Thursday, August 08, 2024

THE RESENTFUL BRO ELECTION?


This was weird:
JD Vance briskly marched up to Air Force 2, Kamala Harris’ plane, planning to give political reporters a show as he confronted the vice president uninvited on Wednesday. His power-play dreams, like most of his chaotic veep run, were immediately thwarted once he realized Harris was not present.

“I just wanted to check out my future plane,” Vance told campaign reporters gathered on the tarmac in Wisconsin.
Vance thought this moment was bro-riffic:


Others had different responses:


But the Trump campaign clearly likes it when J.D. Vance acts like a stalker. It's clearly of a piece with the He-Man Woman Haters' Club vibe of the Republican convention, particularly its last night, which deeply impressed at least one nepo-baby reporter, despite the interminable length and weirdness of the nominee's acceptance speech:


How does a "warrior" ticket become a stalker ticket? The flip side of that performative machismo is resentment when anyone, especially a woman, refuses to swoon in response -- especially if she laughs instead. And oh boy, is Kamala Harris laughing. Tim Walz too, and also millions of voters.

And even though some women are spreading the joke, I see contemptuous-male energy -- specifically, eleven-year-old-boy energy -- in the GOP's many references to Walz as "Tampon Tim."

Arguably, Republicans have a wedge issue here. A bill Walz signed into law in Minnesota makes tampons available free in schools not only in girls' bathrooms, but also in boys' bathrooms. To me that's an appropriate acknowledgment of the fact that some young people who menstruate identify as male, but I can see that Republicans might want to contest that approach in this election.

However, when they attack Walz on this, they frequently don't bother to mention the boys' bathrooms. They think "Tampon Tim" is hilarious, and devastatingly effective, all by itself:


To these Republican men and male-identified Republican women, putting "Tampon" before the name of a man is inherently emasculating. (To normal people, free tampons in schools are just common decency.)

The Trump campaign really seems to believe that its candidate can win if he can just add a few additional resentful men, especially younger men, to the party's usual base.



It might have worked when Democrats had an uninspiring candidate. I don't think it's working now.

No comments: