How it looks to look down on Trump voters.

(How much evidence of tech savvy is it that somebody can photoshop a hat on an anime character?)

ADDED: The name Elspeth Reeve is familiar. In May 2015, I had a post titled "Masculinity is hard," about something she wrote in TNR called "No Campaigns for Manly Men." I paraphrased her position as: "without the broad, loud-mouthed, bullying Chris Christie in the presidential race, we have no 'manly men.'" That was, of course, pre-Trump.

Earlier in 2015.

"Great style and substance. We looked at this one and talked about it for 15 minutes," I said last May, about this:



And here's something else I had last May, "Masculinity is hard," about an Elspeth Reeve TNR piece called "No Campaigns for Manly Men," which took the position, as I put it, that "without the broad, loud-mouthed, bullying Chris Christie in the presidential race, we have no 'manly men.'"

You might want to challenge that characterization of Christie, but that's the way Reeve presents him as she sets up her argument that the real men are gone.

Who’s the manly man’s man of the right? It’s not a politician like Ted Cruz, who exudes “televangelist” more than “cowboy.” It’s not a pundit like Glenn Beck, who cries over the Constitution and sells premium dad jeans. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal—they’re all kind of cute, and certainly non-threatening. Jeb Bush is selling himself as the Smart Bush.

It was so pre-Trump back then. 

Actually, Trump is mentioned in the Elspeth Reeve article. She consults the linguist Geoff Nunburg and he found it "hard to think of manly men," so he switched the subject to assholes:

Assholes do very well on the right in particular. I wrote a book about assholes, I feel like an expert on the subject. And they do very well on the right. I mean there was a period in which Donald Trump was leading the Republican polls. And it isn’t as if there is anybody in America who doesn’t think Donald Trump’s an asshole. But he’s like, our asshole.

Our asshole. It's not exactly a campaign slogan, but think about it. 

He says he's "very good looking," but that's not quite true and it's not why we love looking at his face.

A surprisingly long article in The New Republic about why we love looking at Donald Trump's face. Excerpt:

Porn offers some insight into the magic of Trump’s face. In David Foster Wallace’s report on the Adult Video News Awards in Consider the Lobster, he argues that porn feels mechanical and lifeless because of the performers’ faces, which appear bored but actually show “the self locked away someplace far behind the eyes.” Wallace writes, “Surely this hiddenness is the way a human being who’s giving away the very most private parts of himself preserves some sense of dignity and autonomy—he denies us true expression.” But in the rare moments when "genuine erotic joy" washes over a performer's face, the "effect on the viewer is electric."

You can imagine the typical presidential candidate wants the same thing, a barrier between their true feelings and their Sunday show face. But Donald Trump doesn't seem to want a barrier.... Even as he shows authentic emotion, he's mocking the silliness of the way we elected presidents, as if he's saying to the viewer, "Can you believe how stupid this shit is?"

Masculinity is hard.

I was just noticing a few days ago that Elspeth Reeve seems to have the Hillary + gender gig at the New Republic. She's the one who wrote the much-linked "Why Do So Many People Hate the Sound of Hillary Clinton's Voice?"

Her new one is "No Campaigns for Manly Men." Supposedly, without the broad, loud-mouthed, bullying Chris Christie in the presidential race, we have no "manly men." You might want to challenge that characterization of Christie, but that's the way Reeve presents him as she sets up her argument that the real men are gone.

Who’s the manly man’s man of the right? It’s not a politician like Ted Cruz, who exudes “televangelist” more than “cowboy.” It’s not a pundit like Glenn Beck, who cries over the Constitution and sells premium dad jeans. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal—they’re all kind of cute, and certainly non-threatening. Jeb Bush is selling himself as the Smart Bush.

"Manly man’s man"? What is this category we're supposed to believe in and care about? Is a "manly man’s man" something beyond a mere "manly man" or a "man’s man"? What the hell are we talking about? Reeve doesn't proceed to analyze what manliness means to people as they search for a political leader. She just consults the linguist Geoff Nunburg:

“It’s hard to think of manly men,” Nunberg mused. 

Is musing manly? Nunberg's got nunthing.

Guys like Jim Webb of Virginia. 

I guess that's Reeve's prompt to the musing Nunberg. Subtext: Democrats have a manly man.

“Christie was going to be that but Christie’s a joke.” Or at least, people are starting to see him as one, Nunberg said. He could only think of the manly man’s cousin: the asshole. Nunberg explained: "Assholes do very well on the right in particular. I wrote a book about assholes..."

Nunberg opines that Ted Cruz is "clearly an asshole," which makes Nunberg sound like an asshole. I mean, the guy wrote a book about assholes. Asked to talk about manliness, his instincts were to shift to a topic he understood (assholes), to push his own book, and to take an easy swipe at a convenient other ("the right").

Masculinity is hard.

"Why Do So Many People Hate the Sound of Hillary Clinton's Voice?"

A piece by Elspeth Reeve, who seems to have the Hillary + gender gig at the New Republic.

Clinton "has a loud and clear voice," Stanford linguist Eckert says. "A ‘nice’ woman tends to have a breathy voice," she explained, sounding a little Marilyn Monroe-ish. "There’s nothing breathy about Hillary Clinton’s voice. And if somebody doesn’t want a woman to be powerful they’re not going to like that voice."

Nunberg agrees: "People have become so conscious of the semi-coded ways in which people communicate these sexist notions of aggression." Like Frank Luntz noting he would get "hit" by Media Matters, for example. "Voice will be the place where that comes home to roost. ... It’s just another way of saying ‘shrill.’"

"Why are you making this about race?"

Elspeth Reeve answers a question she's been asked after her "How Racist Is the Obama Phone Video?," which I linked, approvingly, yesterday.

This is a he-who-smelt-it-dealt-it argument. Or, as Stephen Colbert's persona likes to say, "I don't see race." This line of argument wants to change the subject to something, anything other than race. Hey, what about free phones?! Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications tried defending the video, saying, "The above video is hilarious. It is representative of a group of Obama voters who feel entitled to handouts from government. It does not matter what the color of the speaker is. It’s news... Conservatives should not have to shy away from such amusing examples of entitlement mentality simply because the particular proponent of that mentality happens to be black." This is intellectually dishonest, at best. We await Patterico delving into the minutiae of the Universal Service Fund. Until then, it's just "hilarious." Specifically, it's hilarious because it uses one person to portray a huge group of people in a negative way is. The point of the video -- and the reason Drudge and Limbaugh hyped it -- is to say, this is what Obama voters look like: black, poor, stupid, and after your money. The video's subject wasn't picked out because she "happens to be black," she was picked out because she is black. Lee Atwater, strategist for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, explained how this works way back in 1981 -- better to talk about cutting taxes and bussing, because it's "a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Ni***r, ni***r.'" Of course, this Internet meme isn't all that abstract.

If it's insufficiently abstract, it won't work. Our conscious anti-racism filters may keep the material from reaching us. In fact, as I said in my post yesterday, what I feel happening to me emotionally — and what I'm guessing may happen to other middle-of-the-road types like me — is repulsion away from the Romney side. It's not Romney's fault, he can't control what his supporters say in their efforts to promote him, but he needs to be a more dominant figure in his own campaign. Voters need to associate him with a clear and compelling message that doesn't feel connected to this racial material coming from other sources.

"Just How Racist Is the 'Obama Phone' Video?"

Elspeth Reeve has good analysis at the Atlantic Wire. I had a big problem with Rush Limbaugh playing this clip over and over on his show yesterday. There's some kind of political point to be be made about they way some people become dependent on government or unrealistic about what government can or should do, but there's an emotional level, below the rational mind, that this video/audio can reach, and when someone repeatedly plays it, as Rush did, it seems as though he's trying to stir up racial fears.

Decent people whose rational minds would reject explicit racial material can be emotionally manipulated. They get their fears stirred up. If this is what Romney supporters think they need to do to get their man elected, I hope they fail. And, frankly, I think they will fail. If people in the middle — like me — get the impression that fear of black people is supposed to be the reason to vote for Romney, we're going to vote for Obama. That's the America I believe in. I think I'm right about that.