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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump, the Most Unmanly President
Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly President
Why dont the presidents supporters hold him to their own standard of masculinity?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/612031/
Tom Nichols, Author of The Death of Expertise, The Atlantic
"SNIP.....
So many mysteries surround Donald Trump: the contents of his tax returns, the apparent miracle of his graduation from college. Some of them are merely curiosities; others are of national importance, such as whether he understood the nuclear-weapons briefing given to every president. I prefer not to dwell on this question.
But since his first day as a presidential candidate, I have been baffled by one mystery in particular: Why do working-class white menthe most reliable component of Donald Trumps basesupport someone who is, by their own standards, the least masculine man ever to hold the modern presidency? The question is not whether Trump fails to meet some archaic or idealized version of masculinity. The presidents inability to measure up to Marcus Aurelius or Omar Bradley is not the issue. Rather, the question is why so many of Trumps working-class white male voters refuse to hold Trump to their own standards of masculinitywhy they support a man who behaves more like a little boy.
I am a son of the working class, and I know these cultural standards. The men I grew up with think of themselves as pretty tough guys, and most of them are. They are not the products of elite universities and cosmopolitan living. These are men whose fathers and grandfathers came from a culture that looks down upon lying, cheating, and bragging, especially about sex or courage. (My fathers best friend got the Silver Star for wiping out a German machine-gun nest in Europe, and I never heard a word about it until after the mans funeral.) They admire and value the understated swagger, the rock-solid confidence, and the quiet reserve of such cultural heroes as John Waynes Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby and Sylvester Stallones John Rambo (also, as it turns out, a former Green Beret.)
They are, as an American Psychological Association feature describes them, men who adhere to norms such as toughness, dominance, self-reliance, heterosexual behaviors, restriction of emotional expression and the avoidance of traditionally feminine attitudes and behaviors. But I didnt need an expert study to tell me this; they are men like my late father and his friends, who understood that a mans word is his bond and that a handshake means something. They are men who still believe in a days work for a days wages. They feel that you should never thank another man when he hands you a paycheck that you earned. They shoulder most burdens in silenceperhaps to an unhealthy degreeand know that there is honor in making an honest living and raising a family.
....SNIP"
Turbineguy
(37,315 posts)"He's got about as much class as a sneaker full of shit!"
Fits trump to a tee.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)There is a world of difference and each should never be mistaken for the other.
applegrove
(118,600 posts)in the South. I am angry at them for tanking the country by being apoealed to by their racism, but they are being used by the GOP too.
Maraya1969
(22,474 posts)His tanning booth, his makeup, his fake hair color, tons of hair spray, yea, he is a girly girl.
Not that all those things are wrong for anyone. Live and let be. But Trump wants people to think of him as a tough guy and he's not.
Blue Owl
(50,347 posts)n/t