{"id":161213,"date":"2025-10-03T10:03:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161213"},"modified":"2025-10-03T10:03:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:03:25","slug":"leftist-commentators-stop-your-dangerous-demagoguery-demonizing-young-white-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161213","title":{"rendered":"Leftist commentators: Stop your dangerous demagoguery demonizing \u201cyoung White men\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leftist commentators: Stop your dangerous demagoguery demonizing \u201cyoung White men\u201d<\/h1>\n

Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| October 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the wake of the horrific assassination of rightist celebrity Charlie Kirk, I had hoped the liberal-Left would retain a healthy respect for facts, qualms about indulging in primitive culture-war scapegoating, and calming voices against right-wing lunacies.<\/p>\n

Was I ever wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

The derangements villainizing \u201cyoung White men\u201d as a generation vented by progressive podcasters I subscribe to and admired like Krystal Ball (Breaking Points<\/em>), Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk), Frances Fiorentini (Bitchuation Room<\/em>), Jennifer Welch (I\u2019ve Had It<\/em>), et al, are as brainless and baseless as anything rightist-media dispense.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadicalized young men are combustible,\u201d warns the leftist\u00a0Daily Kos<\/em>\u00a0staff in an\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0thoroughly mischaracterizing<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0NBC Gen Z poll<\/a>. \u201cThe manosphere and its influencers\u201d are \u201cfeeding young men a steady diet of grievance,\u201d creating a \u201ctoxic and dangerous\u201d young-male culture of \u201conline threats, mass shootings, and the growing overlap between misogynist and extremist communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out my\u00a0Daily Kos column<\/a>\u00a0re-analyzing the Gen Z \u201cgender gap,\u201d much more positive than typically depicted (readers of this substack can skip the last half of it!).<\/h5>\n

The Left\u2019s crude culture-war scapegoating has not advanced a millimeter over Tipper Gore\u2019s infamous 1980s\u2019 crusade to vilify teenagers and metal, punk, and rap music.<\/p>\n

Same old tune, 2025 verse: the 1980s teenage generation corrupted by Ozzy, gangsta, and video games, the armageddons of their day, now aging, insists that today\u2019s apocalypse is young people corrupted by the \u201cdark web.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imbecilic panics, shocking truths<\/strong><\/p>\n

America has a \u201cproblem\u201d with \u201cyoung White men,\u201d Ball, Fiorentini, Owens, and leftist colleagues declare over and over since Kirk\u2019s assassination.<\/p>\n

No, America does not have a problem with young White men.<\/p>\n

Krystal Ball, normally sane,\u00a0hurls vilifications<\/a>\u00a0resembling\u00a0Fox News\u2019<\/em>\u00a0at its rantiest. We don\u2019t know the Kirk assassin\u2019s motive, Ball admitted seconds before a 4 a.m.-vodka-rambling-mode of grotesque concoctions about his motive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are witnessing the rise of the black-pill killers, predominantly young, White male misanthropes meming themselves into radicalism and violence,\u201d Ball spat. \u201cThe all-consuming L-O-L L-O-L L-O-L of contemporary sad-young-man online culture, forum after forum dominated by an endless race to the bottom of nihilism and self-hatred\u201d drives \u201ca whole lot of young men. \u201cThe internet is acting as an accelerant\u201d for shootings by \u201cdisconnecting us from real life, from real human beings,\u201d a scary new scourge \u201cunraveling\u201d American society.<\/p>\n

Aping MAGA illogic, Ball\u2019s made-up speculations about the unknown motives of 5 shooters (who share little beyond young White male demographics) just happen, by merest coincidence, to fit her prejudices.<\/p>\n

These speculations require ignoring a lot. Remember ultra-evil\u00a0Adam Lanza<\/a>, young White male slaughterer of 20 first-graders and 6 adults at Sandy Hook? Culture warriors broke eyeballs and minds ferreting dark influences. Bummer. Lanza\u2019s online obsession turned out to be\u2026\u00a0Dance Dance Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Remember Charles Joseph Witman, the young White man who shot 42 people from the University of Texas tower in 1966, the worst school shooting ever? Eagle Scout, Marine, packing the\u00a0Boy Scout Handbook<\/em>. Be very afraid, alarumed singer-satirist\u00a0Kinky Friedman<\/a>, \u201cthere\u2019s still a lot of Eagle Scouts around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember\u00a0Patrick Purdy<\/a>, young White male who committed California\u2019s worst school shooting, gunning down 34 mostly Asian children at a Stockton\u2019s Cleveland Elementary School in 1989? He might fit central-casting toxic; he raged against everything, long before the manosphere appeared. His was one of at least 5 big school shootings that year, back before Ball and others admit school shootings even happened.<\/p>\n

Ball\u2019s anti-factual, ahistorical rant is itself a sad descent into black-pill nihilism, in stark contrast to the healthy, compassionate messaging of young gamer men on the Kirk assassin\u2019s own online Discord boards (see below).<\/p>\n

Escapism \u2013 \u201cit must be that horror comic, that tune, that TV show, that video game, that website\u201d \u2013 goes on and on, newly perpetuated by the ever-self-destructive Left fabricating ever-new culture-war crap to demonize and demoralize its own young constituencies.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all bullshit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid the lying, denial, and scapegoating on all sides, let us examine California, home to \u201ca whole lot\u201d of young White males, ground zero of online culture, and keeper of the country\u2019s most complete statistics, the only ones to consistently record crime by detailed age, race, and ethnicity since 1975.<\/p>\n

Homicide is by far the best-tabulated, then and now, combining police and medical examiner investigation. The numbers presented below surprise even me.<\/p>\n

Ball says: \u201cRising nihilism\u201d is driving \u201ca whole lot of young men\u201d to commit shootings. Bullshit.<\/p>\n

In 2024, a total of 39 of California\u2019s 1 million young White men ages 10-24 murdered someone, just 3% of the state\u2019s\u00a0homicides<\/a>. White men ages 25-34 and ages 35-44 each murdered more people, and White men ages 45-54 (the state\u2019s richest demographic) murdered almost as many as all White male Californians under age 25\u00a0put together<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ball says: \u201cThe internet is acting as an accelerant\u201d for more murder. Utter bullshit.<\/p>\n

Back in 2000, Krystal\u2019s high school graduation year, California White males under age 25 murdered 92 people. In 1994, those halcyon days of warm human connection before the internet, California recorded 226 murders by White men under age 25 \u2013 nearly\u00a06 times more<\/em>. Back in Happy Days 1975, 332 \u2013\u00a08.5 times more<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Number of homicides by California\u2019s young White men under age 25, from the first year tabulated, 1975, to the most recent year, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Sources: California Department of Justice,\u00a0Crime in California<\/a>\u00a0(1975<\/a>,\u00a01994<\/a>),\u00a0Homicide in California<\/a>\u00a0(1994-2024).<\/h5>\n

That is, California\u2019s murder rate (adjusted for population changes) by young White men decades into the supposedly alienating, murder-accelerating online era is actually DOWN a staggering 75% to 80%. Other violent crimes have also fallen precipitously.<\/p>\n

This is a shocking, revolutionary trend, paralleling the\u00a0giant plunge in murder, violence, and crime<\/a>\u00a0by California\u2019s increasingly diverse young people of all races over the last half-century.<\/p>\n

Yet, the culture-war Left and Right STILL refuse to admit this fantastically positive trend happened alongside growing racial diversity. Their bleak, fictional agendas so desperately need young people\u00a0always<\/em>\u00a0to be\u00a0bad and getting worse<\/em>\u00a0that real trends are a threat that must be suppressed.<\/p>\n

Are today\u2019s far rarer Whiteboy murders different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Culture warriors might respond that today\u2019s young White male murders, though quantitatively far fewer, are qualitatively scarier and more nihilistic. Fair question, but\u2026 bullshit again.<\/p>\n

It may be that more shootings take place at schools, though we don\u2019t know. Small-casualty school shootings were considered\u00a0local news<\/a>\u00a0prior to the Jonesboro and Columbine massacres in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

Young, White Manson Family\u2019s creepy-crawlies who murdered celebrity \u201cpiggies\u201d and dozens of others in the 1960s and \u201870s claimed inspiration from the Bible, Beatles lyrics, and acid. Young White teen\u00a0Anthony Barbaro<\/a>\u00a0shot 14 people at Olean, NY, High School in 1974 in order to kill \u201chimself.\u201d Young White\u00a0Barbara Ann Spencer<\/a>\u00a0shot 9 at San Diego\u2019s Cleveland Elementary School in 1979 because \u201cit was Monday.\u201d You can pack a lot of scary nihilism into motives like that.<\/p>\n

Well over 2,000 White males under age 25 were charged with murder in California alone during the 1970s. Maybe the much larger numbers of young White male murderers in the past were nobler, saner, warmer folks than today\u2019s? Run that theory by survivors.<\/p>\n

Glass houses<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ball and progressive colleagues, after banging on endlessly about nihilistic chats and toxic manospheres, sometimes tack on a laundry-list of other ills such as gun availability, lack of mental health care, income inequality, COVID isolation, etc.<\/p>\n

Even that quick list leaves out the biggest factor \u2013 the deteriorating behaviors of Ball\u2019s and colleagues\u2019 own parent-age generation.<\/p>\n

Most of the commentators on progressive shows are members of a parent generation that murders at least 900 children every year in substantiated domestic violence \u2013 30 times more children than are murdered at school even in bad years.<\/p>\n

Ball is 43. Co-host Saager Enjeti, who also\u00a0demagogues on \u201cjuvenile crime,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0is 33. Fiorentini is 38. Kulinski is 37. Do the parent podcasters take the same collective responsibility for their age-mates\u2019 much larger body count that they would impose on young people?<\/p>\n

Hell, no. Even when fixating on mass and school shootings, which account for fewer than 1% of American homicides, commentators lie like last year\u2019s bathmat.<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s\u00a0latest, 2024 report on mass shootings<\/a>\u00a0shows, \u201cthe 25-34 age category had the most shooters\u201d and \u201cthe shooters’ average age was 39 years old.\u201d It\u2019s not just individual homicides; more\u00a0children<\/em>\u00a0are murdered in\u00a0mass<\/a><\/em>\u00a0shootings at\u00a0<\/a>home<\/a><\/em>\u00a0than at school,\u00a0JAMA Pediatrics<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n

More murders, more mass shootings, more violence\u2026 what dark cultures are over-25 generations consuming?<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that liberal-Left podcasters\u2019 over-25 generation is better off economically, with higher incomes and lower poverty rates that traditionally protect against risks, America\u2019s 25-44-year-olds are perpetrating more crime, more violence, more suicide, more drug and alcohol overdose, more abusive behaviors, more bullyings, beatings, and murders victimizing children and youths, more mass shootings, and more crazed politics wrecking the futures of young people and the planet, both in gross numbers and per-capita rates compared to younger ages.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s parent generation violently abuses one-third of its kids, emotionally abuses 60%, and subjects one-third to 40% to parents\u2019 and family grownups\u2019 drug\/alcohol abuse, criminality, and severe mental health problems in their homes, the 2023\u00a0Centers for Disease Control survey<\/a>\u00a0reports. Today\u2019s 25-44-year-olds are the first reliably-documented parent generation that is more likely than their teenagers to be\u00a0arrested<\/a>, including for violent crimes, public disorder, and even dumbass stuff we used to think only teenagers committed like vandalism, arson, and shoplifting.<\/p>\n

Gen Z\u2019s one negative statistic is that they\u2019re more anxious and\u00a0depressed<\/a>. They\u2019d be crazy if they weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Am I being reverse ageist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not fair, the average parent might react,\u00a0we\u00a0<\/em>don\u2019t commit crimes, overdose, or (god forbid) abuse or murder our kids. We\u2019re lovely individuals, stellar moms and dads.\u00a0We<\/em>\u00a0don\u2019t hate our teenagers.<\/p>\n

True, and that\u2019s the double standard.\u00a0We grownups<\/em>\u00a0demand to be judged as\u00a0individuals<\/em>,\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0as a faceless mass collectively guilty for all the crimes and shootings our agemates do.<\/p>\n

Remember the raging that elder America had gone off the rails after that 64-year-old shot more people in\u00a0Las Vegas<\/a>\u00a0in 15 minutes than are shot in ALL 130,000 American schools in 4 years? Oh, wait, there wasn\u2019t any anti-elder raging. Old people have power. Older people vote.<\/p>\n

Then, we turn around and deny that same individuality to \u201cyoung men,\u201d glazing the demographic scapegoat as \u201cyoung White men\u201d to dodge media euphemists\u2019 use of \u201cyoung men\u201d and \u201cyouth violence\u201d as codewords for \u201cBlack.\u201d<\/p>\n

What monsters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amid the crapshow,\u00a0reporter Ken Klippenstein<\/a>\u00a0took a radical step: actually interviewing the assassin\u2019s closest Discord platform friends and obtaining their messaging. What a letdown. Klippenstein found nothing that supported vivid official\/media fantasies of godless dark-web manospheric\u00a0Nihilist Violent Extremist<\/a>\u00a0cells slobbering for mayhem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe picture that emerges bears little resemblance to the media version,\u201d Klippenstein wrote. He found friendly gamers chatting in Discord forums who were horrified to learn of one of their friend\u2019s murderous deed. Close friends described the shooter as quiet, well-liked, and apolitical. \u201cThe friend group who he interacted with on Discord, far from some kind of militia camp or Antifa bunker it\u2019s been portrayed as, represented a range of different political views but mostly talked video games.\u201d Cats were a frequent topic as well.<\/p>\n

One of the killer\u2019s online friends led a prayer others joined for Kirk and his family. Far from inflaming murderous conspiracies, the young men online seem deserving of all sides\u2019 praise for reactions far healthier than those of dominant Right-Left conspiratorial foamers.<\/p>\n

Enough<\/strong><\/p>\n

To sum up what should be obvious ethics: no collective guilt, no mass generalizations from rare events, no wildly prejudicial assumptions and stereotyping, no scapegoating.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not okay to vilify young people because they have no means of organized response to defamation. Indignance at cultural outrages \u2013 yes, there\u2019s bad stuff online, and also in churches, schools, locker rooms, Sunday night poker, on and on \u2013 does not justify substituting grossly fabricated assumptions for diligent research.<\/p>\n

Krystal Ball,\u00a0Daily Kos<\/em>, and other who demagogue this volatile issue owe young men an abject apology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leftist commentators: Stop your dangerous demagoguery demonizing \u201cyoung White men\u201d Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| October 2025 In the wake of the horrific assassination of rightist celebrity Charlie Kirk, I had hoped the liberal-Left would retain a healthy respect for facts, qualms about indulging in primitive culture-war scapegoating, and calming voices against right-wing lunacies. Was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161214,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161213\/revisions\/161214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}