"They're being called to save the country": Jackson Katz on how MAGA masculinity sells men purpose

[applegrove]

"They’re being called to save the country": Jackson Katz on how MAGA masculinity sells men purpose

"The global crisis in democracy is tied directly to a crisis in masculinity"

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 25, 2024 12:00PM (EDT)

https://www.salon.com/2024/10/25/theyre-being-called-to-save-the-country-jackson-katz-on-how-maga-masculinity-sells-men-purpose/

"SNIP............

America’s gender troubles helped to spawn the Age of Trump and the democracy crisis we currently face.

Fascism is coded as a masculine political ideology insofar as it emphasizes the strongman figure, violence and rejection of “political correctness." Politeness and empathy are branded as feminine and weak. Women are deemed vessels for producing more soldiers for the state. Rape culture is a defining feature of fascism. Fascism is also both homosocial and homoerotic in its aesthetic and attempts to channel male libidinal energy in the form of a fake populist mass movement in service to the Dear Leader (the fascist leader is almost always a man).

Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, fulfills most, if not all, of these roles for his MAGA cultists. Social scientists have shown hostile sexism and misogyny is tied to support of Trump, the MAGA movement and authoritarianism more broadly. Trump has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by many women. In the civil case filed by E. Jean Carroll, a court of law deemed Trump a sexual assaulter.

Public opinion polls consistently show that Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters are white men who are drawn to his regressive and reactionary performance of white masculinity. The white masculinity that Trump is performing is also racist and white supremacist. This does not limit its appeal to nonwhite people. Social scientists and other experts have shown that there are Black and brown men who are also attracted to Trump’s fake alpha male persona. Black and brown men’s support of Trump and the MAGA movement may be a deciding factor in what will be a very close 2024 election.

.............SNIP"

[Freethinker65]

1. Have these incel insecure Trump backers ever looked in the mirror?

Have they ever seen Trump do the dirty work he is demanding they do to show their support? Trump didn't even walk with the mob to the Capitol steps. He watched it unfold on TV in comfort among family, friends, and advisers (also unwilling to get their hands dirty and do any actual work).

[applegrove]

4. They are going to be picking fruit as a living in a year or so.

Right after being drafted into the army to expel dreamers and their 3 generation families.

[epreic01]

2. Bullshit

Their purpose is to use the power they still cling to in order to rig the system to hold everyone else back so that they don’t have to work as hard.
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps Brandon.

[orthoclad]

3. There's another good article in The Guardian about this

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2024/oct/25/i-visited-jd-vances-hometown-heres-what-i-learned-about-young-male-voters

Divide and conquer is the ruling class's fav strategy. Set us against each other by gender, race, religion. While their hands are in our pockets.

[Stargazer99]

5. That is what the wealthy are doing and it seems like most are not intelligent enough to figure it out

[orthoclad]

7. We get distracted by very real problems

That's what makes the strategy so effective.

Driving while black and bodily autonomy are real, sometimes lethal, issues. The ruling class knows this and exploits this.

[enigmania]

6. I just don't get

this masculinity BS. I'll be a 68 year old white, southern, motorcycle-riding blue collar dude in about two months. I've always been progressive, because I'm not stupid. I watched as women gained more agency, LGBT people came out, cultural norms shifted, and people of color began to treated almost as human beings. I did not feel threatened by any of this. I was proud of the species. The real threat comes from the rich narcissists and their ilk.

[applegrove]

8. Killing union jobs was a predictable way to get people

to vote on feelings rather than reason which is what Republicans needed starting 45 years ago.