It amplifies what's going to be the undoing of all this progress.

None of the men I had in mind were Nazis. None resembled the men who’d marched through Charlottesville with tiki torches shouting, “You will not replace us!” But there was another spin on the game, and this was the one that worried me: Who in a showdown would accept the subjugation of women as a necessary political concession? Who would make peace with patriarchy if it meant a nominal win, or defend the accused for the sake of stability? The answer was more men than I’d been prepared to believe. I’d have to work harder not to alienate them, if only to make it harder for them to sell me out.

There's a reason straight, liberal white men have no patience with all the campus activism, "Emma Sulkowicz’s Mattress Performance," and the general recasting of the straight white male as the default enemy of progress, happiness and general freedom of thought. At best, we're required to accept that we're the root problem of all the world's evils, if not by choice than by culture, by breeding, by genetics, by history and by circumstance. At worst, if we're not with you we're against you.

"Who would turn Nazi?" Holy fuck. I was told, in 1994, that I could not participate in a rape awareness vigil because I was male. It was about me, you see. You can't have awareness about rape if you invite potential rapists to your vigil.

That's how Buddy becomes Syndrome.

Tell the Feminist Left that "at least I'm not Donald Trump" and they'll pillory you for false equivalency, whataboutism and nine million philosophical shorthands that you don't know because you're a cisgendered caveman.

But repudiations of the old ways were also turning up in outlets that mattered to them: in reviews, on teaching evaluations, on hiring committees. Authors and artists whose work was celebrated as “thoughtful” or “political” not eight years ago were now being singled out as chauvinists and bigots. One might expect this in old age, but to be cast out as a political dinosaur by 52, by 40, by 36? They hadn’t even peaked! And with the political right — the actual right — getting away with murder, theft, and exploitation worldwide . . . ? That, at least, was how I gathered they felt. Sometimes I thought they were right. Sometimes I thought they needed to grow up.

Tell the reactionary Right that "at least I'm not as bad as Donald Trump" and they'll buy you a beer.

I don't give a fuck about college campuses anymore. Let them rot. I know that I'm hated simply for being straight, male and successful and it really doesn't matter what my politics are, I'm part of the problem.

But I also know that they'll never solve the problem because everyone to the right of me? They have all the poker chips. And short of armed rebellion it's going to stay that way (and the guys to the right of me have all the guns, too - and the armed forces, and the police and most of the civil service down to the post office).

So really. At least the entrenched power structure doesn't demand I feel guilty for crimes I have yet to commit... and while I don't agree with their politics, they're a lot more fucking accepting of my existence.

Is that going to lead to a rebirth of the Republican Party? Has it already? Dunno. But Lindy West bugs me and I guarantee that if I posted that on Facebook someone would assault me as a goose-stepping storm trooper of the patriarchy.

If the shoe fits.