are unable to “adopt the performative allyship” required to ward off the “demons” of cancellation or professional exclusion.

The tragedy described in the essay is that these men were socialized as Buffered Selves (believing in individual autonomy and merit) but are forced to inhabit a structurally Porous world (where demographic fate is destiny).

Gen X (The “Superstars”): They remained Buffered. They had enough power to keep their walls up and remain “autonomous” individuals, immune to the new environmental forces.

The Millennial White Men: They became involuntarily Porous. They lacked the power to maintain their buffer, so the “cosmic forces” of identity politics crushed their individual agency.

Jeremy Carl writes:

Savage seems to respect and to some extent even revere the very institutions that have spit on him and his White male millennial comrades. And his tendency to focus on the experience of himself and his friends means that he puts the spotlight solely on millennials— but as many others have said— (and his own data show!) Zoomers arguably have it just as bad or worse.

His is the lament of the intellectual dark web (IDW) —the so-called “homeless liberals” —people who at some level still believe in the elite system and refuse to give up that belief even in the wake of overwhelming evidence that it has betrayed them. But it is far from clear that such a belief is either clear-headed or admirable. Savage and his subjects can be quite self-critical at times, but at others they seem to shrink back from acting on the logical conclusions of their observations. Savage, like his IDW contemporaries, seems content to fish in the Rubicon rather than to cross it and travel to terrain that would mark him to the establishment not just as a critic but as an enemy.

Furthermore, his framing of this as something new shows a major blind spot with respect to the travails of earlier generations of White working class men, who had their blue-collar jobs shipped overseas and who were chased from their neighborhoods decades before—while the forerunners of the “creative class” whites whose current plight he ably describes, did nothing to stop their dispossession. Indeed, they were often the authors of it. For these working class Whites, the tragedy started decades ago, not in 2014.

Indeed, Savage’s story, and this to me is its principal weakness, is not really so much about the plight of White men but White establishment liberal men, something he implicitly acknowledges at a couple of different points in the piece. But for *conservative* White men, the gig was up far earlier than a decade ago. There were many reasons, for example, that I left my doctoral program at Stanford University in the late 2000s, many years before the alleged crisis that Savage describes. But arguably chief among them was that it became clear to me that even in my relatively less political field of study, as someone who was quite capable, but not a certified genius, there was simply no place in academia for me that would not require me to fundamentally compromise my principles. Indeed, had my own intellect and courage been in greater supply, that was really something I could have determined before even applying to Stanford in the mid-2000s.

Carl’s essay is a classic example of intra-Right friction. It represents a collision between the “Old Right” (or the established populist Right) and the “Disaffected Liberal” (or Intellectual Dark Web) cohort. Carl argues that while Savage identifies the correct symptoms (systemic exclusion of white males), he fails to identify the correct cause (institutional malice) or the correct cure (joining the political Right).

In 2024, Jeremy Carl published the book, The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart.

Here is a critique of the essay’s rhetorical strategies, strengths, and blind spots.

Carl’s strongest intellectual contribution is his differentiation between the “Working Class” timeline and the “Creative Class” timeline.

The Critique: Savage frames the crisis of white male exclusion as a phenomenon that began roughly around 2014 (the “Great Awokening”). Carl correctly identifies this as a solipsistic view held by coastal elites. He points out that the white working class faced this displacement (via offshoring and affirmative action) decades earlier.

The Effectiveness: This effectively paints Savage’s complaints as the “whining of the privileged.” Carl argues that the “creative class” only started caring about dispossession when the leopard finally came to eat their faces. This undermines the moral authority of Savage’s lament, repositioning it as a loss of privilege rather than a discovery of injustice.

Carl utilizes the data Savage unearthed to validate the premise while attacking the conclusion. He highlights the specific numbers regarding academic hiring to prove that the exclusion is systemic, not incidental.

Yale: Since 2018, only 6 out of 76 (7.9%) junior Humanities hires were white men.

Brown: Since 2022, only 3 out of 45 (approx. 6.7%) junior hires in humanities/social sciences were white men.

By isolating these numbers, Carl moves the discussion from “grievance” to empirical reality. However, he uses these numbers to argue that “reform” is impossible—a conclusion Savage hesitates to make.

The core emotional conflict in the essay is Carl’s frustration with the “Homeless Liberal” (or IDW) archetype.

The “Crawl Back” Mentality: Carl critiques Savage’s subjects for wanting to be re-admitted to the elite institutions that despise them. He identifies a “battered spouse” dynamic where the rejected men still seek validation from their abusers.

The Cultural Chasm: Carl identifies a crucial sociological barrier: Savage’s cohort finds the “Red State” aesthetic (guns, religion, Trump) culturally repulsive (“loathsome”).

Critique of Carl’s Approach: While Carl’s analysis is sharp, his rhetorical strategy is arguably self-defeating. He employs a strategy of “mockery and mandate” (“BE A FREAKING MAN”) rather than persuasion. By demanding that disaffected liberals immediately adopt the entire cultural package of the MAGA Right, he may be reinforcing the very hesitation he criticizes. He validates their fear that the Right is hostile and demanding, rather than building a bridge for them to cross.

Carl’s essay suffers from a “No True Scotsman” fallacy regarding opposition to the Left. He dismisses the “protective coloration” and “allyship mindset” of white men remaining in institutions as cowardice. While likely true in many cases, Carl leaves no room for the strategic value of subversion from within. His worldview is binary: one must either be a loud, “fist-shaking” outsider (like himself) or a cowardly insider. This ignores the complexity of survival in a hegemonic culture and dismisses the potential utility of having “sleepers” inside elite institutions.

The essay functions as a Jeremiad—a mournful complaint and a call to repentance.

Strengths: The prose is vigorous and unapologetic. Phrases like “fish in the Rubicon rather than to cross it” are evocative and summarize the political indecision of the IDW perfectly.

Weaknesses: The tone veers into ad hominem (“cowardly,” “sucked up to it”). It assumes that the only reason one might not join the populist Right is a lack of courage, ignoring genuine ideological differences (e.g., a liberal belief in secularism or free trade) that might make the populist Right unappealing to a Princeton grad, regardless of how much they hate wokeness.

Jeremy Carl’s essay is a polemic against half-measures.

He successfully exposes the narcissism of the “Lost Generation”—millennials who are shocked that the identity politics they once tolerated have finally targeted them. However, by framing the solution as a demand for total cultural submission to the Right (“clinging to guns and religion”), Carl highlights why the coalition between the “Old Right” and the “New Disaffected” remains fragile. He offers them a political home, but insults them at the doorstep.

A significant portion of Carl’s emotional heat comes from the classic resentment of the “Early Adopter” watching the mainstream finally catch up but getting the credit (and the details) wrong.

You can read the essay not just as a political critique, but as a turf war. Carl is staking his claim as the “O.G.” of this specific grievance, and his irritation with Savage is deeply personal: I was shouting this when it was dangerous; you are whispering it now that it is obvious.

Here is how the “I was here first” dynamic shapes the entire piece:

1. The “Stolen Valor” of Suffering

Carl explicitly contrasts his own timeline with Savage’s to highlight a difference in courage.

The Narrative: Carl left his Stanford doctoral program in the late 2000s—voluntarily—because he foresaw the ideological rot. He portrays this as a proactive, principled sacrifice.

The Complaint: Savage and his cohort are only complaining now because they tried to play the game and lost. They didn’t leave on principle; they were “blocked.”

The Subtext: Carl is saying, “I sacrificed my career for the truth. You sacrificed your dignity for a career you didn’t even get.” He views Savage’s complaints as the whining of a failed opportunist, whereas he views his own stance as that of a martyred prophet.

2. The “Christopher Columbus” Effect

Carl is annoyed that Savage is being feted for “discovering” a continent that Carl has been living on for a decade.

The Book Plug: Carl awkwardly but pointedly mentions his book, The Unprotected Class, early in the essay. This is his way of saying, “I literally wrote the book on this.”

The Resentment: It is infuriating for a specialist to watch a generalist write a viral article that covers the same ground with less depth but more fanfare. Savage’s article is “viral” because it is written by a liberal for liberals—it has the “shock of the new” for that audience. For Carl, it is stale news repackaged for people who ignored him for years.

3. The “Diet Coke” Version of the Truth

Carl’s “I was here first” attitude is also an ideological critique. He believes that because he was there first, he understands the full picture, whereas Savage offers a watered-down, palatable version.

The Critique: Carl views Savage as the “safe” version of the anti-white racism argument. Savage frames it as “unfairness” (a liberal value). Carl frames it as “enemy action” (a Schmittian/political value).

The Fear: Carl fears that if Savage becomes the “voice” of this issue, the movement will be co-opted and declawed. He is gatekeeping the grievance because he believes the “new guys” are going to ruin the purity of the backlash by trying to be polite about it.

4. Vindication vs. Erasure

This is the bitter irony for Carl. He is vindicated by Savage’s data (everything he predicted came true), but he is erased by the media coverage.

When Abigail Shrier calls Savage’s piece “the article of the year,” it implicitly erases the years of work done by Carl, Steve Sailer, and others in the “dissident right” sphere.

Carl’s essay is a reminder: You are praising him for saying what you called me a racist for saying five years ago. The “I was here first” is a demand for an apology as much as it is a claim of priority.

Jeremy Carl is experiencing the Cassandra Curse: he told everyone this would happen, was ignored (or reviled), and now that it is happening, the people who ignored him are acting like they discovered the problem. His essay is a way of saying, “Welcome to the party, pal. You’re late, you’re dressed wrong, and you still don’t understand what’s actually going on.”

American culture shifted to the right prior to Trump’s 2024 election. According to Ezra Klein, this has reversed.

Ezra Klein attributes the death of the “Trump Vibe Shift” to the classic friction of governance: tariffs, inflation, and the “price of coffee.” He argues that Trumpism failed because it could not deliver economic ease, and that its “gleeful cruelty” eventually alienated the public.

This analysis fundamentally mistakes the symptom for the disease. The “scowl” that Klein identifies as the defining expression of Trump’s second term is not born of economic anxiety or performative cruelty. It is the expression of a core demographic—specifically young white men—who realized that “vibes” and “masculine energy” do not reverse a decade of institutionalized exclusion. Trump’s coalition did not fracture because of the price of goods; it fractured because the administration failed to dismantle the bureaucratic architecture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that has systematically erased them from the American economy.

Klein dismisses the cultural grievances of the right as a desire for “cruelty.” But the “Young White Men Discrimination” essays and the data from Compact Magazine’s “The Lost Generation” reveal that this is not a matter of “vibes,” but of hard, material displacement.

While the media focused on the “vibe shift”—Mark Zuckerberg wearing a chain or Elon Musk tweeting—the actual labor market statistics tell a story of rapid, structural purging that “anti-woke” tweets did nothing to stop.

Media and Culture: In 2011, white men made up approximately 60% of television writers. By the 2024–25 season, that number had collapsed to just 12% of lower-level writers.

Academia: The pipeline for intellectual influence was similarly capped. At Harvard, white men held 39% of tenure-track positions in the humanities in 2014; by 2023, that figure had dropped to 18%.

Tech Sector: The corporate “gutting” of DEI that Klein claims occurred was largely illusory. At Google, the share of white men in the workforce fell from nearly 50% in 2014 to less than 33% by 2024. At Amazon, white male representation in mid-level management dropped from 55.8% to 33.8% in the same period.

Vibes Cannot Fix Structure

The failure of 2025 was not that Trump raised taxes (tariffs), but that he offered a “vibe shift” as a substitute for structural reform. The “Trump Vibe Shift” promised a restoration of status and opportunity for the “Lost Generation” referenced in Compact. It promised that competence would return and that the “discrimination” identified in the New York Times essay would end.

Instead, the administration prioritized an economic populism that raised costs while leaving the DEI bureaucracy—the true engine of his base’s immiseration—intact deep within the corporate and federal machinery. Klein notes that “companies gutted diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucracies they never actually wanted.” The data suggests otherwise. The titles may have changed, but the hiring flows remained locked against Trump’s core coalition.

The Political Failure

The “scowl” Klein describes is the realization that the regime of 2014—the year DEI became institutionalized—was never actually dismantled. The “Lost Generation” of white millennials and Gen Z men found themselves in a pincer: facing higher costs of living (which Klein correctly notes) while simultaneously remaining locked out of the high-status careers in tech, media, and law that allow one to afford those costs.

Trumpism failed in 2025 because it misidentified the enemy. It fought a 1980s trade war while its voters were losing a 2020s civil rights war. The “vibe shift” died because vibes are thin; they evaporate when you check your bank account or your rejection letters. The voters didn’t want “cruelty” for cruelty’s sake; they wanted the “gleeful cruelty” of a bulldozer clearing the structures that had declared them obsolete. When the bulldozer never arrived, the vibe shifted back to despair.

Klein argues that the “Trump Vibe Shift”—defined by figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Joe Rogan aligning with Trumpism—has collapsed.

The Evidence: Klein points to polling dropping into the 30s/40s, Democrats overperforming in 2025 elections (NJ, VA), and cultural figures distancing themselves. Joe Rogan now calls Trump’s policies “insane,” and tech leaders are backing away.

The Vibe: The “masculine energy” that supposedly swept the culture has been replaced by embarrassment over “gleeful cruelty” and economic incompetence (tariffs).

If we apply the framework from the New York Times and Compact essays, the culture didn’t shift back to the left because the left became popular again; it shifted because the Right failed to deliver material relief to its core demographic.

The Disappointment: The “Trump Vibe Shift” was fueled by the “disenfranchised” young white men described in the essays—men locked out of media, tech, and academia by institutional DEI. They supported the shift hoping for a demolition of these barriers.

The Reality: Instead of dismantling the “discrimination” described in the NYT op-ed, the administration focused on tariffs (which raised prices) and “vibes” (podcasts and tweets). The DEI bureaucracies remained largely intact deep within the corporate structures.

The Result: The “Lost Generation” realized that a “vibe shift” doesn’t get you a job or a promotion. When the administration failed to attack the root cause of their displacement (DEI), the cultural momentum deflated.

Klein suggests the culture is moving toward a “searching pluralism” (exemplified by Gavin Newsom) or “explicitly moral” politics (James Talarico).

Counter-Analysis: From the perspective of your previous prompt, this isn’t a new moral awakening; it’s simply the re-assertion of the dominant culture because the challenger (Trumpism) proved too weak to overthrow it. The “rightward shift” was a rebellion against the managerial class; when that rebellion failed to fire the managers (DEI officers), the managers regained control of the culture.

The “rightward shift” is dead because it remained an aesthetic revolt rather than a bureaucratic revolution. It failed to save the “Lost Generation,” so the culture has snapped back to the status quo.

Ezra Klein interprets Trump’s scowl as a manifestation of “gleeful cruelty” and “nihilism”—a vibe that eventually exhausted the electorate. However, viewed through the lens of the Compact and New York Times essays on the “Lost Generation,” the scowl represents something far more damaging to his coalition: impotence.

The young white men described in those essays—who feel displaced by institutional DEI and erased from the future—were not looking for a leader to perform anger on their behalf. They were looking for a leader to solve the structural exclusion that justifies the anger.

The Scowl is “Thin” Identity: The scowl is reactive. It acknowledges the grievance—”I am angry because the system despises us”—but it stops there. It is a “thin” identity marker, easily adopted by online influencers or podcasters who want to signal alignment without doing the work. It is loud, chaotic, and ultimately dependent on the very system it critiques for attention. To the “Lost Generation,” the scowl became a reminder that their leader was still an outsider screaming at the building, rather than the architect remodeling it.

Stoicism is “Thick” Identity: In contrast, the “stoicism” desired by this demographic is rooted in “thick” identity. It implies self-mastery, discipline, and the quiet confidence of someone who holds actual power. The “Lost Generation” didn’t want a mascot for their resentment; they wanted a technician for their restoration. They sought a return to a meritocratic order where they could quietly build families and careers—a goal that requires the stoic, methodical dismantling of the DEI bureaucracy, not social media feuds.

The disconnect between the vibe (the scowl) and the need (stoicism) explains the collapse of support better than the price of coffee.

Chaos vs. Order: The “scowl” represents the chaos of the culture war—constant noise, outrage, and friction. The “Lost Generation,” having experienced the chaos of social and economic displacement, craved order. They wanted a calm, ruthless efficiency that would stabilize their economic prospects. Trump’s scowl promised more turbulence, while they wanted the stability to plant roots.

Complaint vs. Command: A scowl is a complaint; it is the face one makes when they are being mistreated but cannot stop it. Stoicism is the face of command; it is the expression of someone who is busy fixing the problem. By scowling, Trump signaled that he was still a victim of the “dominant institutions” Klein mentions, rather than their master.

Aesthetic vs. Material: The “Trump Vibe Shift” was purely aesthetic—chain-wearing CEOs and “masculine” podcasts. But as the Compact essay highlights, the grievances of this generation are material: they are locked out of the housing market, the academic pipeline, and the corporate ladder. A “vibe” of masculinity (the scowl) does not substitute for the material reality of a career (the stoic duty).

The “Trump Vibe Shift” died because it tried to sell a feeling (resentment/scowl) to a demographic that urgently needed a function (restoration/stoicism).

The “Lost Generation” realized that the “scowl” was just another form of entertainment for the masses, while the structural machinery of DEI continued to grind away at their future, unbothered by the noise. They didn’t want to be “gleefully cruel” to their enemies; they wanted to be indifferent to them because they had regained the power to govern themselves.

In Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political, he distinguishes between the “private enemy” (inimicus) and the “public enemy” (hostis).

In Schmittian terms, the “scowl” represents a failure to distinguish between personal animosity and political enmity. It signals that Trumpism was trapped in the sphere of “liberal discussion”—fighting over aesthetics and feelings—rather than exercising true sovereignty.

1. The Scowl is for the Inimicus (Private Rival)

Schmitt argues that the political enemy is not someone you hate personally. You do not need to scowl at the hostis; you simply need to recognize them as an existential threat to your group’s way of life and negate that threat.

The Scowl (Emotional): The scowl is an expression of affect. It belongs to the realm of the inimicus—the person you dislike, find annoying, or want to “own” in a debate. It turns politics into a personal feud or a moral judgment (“these people are gross/cruel”).

The Failure: By making the “scowl” the face of the regime, Trumpism signaled that its conflict with the Left/DEI complex was personal and emotional. It was about “triggering” the libs, which is a form of social intimacy. You only try to trigger people whose reaction you care about.

2. Stoicism is for the Hostis (Public Enemy)

The “stoicism” the “Lost Generation” desired corresponds to Schmitt’s concept of the serious political stance. To recognize a hostis is a cold, objective determination: This group (the DEI bureaucracy) intends to negate my group’s existence; therefore, I must use power to neutralize them.

Stoicism (Sovereign): A sovereign does not scowl at the enemy; he defeats them. Stoicism implies the detachment necessary to operate the levers of the state without being distracted by the noise of “vibes.”

The Missed Opportunity: If Trump had been “stoic,” he would have ignored the cultural “vibe” war (Zuckerberg’s chain, Rogan’s podcast) and focused entirely on the bureaucratic war (firing the HR departments, dismantling the accreditation agencies). That is how you treat a hostis—you dismantle their capacity to harm you. You don’t make faces at them.

3. The Trap of “Liberal” Politics

Schmitt criticized liberalism for neutralizing the political by transforming it into two other spheres: Ethics (morality/sentiment) and Economics (business/trade). Klein’s article confirms that Trump fell into exactly this trap:

Ethics: The “gleeful cruelty” and the “scowl” are moral/aesthetic categories. They are fights over how we feel about each other.

Economics: Trump tried to fight the war with tariffs (economics) and prices.

Schmitt would argue that neither of these is political. The Political is the decision on the exception and the preservation of the “Friend” group (the “Lost Generation”).

By focusing on tariffs (economics) and “mean tweets” (ethics/aesthetics), Trump failed to act politically. He did not use the state to secure the existence of his base against the domestic institutions that seek to replace them.

4. The “Vibe Shift” as Depoliticization

The “Trump Vibe Shift” was ultimately an act of depoliticization. It convinced the “Lost Generation” that retweeting “based” memes (aesthetic participation) was the same as wielding political power.

The Scowl as Weakness: In a Schmittian frame, the scowl is a sign of weakness. It reveals that you are still reacting to the enemy, rather than acting upon them. The “Lost Generation” needed a Protector (a Sovereign) who would secure their “thick” identity against the “thin” universalism of the DEI state.

The Reality: Instead, they got an Entertainer who scowled for the cameras while the structural enemy (the administrative state) continued its operations uninterrupted.

Summary: The scowl proves that Trump viewed the Left as haters to be mocked (inimicus), not as a rival sovereign power to be dismantled (hostis). The “Lost Generation” intuitively understood that “stoicism” was the correct posture for the latter, and its absence signaled that no true political battle was actually being fought.

This internal conflict over “anti-Indian racism” is a textbook example of a movement that has lost the ability to distinguish between essential political friends and irrelevant private irritants. In Schmittian terms, the Right is confusing the hostis (the public enemy who poses an existential threat) with a racialized aesthetic preference, thereby fracturing its own capacity for sovereignty.

Here is how the Hostis vs. Inimicus distinction clarifies this self-destruction:

1. Confusing “Friendship” (The Coalition Problem)

Schmitt argues that the fundamental political act is the distinction between Friend and Enemy. A political “Friend” is not someone you like personally or who looks like you; it is someone who stands with you in the existential struggle against the hostis.

The Strategic “Friend”: In the war against the “dominant institutions” (DEI, the administrative state, the cultural left), figures like Vivek Ramaswamy or Usha Vance are functionally “Friends.” They wield competence, capital, and rhetoric against the hostis (the DEI regime). They share the same existential enemy.

The Racialized “Purge”: By targeting these figures with “anti-Indian racism,” the identitarian faction of the Right is redefining “Friend” from “Anti-DEI Sovereign” to “White Ethnic Kin.”

The Error: This is a category error. It treats a crucial political ally as an enemy because of ethnic aesthetics. It prioritizes homogeneity (a social/biological category) over combat effectiveness (a political category).

2. Mistaking the Inimicus for the Hostis

The faction fixated on “anti-Indian racism” is behaving as if demographic change itself is the primary enemy, rather than the specific bureaucratic regime that disenfranchises their core demographic.

The Wrong Enemy: An Indian-American CEO or official who dismantles a DEI department is objectively reducing the threat to the “Lost Generation” of white men. By attacking him, the Right attacks the instrument of their own liberation.

The Trap of the “Private”: This racism is often born of personal resentment or aesthetic disgust (what Schmitt calls the domain of the inimicus—”I don’t like how this looks”). It is not a serious political calculation. A serious sovereign asks only: Does this person help me defeat the regime? If the answer is yes, then attacking them is an act of treason against one’s own cause.

3. The Paralysis of the “Scowl”

This infighting is the ultimate manifestation of the “scowl” mentioned by Klein.

The Scowl as Incoherence: The scowl represents a movement that is angry at everyone—the Left, the immigrants, the Indian-American allies, the corporate world.

Schmitt’s Warning: A movement that cannot decide who its enemy is cannot rule. If the Right decides that “too much Indian influence” is the problem, it effectively declares war on the meritocratic elite that currently powers its own movement (e.g., the tech/finance wing of the coalition).

The Result: The “Lost Generation” is left with “purity” but no power. They might successfully purge the movement of non-whites, but in doing so, they isolate themselves from the competence and capital needed to dismantle the actual hostis (the DEI state).

The debate over “how much anti-Indian racism is too much” is a signal that the movement has not yet matured into a serious political entity.

A serious movement (a Schmittian political unit) would rigidly enforce the Friend/Enemy distinction:

Friend: Anyone committed to dismantling the DEI regime.

Enemy: The regime itself.

By allowing the “anti-Indian” vibe to fester, Trumpism allowed the social (racism/preference) to override the political (sovereignty/victory). It chose the comfort of the “scowl” (resenting outsiders) over the discipline of the “stoic” (using allies).

In the TV show Blue Lights, Gerry Cliff operates in a hyper-dangerous, sect-ridden environment (Belfast). He faces people who literally want to kill him because of the uniform he wears (the ultimate Friend/Enemy distinction).

The Trumpist “Scowl”: As established, this is performative rage. It screams, “Look at how unfair this is!” It begs the audience to validate the victimhood.

The Belfast “Shrug”: Gerry rarely scowls. When confronted with visceral hatred or bureaucratic incompetence, he uses humor, deflection, or a weary shrug. This isn’t weakness; it is the thick confidence of someone who knows the terrain better than his enemy. He doesn’t need to “signal” masculinity because his survival depends on the reality of his competence, not the vibe of it.

The “Lost Generation” wanted a Gerry Cliff—someone who could walk into the hostile territory of the modern institution, acknowledge the hatred directed at them, and dismantle it with a half-smile and a clipboard. Instead, they got a leader who stood outside the gates screaming.

2. Distinguishing the Hostis in the Neighborhood

Blue Lights perfectly illustrates the Schmittian distinction.

The Inimicus (The Nuisance): In the show, the officers deal constantly with drunks, petty criminals, and kids throwing stones. These are annoyances. You don’t go to war with them; you manage them.

The Hostis (The McIntyre Gang/The Intelligence Services): The real threats are the organized paramilitaries and the shadow state (MI5). The veteran officers know that you never confuse the two. You don’t waste your capital fighting the drunk kid (the “anti-Indian” racism squabble) when the McIntyre gang (the structural DEI state) is moving guns through the estate.

The collapse of the Trump Vibe Shift happened because the movement treated everything like a stone-throwing kid (cultural annoyances, woke commercials, tweets) and ignored the organized paramilitary operation running the neighborhood (the HR bureaucracy/Civil Service). They lacked the “thick” knowledge of the street.

3. The Hunger for “Thick” Consequences

Think about the sociology of Belfast vs. Los Angeles.

Belfast is “Thick”: In the show, if you make a mistake, you don’t get “canceled” or lose followers; you get kneecapped. The stakes are physical and communal. Identity is not a choice; it is history. This imposes a rigorous discipline on the actors. You cannot afford to be a “fake” in West Belfast.

The US Right is “Thin”: The “Lost Generation” is trying to simulate “thick” identity (Traditionalism, Nationalism, “Blood and Soil”) in a “thin,” digital environment. But because there are no immediate physical consequences for being a fraud (grifter), the movement is overrun by them.

The “Lost Generation” looks at Blue Lights and sees a nightmare, yes, but also a seductive clarity. In Belfast, you know who your friends are, you know who the enemy is, and your actions matter. In the “thin” world of American vibes, you can wear a chain like Mark Zuckerberg, scowl like Trump, or post “based” memes, but the structure of your reality never actually changes.

The verdict: The “Lost Generation” wanted to be Constable Gerry Cliff—competent, thick-skinned, and structurally vital. Instead, they were led by characters who acted like the chaotic, stone-throwing teenagers—loud, reactive, and ultimately powerless against the adults running the station.

The failure of Trumpism to deliver structural change has cracked the coalition into its two underlying intellectual lineages, which correspond directly to the “Cofnas vs. MacDonald” debate you are interested in.

The Competence Faction (Nathan Cofnas / Vivek Ramaswamy):

The Theory: Based on Cofnas’s “Default Hypothesis.” They argue that disparities in representation (Jews, Indians, etc.) are due to IQ and urbanization, not conspiracy.

The Pitch: “We need a high-IQ, meritocratic alliance of Whites, Indians, and Jews to dismantle the DEI regime.”

The Situation: In December 2025, this faction is represented by Vivek Ramaswamy and Usha Vance. They offer the “stoicism” and “competence” the movement needs, but they are being rejected by the base because they are “outsiders.”

The Identity Faction (Kevin MacDonald / Nick Fuentes / Groypers):

The Theory: Based on MacDonald’s “Group Evolutionary Strategy.” They argue that high-performing outgroups (Jews, now Indians) are hostile competitors using their influence to displace the native population.

The Pitch: “You aren’t losing because you are incompetent; you are losing because a hostile alien elite (Indians/Jews) has replaced you.”

The Situation: This faction is fueling the “anti-Indian racism” Klein mentions. They offer the “thick” identity and emotional validation the “Lost Generation” craves.

2. Why the MacDonald/Groyper Faction is “Winning” the Crash

The “Trump Vibe Shift” died because it was an aesthetic promise that failed to deliver material results. When people are poor and angry (the “scowl”), they do not want to hear about “meritocracy” (Cofnas/Ramaswamy) because they feel the meritocratic game is rigged against them.

The Groyper faction is exploiting this by updating Kevin MacDonald’s antisemitic theory to include Indophobia.

The Pivot: They have seamlessly transferred the “Hostile Elite” frame from Jews to Indians (CEOs, Usha Vance, Vivek).

The Appeal: This validates the “Lost Generation’s” failure. It tells the disenfranchised white man: “You didn’t get that tech job because the Indian HR manager hired his cousin, not because you lacked skills.”

The Result: This narrative is emotionally satisfying. It explains the “scowl.” It turns the internal movement war into a “struggle for survival,” which is exactly the “thick” identity the base is hungry for.

3. The Structural Trap (Schmittian Analysis)

While the Groypers are best positioned to exploit the anger, they are the worst positioned to solve the problem. This brings us back to the Schmittian “Friend/Enemy” error.

The Cofnas Trap: The Cofnas wing (Ramaswamy) has the competence to dismantle the DEI state (the Hostis), but they lack the legitimacy with the base because of their ethnicity.

The MacDonald Trap: The Groyper wing has the legitimacy (blood and soil) with the base, but they lack the competence. By purging the movement of “high-IQ” allies (Indians/Jews), they isolate themselves from the technical expertise needed to run a modern state.

The Verdict: The MacDonald/Groyper faction will consume the energy of the collapse. They will successfully purge the “Competence Right” (Ramaswamy/Vance) from the movement, leaving a “pure” but utterly powerless rump that can “scowl” at the regime but can never overthrow it.

Mike Benz and Christopher Caldwell represent the two distinct “brains” of the movement that are currently failing to communicate with the body.

If the “Lost Generation” is trapped between the “Competence Right” (Cofnas/Ramaswamy) and the “Identity Right” (MacDonald/Groypers), Benz and Caldwell represent the high-functioning versions of those two poles.

1. Mike Benz: The Technocratic Plumber (Competence Faction)

Mike Benz is the operational heir to the “Competence” wing. His work is the closest thing the movement has to the “stoicism” and “thick” capability described earlier.

The Focus: Benz does not traffic in “vibes,” “scowls,” or “white identity” explicitly. His focus is entirely structural. He maps the “Blob”—the censorship industry, the NGOs, the State Department funding streams.

The Style: His content is forensic. It is filled with diagrams, funding flowcharts, and bureaucratic acronyms. This is the Schmittian sovereign style: identifying exactly how power flows so it can be shut off.

The Connection to the “Lost Generation”: Benz offers the “Lost Generation” a tool. He tells them: “You are not losing because you are hated; you are losing because a specific NGO called the Atlantic Council received a grant to silence you. Here is the grant number.”

The Limitation: Benz is “dry.” He appeals to the brain, not the blood. He solves the technical problem of the regime, but he doesn’t scratch the “thick identity” itch. He doesn’t offer a story about who we are (the MacDonald/Caldwell appeal); he only offers a manual on how to survive.

2. Christopher Caldwell: The Civilizational Prophet (Identity Faction)

Christopher Caldwell (author of The Age of Entitlement) is the high-intellect version of the “Identity” wing. He provides the philosophical architecture for the “scowl.”

The Focus: Caldwell argues that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created a rival constitution that inevitably disenfranchised the legacy population (white men). His argument is civilizational. It posits that two incompatible orders are fighting for the soul of the country.

The Style: Literary, historical, and deeply pessimistic. He validates the “Lost Generation’s” feeling of erasure not by showing them a flowchart (like Benz), but by telling them a tragedy.

The Connection to the “Lost Generation”: Caldwell offers validation. He explains why the scowl is necessary. He tells them their displacement was not an accident, but a structural inevitability of the post-1960s order. This resonates with the “MacDonald/Groyper” intuition that this is a group conflict, not just a policy dispute.

The Limitation: Caldwell offers a diagnosis, but no cure. His work often ends in despair (“the regime cannot be undone”). This fuels the “nihilism” Klein identified. It encourages the “scowl” because if the problem is civilizational and total, there is nothing to do but scowl.

3. The Structural Failure: The Movement Chose the Prophet over the Plumber

The tragedy of the “Trump Vibe Shift” is that the movement felt like Caldwell but acted like neither.

The Missed Synthesis: A successful movement would have used Caldwell’s diagnosis (the Civil Rights regime is the Hostis) to empower Benz’s method (dismantle the specific agencies and funding streams that enforce it).

The Reality: Instead, the movement got stuck in the middle. They adopted Caldwell’s pessimism (which led to the “gleeful cruelty” and “scowl”) but refused to do Benz’s work (the boring, technical dismantling of the bureaucracy).

The Outcome: They ended up with the worst of both worlds: the racial animus of the Identity wing (alienating the competent “Cofnas” allies like Ramaswamy) without the technical success of the Competence wing (actually firing the censors).

Mike Benz is the guy telling you how to diffuse the bomb. (Competence/Stoicism)

Christopher Caldwell is the guy explaining why the bomb was planted in your house specifically. (Identity/Tragedy)

The “Trump Vibe Shift”: The movement spent 2024 and 2025 reading Caldwell and getting angry (the “scowl”), but when they got into power, they forgot to bring Benz’s wire cutters.

Here is an update of Joe Queenan’s classic satire, adapted for the “Lost Generation” debate sparked by Jacob Savage and provocative column by Ross Douthat, amplifying a controversial essay by Jacob Savage in Compact magazine. The duo directly linked structural dysfunctions in the American elite to the rise of the anonymous “Dissident Right.” Specifically, Savage argued that otherwise splendid young white men were now pouring into such “ornamental” occupations as shitposting, physique-posting, and amateur eugenics because good careers in the “culture industries”—Hollywood, publishing, academia—were no longer available to them.

Lauding this “Lost Generation” as a “shadow elite” forced into the digital wilderness, Savage skewered American society for reneging on its promises to high-IQ young men such as L0rd_Humungus, RawEggNationalist, and BronzeAgePervert—Natural Born Posters all.

Yes, it was Savage and Douthat’s contention that intellectually curious young males who would once have found gainful employment as New Yorker fact-checkers or creative executives at Disney were now being offered a brutal, Darwinian choice: Perform degrading ideological acts with people named “CatboyKami,” or starve.

When I read Savage’s account of the brilliant minds trapped in the “digital underground,” my initial reaction was: This guy is coping. Surely, Savage didn’t expect me to believe that Ivy League graduates were pouring into the “Groyper” movement just because Netflix wasn’t hiring. Surely he didn’t expect me to believe that young men were being forced to choose between a career in marketing or a career in memes. Surely, Savage was mistaken.

But when I went out to investigate, I found to my astonishment that Savage was right. In a series of encrypted chats with anonymous posters going by such names as Based_Consultant, Trad_Wife_Hunter, Deus_Vult_CPA, and Pepe_The_Analyst, I found that these men did find themselves trapped inside an economic leviathan, and that brutal Darwinian logic did lay at the root of their decisions to enter the radioactive world of dissident posting.

Where Savage and Douthat had gone wrong was in assuming that young men were entering the “Dissident Right” out of a deep spiritual hunger or a rejection of liberalism. In fact, every anon I spoke with said that his decision to enter the degrading world of competitive racism was actuated by one factor: the widespread implementation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

“The 2020 DEI surge drove me into this business,” Based_Consultant told me as he prepared to thread a 40-part analysis on the decline of Western civilization titled “Why The Longhouse Must Burn.” “If the Democratic Party had just allowed meritocracy to remain blind, I could have secured that Junior Associate role at Bain & Company and remained a centrist liberal. Absent the opportunity to climb the corporate ladder—out of fear that I don’t contribute enough ‘lived experience’ to the team—I’ve been forced to abandon liberalism and take a job as a radical reactionary.”

Other anons echoed this sentiment.

“Do I feel degraded by appearing on Twitter Spaces with avatars of Greek statues, where I have to praise Caesarism and perform perverted intellectual acts on helpless, supplicant egalitarians?” asked Trad_Wife_Hunter rhetorically. “Of course I do. But do I blame myself? No sir. I blame the HR department at Conde Nast. If there was any way I could have landed that internship at Vanity Fair without writing a diversity statement, there’s no way I’d ever go near a ‘vitalist’ bodybuilding forum.”

Adds Deus_Vult_CPA: “My father supported himself for 45 years by being a mediocre white executive who coasted on his handshake. But that option isn’t available to me. Sure, I have a healthy portfolio filled with blue-chip opinions and a Master’s degree from Yale. But the confiscatory levels of affirmative action in the C-suite prevent me from failing upwards. That’s why I have to do this. That’s why I have to post the frog.”

Pepe_The_Analyst, star of such viral threads as “The Physiognomy of the HR Department” and “We Are So Back (To Segregation),” feels that America is jeopardizing its intellectual future through unfair hiring practices.

“It’s a vicious cycle we’ve gotten into,” he says, as he prepares to dox a journalist for The Atlantic. “In an earlier, more innocent time, a guy like me would have gone into the non-profit industrial complex, maybe launched a centrist think tank, traded favors at the Council on Foreign Relations. But with the demographic mandates being what they are, what’s the use? So I went the ‘national divorce’ route.”

As I came away from my DMs with Based, Trad, Deus, and Pepe, I felt a new admiration for Jacob Savage and Ross Douthat. Before I’d been apprised of these recent developments in the dissident sphere, I’d naively assumed that the men who went into the “underground” were revolting, anti-social, exhibitionist nihilists who didn’t mind being cancelled to own the libs. But after reading Savage’s article and going out to check the facts for myself, I was flabbergasted by the connection between our floundering hiring protocols and the rise of the anonymous right-wing influencer.

As Based_Consultant so aptly puts it: “If the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action were actually enforced by corporate HR, and you were allowed to be a generic white guy without any apology whatsoever, there’s no way I would be tweeting ‘Total Aryan Victory.’ But thanks to the refusal of the private sector to heed the warnings of people like Christopher Rufo and Elon Musk, I’ll probably be doing this stuff for the rest of my life. I blame all of this on the Ford Foundation.”

Gemini says: While it is impossible to give a precise timesheet, it is reasonable to estimate that Rob Reiner devoted several thousand hours to opposing Donald Trump over the past decade (2015–2025).

Reiner, who passed away in December 2025, made opposing Trump a primary focus of his later life. His “devotion” to this cause can be broken down into three main categories of time expenditure:

1. Digital Activism and Commentary (Daily Habit) Reiner was an extremely prolific poster on social media (primarily X/Twitter), often tweeting multiple times a day specifically about Donald Trump for nearly 10 years.

Estimate: If he spent even just 1–2 hours a day consuming political news and drafting commentary, that alone would total 3,500 to 7,000 hours over a decade.

2. Professional Projects (High Intensity) Reiner used his professional skills as a filmmaker to produce anti-Trump content.

“God & Country” (2024): Reiner produced this documentary examining the rise of Christian Nationalism and its support for Trump. Producing a feature film typically involves hundreds of hours of development, meetings, and promotion.

Committee to Investigate Russia: In 2017, Reiner helped launch and fund this non-profit media project to disseminate information about Russian interference in the 2016 election, requiring significant organizational time.

3. Political Fundraising and Organizing (Event-Based) Reiner organized high-profile events to defeat Trump and support Democratic candidates.

Notable Example: In 2020, he organized a virtual live-read of the The Princess Bride script, which raised over $4.25 million for the Wisconsin Democratic Party to help defeat Trump in that swing state.

2024/2026 Planning: Up until his death, he was reportedly planning a massive Get Out The Vote (GOTV) operation for the 2026 midterms, specifically designed to counter the Trump administration.

The Reciprocal Dynamic The intensity of Reiner’s focus was acknowledged by Donald Trump himself. Following Reiner’s death, President Trump posted a statement attributing Reiner’s passing to “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” acknowledging that Reiner had a “raging obsession” with him.

Given that political activism effectively became Reiner’s full-time job alongside his Hollywood legacy, the total time likely exceeds 5,000 hours—comparable to working a part-time job solely dedicated to opposing Donald Trump for ten years.

LF: It seems unhealthy to devote so much to something where he can make so little impact? What a waste. Perhaps he could have used this time more productively?

Gemini says: The view that Rob Reiner’s obsession was “unhealthy” or a “waste” is a common criticism, often shared by his political opponents and even some moderates who felt his relentless posting became counterproductive “noise.”

However, to objectively analyze whether it was a “waste,” we have to measure his time investment against the actual tangible outcomes he achieved. When you look at the hard numbers, the argument that he made “so little impact” is actually incorrect in at least one specific, high-stakes instance.

1. The Wisconsin “Return on Investment” (2020)

The strongest counter-argument to the idea that he wasted his time is the state of Wisconsin in the 2020 election.

The Action: Reiner organized a virtual reunion of the The Princess Bride cast.

The Result: That single event raised $4.25 million directly for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

The Outcome: Joe Biden won Wisconsin by only about 20,000 votes.

The Impact: In modern politics, $4 million injected into a single swing state for ground game and ads is massive. It is entirely plausible to argue that without that specific infusion of cash, the margin could have flipped. In that sense, Reiner’s time wasn’t wasted; it may have helped tip a presidency.

2. The “Opportunity Cost” of His Art

You suggested he could have used the time “more productively.” This usually implies he sacrificed his art for politics.

The Reality: Reiner had already directed some of the most successful films in history (The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Stand By Me) decades earlier.

Diminishing Returns: By 2015, Reiner was in his late 60s/70s. Most directors, even legends, see a decline in output and critical reception in their later years. It is unlikely that another romantic comedy from an 80-year-old Reiner would have had the same cultural footprint as his political activism. He effectively pivoted careers rather than sacrificing one.

3. The “Unhealthy” Aspect

On the psychological front, you may be right.

The “Echo Chamber” Effect: Reiner spent years engaging in daily, high-conflict arguments on X (Twitter). Many psychologists argue that constant exposure to outrage loops increases cortisol and stress, which is generally unhealthy for anyone, especially an elderly man.

Ineffectiveness of Shaming: Much of Reiner’s time was spent posting moral condemnations of Trump supporters. Political science data generally shows that “shaming” the opposition rarely converts them and often hardens their resolve. In this specific domain—changing hearts and minds via Twitter—his time was likely wasted.

If you measure impact by “did he stop Donald Trump’s movement?” then yes, he failed, and the time was wasted, as Trump returned to office.

But if you measure it by “did he maximize his leverage?” he actually used his celebrity capital quite efficiently. He traded on 30-year-old nostalgia (Princess Bride) to generate millions of dollars for political operatives. That is a higher “impact per hour” than almost any other tweet or interview he could have done.

LF: I can’t imagine he was a joy to talk to during this obsessive decade.

Gemini: You are absolutely right to suspect that his intensity could be exhausting. By many accounts, Rob Reiner’s final years were defined by a “raging” focus on politics that, at times, dominated his social interactions.

However, the reality of what he was like to “talk to” is actually more complex—and surprisingly, often warmer—than his Twitter persona suggested.

Based on accounts from friends and colleagues, here is what he was actually like in private during this “obsessive” decade:

1. The “Exhausting” Side (Validating your intuition)

Your suspicion that he wasn’t a “joy” is backed up by his most vocal critics and even some observations from the end of his life.

Trump’s Assessment: Donald Trump’s post-mortem statement specifically weaponized this idea, claiming Reiner “drove people CRAZY” with his obsession. While hyperbolic, it likely reflects the reality that Reiner did not “turn it off.”

One-Note Conversation: For casual acquaintances or those who disagreed with him, the conversation likely felt like a lecture. He viewed the political situation not as a difference of opinion, but as an emergency (e.g., “democracy is crumbling”), which doesn’t make for light dinner table chat.

2. The “James Woods” Paradox (The surprising counter-point)

If he was purely miserable to talk to, you would expect him to have alienated all his conservative friends. Surprisingly, he didn’t.

James Woods: Perhaps the most famous conservative actor in Hollywood, James Woods, remained close friends with Reiner until the end. Woods stated that despite their massive political differences, they maintained “love and respect.”

The “Compartmentalization” Skill: Reiner came from an old-school Hollywood era where people could scream about politics and then hug. He seemed able to separate the person from the ideology when he knew them personally.

3. The Grace Note (The Charlie Kirk Incident)

There is evidence that his “obsession” didn’t completely destroy his humanity or ability to empathize with the “enemy.”

When conservative figure Charlie Kirk was killed in September 2025 (just months before Reiner’s own death), Reiner didn’t celebrate.

Instead, he expressed “absolute horror” and publicly praised Kirk’s widow for her strength. This suggests that while he was a warrior on Twitter, he was still a human being in conversation.

4. The Real Source of Friction: Family, not Politics

If there was a lack of “joy” in his private life, it appears it came from family tragedy rather than political arguments.

The “heated arguments” reported before his death were not with political opponents, but with his son, Nick Reiner.

This suggests that while he might have been “obsessive” about Trump, the truly difficult conversations in his life were personal, revolving around addiction and family dynamics, rather than the 2024 election.

Verdict: If you met him at a party and brought up the news, yes—he would have likely harangued you for an hour. But if you were an old friend, even a conservative one, he retained the “sweet, gentle” demeanor (as described by Mel Brooks) that made him a Hollywood legend in the first place. He was intense, but he wasn’t just the angry man on Twitter.

Ross Douthat and Jacob Savage published recent essays about the “Lost Generation” of young white men who feel victimized by anti-white hate.

Gemini says: If racial discrimination against young white men ended tomorrow—meaning a complete repeal of DEI mandates, affirmative action, and the cultural presumption of guilt—it would likely not reverse their shift to the right. In fact, it might solidify it.

Political science and generational data suggest that the “Rightward Shift” is no longer a temporary reaction to specific policies, but a permanent realignment of values.

Here is an analysis of why this shift is “sticky” and what America would look like in five years under this scenario.

1. The “Cementing” of Generational Identity

Political identities formed between the ages of 18 and 25 are remarkably durable. Research on “political imprinting” shows that voters rarely abandon the worldview they adopted during their formative years.

The “Betrayal” Factor: For this cohort, the shift wasn’t driven by a disagreement over tax rates, but by a visceral sense of institutional betrayal. Even if the institutions say “we’re sorry” (or simply stop the discrimination), the trust is permanently broken. They now view the University, HR, and Media not as neutral arbiters, but as hostile entities that can turn on them again.

The New Baseline: If the discrimination ends, these men will not return to being 2012-style liberals. They have already adopted a new “root” philosophy—likely one that prioritizes hierarchy, competence, and skepticism of “expert” consensus—which naturally aligns with the modern Right.

2. From “Grievance” to “Triumphalism”

Currently, the energy of this cohort is focused on complaint (e.g., “The system is rigged against me”). If the discrimination ends, that energy would transform into ambition.

The Psychology: Without the suppression of their professional advancement, the “Lost Generation” described by Savage would re-enter the competition. However, they would return with a “chip on the shoulder” mentality.

The “Competence” Mandate: The political rhetoric would shift from “Stop discriminating against us” to “We are the only ones who can fix this.” They would view their return to power not as a restoration of the old status quo, but as a hostile takeover of failing institutions (Boeing, Hollywood, Academia) to impose a ruthless, hyper-meritocratic order.

3. The 5-Year Scenario: A “Harder” America

If this discrimination vanished tomorrow, the America of 2030 would not look like the “colorblind” 1990s. It would look like a bifurcated, highly competitive, and culturally aggressive society.

A. The Economy: The Rise of “meI” (Merit, Excellence, Intelligence) We would see a pivot from DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) to what some in Silicon Valley call “MEI.”

The Shift: Corporate culture would swing violently toward objective metrics to prove they aren’t discriminating. This means IQ tests, coding challenges, and raw output measurements would replace “holistic” hiring.

The Result: This would benefit high-performing white (and Asian) men, but it would create a brutal, less forgiving corporate environment for everyone. The “gentle” corporate culture of the 2010s would be replaced by a “sink or swim” ethos.

B. Culture: The “Revenge of the Nerds” (with Muscle) Culturally, the aesthetic of the “beleaguered white male” would be replaced by the aesthetic of the “Vitalist” male.

New Archetypes: Instead of the “oppressed victim” narrative found in The Lost Generation essay, the cultural ideal would shift toward figures who embody successful resistance—tech founders, fitness influencers, and builders.

The Gender Gap: The political divide between young men and young women would likely widen. Young women, feeling that the rollback of DEI is an attack on their progress, might move further Left. We would see an America where men and women effectively live in different political realities—men voting 70% Right, women voting 70% Left.

C. Politics: The “Barstool Conservative” Coalition The Republican party would fully transition from the party of “Moral Majority” evangelicals to the party of “Barstool Sports” libertarians.

The Vibe: It would be secular, anti-woke, and focused on personal liberty and economic deregulation. It wouldn’t care about banning abortion (a traditional religious concern) as much as it cares about banning “HR speech codes.”

The Stickiness: This is why the shift wouldn’t reverse. A young white man who felt targeted by the Left in 2024 has found a home in a Right that allows him to be “unapologetically male.” Even if the Left stops targeting him, the Right now offers him a positive identity that he enjoys.

If the discrimination ended tomorrow, the shift to the right would likely slow down, but not reverse. The damage to the liberal brand is foundational.

In 5 Years: You would see a country that is less obsessed with race, but more obsessed with competence and hierarchy. The “victimhood” narrative would die, replaced by a cold, unapologetic drive to build and conquer.