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The Party Of Victims Versus The Party Of Men

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by Portfolio Armor
Saturday, Jan 27, 2024 - 13:35
Strong men and the women who love them.

Can This Realignment Trump Demographics?

In our previous post (What's At Stake In Biden's Border War With Texas), we shared an analysis that showed that the most right-leaning demographic in America are people whose ancestors came from Northern Europe, and that as America takes in more third world immigrants, its politics are likely to shift further to the left. 

Today, Balaji Srinivasan offered an interesting counterpoint on X. We don't entirely buy it, but it's definitely worth reading. We'll post it below and then offer a comment on it after. Before we do, some brief background on Srinivasan, for those who may be unfamiliar. He has bachelors, masters, and PhD degrees from Stanford in electrical engineering, as well as another masters from Stanford in chemical engineering. He cofounded a genetics startup, became a general partner in one of Silicon Valley's top venture capital firms, and was the first CTO of Coinbase. He's also something of a political theorist as the author of The Network State. 

The Jumping Off Point

What sparked Srinivasan's post was this post by Derek Thompson, highlighting the growing gender divide among young people globally today. 

In response, Srinivasan wrote the post below [emphasis ours, and we've also added a few links for clarification].

Authored by Balaji Srinivasan on X

The Men's Party

Republicans are becoming the men’s party. The party of strong men and the women that love them.

This is both obvious and non-obvious.

Obvious because the Republicans have been attacked for decades as the party of “rich straight white men”, so of course they’re the men’s party! Non-obvious because this actually means a distinct shift in emphasis relative to the recent past. Let us count the ways.

1) First, the Republicans are no longer the party of “white men”, but anti-anti-white men. It’s a big tent; you just need to extend the common courtesy of not attacking white conservatives and libertarians on the basis of race.

2) Second, it’s not *just* the party of men. Because married men, married women, and single men all vote Republican. As of 2022, only single women vote Democrat[1]; the state is their surrogate provider and protector.

3) Third, it’s now the party of strength. That could be actual physical strength in its Bryan Johnsonian or BAPian variations. It could be financial strength like [billionaire investor Peter Thiel] or technological strength like Elon. It could be prowess with arms like Erik Prince [2] or prowess with words like Vivek. Or it could simply be the moral strength to assert that the X and Y chromosomes exist.

4) Fourth, it’s not really the “multiracial working class party” that Sohrab Ahmari has been talking about. The Republicans certainly are more multiracial and arguably more working class than the past…but that’s because they’ve pulled in men from those groups who respect strength and are repelled by victimology.

A Republican today could well be a working class carpenter, but wants to get wealthier some day, and maybe run their own business. And they might be nonwhite, but they don’t *define* themselves by their race nor make a habit of attacking white people as white.

In other words, they don’t define themselves by their victimization but by their aspiration. Democrats are the party of victims, Republicans are the party of men.

5) Fifth, modern Republicans are ultra-libertarian. It’s about individual ownership of firearms, redecentralization of power to the states, deregulation, Bitcoin, and anti-institutionalism. There is some continuity with Reaganism, but far less emphasis on military service and far less trust in centralized authority. Much more sigma male than company man.

6) Perhaps the single biggest thing about redefining the Republicans as primarily the men’s party is that it ensures they are always competitive. No matter what happens demographically, the percentage of men is flat at roughly 50% — and everyone has strong men they admire and respect. That gives all-weather traction and global appeal.

So, that draws the political battle lines. On one side, strong men of many ethnicities and the women that love them. On the other side…the opposite of that.

[1]: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/1787170/no-one-benefits-more-from-the-destruction-of-the-american-family-than-the-democratic-party/

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[2]

 

What Srinivasan Misses: Demographics Is Still Destiny

There's a lot to agree with in Srinivasan's post, but his 6th point is a bridge too far:

Perhaps the single biggest thing about redefining the Republicans as primarily the men’s party is that it ensures they are always competitive. No matter what happens demographically, the percentage of men is flat at roughly 50% — and everyone has strong men they admire and respect. That gives all-weather traction and global appeal.

This would only be true if men of all races and ethnicities were as right-leaning as Northern European men, but they aren't. It's true, for example, that African American men are more right-leaning than African American women, but Republicans would still be lucky to get 20% of black men. As long as a majority of nonwhites vote left, the Republican Party will be doomed if America becomes an increasingly nonwhite country. 

One most also bear in mind that as an Indian American, Srinivasan likely is opposed to seeing restrictions on immigration from India, and this probably colors his views here. 

In Case You Missed It

In our Top Names post on Thursday (Top Names, 1/25/2024), we shared the performance of our current top names holdings: 

As part of our core strategy, we buy Portfolio Armor's top names, put trailing stop orders of 15%-20% on them, and then replace them with new ones as we get stopped out. We haven't gotten stopped out that much though--maybe on about 3 or 4 stocks in the past year. 

If you'd like a heads up when we post next week's top names, feel free to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below. We'll also be posting some earnings trades as well next week. 

 

If You Want To Stay In Touch

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