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Here in the year 2024, amid multiple compounding global crises, Republicans are focused on what really matters: Tim Walz’s masculinity.
During a press call ahead of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, senior Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller at first sounded like he was singing the Minnesota governor’s praises, calling Walz “very good in debates” thanks to his 20 years of experience — in contrast to Trump himself, who referred to Walz on the call as a “total moron.” But Miller then fell back onto the campaign’s new favorite line of attack: implying that Walz is a mincing queen.
“[Walz is] not going to be the wildly gesticulating effeminate caricature we see at rallies pointing to Kamala Harris and dancing about on the stage,” Miller said during the call. During a CNN interview shortly thereafter, host Kasie Hunt pressed Miller on that comment, asking him why he chose to describe Walz as “effeminate.” Miller at first dodged, softening his characterization to “goofy,” but went on to say Walz was “not someone who comes across as this alpha male,” in contrast to, uh, JD Vance.
The image of Walz as a giddy schoolgirl gesticulating wildly and panting with enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris is one the Trump campaign has tried to push since August, when Harris confirmed Walz would be her running mate on the 2024 Democratic ticket. Since then, Republicans have made entire bales of hay about Walz’s lack of traditional “manliness” in public appearances, and have spun ordinary actions like waving enthusiastically to rally crowds or pointing at Harris as evidence that Walz is weak and unmasculine — or, as former Trump advisor and infamous Nixon fanboy Roger Stone put it, “a Kansas City faggot.”
The Trump campaign’s weird attacks may be directed at Walz right now, but in fact, playing the “real men don’t move their wrists” card seems to be a key part of Trump’s plan since he won the 2016 election. A set of studies in 2020 found that Trump policies were especially popular among men whose survey responses indicated “precarious masculinity,” i.e. a sense of insecurity and defensiveness about whether they meet the standards of “manhood.” Men who displayed “precarious masculinity” were also more likely to have voted for Trump in 2016, whether or not they previously voted Republican.
In that context, it’s no wonder Tucker Carlson decided to cash in with his 2022 pseudoscience documentary The End of Men, or that Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley accused leftists of “demasculation” and called on U.S. mothers to raise their boys to be “monsters” in 2021 (possibly also to distract everyone from that awkward January 6 jogging video). “Performing masculinity” was practically the slogan of this year’s Republican National Convention, which hosted bizarre speeches from Real Conservative Dudes like Joe Rogan and Hulk Hogan. Then again, it’s also no accident that Walz faces this specific type of attack on his vibe. Walz has a notable track record of defending LGBTQ+ rights in his home state, including those of transgender youth, making him a natural enemy for today’s vehemently anti-trans Republican party and their lineup of transphobic attack ads.
But for many of those not on the far right, Walz’s non-alpha male status is precisely what makes him a palatable VP pick in the first place. The governor has openly spoken about his emotions and even — gasp! — embraced his teary-eyed son during one campaign event, displaying a variety of Midwestern manliness Amy Diehl, a gender equity researcher, called “tonic masculinity, the antidote to toxic masculinity” in comments to Axios in August.
We’ll have to wait another month to find out whether the U.S. is ready for an allegedly “effeminate” veep, but as for Jason Miller… well, turns out he actually left his own CNN job in 2018 after he was accused of dosing his affair partner with an abortion pill without her consent, so we’re going to recommend signing up for manliness courses somewhere else.
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