Video summary
Joshua Citarella argues that contemporary left-wing movements, dominated by what he terms "mangoes"—media academics and non-profit organizers in elite sectors—lack the structural capacity to accommodate men or address their specific grievances. He contrasts this current niche with the robust trade union organizations of the 1970s, which historically achieved a high density of 31% compared to today's low figure of 11%. Citarella attributes the decline of these movements to the neoliberal turn around that decade and the offshoring of industrial jobs where men traditionally worked. He posits that organizing remote knowledge workers via digital channels like Slack is fundamentally different from, and less effective than, organizing physical shop floors for wage increases and material well-being improvement. Consequently, he suggests that without a return to models resembling 1970s unions or European-style social democracy with nationalized industries, the left cannot build a viable coalition with young men whose interests are currently being sidelined by activist rhetoric designed to scare them away from joining organizations. In an attempt to bridge this divide and challenge the narrative that political orientation is a result of personal failure due to a lack of self-discipline, Citarella experimented extensively with hyper-masculine practices over several years. Starting in his academic circles where he felt pressure regarding body image ranging from "twink" to "skinny fat," he engaged in rigorous physical training, sunbathing, and taking supplements like those promoted by InfoWars. He documented this journey in a piece titled *AutoExperiment Hypermasculinity*, which became memorable within certain corners of his world for its extreme nature involving tanning balls and specific diets. Despite these efforts to prove that individual agency could overcome systemic issues through bootstrapping, Citarella found that his political position remained unchanged. The experiment revealed that while the narrative of internalizing locus of control is compelling for those with upward mobility dreams, it fails when faced with an economy where welfare state erosion has removed other routes for improvement. The core economic argument presented by Citarella centers on the necessity of social democratic organization to compete effectively against neoliberal models in the 21st century. He highlights that countries like the United Kingdom spend significantly less per capita on healthcare than the US, yet achieve better outcomes through a National Health Service (NHS) model rather than relying solely on market mechanisms. This comparison suggests that redistribution of resources and nationalizing key industries can create more competitive economies compared to the current American system where individuals must bear disproportionate costs for health and living standards. He notes that even young people from both left and right backgrounds have shifted toward populism, recognizing that asymmetric resource distribution is a major issue, yet mainstream politicians outside of figures like Bernie Sanders or AOC lack the ability to construct coalitions based on these economic realities. Ultimately, Citarella concludes that there is no easy solution for winning over men who feel alienated by current left-wing discourse because their political needs are often dismissed as unimportant in favor of other priorities. He warns against expecting young men to simply "cowtow" toward a coalition that places their interests at the end of the priority list without addressing the material conditions of their work and life. The divergence between those who believe they can succeed solely through hard work and bootstrapping versus those recognizing systemic barriers remains a critical fault line in modern politics. As he looks forward, his focus has shifted to exploring how social democratic policies regarding natural monopolies and nationalized industries could offer a more competitive alternative to the current economic landscape, though he acknowledges that finding a political path outside of existing elite frameworks is an uphill battle against entrenched power structures.
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What have you learned? What are you
seeing? What's the cutting edge of sort
of how boys and men are doing on the
internet at the moment?
>> Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of uh there's
a lot of talk about this, right, of like
the the problem for like men on the
left. Um and you know, I think whatever
we have today that constitute
constitutes today's left. Um take it or
leave it. Uh I don't think that thing
has room for men. I don't think it has
room for much of anybody. Um it's a few
people in kind of their academic or
media positions desperately clawing on
to eroding power. Um I like to call them
mangoes, media academics and NOS, people
[laughter] in these elite sectors of
society. Uh but the left that I see that
is scalable and has won historically the
demands of the left is more similar to
what existed in the 1970s which was
robust trade union organizations, people
on their shop floor. uh and we had a
historic high union density at 31% in
the US. Right now it's 11. You know, you
look at the divergent uh wages and
productivity like it happens right
around the 1970s around the neoliberal
turn. And uh yeah, it's no surprise why
there hasn't uh the the left so to
speak, this kind of niche click of
academics has not been able to invite in
the the people that they necessarily
need to win over. Um, and this was just
such incredibly an uphill battle for the
last few years. But I was writing and
interviewing these people and you know I
talked to people from all across the
political spectrum, all different
backgrounds, but there are a lot of
young men in there. Uh, and I would hear
just cuz I participate in these elite
circles endless kind of casual misandry
and these people's political needs are
not important and it's their turn to
take a back seat. It's like this is
really going to bubble over. This is
this is not good. They are actively I'm
literally interviewing them and watching
them move. Like I've had relationships
with these young men over the course of
years. I've watched them drift further
and further into these other political
worldviews. And in some cases they would
try to join left-wing groups and be
like, I want to organize in my
workplace. I want to learn about this
stuff. And they would just be met with
like this kind of vicious activist
rhetoric that was meant to basically
scare them off from from joining the
meeting or the reading group or the
organization, what have you. Uh and so
yeah, against the odds uh socially um
that was an unpopular opinion, but I
think it was right. And then post 2024
election results now that has been uh is
the thing that everyone is talking about
how to win these people over. Uh but
they haven't come up with the solution.
they haven't come up with the solution
because I think the 1970s
uh let's say new deliberalism in the
American model or social democratic
organization in the European model um
that is very antagonistic to the immense
concentration of wealth that we have
right now. So uh yeah there's few
politicians outside of maybe the Sanders
Mumdani uh variety that are actually
going to be able to to build together
that coalition. Um, we also have, not to
belabor this, but we have an economic
problem of offshoring the types of jobs
that men used to do and the types of
jobs that were organizable where you can
organize your shop floor, you can't
organize your Slack channel in the same
way. You know, when people are remote
and working from home and they're doing
knowledge work like moving numbers on an
Excel spreadsheet or something, that's a
lot more difficult than when people are
unloading crates, for example. you know,
so there's just types of work that can
be organized and can lift the floor of
wages and it can improve people's
material well-being and there's other
types of jobs that just are not. Uh, and
so I think there's, you know, you have
to kind of approach these things um in
the long term and sequentially
otherwise, yeah, I don't think that
young men are going to cowttow towards a
political coalition that puts their
interests at the end of the priorities.
M how did trying to become hyper
masculine go? You tried to do the
>> well the physical first
>> only got so far.
>> You tried to do the physical first to
right-wing pipeline. Tell me about that.
>> I mean in the world that I come from
where everyone's like an artist or an
academic. Um the bell curve goes from
like twink to skinny fat. So if you go
to the gym at all um there's a a
marketked difference. But yeah, I mean
generally generally the meme goes
something like you know having left-wing
political uh beliefs or orientation is a
personal failure on your side where you
haven't challenged yourself enough and
if you did lift these weights and eat
this way and do whatever then you would
realize that you've been incorrect about
you know whatever a whole slew of
different things. Um so I just did all
that stuff. Um I still work out. I you
know lift four times a week. I suned my
balls. I took the Infowars supplements.
I did meuing. I just I experimented one
by one. I published this piece called
AutoExperiment Hypermasculinity. And
it's probably like 5 years ago now.
>> But anytime I have a a piece that
appears in Legacy Media or do an
appearance somewhere else, first
question is like, "So, what was Sunny
Your Balls like?"
>> Ah, I see. You've got to be careful what
you make a name for, dude. I well it was
very it was very memorable especially in
the corners of my world where um a lot
of people were like totally blown away
by that stuff and had not heard of it uh
before. But I guess you know at at the
end of this um my political position was
basically unchanged. I think the thing
that I'm interested in now is uh the
unique ways in which a social democratic
organization of the economy having a
national health service for example
certain key industries natural monopoly
is being nationalized. Um the ways in
which those things are more competitive
than the neoliberal economy. Um, so that
sounds a little bit abstract, but
basically through going through this
process of lifting all these weights,
>> you're going to realize that you were
wrong and that the redistribution of
resources that was because you were at
the bottom of the hierarchy, which was
your own personal failure. And
>> so I think there's actually an argument
now which is a pretty narrow window to
go through but this is what I'm trying
to focus on in a few key podcasts is
that the uh NHS for example is um more
competitive than the US model as per as
as a percentage of what each individual
in the society expends uh for their
healthare
>> meaning that um 2 to1 in the United
States we outspend most of our European
counterpoints that are a similar point
of industrialization and development.
Yeah. So, um, how is redistribution of
resources actually more competitive and
cost-saving? Um, I think that there's a
strong argument to be made there and and
it's basically going to be a a necessity
for like doing social democracy again in
the 21st century.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I understand the
idea of uh agency of internalizing your
locus of control is something that
particularly speaks to young men that
have a
>> an upward aim. Right? I want to I don't
feel like life's very good.
>> Every young person, especially young guy
that's got big dreams, doesn't
>> And if the first answer is, unlucky for
you, dude, you have no control over
that. You're Oh,
>> right. Right. uh that doesn't seem very
reassuring to me. That doesn't make me
feel very good. Whereas, if it's well,
depending on how hard and how thoroughly
you pick your bootstraps up, you can
go wherever you want. Uh I understand
why that would be a significantly more
compelling narrative. I think that it
makes sense that the other way around
would be
well, it was possible also, right? like
the other thing was off limits and that
there was this general erosion of the
welfare state for lack of a better term.
Um and so the only route that you had to
improving your stake in the world was by
by bootstrapping. Um and so that was
often good advice because that was the
only possible advice that you could
implement. M
>> but I think what is really interesting
and this was what I I wrote in a project
in uh 2020 where I interviewed um 10
young people from the left 10 from the
right kind of extensive ideological map
but um they had shifted in their
political orientation uh their economic
policies from libertarianism to
populism. So when the right is saying
that the market organization of
society's resources is too asymmetrical,
there's too much inequality, that's a
pretty big sign that like something is
going on.
>> Um, yeah. So I I I guess when you're
doing this kind of work, you're kind of
searching for these weak signals that
you think are going to be important,
having a little bit of foresight about
what will, you know, in a few years from
now be proportionately much much larger.
Uh that was one of those I think really
um you know
>> Yeah. You're like a you're like a like
bleeding edge cultural qualitative Nate
Silva.
>> You know what [laughter] I mean? Like oh
what's what's the most important trend?
We'll piece these things together in
this very particular way. And then out
pops some uh precientness.
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