Tuesday night’s presidential debate was a lot of things: a debacle, a degradation, a disaster. But it was also a story about gender, and what it looks like when men lean on tired versions of white manliness to win.
Donald Trump’s entire political career has rested on aggrieved white masculinity. In the president’s view – and the view of many of his followers – there is one way to be a man: you dominate, you hurt people, you use any means necessary to assert yourself as the top dog in the pack. You don’t need to earn respect or demonstrate competence in order to be elevated. You don’t need to play by the rules. You don’t need to be a good sportsman. You just need to win.
This was all on full display at the first debate. Trump interrupted Joe Biden so often that the debate wound up largely content-free. When Trump spoke, he offered virtually nothing of substance; he used his time, instead, to berate Biden, Democrats, the left, Bernie Sanders and anything else that crossed his mind. He was vulgar, aggressive and rude, refusing to abide by the rules he agreed to beforehand. He was a know-nothing bully.
Joe Biden brings a different kind of white manhood to the election, although it’s also a familiar one. He abides by (or claims to abide by) an old-school honor code that has long been on offer primarily to white men. Respect is earned, not demanded (although only men can really earn it). Integrity and decency make a man (although men get to define “integrity” and “decency”). A win isn’t really a win if you cheat (but men make the rules). And if another man violates your honor or threatens you or someone you love, well, sometimes a man has to use his fists.
It’s all exhausting.
It goes without saying that both of these models are largely off-limits for women. Nor are they particularly useful to men, although the Biden-style masculine honor model is at least less awful for everyone around him. And both of these versions of masculinity are largely put on. Yes, they reflect something at the core of both candidates – Trump truly is a pathological narcissist; Biden truly does believe that the old-school system works – but they’re also performances, a way of signaling who they want voters to believe them to be, and reflections of what each man thinks will help him win.
What’s interesting, though, is that while Biden projects the kind of masculinity that many men claim to have – one premised on working hard, playing fair, having character, behaving honorably according to a clear moral code and protecting women and children – it’s Trump who most white men support. Women, on the other hand, are rejecting cruel Trumpian masculinity in record numbers. Trump faces the largest gender gap on record, with women overwhelmingly flocking to Biden. Men don’t show as dramatic a preference, but they are still going for Trump by 13 points. And this affinity is particularly pronounced for white men, with 62% of likely white male voters supporting Trump, according to a Washington Post / ABC News poll. Even more – 68% – of white men without college degrees say they are supporting or leaning towards Trump. And Trump has also made inroads with Black and Hispanic men. Biden, on the other hand, has the support of a majority of women generally, 69% of white college graduate women, and huge majorities of women of color.
Trump-style manhood clearly has an appeal. He promises men that they don’t even have to do the basics – support a family, behave decently, play by the rules – to be powerful and have social status. This is especially acute for white men, who Trump insists are the true possessors of American identity and greatness. He offers a model for them: You don’t have to treat women well or be polite to your fellow citizens; you don’t need to work hard or be the kind of upstanding moral man other people admire. You just have to wave a flag, identify a large group of lesser others, and crush anyone who might question you.
Men, and particularly conservative white men, have not lived up to their own expectations; in response, they haven’t just lowered the bar, they’ve chucked it in the wood chipper. Women, on the other hand, are increasingly rejecting Trump’s ruthless, immoral, macho version of manhood. The bad news, though, is that even if Trump loses, the men who embrace his vision of masculinity as male dominance aren’t going away. And it’s women who will live with the consequences.
