Toward the beginning of Stan Kubrick’s classic Full Metal Jacket, the scene is set: “Parris Island, South Carolina. But, having been immersed in that culture for a long time, I sort of get it. Trump has said many false and harmful things, and the fact that other people might whisper them does not mean that they should be shouted from the presidential bully pulpit.

Saying what you think or what others seem afraid to say isn’t inherently “manly.” Speaking your mind isn’t even inherently virtuous, much less inherently masculine. This is a curious definition of manliness. But Trump is more manly than Mattis in a different way, he explains: “Trump’s manliness is that of a man who is not afraid to say out loud what others only whisper and to incur the wrath of the ruling class for doing so.” In the Azerrad essay that Hammer cited, Azerrad explains that Trump’s strength is “not that of a soldier who risks his life in combat or of a general who leads men into battle.” (Trump used an alleged diagnosis of bone spurs to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.) So in that sense, Trump “isn’t as manly as” General Jim Mattis, Azerrad concedes. And what are Trump’s alleged strong, masculine virtues? Although “toughness” has long been a populist virtue-especially in the South-the age of Trump transformed the right’s definitions of strength and courage by reference to the man himself. What makes the claims of toughness and weakness especially curious and dangerous is the way in which they’re tied to the person of Donald Trump.

Who wants to listen to a coward? Who wants to be known as a coward?

Coward is a one-word rebuttal that not only attempts to end an argument, but also aims to discredit the person who made it. How is that claim a part of an allegedly serious ideological argument? The critique, however, helps illuminate the emerging culture of the right-a culture that idolizes a twisted version of “toughness” as the highest ideal and despises a false version of “weakness” as the lowest vice.Ĭlaims of cowardice have particular purchase among Trump’s followers. unmasculine,” French observes that, aside from the substance of the claim being bizarre, Writing at The Atlantic, David French examines “ The New Right’s Strange and Dangerous Cult of Toughness.” After a setup about someone I’ve never heard of deriding the Reagan-era alliance among economic conservatives, social conservatives, and defense hawks as “inherently effete, limp, and.

Crazy brave synonym