The Problem With Right-Wing Men
You can't separate cartoonish masculinity from authoritarianism
The term “toxic masculinity” is badly over-used, but if there was ever a period that illustrated it, this is it. Kyle Rittenhouse, who grabbed an assault weapon, went into a protest that turned destructive, and shot three people, killing two of them, was just found not guilty on all counts; he’s became something of a right-wing cause célèbre in a shameless and shameful racist display. Paul Gosar, a shameless and shameful member of Congress, shared a cartoon video depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden with a sword. And the GOP is running a whole slate of sexual assailants and harassers in the midterms.
In the meantime, authoritarians are grabbing power the world over.
These dynamics are connected. Yes, the Republican Party has long relied on misogyny and white male resentment for electoral advantage. But the turn toward a cheering-on of violent vigilantism and a broad acceptance of male violence goes hand in hand with illiberal governance and authoritarian take-overs. I’ve written about this before in the context of anti-abortion laws — while abortion rights are expanding in countries that are liberalizing, authoritarian and wannabe-authoritarian states are the ones curtailing reproductive rights. And here’s history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat in a very smart piece in the Atlantic:
Authoritarianism has evolved over the past century, and old-school dictatorships are now joined by electoral autocracies. Yet at least one constant remains: Illiberal political solutions tend to take hold when increased gender equity and emancipation spark anxieties about male authority and status. A conquest-without-consequences masculinity, posing as a “return to traditional values,” tracks with authoritarianism’s rise and parallels the discarding of the rule of law and accountability in politics. We commonly associate autocracy with state restrictions on behavior, but the removal of checks on actions deemed unethical in democratic contexts (lying, thievery, even rape and murder) is equally important to its operation and appeal.
It’s not just that a group of conservative men act like pigs. It’s that there is a concerted effort in right-wing media to lionize and heroize them, and a steady refusal within the Republican Party to penalize them (I would bet a good bit of money that Rittenhouse will be at CPAC next year).
We saw this with Donald Trump, too: His authoritarian tendencies went hand-in-hand with his calls to violence and his rank misogyny. He ran as a real man: virile, strong, punishing of his enemies, simple in his language and stunted in his emotions. He broke all the rules — including the rule of law. He exploited people and demeaned them. He lied and worked any angle to his advantage. He had no morals, and no interests other than in his own power and self-aggrandizement.
Politics-watchers and decent people believed that his behavior would appall voters. We all missed the fact that Trumpian hubris was part of his appeal. And so of course the corruption that defined the Trump organization well before Trump was in office defined his presidency as well, and seeped into the rest of his party, and of course there were no consequences. Of course it is only getting worse. Ben-Ghiat writes:
The ethos of lawless masculinity is a lubricant of corruption, normalizing behaviors and redefining illegal or immoral acts as acceptable, from election fraud to sexual assault. These new norms attract collaborators who find it thrilling to be able to commit criminal acts with impunity. (Gosar used promises of blanket pardons to recruit participants for the January 6 coup attempt.)
We see this with the Rittenhouse case, too. What else is the draw for conservatives if not “normalizing behaviors and redefining illegal or immoral acts as acceptable”?
It’s one thing to believe that the state did not prove Rittenhouse guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (I personally believe the judge hamstrung the state’s case, but that’s for another post). It’s certainly plausible to argue that Rittenhouse’s defense did indeed make a convincing case for self-defense, and that Rittenhouse should have been found not guilty on those grounds. I don’t like that outcome, and I think it’s more complicated than just that, but that’s certainly a reasonable-enough view on the narrow merits of this specific case.
But that’s not what the Rittenhouse case is about, not really, not in the court of public opinion. As is always the case in big, attention-grabbing trials, this case resonates precisely because it is about something other than simply the legal merits. On the left, it’s about white male impunity, with Rittenhouse as the latest data point in a long history of white men having wide leeway to hunt down and kill Black people and those who support them. You can argue that this creates blind spots and lends itself to oversimplification — that it makes people assume this outcome is because of a racist jury or a criminal justice system that always lets the white guys win, when the merits of this case were more complicated. But it’s hard to argue that it reflects some kind of toxic and dangerous worldview. It reflects instead an accurate reading of history, and the desire to live under the rule of law instead of under Wild West vigilantism and an armed free-for-all.
On the right, it’s different. It would be one thing if conservatives recognized that this was a tragedy, that Rittenhouse did an egregious and disgusting thing, and then argued that his defense team met the bar for self-defense and Rittenhouse shouldn’t go to jail. But that’s not what they’re arguing. They’re cheering for him. They don’t think he did a bad thing. They think he’s a hero.
We often talk about “traditional values” in terms of gender: That the traditional setup is men in the public sphere (working outside of the home for pay, representing the family in politics, heading the household) and women in the private (caring for the home, being the family’s moral center). In the US, with our specific racial history, “traditional values” also mean nearly unfettered white male power, including the broad right to physically abuse and kill Black people.
Racism and sexism are broad American problems, but it’s worth remembering that the American South was an unabashedly and undeniably authoritarian state that transitioned to democracy pretty late in the game. When conservatives talk about returning to “tradition,” yes, they are talking about relegating women to our old roles, and yes they are talking about restoring whites to positions of near-total authority. And they’re also talking about a formal system of governance that is fundamentally illiberal and antidemocratic. When you see them cheering on the Kyle Rittenhouses and Paul Gosars and Donald Trumps of the world (not to mention the Viktor Orbans), it’s about racism and sexism, yes, and it’s also about how pushing the buttons of white male resentment enables conservative power-grabs and acclimates a culture to despotism. It’s about glorifying unencumbered white male power — and particularly the unlimited power to use violence, corruption, and all other means to get what one wants — in the service of moving us away from liberal democratic norms and toward autocracy.
xx Jill
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Photo by Craig McLachlan on Unsplash