Most of you might know that line.
Country Joe McDonald sang it in 1965. He was talking about Vietnam. He was talking about young men being sent to die for reasons nobody could explain clearly, and he was asking a simple question wrapped in sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood.
The question underneath the song was this. Where are you. What are you doing. And why are you letting this happen while you stand there.
I am asking the same question today. Different war. Same absence.
While younger women are showing up to primary elections in record numbers, voting out long-term incumbents, reshaping the ballot, taking the caretaker role in our democracy seriously — where are the men.
Sitting in front of a game console.
Chasing the next fitness record. Trying to out-lift, out-run, out-endure the last guy who posted his numbers online. Competing in every arena except the one that actually determines how their lives are going to be governed.
I understand the appeal. I do. The game console gives you a clean win. You complete the mission, you get the reward, the scoreboard updates in your favor. Real life does not work that way. Real life is slow and complicated and the scoreboard takes years to update. So men drift toward the things that give them the feedback loop they are wired for.
But that is not an excuse. That is a diagnosis.
The country is not a game. The primary process is not a side quest. The men who are checked out right now — the ones performing physical endurance stunts for social media, the ones rage-posting about everything wrong with the world and then doing nothing about it — they are watching women carry the weight of the republic while they optimize their bench press.
That is not strength. That is abdication dressed up as independence.
Real strength right now looks like registering to vote. Showing up to a primary. Understanding which lever actually moves the machine and putting your hand on it. It looks like the same discipline these men pour into their workouts and their gaming rigs applied to something that outlasts both.
The women in this series of posts did not wait for men to lead. They found the mechanism, they built the strategy, and they are executing it. They are not asking for permission and they are not waiting for company.
But the union does better when everyone shows up. It always has. The caretaker role was never supposed to fall on one group. It belongs to all of us.
So here is the question Country Joe was really asking. Not just in 1965. Today.
What are you waiting for.
The primary is open. The lever is right there. You know how to show up when something matters to you. This matters. More than the next level. More than the next PR. More than the next post about how bad everything is.
Grow up. Get a spine. Put your action where your mouth is.
The women already did.
A New Category: “AI Baseline Governance”
“Intelligent People Assume Nothing” | Michael S Faust Sr. | Substack
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