| | | | |  | | By POLITICO MAGAZINE | |  | | 
| |  Illustration by Nicole Natri for POLITICO | 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 still, surely leaders were trying on the ideas that had proven popular among extremely online young men in the Donald Trump years and were about to realize they weren’t a great, long-term fit in the post-Trump Republican Party — right? That turned out to be wrong. Manliness, at least for the GOP, must be a winning political issue. We’ve now seen the Ron DeSantis campaign share a video splicing images of the governor with those of manly icons including Tommy Shelby, body builders and Patrick Bateman. Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is doing push-ups and showing off his muscled physique on the campaign trail. And it’s not just politics:Elon Musk has challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight and even posted a tweet calling him a cuck. What’s going on here? That question seemed to get only more important as we began assigning pieces trying to answer it. The result was the package we’re rolling out starting today. There’s a profile of an Ohio man who bucked stereotypes when he was laid off from his factory job and became a nurse and an original survey in collaboration with IPSOS, which produced some fascinating results about how Democrats and Republicans disagree — and, perhaps more strikingly, agree — on the problems facing men. In the next few days, we’ll publish a roundtable with Democrats and scholars on the left’s manliness problem and a profile of a mysterious masculinity influencer on the right. But first: Our Friday Read is an essay from Virginia Heffernan about the long history of elite writers who have panicked about American men losing their masculinity. The freakout, she writes, goes back to the founders and two competing visions of masculinity presented by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. It flares up every so often, particularly among the white and ultra-privileged (see Hawley’s new book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs), and is often code for something that actually has very little to do with being a man — but is totally American. —Katelyn Fossett, senior editor Read the story.
| | | |  | “I could carve out of a banana a justice with more backbone than that.” Can you guess who said this about Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.** | | | |  | | 
When athletes take to the court at Rock Creek Park later this month for the annual DC tennis tournament formerly known as the Citi Open, the contest will have a new name: The Mubadala Citi DC Open. | Kyle Gustafson/Zuma Press via AP | D.C. Learns to Play Gulf … A seemingly confused Congress held hearings this week about the merger of the Saudi-run LIV Golf and the American PGA. But MBS isn’t the only wealthy autocrat with an interest in Beltway athletics. Qatar has devoted $200 million to the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has transformed the annual tennis championship taking place in Rock Creek Park this month into the “Mubadala Citi DC Open.” “Critics have a word for it: Sportswashing,” writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column. “By associating themselves with popular athletes, the logic goes, controversial regimes sanitize problematic reputations.”
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| | Testicle tanning, awkward push-up videos and whatever a “Giga Chad” is have all somehow made it into the mainstream political discourse, prompting grave questions that strike at the very foundations of our society, such as: “What the Hell?” and “Um, are men OK?” If you’re feeling understandably bamboozled by all the he-man bombast, check out my colleague Adam Wren’s dissection of the ongoing “testosterone primary.” You can also use these talking points to muscle your way through the manly discussions our politics apparently won’t let you avoid with dignity. (From POLITICO Magazine associate editor Dylon Jones): - Name check one of the authors du jour currently covering masculinity and your conversation partners will handle the rest. Hanging with a wonky crowd? “What did you think of Richard Reeves’ assessment of the isolation facing young men?” More of a MAGA type? Ask if anyone caught Sen. Josh Hawley at the “Stronger Men Conference” over the summer, or just pepper your speech with the phrase, “Epicurean liberalism.” - When the conversation turns to the presidential race, challenge your friends to share their 5k run times. If they’re even slightly above average runners, they can out-do Republican Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who bragged about an 87th-place finish. (OK, it was sixth place for his age group.) If they want to outshine Democratic contender RFK Jr., they only need to bench press a meager, what, 120 lbs., by the look of it? But they have to do it in jeans. Or, for the traditionalists, a backward red baseball cap is best for weightlifting. - “Thirst traps are a new wedge issue,” Wren writes. So, now that RFK Jr. has done it, do the other contenders need to go shirtless? Suarez, who thinks “physical fitness should be considered an asset for a president,” says he’ll have to ask his wife, but that he’s “working on it.” - Masculinity politics may be having a moment, but telegraphing toughness as a political strategy is nothing new. Teddy Roosevelt practiced Judo in the White House. And even President Joe Biden knows how big a political impact a bicep can make.
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Illustration by Matt Chinworth for POLITICO | Manly Math … The last few years have been drowned in ink, hog-tied in mile-long Twitter threads and memed half to death with hot takes about masculinity. But does any of this really matter at the ballot box? Actually, it does — and the potency of masculinity as a political motivator goes deeper than the decades-long gender divide that has seen more women support Democrats and more men support Republicans. New, original polling by POLITICO Magazine and IPSOS reveals that ideas about gender and masculinity indicate how a person will vote, right down to individual candidates — and also that there’s a curious consensus among Democrats and Republicans about the very concept of being a man.
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| |  Eric Cromer in his basement where he keeps mementos of his time working for GM on June 1, 2023 in Cincinnati, OH. | Photos by Maddie McGarvey for POLITICO | Nursing Men Back to Health — and Work … The displacement of male-dominated industries like manufacturing, and a decline in male labor-force participation overall, have given credence to the cries of a masculinity crisis emanating from academia and Capitol Hill. To some conservatives, it’s a sign of encroaching male oppression, an omen warning us to return to traditional masculine virtues. But Eric Cromer, a self-described “hillbilly” who became a registered nurse after losing his job on the GM assembly line evaporated in the 2008 recession, doesn’t have much time to theorize about manly men — he’s too busy working. Cromer “never embraced the idea that his circumstances were a product of an attack on men, whether by the cultural left or women or anyone else. When I met him, he’d never heard of Josh Hawley,” writes Kathy Gilsinan, whose profile of Cromer takes on the economic dimensions of the masculinity debate. “His story offers a provocative what-if scenario, an alternative history for the last fraught 15 years, that maybe could have rewritten or at least changed the current, dark narrative of the American male.”
| | | **Who Dissed answer: Teddy Roosevelt — perhaps the manliest president? — appointed Holmes to the court, but soured on him when he supported a massive railroad company in an antitrust case. The bad blood turned up this classic zinger — and put an end to Holmes’ dinner invitations from the White House. politicoweekend@email.politico.com | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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