Trump: The idealized masculine fantasy versus the sad, craven reality

It seems that the saying “Adult life is like high school, except that there’s more money involved” turned out to be true. High school is where you learn that the self-aggrandizing are often the most insecure, that guys who treat girls terribly are terrible people, and that bullies at craven cowards at heart.

Another great high school truth: The people who spend the most time proclaiming about how strong a man they are turn out to be the weakest, most unmanly men. The only worse people are those who latch onto those fakers, in the hopes of illuminating their dreary lives, even if it’s with only a few rays of that false glory.

With that in mind — along with the really sad photo of Trump attempting to deal with an easy baseball toss that most hospitalized people would be able to catch — here are some articles about the Trump “manliness” fantasy versus the sad reality.

• The Atlantic — Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly President: Why don’t the president’s supporters hold him to their own standard of masculinity?
  “But even if we excuse Trump for the occasional hyperbole, the fact of the matter is that Trump is an obvious coward. He has two particular phobias: powerful men and intelligent women.”
  
• The Week — The Least Macho President
  “The guy who hates handshakes because he’s scared of germs claims he would stop a school shooting “even if I didn’t have a weapon.” His supporters hail him as the savior of masculinity. But his machismo, like everything else about him, is a charade. Trump is not the savior of masculinity. He is a parody of it.”
• Politico — Is Donald Trump a Manly Man? His followers seem to love his strength. But it wasn’t so long ago his act would have been seen as exactly the opposite.
  “The contradiction is that the people who are so adoring of Trump’s breaking of every norm and code of honor will still uphold and believe in that model of a better and innocent past.”
• The Bulwark — Is Donald Trump Manly?
  “Suffice it to say that the insecure, thin-skinned, self-fellating, crybaby bully in the Oval Office was not what Kipling had in mind [in reference to Kipling’s famous poem, If].”

Sure, he can pose in a truck to look “manly”, but it’s all for show. A leaked recording showed that he didn’t know that trucks use diesel fuel. And let’s face it, this guy has probably never had to pump his own gas.

• Ms. — Donald Trump and the Tragedy of Failed “Masculine” Leadership
  “It is beyond tragic that the most powerful man in the world is such a small man, utterly incapable of rising to the occasion and providing the leadership this catastrophe so desperately requires.”
• Washington Post — The weird masculinity of Donald Trump
  “Donald Trump bears very little in common with any actual woman I know. But, oddly, he has a lot in common with the basest, most unfair stereotypes of femininity. He is ruled by feelings rather than facts. He is fickle, gossipy and easily grossed out. He uses florid language, like “beautiful” and “perfect,” and says he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “fell in love.” He deals with adversity like a Mean Girl with a burn book, via insults and freeze-outs. For any Neanderthal who has ever feared electing a female president because what if she’s too cranky when she’s on her period — congratulations. For approximately 1,300 days, you have had a menstruating man in the Oval Office.”
• And finally, here’s one from an unlikely source: National Review — Trump and Masculinity:
  “I’ve been arguing for a long time now that one of the problems with Trumpism is the way people feel the need to redefine their definitions of good character so that Trump can clear the bar. It’s like cutting a yardstick down to two feet so you can call something a yard long.”
  “The masculinity that Donald Trump represents is not representative of what conservatives used to mean by good character. And to suggest otherwise trims another couple inches off the yardstick.”