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| The Toxic Masculinity of the Trump Administration | |
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| Like many Americans, I watched with relief and gratitude as Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States Ambassador to Ukraine, marched through a throng of reporters on Oct. 11 to testify to Congress. Her defiance of a State Department order not to testify was an example of moral courage we have seldom seen among those who have worked for or supported the Trump administration. It was as if the nation had been under a spell, and Yovanovitch broke it. Since then, former and current members of the Trump administration have continued to come forward. | Like many Americans, I watched with relief and gratitude as Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States Ambassador to Ukraine, marched through a throng of reporters on Oct. 11 to testify to Congress. Her defiance of a State Department order not to testify was an example of moral courage we have seldom seen among those who have worked for or supported the Trump administration. It was as if the nation had been under a spell, and Yovanovitch broke it. Since then, former and current members of the Trump administration have continued to come forward. |
| Many of us have wondered, with good reason, whether our apparently anemic system of checks and balances could be completely upended by the willingness of key witnesses to comply with the president’s orders to obstruct Congress. In fact, the notion that the president is above the law, or even worse, that the president’s word is itself a law-above-the-law, seems to be the operative one among Trump partisans in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Congress. What may be less obvious is the connection between this vision of presidential power and toxic masculinity. | Many of us have wondered, with good reason, whether our apparently anemic system of checks and balances could be completely upended by the willingness of key witnesses to comply with the president’s orders to obstruct Congress. In fact, the notion that the president is above the law, or even worse, that the president’s word is itself a law-above-the-law, seems to be the operative one among Trump partisans in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Congress. What may be less obvious is the connection between this vision of presidential power and toxic masculinity. |
| As a feminist philosopher, I understand our constitutional crisis to be all tangled up with a specific brand of what I call “sovereign masculinity.” Sovereign masculinity is not a real, existent thing. It lives instead in that dimension of human existence Charles Taylor called the “social imaginary,” and is just one of many things that situate me in the world in ways I don’t have to think about. This form of masculinity is all tangled up with how I know who I am and where I belong. It is as familiar as my sense of left or right, or up or down. It animates deep, visceral motivations and powerful emotional attachments that can exist in easy contradiction with my consciously held beliefs. | As a feminist philosopher, I understand our constitutional crisis to be all tangled up with a specific brand of what I call “sovereign masculinity.” Sovereign masculinity is not a real, existent thing. It lives instead in that dimension of human existence Charles Taylor called the “social imaginary,” and is just one of many things that situate me in the world in ways I don’t have to think about. This form of masculinity is all tangled up with how I know who I am and where I belong. It is as familiar as my sense of left or right, or up or down. It animates deep, visceral motivations and powerful emotional attachments that can exist in easy contradiction with my consciously held beliefs. |
| The aspiration to sovereign masculinity expresses itself most exuberantly in hyperbolic displays of power. Why are we still talking about Trump coming down the escalator and calling Mexicans rapists and murderers? Why are we still repeating his claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support? Why do we keep reminding one another that he bragged about grabbing women by the “pussy,” proclaiming “when you’re a star they let you do it”? | The aspiration to sovereign masculinity expresses itself most exuberantly in hyperbolic displays of power. Why are we still talking about Trump coming down the escalator and calling Mexicans rapists and murderers? Why are we still repeating his claim that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support? Why do we keep reminding one another that he bragged about grabbing women by the “pussy,” proclaiming “when you’re a star they let you do it”? |
| There may be a few Trump supporters who believe cognitively, literally, that Mexicans are rapists and murderers and that the appropriate way to interact with women is to grab them between the legs, but these statements aren’t doing their work at the level of belief. Whether we wince or cheer, we remain spellbound by these statements because they are displays of omnipotence. | There may be a few Trump supporters who believe cognitively, literally, that Mexicans are rapists and murderers and that the appropriate way to interact with women is to grab them between the legs, but these statements aren’t doing their work at the level of belief. Whether we wince or cheer, we remain spellbound by these statements because they are displays of omnipotence. |
| Developmentally, aspirations to sovereign masculinity arise in response to shame. All those movies and TV shows about the picked-on kid who punches the bully in the nose and has his dignity restored are conveying a message: The sovereign man must pass through shame to get to power. But once he’s got power, he has to keep shame close. Shaming others is what he needs to do to keep himself up. | Developmentally, aspirations to sovereign masculinity arise in response to shame. All those movies and TV shows about the picked-on kid who punches the bully in the nose and has his dignity restored are conveying a message: The sovereign man must pass through shame to get to power. But once he’s got power, he has to keep shame close. Shaming others is what he needs to do to keep himself up. |
| When Joe Biden responds to Trump’s efforts to humiliate him right out of the presidential race by announcing in a Washington Post op-ed that, “I intend to beat you like a drum,” he plays on the same ubiquitous cultural preoccupation that keeps us tuned in to Trump’s every tweet — and his audiences applaud. If shame is the hazing ritual, spectacular displays of power, even metaphorical ones, are the sovereign man’s redemption. | When Joe Biden responds to Trump’s efforts to humiliate him right out of the presidential race by announcing in a Washington Post op-ed that, “I intend to beat you like a drum,” he plays on the same ubiquitous cultural preoccupation that keeps us tuned in to Trump’s every tweet — and his audiences applaud. If shame is the hazing ritual, spectacular displays of power, even metaphorical ones, are the sovereign man’s redemption. |
| That’s the developmental story, but our fascination with this type of masculinity has deep historical roots in a particularly American, particularly racist past. When Trump got up in front of the United Nations and started his usual fact-defying boasting about being the best and biggest and most of all time, that international audience broke into spontaneous laughter. Here at home, we are often too mesmerized to laugh. Trump commands an intensity of attention and focus that saturates our national discourse in the way addiction saturates an individual life. The historian Gail Bederman traces America’s obsession with this kind of masculinity back to the Progressive Era, when white men feared “civilization” was making them weak, invented Tarzan, and reinvented white masculinity as a copy of their own fantasy of dangerous, primitive, black and indigenous manhood. | That’s the developmental story, but our fascination with this type of masculinity has deep historical roots in a particularly American, particularly racist past. When Trump got up in front of the United Nations and started his usual fact-defying boasting about being the best and biggest and most of all time, that international audience broke into spontaneous laughter. Here at home, we are often too mesmerized to laugh. Trump commands an intensity of attention and focus that saturates our national discourse in the way addiction saturates an individual life. The historian Gail Bederman traces America’s obsession with this kind of masculinity back to the Progressive Era, when white men feared “civilization” was making them weak, invented Tarzan, and reinvented white masculinity as a copy of their own fantasy of dangerous, primitive, black and indigenous manhood. |
| In American history from that point forward, sovereign masculinity is not associated with rationality or the life of the mind, but with a fantasy of instinct-driven, primitive potency. It scorns deliberation, negotiation, alliances with others, and the intellectual life. Trump’s promised rejuvenation of America’s greatness is all tied up with the reanimation of this history. It is a central structural feature of the past to be resurrected. | In American history from that point forward, sovereign masculinity is not associated with rationality or the life of the mind, but with a fantasy of instinct-driven, primitive potency. It scorns deliberation, negotiation, alliances with others, and the intellectual life. Trump’s promised rejuvenation of America’s greatness is all tied up with the reanimation of this history. It is a central structural feature of the past to be resurrected. |
| The conservative Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield wrote a treatise praising this kind of manhood in 2006, as an antidote to America’s post-9/11 blues. “The most dramatic statement of manliness would be the one where the man is the source of all meaning, where nothing else has meaning unless the man supplies it,” he wrote. The ultimate aspiration of the sovereign man is to have his speech operate like the speech of a god, where his word instantiates truth. | The conservative Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield wrote a treatise praising this kind of manhood in 2006, as an antidote to America’s post-9/11 blues. “The most dramatic statement of manliness would be the one where the man is the source of all meaning, where nothing else has meaning unless the man supplies it,” he wrote. The ultimate aspiration of the sovereign man is to have his speech operate like the speech of a god, where his word instantiates truth. |
| This is why toxic masculinity is not a separate issue from political authoritarianism generally. The sovereign man is not subject to the law because he is a source of law for others. The spectacles of subservience we have witnessed since Trump was elected are testament to that equivalency. Once obedience to the word of the sovereign sets in, becomes normal, we are on the road to an authoritarian state. | This is why toxic masculinity is not a separate issue from political authoritarianism generally. The sovereign man is not subject to the law because he is a source of law for others. The spectacles of subservience we have witnessed since Trump was elected are testament to that equivalency. Once obedience to the word of the sovereign sets in, becomes normal, we are on the road to an authoritarian state. |
| When Marie Yovanovitch stood up straight and walked with unassailable confidence through flashing press cameras to testify before Congress, after being told not to, the spell was broken. The curtain was drawn back. She showed us that Trump’s word is not law, but the blustering of a man in love with a fantasy of his own power. That blustering doesn’t become law if those around him refuse to treat it as such. The American public witnessed a simple act of moral courage. | When Marie Yovanovitch stood up straight and walked with unassailable confidence through flashing press cameras to testify before Congress, after being told not to, the spell was broken. The curtain was drawn back. She showed us that Trump’s word is not law, but the blustering of a man in love with a fantasy of his own power. That blustering doesn’t become law if those around him refuse to treat it as such. The American public witnessed a simple act of moral courage. |
| What is moral courage? In 1961, Hannah Arendt traveled to Jerusalem to observe the trial of Adolf Eichmann to find out. While I don’t equate our current situation with fascism in Nazi Germany by any means, I do find her insights about moral courage eerily relevant to our constitutional crisis and battle over impeachment. | What is moral courage? In 1961, Hannah Arendt traveled to Jerusalem to observe the trial of Adolf Eichmann to find out. While I don’t equate our current situation with fascism in Nazi Germany by any means, I do find her insights about moral courage eerily relevant to our constitutional crisis and battle over impeachment. |
| Reporting on the trial of a man who had blithely, efficiently and dutifully sent 11 million people to their deaths, Arendt confronted what she called “the fearsome, word-and-thought defying banality of evil.” She discovered that Eichmann was just a rule-follower, driven by narcissism and a desire to advance his career. He was incapable of independent thought, and behaved morally only as long as the orders he received were moral. When The Führer’s word effectively became law, morality itself consisted, for him, of doing what Hitler ordered. | Reporting on the trial of a man who had blithely, efficiently and dutifully sent 11 million people to their deaths, Arendt confronted what she called “the fearsome, word-and-thought defying banality of evil.” She discovered that Eichmann was just a rule-follower, driven by narcissism and a desire to advance his career. He was incapable of independent thought, and behaved morally only as long as the orders he received were moral. When The Führer’s word effectively became law, morality itself consisted, for him, of doing what Hitler ordered. |
| After his arrest he insisted that “what he had done was a crime only in retrospect, and he had always been a law-abiding citizen, because Hitler’s orders, which he certainly had executed to the best of his ability, had possessed ‘the force of law’ in the Third Reich.” Of the German people in moral collapse, Arendt suggested that they were very good at following the rules as well, and when Hitler’s word became law, they were still good at it. | After his arrest he insisted that “what he had done was a crime only in retrospect, and he had always been a law-abiding citizen, because Hitler’s orders, which he certainly had executed to the best of his ability, had possessed ‘the force of law’ in the Third Reich.” Of the German people in moral collapse, Arendt suggested that they were very good at following the rules as well, and when Hitler’s word became law, they were still good at it. |
| Arendt’s conclusion was that moral courage required an ability to “judge without banisters,” that is, to judge the unique and specific case in a situation that is radically unprecedented, with no universal rule available under which to subsume it. Moral courage, she taught us, is about exercising independent judgment in a situation where the rules collapse. | Arendt’s conclusion was that moral courage required an ability to “judge without banisters,” that is, to judge the unique and specific case in a situation that is radically unprecedented, with no universal rule available under which to subsume it. Moral courage, she taught us, is about exercising independent judgment in a situation where the rules collapse. |
| Inflated assertions of executive privilege seem to indicate that the president has convinced an enormous number of people that he is, indeed, the source of a higher law. Individual Americans have never before been confronted with a congressional subpoena and the executive’s assertion of privilege in the form of an order not to comply with that subpoena at the same time. Moral courage in this situation requires letting go of the banisters. Yovanovitch didn’t just follow the law by complying with the subpoena, she restored the dignity and authority of that law, which had been weakened and thrown into crisis by a pattern of obstruction. Refusing subservience to the word-as-law claimed by the executive branch was an act of independent judgment. | Inflated assertions of executive privilege seem to indicate that the president has convinced an enormous number of people that he is, indeed, the source of a higher law. Individual Americans have never before been confronted with a congressional subpoena and the executive’s assertion of privilege in the form of an order not to comply with that subpoena at the same time. Moral courage in this situation requires letting go of the banisters. Yovanovitch didn’t just follow the law by complying with the subpoena, she restored the dignity and authority of that law, which had been weakened and thrown into crisis by a pattern of obstruction. Refusing subservience to the word-as-law claimed by the executive branch was an act of independent judgment. |
| As a feminist, this act means even more to me than that. Yovanovitch defied an assertion of executive power that is wrapped up in, and gets its cultural purchase alongside, an aspiration to sovereign masculinity that is deeply, intransigently misogynist. Her moral courage struck a blow to sovereign masculinity and political authoritarianism as they are intertwined in our contemporary politics. | As a feminist, this act means even more to me than that. Yovanovitch defied an assertion of executive power that is wrapped up in, and gets its cultural purchase alongside, an aspiration to sovereign masculinity that is deeply, intransigently misogynist. Her moral courage struck a blow to sovereign masculinity and political authoritarianism as they are intertwined in our contemporary politics. |
| Bonnie Mann is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon, co-editor in chief of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy and author of “Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons for the War on Terror.” | Bonnie Mann is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon, co-editor in chief of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy and author of “Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons for the War on Terror.” |
| The Stone in print: “Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments,” and “The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments,” with essays from the series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books. | The Stone in print: “Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments,” and “The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments,” with essays from the series, edited by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley, published by Liveright Books. |
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