Something strange is going on with the working class men of America. Many in this class of men are no longer working, and it is not for the lack of jobs.

As Charles Murray explains in White America – while upper middle class men (and their wives) work more and more, working-class men work less and less to such and extent that we must insert those quotes – the working class man, is now the ‘working’ class man. This phenomenon has caught the attention of the White House and is said to have caused the rise of Donald Trump.

Both Murray and similar accounts confirm that although the collapse in traditional working class jobs is partly to blame, it is the collapse in working class culture that has driven this change.

In fact, an incredible ‘7 million American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are neither working nor looking for work. That amounts to 12 per cent of all men in those prime working ages – and that doesn’t count another 2 million who are looking for work but haven’t found it.’

These numbers are staggering and have commentators from Left to Right in a flap. In fact, “participation among prime-age men peaked in 1954, declined only slightly until the mid-1960s, and then began to decline in earnest in the decade between 1965 and 1975. Since then, participation has fallen persistently, with sharper declines in recessionary periods that were not fully reversed in the subsequent expansions,” according to this official White House report.

So it seems just as women were liberating themselves from the prison of the home, working class men have liberated themselves from work. Perhaps unsurprisingly one liberation – that of women – has been celebrated, but the other is causing panic.

Ah, but my feminist sisters say, these men are just the new modern man. They are taking over childcare and home duties while their partners go to work. That was our grand plan it is all coming to fruition. Not quite.

Instead, these men are having a bit of ‘me’ time. “They’re not spending any more time on child care or chores.” Instead these men spend up to 10.5 hours a day on media in all its form. They are playing Grand Theft Auto is what they are doing.

This commentator views this as an ominous sign, “the time and money these activities rob from relationships, work, and savings can hardly be overestimated.”