Welcome to The Masculinity Issue. Manliness, at least for the GOP, seems to be a winning political issue. Sen. Josh Hawley gave speeches (+ book) on how traditional manly values are under threat. Ron DeSantis ran a campaign video splicing his images with those of manly icons. Dems, though less eager to stake claim on traditional gender ideas, have also leaned in. (ie. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doing pushups on the campaign trail). And ideas about masculinity and gender *can* affect how people vote.
When we began discussing a masculinity issue at the magazine a year ago, I was worried that the strange political resurgence of ideas about manliness was already on the downswing. Sure, some figures had proved their staying power: Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson and Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). But …
How can Democrats counter GOP messaging on masculinity? Should they even want to? A roundtable with Democratic party insiders and experts. It’s hard to deny that Democrats have a masculinity problem. Attitudes toward masculinity have been an important predictor of votes for Donald Trump. And while …
A new POLITICO Magazine/IPSOS poll shows that people have very different ideas on the solutions to the challenges facing men and boys. And those differences are affecting how they vote. For decades, a gender gap has been slowly changing how Americans vote: Women are voting for Democrats more, and …
Male malaise in the United States goes back to the founders, and it is a preoccupation of elites in particular. They might teach us something about this current wave of manliness panic. On opening night of the Stronger Men’s Conference in Springfield, Missouri, in April, an Army tank squatted …
Eric Cromer found an unlikely and promising path out of the wreckage of the industrial Midwest. CINCINNATI — On workdays, Eric Cromer climbs into one of his two American-made trucks by 6:20 a.m.; he likes to be a little early, and he’s been that way since the long-gone days when his GM assembly line …
A modern story of shitposting, self-publishing and how an anonymous persona can help your ideas take off — and take root at the highest levels. In 2018, Costin Alamariu disappeared. There was a flurry of activity in October, when Alamariu, a Romanian-American writer with a Ph.D. from Yale, published …
The presidential contest is careening into a frenetic fit boy summer sidequest in which candidates are skirmishing over feats of strength. Francis Suarez is bragging about placing sixth in an Independence Day 5K in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Vivek Ramaswamy, a former nationally ranked junior tennis player, …
