Toxic Masculinity as Foreign Policy
The dude-bro presidency and our march toward World War 3
Ever since the bombs started dropping in Iran, America has been asking some very pointed questions about why we would start this war, and more specifically why we would start this war right now.
The right now part of the question is obvious, as Epstein coverage on every network has taken a backseat to carefully produced Pentagon b-roll of Iranian buildings and military facilities exploding.
But beyond that, beyond the obvious “war as distraction” motive, there appears to be another motive, one that drives not only our foreign policy, but our domestic policy and our campaign policy as well. These days, all of these seem to be driven by a desire to answer the insignificant but somehow all-encompassing question “Does this make me look tough?”
Right-wing politics today is consumed by this question, and those capable of “looking tough” in the caveman sense are often rewarded with ridiculous levels of unearned power. Right-wing talking heads these days look and sound very much like WWE wrestlers, shouting threats and praising violence wherever they can find it. And it works. The GOP’s ability to paint themselves as tough and their opponents as weak is the single greatest driver of Republican success in just about every election since Nixon. American men, especially white men, vote based on this perception at incredibly high levels.
And since most of the power the right has gained in the past fifty years or so has come from this perceived toughness, it just makes sense that the administration would solve problems using the most aggressive means available, whether that means bombing sovereign nations or shooting American citizens in the streets.
Right or wrong is no longer relevant. Tough versus weak is all that matters. This is the only way that the war in Iran could ever happen, and it is also the reason why it was given the ridiculous name “Operation Epic Fury,” which is a name only the most unserious, fake-tough leaders could invent. I half expected Pete Hegseth to announce the launch of Operation Epic Fury while chugging a beer, wearing sunglasses and a tank top, covered head-to-toe in tribal armband tattoos. It really is that ridiculous.
Now, while the day-to-day political performances are easy to dismiss or even joke about, the consequences of their actions are very real. Hegseth is certainly a silly poser, but he is a silly poser willing to kill to maintain his image, and his boss’s image. And some of the dead have been and will continue to be our sons and daughters. But as Trump and Hegseth have demonstrated again and again, our children are a small sacrifice to make in order to answer the question “Does this make us look tough?”
Right now, the world is bracing itself for what could very well be World War 3, and if it happens, it will be because a bunch of weak men were trying to answer a question any real tough guy or tougher woman would never think to ask.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.