I read LGM when I have time; haven’t been there in a couple of weeks. But here is this. I thank another friend of the blog for the link to this. It’s concise.

Graham Platner, Donald Trump, and Gender

By Cheryl Rofer

Graham Platner, son of wealthy parents, is cosplaying as a salt-of-the earth oyster farmer who sells his product to his mother and is running to become the Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, against Susan Collins. He was outed as having a Nazi tattoo, which he had tattooed over with a slightly less Nazi tattoo. His earlier writings and activities include slurs against women and wearing a Blackwater hat to own the libs.

He is now running ahead of Governor Janet Mills, who is an older woman but who actually has experience in government, something Platner lacks.

Why is Platner doing so well? We can look to Donald Trump for that.

All of our politics today are gender politics. It’s very difficult to talk about that, because it permeates everything we do, leaving us fish unaware of the water. The response is frequently that no, it’s something else, maybe power. But power is gender infused too. So let’s focus on gender if only for the amusement of seeing something through a new lens.

We have multiple models in our heads of what women and men are. Mute eye candy, intellectual, blue collar are some general descriptors, but more specifically, we associate particular groups of characteristics with particular manifestations of gender. Graham Platner and Donald Trump are avatars of a particular way to be a man. I will enumerate some of them.

Men tell it like it is. This means that they can say things that are associated with this type of masculinity, like referring to women by their genitals and using slurs against other groups that are not able-bodied white men.

Men are muscular and do hard work. This means that blue-collar men are Real Men™.

Men are strong. This is different from being muscular, but the two bleed into each other. A man can take on emotionally difficult tasks and bull his way through.

Men never apologize. From what I have read, Platner has acknowledged the tattoo and his earlier actions but has not apologized. Trump, well.

Men are by nature fit to lead. Platner has no experience in government, as was the case with Trump in 2016. But they were/are questioned very little on this issue.

Men may become violent. Platner was in the military and Blackwater, with a violent tattoo. Trump shouts, rages, and talks about violence all the time.

To my mind, this type of masculinity is disqualifying for elected office. But obviously others disagree.

He’s a plain-talking guy you could have a beer with. Or at least a man could have a beer with. The comfort factor is enormous, and Platner and Trump give people permission to be comfortable in a particular way. Ezra Klein interviewed (gift link) one of conservatism’s intellectuals, Christopher Caldwell. Caldwell writes at the Claremont Review of Books and is one of the New York Times’s resident conservatives.

One of the things he settles on as an aspect of Trumpism is what he calls free speech. He has felt throttled by woke and was delighted to be able to be comfortable in what he says. That banker interviewed by the Financial Times said it out loud: He can say the “r” word and refer to women’s bodies in conversation. It’s what all conservatives mean by “free speech,” sometimes with Nazi phrases or concepts thrown in. When they say “free speech,” they mean whatever speech white men in charge want to use.

Those “free speech” advocates are given permission to speak freely by Platner and Trump.

There are other reasons people vote for men displaying this cluster of traits considered masculine. It’s a comfortable stereotype – much in the media and what people who don’t have close contact with blue-collar men may believe of them.

Even Rahm Emanuel feels he has to put on a muscular performance of eating his salad.