Marie Harf, ISIS, and Alpha Bad-Boys

Marie Harf is the US State Department spokeswoman who has come under criticism for her statements that the way to defeat ISIS isn't with force, but rather social change—specifically to improve their economic prospects and give them good jobs. Even Chris Matthews, who normally throws softballs at the Obama administration, was flabbergasted.

Explanations for Harf's statement have ranged from her living in a bubble (and thus she naively thinks the whole world is similar to the the bubble she lives in) to a lack of core religious beliefs (and thus is unable to comprehend how powerful a force religion can be in someone's life). I'd like to approach this from a different angle: women's attraction to alpha bad-boys.

Even the most blue-pill guy has noticed women can't resist alpha bad-boys. There are good (and logical) reasons for this, rooted deep in our human past (which I'm not going to elaborate on now). For the moment, all we need to do is acknowledge that this phenomenon exists.

Part of the bad-boy syndrome is the idea that under that bad-boy persona is really a good-guy just waiting to come out (or be brought out by the love of a good woman). Countless fathers have counseled their daughters to quit dating some guy because “he's nothing but trouble,” only to have their daughter reply “Oh Daddy, you just don't understand him.” Actually, the dad does understand him; it's the daughter who doesn't. It's the daughter that is seeing a non-existent underlying good-guy persona; it is the daughter who is attributing attributes to hmi that don't exist; it is the daughter that incorrectly think he would become a good guy—if only the circumstances were different.

Rather than retract her statement, Marie Harf has doubled down. Saying that her comments were “too nuanced” for her critics to understand. The political equivalent of “Oh Daddy, you just don't understand him.” Most people look at ISIS and see a group of terrorist bent on destruction. Marie Harf sees a bunch of alpha bad-boys who, with the right combination of love and understanding, can be turned into the good-guys they always were inside.

The reason so many women complain that all men are jerks, is because they keep choosing to hook up with the alpha bad-boys (the jerks) thinking they can reform them and release their inner good guy. This plan rarely (if ever) works out, because there is no good-guy lurking inside. They are what they are: bad men. Plain and simple.