Including his masculinity
MSNBC’s Katie Phang asked Liz Plank (“For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity”) to explain where Donald Trump and his angry male base gets masculinity wrong. They don’t know their own place in a changing culture and an eroding patriarchy, she finds.
“Can we talk about masculinity, right? Trump is putting on a performance of masculinity. Because he’s not actually masculine. This is a guy who spends more time with his make-up artists than with his own advisors,” Plank explains.
“But even setting aside that he probably wears more make-up than Kamala Harris, masculine men aren’t afraid of women. They’re not afraid to debate women. Masculine men don’t have meltdowns on stage because a woman that they didn’t like asked them a question that they didn’t like. Masculine men aren’t manipulated by people who give them compliments.”
Like Trump’s bogus reputation as a business genius, his hyper-masculinity is another scam, a false front. He’s failing the men he claims to be leading. It’s a performance.
By his own definition of masculinity, Trump fails, Plank insists. Trump and J.D. Vance appeal to men’s worst versions of themselves.
To say their appeal is to mens’ lesser angels is an insult to angels. We need a new vision of men’s roles in a changing society.
We won’t get it from them.