@Vermillion-Rx

I think you're taking some things way too far because you're comparing them to long and dead eras of norms

Yes and no. Yes b/c he deliberately chose high standard (not a virgin=whore). No b/c:

He want's to have a disdain for all women so he can use this feeling to preemptively reject them all, not giving them a chance to prove there are good girls, ultimately from trying to replace his old oneitis (as that's his goal) b/c replacing his old oneitis (or finding even a decent "good girl", not a virgin just average decent one) would invalidate his entire "woe is me" persona. Self pity is a drug and he's addicted. Self pity also leads to resentment as a form avoidance of taking responsibility for not moving on" "see i cannot move forward ALL of them are whores".

This isn't anger phase b/c anger phase is driven by the unwillingness of accepting the inequality of how both genders operate, the "innate" unfairness of SMP as viewed from male perspective. He doesn't have this, he has "rejection of women as defence from moving on" which purpose is to keep him(self) in the perpetual self pity wallow. He's already looking for companionship ("lets make a breakup safe space") b/c miserly loves company and everyone here refuses him one.

@Lone_Ranger

My parents are the same. It's not only that they believe 'the facts' on the news, its more subtle than that - the believe that the news is a reliable source of what to 'feel'.

I remember waaay back, before the Uniparty got its tentacles into everything; before media companies were consolidated and subsumed into business verticals. When "The News" and programs like 60 minutes were on, us 70s kids got shushed and my parents listened because the news was worth listening to. Though left and right leaning news stations existed, they'd differentiate more by what types of stories to cover, but still presented facts and that was sufficient to let viewers decide how to "feel" about news topics.

Partisanizing as we know it today barely existed during the Carter and early Reagan years. Around the time the Soviet Union broke up and ended having a clear defined "enemy" in the world, rules changed restricting ownership of media outlets and consolidation and partisianizing thereof began in earnest. This is also around the time Rush Limbaugh got national radio syndication, and modeled to the "right" the art of identity politics while unironically characterizing this as a flaw of "other side." My own Mom, now approaching 80, used to be much more openminded in the old news style environment, and when my engineer Dad was still alive. He was a hard core Soviet Union despising conservative, but still openminded to facts.

Now, we see conservatives (like my Mom) reflexively blaming problems like the wasteful spending on the Ukraine war on Biden who is obviously senile and not even in charge of where to walk on a stage. Yet they ignored Reagan's growing senility, and cheered and supported the Neocon new right's deficit spending and wars of foreign aggression and resource-grabbing and influence-forcing.

Today, both right and left argue emotionally and attack "other side" with stupid ad hominem that completely misses the basics of the issues, thus allowing the Uniparty to do whatever it wants and consolidate ever more power. Very few people are willing to drill down into the facts and details of a claim or position they don't like or wish wasn't so. Claims get dismissed with superficial retorts like "At least (my side) doesn't/isn't (something completely unrelated about other side)!" or some other woman-like catty ad hom about "other side." The "sides" are just a bread-and-circus illusion of choice; there is very little difference between right and left in mainstream American politics as actually practiced in the halls of power. It's all Uniparty and influence of the highest bidders.

One recent personal example is my Mom texting me all happy about seeing a TV program that she said "proves that global warming is just El Nino." I replied that the El Nino Southern Oscillation and Anthropogenic Global Warming theory are two completely different phenomenon, and sent her a chart of rising annual global temperatures over decades with El Nino years colored and showing as high peaks above the trend. She responded by not responding to me for several times longer than normal, then continuing on as if that conversation never happened, her wish that global warming was a single thing that could get hand-waved away by one TV show's claim unchanged. Average right wing people completely miss that there is HUGE MONEY in pretending there's no such thing, and reflexively take the side of ruthless big business as if it has anything to do with their own personal fiscal responsibility and work ethic or entrepreneurial spirit.

Another example that unfolded here recently showed even the smartest right leaning guy in the room can spackle over systemic issues with a superficial partisanized and ad hominem claim. I'm talking about when Whisper addressed the discussion of "too many people" by ignoring that issue and all evidence supporting it while presenting no evidence countering it, with a long essay about how zero-sum games are a Leftist point of view.