Megyn Kelly’s recent sit-down with Adam Carolla cut through the usual media spin and put a name — “gyno-fascism” — on a cultural current that too many Americans are feeling as a real force in politics today. Carolla argued, plainly and without the usual deference to left-wing narratives, that a new flavor of moral authoritarianism centered on identity and virtue signaling is gaining steam and elevating figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris. That conversation aired on The Megyn Kelly Show, where the hosts didn’t bother pretending this was merely a lefty slogan; it was treated as a phenomenon worth confronting.
The phrase itself didn’t come from nowhere — it has been floating in conservative and contrarian circles for years as a way to describe a modern, feminized strain of cultural coercion that prizes feeling over function and moral posturing over governing competence. Commentators dating back to the early 2020s traced this school of thought and Carolla has returned to the idea on multiple shows, arguing that a movement obsessed with optics and sanctimony is replacing the traditional standards of public service. If you want to understand why so many working Americans are shaking their heads, start with where this rhetoric began and why it persists.
Look at the policy agenda and the public theater: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sells sweeping social-justice packages and grand pronouncements like the Green New Deal that are more about signaling tribal loyalty than workable governance. Her platform and public messaging are engineered to mobilize outrage and identity allegiance, not to rebuild infrastructure, secure borders, or restore fiscal sanity. That approach energizes a base wired to virtue metrics while alienating anyone who worries about results and real-world trade-offs.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has made reproductive politics and identity-driven appeals a centerpiece of her national message, equating abortion access with fundamental freedom and touring to rally voters around those issues. For many Americans, that single-issue frame reduces complex questions about life, responsibility, and public policy to a blunt instrument of political power, and it exemplifies the kind of moral absolutism “gyno-fascism” critics describe. When public life is dominated by ritualized moral postures rather than problem-solving, men and hardworking families who want stability and dignity start looking elsewhere.
This is not just intellectual sniping — it’s political self-sabotage. Adam Carolla and other critics have pointed out that the constant performance politics and moral grandstanding are driving men away from the left and making entire swaths of the electorate feel disposable. If the Democratic project becomes primarily an exercise in signaling victimhood and moral purity, it loses the very voters who built this country: the tradesmen, small-business owners, and family men who value competence, fairness, and common sense over daily virtue updates.
Conservatives should welcome the fight, not flinch from it. We can challenge the spectacle by offering a positive, masculine vision of America: policies that reward work, protect families, secure our borders, and rebuild institutions that deliver results instead of Instagram-ready outrage. Call the left out on its hollow pageantry, put governing back at the center of politics, and offer Americans — men and women tired of the theater — a real alternative rooted in pride, responsibility, and practical success.
