ETA: The posts are coming fast and furious, aren’t they. Well, heck. This is a full service blog. Graze and munch as you like.
While we wait for consequential news, this is a good time to point y’all to an article that ran in the Gray Lady a few days ago by a friend of mine, Susan Faludi.
Faludi has been a great writer and thinker for a long time now, and in some ways this piece, “Trump’s Thoroughly Modern Masculinity,” is a distillation of a lot of the work she’s done since Backlash.
Here she points out that the way Trump expresses his notion of American maleness is an inversion of both prior ideas and of gender representations. In particular, she notes how the claims that Trump channels “Greatest Generation”* machismo gets completely wrong the lived experience of those who lived through the Depression and the war:
The masculine archetype of the 1930s and ’40s was the anonymous common man who proved his chops through communal building, not gunslinging. In a 1932 speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that “the man of ruthless force had his place in developing a pioneer country” but he now endangered the nation.
“The lone wolf, the unethical competitor, the reckless promoter,” he said, “whose hand is against every man’s, declines to join in achieving an end recognized as being for the public welfare, and threatens to drag the industry back to a state of anarchy.” New Deal America championed a manliness of usefulness, demonstrated through collective service and uncelebrated competence.
The ’30s ideal of heroic civil servant carried into World War II, and was enshrined in Ernie Pyle’s battlefront dispatches valorizing unsung grunts — “the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys.” Pyle disparaged the silk-scarfed “flyboys,” whose camera-ready star turns Pyle instinctively distrusted.
Of the grunt ethic, Pyle wrote, “We are all men of new professions, out in some strange night caring for each other.” This service-oriented prototype of manhood — tending to the needs of others, providing protective support, spurning the spotlight — was essentially a maternal masculinity, all the purported qualities of motherhood, recoded for the Y chromosome.
That’s Biden’s version of masculinity, Faludi notes. By contrast, Trump is a cosplayer’s idea of an alpha male.
Contemporary manliness is increasingly defined by display — in Mr. Trump’s case, a pantomime of aggrieved aggression: the curled lip, the exaggerated snarl. Display permeates his ratings-obsessed presidency. It’s why he chose his vice president (he “looks very good”) and his former defense secretary (“If I’m doing a movie, I’d pick you, general”). The chief executive of Newsmax, Chris Ruddy, noted of his friend Mr. Trump’s inclinations, “It’s more about the look and the demeanor and the swagger.”
Ornamental manhood is the machismo equivalent of “I’m not a doctor but I play one on TV.” Or, in the boogaloo movement’s version, “I’m not actually a soldier but I wear camo and walk around downtown with my big gun.” (In Mr. Trump’s case, it’s “I’m not a successful builder but I played one on ‘The Apprentice.’”)
What gender stereotype, Faludi asks, does such posturing evoke? Well…
The hallmarks of contemporary ornamental masculinity — being valued as the object of the gaze, playing the perpetual child, pedestal-perching and mirror-gazing — are the very ones that women have, for half a century, struggled to dismantle as belittling, misogynist characterizations of femininity. The preoccupation with popularity, glamour, celebrity, appearance — what are these qualities but the old consumer face of the Girl? If Mr. Trump is reclaiming a traditional stereotypical sex role, it’s one that long belonged to women.
That’s hitting Trump where he lives–and it is an argument that, to my mind, is spot on. The implicit argument, or at least what I read into it, is that this election is all about freedom, not just in formal, legal terms, but in the degree to which we gain the power to construct for our identities and lives for ourselves.
Anyway, read it for yourself…it’s a good essay. And talk about whatever.
*How I loathe that phrase–and how much my family members who actually did their part in WW II scorned it!
Image: William Hogarth, The Polling, from the Humours of an Election series, 1754-55
raven
“Stiffed” was and interesting book.
Doug R
Just a reminder-Pence was
trump’s Manafort’sPutin’s pickLe Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Faludi is right. I can think of dozens of chest-puffing incidents I’ve had over the past 30-40 years, and mine have generally involved standing up for someone not in my same privileged space. Only twice have I faced down firearms – one fired – and They were personal, but I was able to succeed despite being unarmed at the time.
Trump never stood up for anyone else.
Bobby Thomson
Not to be toxic, but Trump is the most overtly swishy and least masculine president of my lifetime, with Johnson probably being the most traditionally masculine.
Immanentize
Backlash Faludi? Ok.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Bobby Thomson:
On behalf of raven, fuck LBJ for not seeing what McNamara and Westmoreland were. Otherwise, he had some good domestic impulses (sorry, raven).
SiubhanDuinne
With you on the “Greatest Generation” soubriquet. I don’t know whether Tom Brokaw dreamt that up his own little self, or swiped it from somebody else, but it makes me cringe every time.
divF
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: One time, I was watching a nature show on TV with a friend, and there was film of (I think) elks fighting during rutting season. After a few minutes, he turned to me and said, “wouldn’t it be easier if they flipped a coin for it?”
Ever since then, I have tried to apply that idea whenever it looks like I am going to be dragged into a male dominance competition.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@divF:
So we were on a helo ride in the Okavango Delta in Botswana a couple of years ago. We spotted a neat little meaningless dominance match between two impalas by the water – as they fought, a good-sized croc was quietly moving in. We told the pilot to hover while we watched – the impalas were oblivious for a time, but at some point, one (or both) noticed him moving in for a kill. They cooperatively moved off about 15-20 meters, then resumed. I’m not sure what it all means, but they saw the danger and made a decision.
MagdaInBlack
Ornamental manhood” is just the phrase I’ve been searching for. Thank you !
WereBear
@raven: agree! Insightful.
Yarrow
Tom Nichols had a good piece in The Atlantic on Trump and Masculinity.
Link.
Mike S
I saw someone use “Cosplaitriots” and I’ve never been able to use anything else.
Ken
Intelligence is overrated? Because I doubt that two humans would behave as sensibly, especially if the crocodile is a metaphor for, oh, pretty much any challenge from covid to global warming.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ken: Great point! I really need to resubmit my photo for OTR posts (although I wasn’t shooting video for that – their epiphany moment was amazing).
Cheryl Rofer
Tom, I haven’t read Faludi’s article yet, but what you say has some overlap with an article I wrote with a colleague for Foreign Policy a while back. Ignore the headline. Writing the gendered aspects of nuclear strategy is still a new concept to some editors.
Some time back, I started a Twitter thread that I called “Adventures in Masculinity.” I intended to highlight indicators of masculine gender in places one might not expect them. That intention has been completely overrun by the extreme excesses of performative masculinity we’re seeing these days.
CaseyL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
@Ken:
I think it means natural selection works: the male impala who had not been smart enough to pause their duel long enough to get out of range were eaten, thereby allowing more intelligent impala to mate and beget smarter offspring.
One big problem with humans is we’ve devoted the last 300 years, at least, to cheating natural selection. Stupidity doesn’t have nearly enough consequences!
MagdaInBlack
@raven: (p.s. I didn’t catch your drag strip link from this a.m til I got to work. I had no idea that place existed. The guys at work were impressed
raven
@MagdaInBlack: Cool! It was a real destination for gear heads in the 60’s.
Jager
My old man was one of those silk scarf flyboys…he told me funny stories. The only guys he’d talk combat with were other pilots and his best friend who had been an Armor Sgt. They had all seen some bad shit. Men who have been in actual combat, don’t blow smoke about it because it’s terrifying, real, and nothing like a god damn movie.
I grew up playing hockey, spent three years in the Army and the toughest talking assholes I’ve been around are business guys talking shit like, “Get out there today and kick their asses”. Shit like, “I want you to rip that bastard’s nuts off if he raises hell about the new rates.” as Goldman used to say, “Fuck em”.
The Pale Scot
What we need to remember is that the Dems can hang the shit gibbon around the thugs necks for 30 years, just like they did to Hilary.
No forgiveness
No acceptance back into humanity
Geminid
@Cheryl Rofer: I am sometimes an optimist, and I’d like to think that a couple generations from now most people will be able to comprehend the damage patriarchy has done to human progress.
waspuppet
@Bobby Thomson: Yeah there’s nothing wrong with femininity, but this Trump self-image has always completely baffled me. He wears more makeup than his wife, and spends more time on his hair. And that would be fine if he were experimenting with identity, but he thinks he’s a big masculine tough guy.
MagdaInBlack
@Jager: Funny you should mention that its the corp guys who blow that smoke. I’m the office manager in a body shop (collision repair). Just lil old me and 9 guys. The only folks I hear that big talk nonsense from are the corporate upper management types. My blue collar guys just do their job with quiet confidence and don’t make a big deal of it. They are the kind of men I grew up around.
And if I’m having any car issues, they’re the first to help. Never ask a thing for that help either.
Richard
Today i encountered an old workmate. He didn’t see me at first but i said Hey 3****! He was surprised to see me in a wheelchair. I was surprised to see him looking so skinny. He said it was Lyme disease.
Anyway it was nice to see him. When we were working together we always helped each other. He’s a nice man and so am i.
I don’t get this masculinity thing. What are they afraid of?
Anyway i always liked that guy and it was good to see him. We think we are going to survive this. Sew take a needle and thread.
J R in WV
I’m looking for anything that isn’t MSNBC or CNN….
This is not the network news!!! Thanks, everyone.
Ruckus
Tom, I used to know a Susan Faludi. At least the way I say that name sounds the same.
Maybe I’ll remember how/why the name is familiar. I might have to lose ten or twenty yrs to do that……
CaseyL
@Ruckus:
Was the Susan Faludi you knew a reporter/writer?
Heidi Mom
@Richard: I recently read an interesting book called The Man They Wanted Me to Be by Jared Yates Sexton. He asked himself why men saddle themselves with the stereotypical understanding of masculinity (tough, tight-lipped, no crying, etc.) and posits an answer: because they have to deny that, in evolutionary terms, they’re the weaker sex. More girl babies survive than boy babies, females have stronger immune systems than males. He sums it up with the image of old men lying in their hospital beds, and a cluster of women out at the nurses’ station, taking care of them.
Miss Bianca
Damn. I think she’s nailed something here.
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
Actually I think the majority of his supporters do hold him to their standard of masculinity. trump is basically an over styled nothing of a guy with no talent at anything. As are a lot of his supporters if the pictures we see all the time are real. (Yes I think they are.) People with nothing going on, and nothing in the future because they don’t have that 400 million start up fund from daddy.
Ruckus
@Jager:
I spent 2 months in a navy hospital with a lot of marine vets from Vietnam. Guys that had seen way too much of stuff that no one ever wants to see. First hand. I now spend too much time at a major VA hospital with guys who could have been in that hospital 50 yrs ago. Some of them are still not and probably never will be really OK. I sat in a clinic one day about 4 yrs ago with a guy that is still not even close to right. I hope he finds some peace in his life somehow, he hadn’t in the last 5 decades.
If we go back to WWII, most vets I’ve met wouldn’t talk at all about their service. My dad wouldn’t, even after I joined, he just couldn’t do it. He could talk about anything else, not a word about any of his time in.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
After some thought I think I know how I knew this woman. And where. So I looked up Tom’s friend and the picture looks like the person I’m thinking of. But If it’s the same person I knew her in northern CA and she seems to be from the east coast region. However her website shows speaking engagements in northern CA so it’s possible. I also may know her through a long time friend from up north, rather than my first suspicion.
Tom Levenson