
Welcome to 2025: The return of Trump, toxic masculinity and a world on the edge
By Edaein OConnell
21st Jan 2025
21st Jan 2025
As 2025 begins, the world feels eerily reminiscent of the chaos of 2016, with Trump’s return fuelling regressive forces threatening the world as we know it.
Sorry, is this thing on? Is 2025 working properly? Can we turn it off and turn it back on again? Is there a reset button? When did we lose masculine energy in the office and is it in the room with us?
There’s been an almost apocalyptic feeling to this new year and we’re only 20 days into it. I’m getting a real whiff of 2020 in the air as if we are on the verge of the destruction of our prevailing systems and methods of existing. And this demolition job isn’t one of those beautiful clearings that ends with a better world that is more accepting, tolerant and graceful. This isn’t a colon cleanse of misogyny or a clearance sale of inequality. No, we are truly living in regressive times. With every step forward, the world takes two steps back. It’s 2016 again when Brexit and Trump’s first term in office melded together and brought the world to its knees and we prayed to some higher power for forgiveness.
Donald Trump has been inaugurated as President of the United States for a second time. He has reigned victorious over a female candidate for a second time. His campaign trail was a dirty track of racist remarks and sexist overtones for a second time. For the second time, America ignored his dangerous pitfalls and chose him as the leader of the land of the free, despite being the first former (and now current) president to be convicted of felony crimes.
Advertisement
For many across the US, it was a day of mourning, 24 hours of sadness, the bluest of Mondays gripped with terror about what the future may hold. Trump is back and what does that mean for women, the LGBTQIA+ community and immigrants? To be fearful is to exist in 2025. Even more harrowing is the fact that now he has experience. He’s already finished one term and had his training days. Trump has already completed his manual handling course on how to manhandle an entire country. Some will counter that he isn’t the bad guy that he appears to be – how much power can one man have? In Trump’s case, it’s quite a lot actually, especially now that he has a team of tech billionaire cronies willing to bend the knee at the first sign of strife.
From Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg, some of the most powerful men in the world are now joining forces with Trump to assemble a Justice League of billionaires who have no substantial talents outside of collating money, ignoring truths and no want or will to help the common American. Although, Trump has hoodwinked the nation into believing he will protect the little guy.
Watching some of the world’s top billionaires seated before Trump’s cabinet at his inauguration was a chilling sight. It sent a clear message: his administration appears to have one primary goal – amass wealth and influence and disregard everything else.
Then there’s the truly mind-boggling reality that not a single one possesses even a trace of political acumen or insight. Zuckerberg said last week that he wants more ‘masculine energy’ in the corporate world which is hilarious because it’s a realm where men outnumber women at every level. His hot take is even more comical when you realise he says it as a 40-year-old man-child growing out his hair and wearing a long gold chain.
Meanwhile, Musk will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency in the US, which again is funny because all Musk seems to want to do is launch useless rockets into space like a 7-year-old. It’s easy to say that these meetings and arrangements are the rich simply courting people in their tax bracket but money means power. Nothing Trump does is without intention and his objective here is to unite as many dominant forces as possible to help create the world of his twisted fantasies. He wants control of social media, economy, health and people’s minds and bodies.
With his close ties to Zuckerberg and Musk, Trump has established a strong foothold in the social media landscape. This sphere isn’t just a tool for amplifying his public persona but also a strategic battleground where he seeks influence over the flow of information. Meta has loosened its fact-checkers, meaning fake news will be fast and free which plays beautifully into the narrative that Trump likes to create. Meanwhile, Musk’s X is a platform that regularly incites hatred and abuse and amplifies far right voices. Again, it’s putty in his orange hands.
When TikTok was reinstated in America on Sunday after a brief cancellation, a pop-up ad was issued to its 170 million US users that read: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!” It was propaganda in its most fervent form. It’s clear a deal was done with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew but at what cost to free speech and unfiltered usage on the app? Some users have already noted that videos discussing abortion rights have been flagged as misinformation by TikTok. How far will this new US administration take social media suppression?
All in all, early signs of Trump’s second presidency suggest both a blatant push to establish authoritarian supremacy and an attempt to regress to an early 20th-century reality when women were treated as second-class citizens and men smoked cigarettes in offices with their feet on the desk, ogling the secretary. Meanwhile, his gaggle of genuflecting goblins are a group of insecure teenagers in men’s bodies with more money than common sense and an existential need to cling to influence and prove they are big boys in the big bad world.
Advertisement
Abortion bans, TikTok bans, censorship, transphobia, the end of fact-checking; America is fast becoming the land of the restricted and all we can do is watch and hope the tides don’t turn and encroach our shores. The Internet, predominantly held by Trump’s new best friends, has become a varied collection of websites, blogs and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny and opposition to feminism but it’s no longer just a virtual space. The manosphere is here on earth and we are currently living in it.
Please, can we try one more time? Is this thing on?