New York City waitress Madison Tayt experienced something that has become all-too common on public transportation in major urban areas. In a post on X, she complained that a “man on the subway was repeatedly harassing a woman, being disgusting, invading her space,” and, worst of all, “all the young, fit guys around just stood silent and looked at the ground.”

Tayt added: “shit like this is why i have zero respect for men. absolute cowards with no backbones or sense of justice who can see an objectively bad situation and cant do the bare minimum of at least telling someone to knock it off” (sic).  

That little tirade was issued the day before Daniel Penny’s trial got underway. Penny, if you do not remember, is a former Marine who fatally choked out Jordan Neely, a menacing homeless man with a mile-long arrest record, before Neely could harm passengers on a New York subway train. Given that Penny is a pariah facing up to 15 years of prison, Tayt should not have to wonder why “young, fit guys” these days increasingly choose to forgo heroics—and it is not because they are cowards. It is because people like Tayt have created a culture that condemns heroism as a vestige of “toxic masculinity.”  

Penny did not lace up his shoes looking for a fight that day. In fact, he was reluctant to jump into action and only did so when it appeared Neely was about to hurt someone. The grand jury testimony of subway passengers painted a terrifying scene. The New York Times reported:  

One passenger believed he was going to die as Jordan Neely approached him. Another heard Mr. Neely say, “I want to go to prison,” and she shielded herself with her son’s stroller as Mr. Neely made “half-lunge movements” at others. A third heard him say, “Someone is going to die today.” … One witness, a daily passenger, told the jurors, “I have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that.” Another said that once Mr. Penny confronted Mr. Neely, their movements on the ground together “really just looked like a struggle,” adding that it did not look as though Mr. Penny had control of the situation.  

Nevertheless, the media portrayed Neely as a beloved Michael Jackson impersonator who struggled with mental health. Largely omitted was that he had been arrested 42 times on allegations ranging from assault to criminal trespass. In 2015, he was arrested for attempting to kidnap a seven-year-old girl. Witnesses saw him drag her down a street. Not long before his encounter with Penny, Neely was released from Rikers Island. He had punched an old woman, shattered her nose, fractured her orbital bone, and pleaded guilty to second-degree assault.  

The reward Penny received for intervening on behalf of others was to be vilified as a violent psychopath who was likely motivated by racial hatred, not only by the liberal and left-wing commentariat but also by people like Tayt.  

Last May, in another post on X, Tayt confessed to a sense of guilt for only “bringing up violence against women at the expense of another marginalized group. especially following the murder of jordan neely, it’s propagandistic.” The irony is profound.  

Maybe Tayt has had a change of heart over the last year. “The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian did after being sexually assaulted by a homeless man. Kasparian said she broke with the left and the Democratic Party after her former fellow travelers harshly criticized her for publicly disclosing the incident.   

“So, I opened up about this on the show, not really thinking much of it, and before I know it, I’m starting to get these messages, and it’s like really, really harsh stuff,” she said in an interview. “And it’s about, how you are painting a picture of the homeless community. You know, how could you be like this? You know, these are your unhoused neighbors, and they need help.”  

Irving Kristol once quipped that a “neoconservative is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality,” and I think that probably accurately describes Kasparian. But people like Tayt are likely to continue to be victims of their own ideology. Certainly, there will be moments when confrontations with reality cause their healthy instincts to surge to the surface. Invariably, however, people this far-gone are going to interpret reality through an ideological framework that sees people like Daniel Penny as a threat to society.

Men are bad, especially when they do manly things—even and especially if those things are in the service of order. I’m reminded of the case of John Cote, another New Yorker who, like Penny, made the mistake of doing attempting to defend civil society.  

Rote pulled a gun on a vagrant who had been harassing a woman—demanding money from her and even following her and trying to snatch her bag. Rote saw what was happening, yelled, “Get the fuck away from her!” and then drew a pistol and fired a warning shot that scared off the attacker.   

Was it reckless? Yes, absolutely. But it was a manly thing to do, helping a woman in harm’s way when no one else would. Recklessness and masculinity go hand-in-hand. It’s part of the package. Sometimes things go awry. Other times, it can save lives.  

What was Rote’s reward? The woman he helped criticized him for using a firearm. The press ran comments from everyday New Yorkers mocking Rote. One subway rider said the incident was proof of the need for stronger gun control in America. Rote, in fact, was arrested thanks to a tipster—the supposed “real Good Samaritan” in this story. Disgraced Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials, including the former chief of the Bergen County Police Department, derided Rote as an incompetent, wannabe vigilante. In the end, Rote, who does not have a criminal history, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a class C felony, and misdemeanor menacing. His life is now worse in some respects than that of the vagrant he stopped.   

People like Tayt have only themselves to blame for men ceasing to act like, well, men. It is a problem now afflicting the broader West. A survey of 1,000 adults for St. John Ambulance in the United Kingdom found that one in three Britons are afraid to give women CPR because they are concerned about touching their breasts. These men would rather be bystanders than be accused of conducting themselves inappropriately during a life-threatening emergency. Rote and Penny know about that all too well.