Day: November 7, 2024

This is the end of the high school football season for the ‘last born’. He is struggling this season, having been benched following an injury and becoming part of a rotating secondary, which means that he splits time with a starter. He is only a sophomore, but he developed serious playtime expectations based on how he started the season. I am glad he was benched. The one thing I’ve learned about my kids–about athletes in general–is that a great deal of the game is mental. It is manifesting will and toughness. Getting benched either breaks you (in which case, you don’t deserve the opportunity to lead a life playing a game) or it builds resolve in you to be a better player and earn a spot that cannot be taken from you. My Drake kid has that. He was a twelve year-old kid playing High School football and being told he didn’t deserve to be out there. He was undersized. He was unsure of what position he could even excel at. He figured he would at least be a kicker, but they wouldn’t even let him do that. His big brother was like that too, and he decided that football was not his jam. Yet my Drake Bulldog excelled under the pressure. Now he’s battling 5th year seniors for a starting spot as a 17 yr old freshman, and he wants that fight.

He has that dog in him. We are waiting to see if the High Schooler does too.

Freshman football is a sham. If you have a well developed skillset or a physical advantage, you will excel. It isn’t a mental game as with the higher levels. At the freshman level, he was Travis Hunter. He led the team in scoring and in interceptions and PBUs. He gave up a catch once. It was surprising. He was unguardable from the X or the Z. His route tree was more like a sapling, but he could run a hitch or a hitch and go like a demon. Now he is a sophomore. He is facing that test of playing against some of the best in the state. He has to get better. He has to decide that it is worth it to suffer and struggle, and that is what ultimately makes you strong.

Here’s hoping tonight is a step forward, and the coming off season is another.

I had terrible anxiety dreams last night. I tossed and turned and struggled mightily. All of this on the heels of feeling something vastly terrible was taking shape; lurching towards existence. I don’t like what is coming. I’ve never truly believed in one party having control of all branches of government, and if the house race winds up the way it looks like it might, Republicans will control everything –including the courts. There has never been a better time for them to enact whatever policies and agendas they’ve long wanted to push through.

But why did it happen? Well, Slate’s Jill Filipovic hade some thoughts:

…Trump surrounded himself with tech bros and podcast bros and fighting bros. The men of the Christian right and the architects of Project 2025 were there too, but they receded a bit as Trump courted the kind of men who may not go to church much anymore, but who still want the respect traditionally afforded to men simply by virtue of being men. Vance spoke to this directly in earlier podcast clips and fundraising appeals that may have been damaging to his ticket’s female support, but might also have piqued the interest of resentful male listeners: He derided single cat ladies and by extension the entire category of women who believe that their lives are just as good (if not better) without men than with them. The men Trump and Vance courted likely don’t believe they hate women at all, despite voting against women’s most fundamental rights. Many of them seem to desperately want female affection, approval, and perhaps most of all respect—but having not exactly earned it, long for a time when female deference was essentially mandatory

That is the American that Trump and Vance promised these men they would bring back. Yes, it’s an America where a (white) working-class man could make a living wage—but the fantasy is less about the number on a paycheck and more about the ability to have a financially dependent and adoring wife, or to be able to be as violent, crass, and unrestrained as one wishes without social consequence. As much as pundits and voters may point to the economy, or immigration, or crime as reasons voters backed Trump, the truth is that Trump offered virtually nothing in the way of actual policy on any of those issues. He offered instead the promise of masculine strength and male dominance, of men returned to their rightful positions of authority in the White House and in houses across America. He talked to men who are frustrated and men who are adrift, many who feel—in spite of all evidence—mistreated and even discriminated against. And he promised them a return to power.

She’s right on so many levels. Making America Great was always about male empowerment–specifically white male empowerment, and that desire transcended the angry older generation who saw the power shift culminate with an Obama presidency. It trickled down to the young alpha males and the incels stuck behind screens. It made it possible to believe that they had the power they once held, or could. Their idols signed on quickly. Andrew Tate gave away a Trump Lambo. Elon Musk gave away a million a day. All of it is about that idea of get rich quick ultra-masculine fantasy that so many people wish they could manifest within themselves. More to the point, by being on the ‘Trump Team’ they’ve decided they’re closer to that because they are not aligned with soft liberal losers.

I know this is not the only reason he won. It is the one I am focusing on for these ten minutes. Honestly, that may be all this idea gets, because I don’t want to give it much more of my time and energy. He’s already taken enough.

Some Thoughts:

1. No, I’m not leaving the country… yet.
2. Yes, I am worried about fundamental rights such as the right to marry (in my case interracially).
3. I am learning that worrying is not only unhealthy but it is also very unproductive. I have been quite unproductive lately, stewing in the mess that is this election. So, I’m going to stop all of that. I have things I fear, and I will prepare for them (more on that down the road). In the meanwhile, I have books to write…