Tough as a marshmallow

Now wait just a damn minute.

FiveThirtyEight has campaign advice, which is one of my least favorite genres of post or article or book or any other item of communication. But in addition to that…whaaaaaaaat?

Some voters are plainly worried about whether a woman can defeat President Trump in 2020. But maybe they shouldn’t be.

This might seem like a strange argument to make — after all, I recently wrote an article outlining the many challenges that women face when they run for office. But the thing is, men can also be hurt by some of those same stereotypes, and while the bar is higher for women, men also need to convince voters that they’re strong, decisive and assertive enough for the job. What’s more, gender is likely to be a defining issue in the 2020 race even if the Democrats don’t put a woman at the top of the ticket, in part because tough-guy masculinity is so central to how Trump campaigns and how he governs.

Excuse me? Bozo the Clown projects “tough-guy masculinity”? Are they serious? The ridiculous goldy hair that flaps in the breeze? The baggy suit on the puffy lazy body? The brazen, copious cheating at golf? The tiny boneless hands making their two pathetic meaningless gestures? The fake tan? The whiny tweets? The compulsive talk talk talking? The ignorance, the clumsiness, the vulgarity, the general absurdity and grotesquery of him? That projects tough-guy masculinity? I don’t think so. Bullying, yes, noise, yes, bad manners, yes, but do those really add up to tough-guy masculinity?

I say no.

Image result for james cagney

Not Donald Trump

18 Responses to “Tough as a marshmallow”