Malice in Alt-Wonderland with the Blue Collar Alphas

Last week, I did something that my better judgement, which I typically heed, usually screams at me to avoid. I took an online detour through the Twitter feeds of Donald Trump Sr. and Jr., clicked on the user responses, posted a few clever, if snarky comments, and quickly ended up tumbling down the rabbit hole into Alt-Wonderland. 

Beyond the rampant bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, and poor language and critical thinking skills I have come to expect from the Twitter-dees and Twitter-dums that lurk in the darker recesses of that particular form of social media, I noticed a loud and consistent refrain echoing throughout Alt-Wonderland, as loud and crazed as the Mad Hatter's tea party, "the alpha males are back!" 

You know the type-the overt ones the hyper macho guys with profile pictures posing defiantly with an assault weapon slung over the shoulder, an image in the background of a waving flag or Washington crossing the Delaware. These real men list their passions as gun nut, MMA enthusiast, and true patriot (as if there were any other kind) while brandishing hashtags like  #molonlabe, #2ADefenders, #lockthemup and #libtard. 

And then there are the crypto alphas taking snide potshots at progressives and hiding their white supremacist or misogynistic views in subtext rather than openly exposing them in all their nauseating glory.

In either case, these alphas continually made it quite clear that, while their voices had previously been silenced by feminazis and the liberal media, Trump had freed them to let their inner He-man out and once again claim their rightful place at the top of the social pecking order. 

They introduced themselves to me as the alpha males, either by proclaiming themselves such with the subtlety of a gorilla thumping it's chest or by denigrating me (the effete Caterpillar sitting on my toadstool in a haze and making cryptic comments that seemed to confuse and infuriate them), with epithets like "cuck", "impotent", race-traitor, or intimations that I'm gay. Strangely, some she-alphas, perhaps drunk on the testosterone wafting off the alpha males, likewise used the same pungent language. Dian Fossey would have been at home observing these silverbacks in their online habitat.

But, I mused to myself, are they really alphas or are they just flustered and irritated March Hares who are frantically hopping around, late to the 21st century party? Or are they Queens of Hearts, thinking they still rule their domain but are just bellowing impotently "off with their heads?" 

They see Trump as the quintessential alpha male-a crude, aggressive, undisciplined brawler and cocksman who is short tempered, impatient to take action rather than reason things through, and always looking to dominate other men through overt acts of physical or verbal intimidation. A tough daddy figure if daddies were lewd and predatory.

But even assuming that we could even apply the concept of alpha dominance to humans, which the science has yet to bear out, does this vision of an alpha mesh with the claim that alphas are natural leaders?

Now, granted there may be a class difference in the way alpha dominance is expressed, but the external display of over-the-top masculinity does not seem to reflect the calm, unwavering confidence and fearlessness expected of a leader. Rather, it is an apparent attempt to compensate for deep seated fear and helplessness-the mark, in fact, of the beta male-or the Queen of Hearts.

Fear of minorities, fear of foreigners, fear of immigrants and fear of losing the white hegemony, privilege, and entitlement that they heretofore accepted as their birthright were masquerading throughout their Twitter profiles and Tweets, as they do in Trump's own feed, as anger, outrage, and overt hostility.

When I mentioned to one such self-proclaimed alpha that I choose not to worry excessively about low probability events like terrorist attacks or mass waves of violent or job stealing immigrants, he thought I was naively optimistic as luck favors the prepared. He was, in fact, living in fear of immigrants and preparing for an inevitable future that he was powerless to beat back.

So it seems to me that the overtly aggressive blue collar alpha male is really a myth, as much as, say, the Jabberwocky in Alt-Wonderland. We have a segment of society where men have seen their economic and social prospects dwindle in a new high tech economy which they are ill trained and equipped to exploit, and in the face of growingly diverse population clamoring for an equal share of a pie previously reserved for them. As they watch their social potency dwindle, and fade into an alternate reality, the bubble of Alt-Wonderland, they lash out. 

Fortunately, I was eventually able to scramble out of the rabbit hole and escape Alt-Wonderland, though with pity for the so-called alphas that I left behind, rather than fear.