{"id":491,"date":"2026-06-11T11:40:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=491"},"modified":"2026-06-11T11:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:40:49","slug":"when-both-parties-try-to-out-macho-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=491","title":{"rendered":"When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, Democrats posted a photo of James Talarico, the U.S. Senate candidate in Texas, captioned \u201cNovember, here we come.\u201d Talarico, strangely alone at a picnic table, is wearing a lone-star flag button-down, and he has four baskets piled with fried foods in front of him and, most significant, a turkey leg thicker than his forearm jammed in his mouth. Presumably, this image is a response to Republicans calling Talarico all manner of terms that effectively mean \u201cunmanly\u201d: low-T<\/em>, transgender<\/em>, secretly a woman<\/em>, gay<\/em>, man-child<\/em>, and\u2014God forbid\u2014vegan<\/em>. Democrats could dismiss this line of attack as childish and homophobic. But they are not. Instead, Talarico\u2019s campaign staff are widely circulating the turkey-leg image to send the message that their man is not merely a man, but a caveman.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s \u2018Anti-Weaponization\u2019 Payouts May Not Be Dead After All<\/a><\/p>\n

The MAGA movement has fully embraced masculinism, which The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s staff writer Helen Lewis defines in her cover story this month as \u201ca movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men.\u201d Democrats have a more complicated relationship with machismo. After the last presidential election, when Donald Trump made inroads with even young men of color, some Democrats began wondering whether their party did indeed have a man problem. This campaign season, one Democratic candidate who seems to be addressing that concern is Graham Platner, an oyster-farming combat veteran.<\/p>\n

After he won his primary in Maine this week, Platner became key to the party\u2019s chances of taking over the Senate. But Platner\u2019s brand of masculinity does not come without its issues. In a report last week in The New York Times<\/em>, several women who were romantically involved with Platner described \u201ctoxic\u201d relationships; one described him as rough. Platner\u2019s campaign strongly disputed any claims of physical intimidation or altercation.<\/p>\n

This week on Radio Atlantic<\/em>, Lewis discusses how masculinism is playing out in American politics.<\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hanna Rosin: <\/strong>The Republican assault on James Talarico, who is running for a Senate seat as a Democrat in Texas, has been comically trolly.<\/p>\n

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: <\/strong>\u200aHe goes by a few names that you may all have heard of. Some people know him as \u201cTofu Talarico.\u201d Some people call him \u201cSix-Gender Jimmy.\u201d I\u2019ve even heard some people call him \u201cJames Talafreako.\u201d And others refer to him simply as \u201cLow-T Talarico.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Helen Lewis: <\/strong>\u200aSo they\u2019re essentially trying to prosecute this case that James Talarico is\u2014take your pick any one of these\u2014secretly a woman, transgender, gay, low-T, a pedophile, a groomer, just deeply unsettlingly weird, a man-child.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>This is Atlantic<\/em> staff writer Helen Lewis. She wrote the June cover story: \u201cThe Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lewis: <\/strong>\u200aI think that\u2019s probably just about covered it. It\u2019s not a subtle campaign against him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>On Fox News recently, White House senior adviser Stephen Miller took the stand-up route.<\/p>\n

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Stephen Miller: <\/strong>Well, first of all, I think it is very bold\u2014one could even say brave, courageous\u2014that the Democratic Party would choose Texas of all places to nominate their first transgender Senate candidate who\u2019s clearly transitioning into a female.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Lewis: \u200a<\/strong>I mean, it\u2019s the day that comedy died, in many ways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Miller: <\/strong>When Talarico goes in for a blood test, when he gets a physical, blood doesn\u2019t come out. Instead, soy milk comes out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Lewis: \u200a<\/strong>The whole premise is, as Miller puts it, you know: Texas wants a real man. \u200aOh, and the other thing that\u2019s a problem is that they say as an accusation that he\u2019s a vegan, or if not, he\u2019s got a vegan girlfriend. So he\u2019s had to be photographed sort of ostentatiously eating hunks of beef to prove\u2014you know, again, a real man eats meat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Miller: <\/strong>This man has less testosterone than [Representative] Jasmine Crockett.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>I\u2019m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This \u201c10,000 ways to imply he\u2019s fay\u201d strategy grows out of a robust ideology currently dominating the MAGA movement: \u201cmasculinism,\u201d which Helen defines in her story as a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and reassert the primacy of men.<\/p>\n

Now, the Democrats are not exactly denying they have a macho problem. Talarico\u2019s campaign, for example, has recently circulated a photo of him gnawing on a piece of meat. And they\u2019ve put forth one prominent candidate they think does check the \u201cmasculine\u201d box: Graham Platner, who won the party\u2019s primary in Maine this week, and whose victory is critical to Democrats taking back the Senate but whose ex-girlfriends have said his brand of masculinity was toxic.<\/p>\n

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News reporter (from NBC News): <\/strong>At least two women spoke on the record describing their interactions with Graham Platner, using words like toxic<\/em>, unsettling<\/em>, emotionally wrenching<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>We\u2019ll get more into Platner a little later. But first, where did this style of language\u2014like low-T<\/em>\u2014in the political world come from?<\/p>\n

Lewis: <\/strong>The style comes from Donald Trump, who is actually a very accomplished insult comic, right? Because he is camp and heel-turnish and, as well as being a bully, he can obviously be very charming. I\u2019d say that Stephen Miller has only really got one of those qualities.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re right, the vocabulary is new. The sentiments are pretty old, but essentially, this idea of being low-T is something that is absolutely currency in the manosphere. And to the extent that lots of manosphere podcasters and influencers will talk quite openly about how they\u2019re on TRT, the male version of HRT, testosterone replacement therapy, because it\u2019s situated as being this idea that we\u2019re living in this male crisis of masculinity, where men are becoming less manly.<\/p>\n

And actually, that\u2019s all to do with\u2014the elevated way of saying it is the Greek word thymos<\/em>, which is a kind of this life force. But the, kind of, translation of that is \u201ctestosterone,\u201d and that\u2019s a theory that\u2019s advanced, this theory of hormonal politics, in the book by Charles Cornish-Dale, also known as Raw Egg Nationalist, who I wrote about in my cover story.<\/p>\n

So his book is all about the fact that men are more suited for politics because they are \u201chigh T\u201d and women aren\u2019t. And liberal democracy is also kind of feminine, too, because it\u2019s all about equality and safeguarding individual rights, rather than being about the strong and the winners take all.<\/p>\n

So that ties in with another thing that is criticized, which is the idea of empathy.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> And it is a big deal all across the masculinist internet that empathy is a kind of modern plague\u2014tt\u2019s what happens when you have too many women in positions of power.<\/p>\n

So Doug Wilson, the Christian-nationalist pastor who I interviewed, he has an episode of his podcast, Man Rampant, which is called \u201cThe Sin of Empathy.\u201d Gad Saad, the Canadian marketing professor, has a book about suicidal empathy. You hear a lot about, around the time of the Minnesota shootings, toxic empathy, and this idea is that women and liberals\u2014and those are two groups that are seen to overlap enormously in this kind of ideology\u2014they have too much empathy for what is seen as the underdog but isn\u2019t actually. It\u2019s actually a sort of snake in the grass.<\/p>\n

So that would be violent criminals. That would be illegal immigrants. That would be people who really need to kind of be kept in their place and instead are indulged, essentially, by women and liberals.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> So this is actually a genuine debate about the nature of Christianity. What do we know about Talarico\u2019s brand of Christianity? It\u2019s the opposite of this. Or the idea of Jesus, let\u2019s say. What\u2019s the vision of Jesus in each of these kinds of religious visions?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Yeah, and this is something that I really appreciated going into writing the story. So my background is Catholic. My dad is a deacon in the Catholic Church. My mom was a religious-studies teacher until she retired. So I grew up in the English Catholic tradition, which was very much about Jesus, the meek and merciful, you know, Suffer the little children to come unto me<\/em>. And so the kind of muscular American evangelical Christianity that you find in the masculinists is very alien to me. It\u2019s very different. It\u2019s much more Rambo, John Wayne Jesus.<\/p>\n

And so that\u2019s coming into contact also with Talarico, who is a member of a notably progressive church in Austin. And so this is another geographic argument, too, right? Austin is often described as the blueberry in the red sea or whatever\u2014the red yogurt, whatever it might be. The idea that Austin isn\u2019t really Texas, and therefore James Talarico\u2019s Christianity isn\u2019t really Christianity, and therefore James Talarico isn\u2019t really a man and he isn\u2019t really a Christian. There\u2019s so many deep questions of identity here.<\/p>\n

Probably his first line of his obituary, certainly his political obituary if he loses, will be the fact that he stood up in a debate a couple of years ago and said that, you know, God is nonbinary.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Right. Right.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> And beyond that, you hear people like Allie Beth Stuckey or Ben Shapiro talking about the fact that, you know, Well, actually, hang on, this is a patriarchal religion<\/em>, and they\u2019d like it to be recognized as that. You know, Allie Beth Stuckey said, Look, it\u2019s all the way through. It\u2019s God the Father, God the Father<\/em>. And so that\u2019s the other thing that\u2019s very challenging about Talarico, is that he\u2019s got a progressive version of Christianity that they dislike as much as his progressive politics per se.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> I mean, on the one hand, the things you\u2019re describing have been around in the U.S. forever. The Southern Baptists have been debating for decades whether women can have any position of leadership, and generally their answer has been no.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, as you talked about in your cover story, there is something new about masculinism right now and the role it\u2019s playing. What is new?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> I think this aggressive focus on hormones is a particularly new part of it, as is the obsession\u2014and this isn\u2019t new, but it has become more acute\u2014the obsession with birth rates.<\/p>\n

This is woven into then, again, another argument about immigration and about the \u201cGreat Replacement\u201d and about white identity. So the way that this has become turbocharged is: You get this lens where the culprit is feminism, because feminism has made women want to go to college, it\u2019s made them want to have careers, it\u2019s made them delay childbearing. It\u2019s made them in some cases decide that they can have a very happy life without having any children. And this is taken as a sort of betrayal of the white race, essentially. That you are instead having to bring over people from other cultures, other countries, and\/or something Elon Musk has spoken about a lot, which is the kind of death of civilization itself.<\/p>\n

So feminism is to them, and this sounds hyperbolic, but this is the argument that\u2019s essentially being made, destroying the world.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, we all know that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Lewis: <\/strong>(Laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>So I can follow all of these trends sociologically. I did write the book The End of Men <\/em>some years ago. What\u2019s mystifying to me is the enduring, persistent force of this, why all of a sudden it seems so dominant and so unavoidable and so everywhere. You wrote this, but it\u2019s almost like the single unifying force in all the fracturing MAGA forces is this. Why? Do you have any theories about that?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> I mean, I went through the issues, and the one thing that everybody can agree on is that feminism has gone too far, traditional gender roles are better, patriarchy had something to be said for it, men have been discriminated against.<\/p>\n

You had Andrea Lucas, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, do a kind of ambulance-chasing-lawyer-style advertising saying, Come out, white men, and tell us about the ways in which you\u2019ve been discriminated against, and we\u2019ll look into them<\/em>. So it obviously worked as a pitch at the 2024 election, because Trump did very well with Black and Latino young men, I think much more than people would have perhaps expected. So there\u2019s that aspect to it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the gloss that he got from going on all the red-pill podcasts, which I wrote about at the time, and that also gave him a kind of countercultural sort of look. I think it\u2019s quite hard for those of us who operate in liberal spaces to understand how deeply this is felt as being the fact that feminism is the establishment: Actually, women are on top, and it\u2019s men who are oppressed and have been discriminated against by affirmative action, by DEI<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And I think you maybe agree with me that\u2014actually, I think the picture is quite complicated. I think men are struggling in some ways, women have it harder in some ways, and it\u2019s not a kind of completely simple up-down relationship in the way it was in America in, say, 1850. But this has certainly become a kind of a grievance narrative, actually, that everyone is against you and the answer is MAGA.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>After the break, how do you solve a problem like Graham Platner?<\/p>\n

[Break<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> I want to talk about Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate from Maine. There were some calls before the primary this week for Democrats to cut him loose. That did not happen. Of course, now it\u2019s too late. He won the Maine primary as everyone expected. Also, he\u2019s essential to Democrats winning the Senate. So it puts us right in the middle of this debate that we\u2019ve been having, because the Democrats are in a position of rallying behind a candidate who several ex-girlfriends have described as toxic.<\/p>\n

There are accusations from several women that Platner had dated saying he acted in intimidating ways. One woman said he grabbed her. And then from his current wife, that she discovered he was sexting with several women while they were married. Platner\u2019s campaign, by the way, told The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> that he \u201cstrongly disputes\u201d claims of physical intimidation or altercations. How would you characterize these? Like, you can do this as a Democratic strategist. You are faced with this candidate who has this \u201ctoxic\u201d label. What do you do?<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Once Played Soccer<\/a><\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> I personally would have cut him loose because I would not be at all confident that this was the end. I mean, People don\u2019t change<\/em>. No, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s entirely true, but I just think that everything that we\u2019ve heard about him suggests that he\u2019s somebody who has both struggled with really personal demons, which I have a great deal of sympathy for, particularly after his service in Iraq, but also that he has consistently treated women in a really appalling way, and I think that is a character issue for me.<\/p>\n

And the other thing from everything that I\u2019ve been reading: Maine is a blue state, and Susan Collins has clung on through successive blue waves in that state. But the key demographic, as I understand it, that she has kind of traded on is older women, women over 45. And those would be exactly the people I would think would be most sensitive to these Graham Platner allegations.<\/p>\n

We know that Republicans generally have recently underperformed among women, so there\u2019s a cost to racking up the scoreboard with young guys who really like the machismo. And it\u2019s that some women think, Well that\u2019s really not for me<\/em>. And it is gonna be the most, world\u2019s biggest recrimination fest if in two weeks time another ex-girlfriend comes out, or it turns out that he\u2019s cheating on his current wife.<\/p>\n

And so you can see this situation in which lots of Dems are sitting on their hands because they really don\u2019t feel a level of confidence about him. And that has moved a race that should have been a triumphant pickup for the Dems into one that people just feel intensely nervous about.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah. Here\u2019s where it gets even more tricky. Platner himself seems to be taking the line, Yes, I was an angry young man. I am very flawed, but now I work every day to be kinder.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reason I say this is tricky is because it\u2019s almost like he\u2019s finding a way to turn these allegations of toxicity into an advantage, like appealing to angry young men. It\u2019s like he\u2019s finding a line to slide through that.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Well, there was a report, and I don\u2019t know whether or not it\u2019s checked out, we\u2019ll have to wait for the filings, I guess, that donations to him had spiked after the New York Times<\/em> story reporting\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Not surprised. I am not surprised. That\u2019s the problem, is like, we\u2019re debating these things as character flaws, but\u2014and again, this is hard to talk about\u2014but they could actually be an advantage. Like, they could appeal to some people.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Yeah, they could appeal to people who think, God, who hasn\u2019t got a few skeletons in their closet?<\/em> And they could also appeal to people who think, This is the establishment trying to take him down<\/em>, and he has run\u2014<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> But do they up his masculinity points? That\u2019s the part that\u2019s hard to talk about. Does it actually make him more appealing because of this atmosphere you described?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong>I don\u2019t think that\u2019s impossible. I mean, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California who I profiled earlier this year, he has a track record between his first and second marriages. He had a slightly checkered dating history. Not in a Platner sense. More in the sense of: He dated a teenager, he was out in bars, and that kind of thing. And the breakdown of the first marriage was quite messy. And what people would kind of say to me was, That\u2019s alpha-dog energy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>Yes. Right.<\/p>\n

Lewis: <\/strong>You know, variations of that. And which, again, this was Donald Trump\u2019s defense for the \u201cgrab \u2019em by the pussy,\u201d right? It\u2019s \u201clocker-room talk.\u201d This is what all men are like<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> And, you know, and you hear a lot of men go, Well, I\u2019m not like that. I actually find that quite offensive<\/em>. But you hear other men who go, That is what men are like<\/em>. Boys will be boys<\/em>, right? That\u2019s the kind of phrase that sums it up, I think.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Right. So there\u2019s this underground way in which he becomes more appealing. How have women in the Democratic Party reacted or responded to him?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Well, I saw Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do the most elegant possible swerve out of the question by saying, These aren\u2019t ideal<\/em>, or something in that kind of sense. But she said the choice on the ballot paper is between him and a senator who\u2019s voted to take health care away from millions of Americans, meaning Susan Collins.<\/p>\n

I just think about all of this stuff, you know, the decline of the referee in American life, the decline of arbiters who everybody believes in, the decline of a belief that there\u2019s a court system that treats everybody fairly has been so marked. And I think post-#MeToo, this is really bad for women, that essentially all allegations are no longer judged on their merit, if they ever were, but in terms of the team, like, How does this affect our team?<\/em>, essentially.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Like, it\u2019s become purely strategic? Because what you said about AOC, it does make some sense to me because essentially what she\u2019s doing is she\u2019s acknowledging, I\u2019m not turning a blind eye. I don\u2019t love this, but we can accept this because there\u2019s a greater good, which is our team needs to win<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Yeah, I think it\u2019s intellectually honest to say he isn\u2019t perfect. However, if you asked me Would I rather have him or his opponent?<\/em>, I\u2019m picking him. And that\u2019s the thing that people are often very reluctant to say, but that is essentially the premise of every election.<\/p>\n

Unless you are an absolutely mustard-keen partisan, personal friend of the candidate involved, quite a lot of voters look at them and they go, Yeah, you\u2019re not great, but you\u2019ll do<\/em>. So I don\u2019t think that we should be kind of down on the idea that you pick the least worst option.<\/p>\n

Now that he\u2019s confirmed as the candidate, that is the choice in Maine, and if you want a Democrat vote in the Senate, as she obviously does, then that is your option, is putting up with it.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Right. And I guess the heartache for feminism is that toxicity towards women is allowed to go under the vague umbrella of \u201cflawed\u201d without looking too closely at it, whereas other things like racism would not be allowed to go under that vague umbrella of \u201cflawed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> Well, but then again, in the case of Donald Trump, it certainly has been, right?<\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>That\u2019s true, actually.<\/p>\n

Lewis: <\/strong>There\u2019s been a lot of people who will say, Yes, he did say that Mexicans were rapists, but the thing is that \u201cwoke\u201d went too far<\/em>, or, But we have to close the southern border<\/em>. And it\u2019s always uncomfortable, making people admit what things they\u2019re prepared to excuse in the service of a candidate that they\u2019re otherwise prepared to back. But that is how elections work.<\/p>\n

What I mean about Platner and the kind of team side of it is that almost as soon as The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> published those allegations against him, it became a very big talking point that one of the main accusers was a conservative, had been involved in conservative groups around defending [Justice] Brett Kavanaugh, for example. And the idea was, Well, hang on a minute. This is a political hit job<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this does have to be part of the conversation. Tara Reade, if you might remember from 2020, was puffed up as the big accuser of Joe Biden, and him with sexual improprieties. I believe [she\u2019s] now living in Russia. The New York Times<\/em> looked very thoroughly into her claims, couldn\u2019t really substantiate them, and now she\u2019s living in Russia.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t have to have my tinfoil hat on to think that those ones were a bit fishy. But it was quite sad to see Democrats, who make a big point of being about the party that supports women, that\u2019s interested in feminism\u2014so many people, particularly from the progressives, resort instantly to This is a political hit job.<\/em><\/p>\n

And that is the oldest thing that happens to every accuser. There\u2019s always something wrong with them that means that she can\u2019t be believed, and this was the particular reason for them. Well, she can\u2019t be believed. She\u2019s a conservative<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah. Pulling out of the political dynamics to the cultural values. One thing I can\u2019t settle on is, what exactly are these \u201cman\u201d values we\u2019re supposed to admire?<\/p>\n

In the right-wing press, for example, they\u2019re always emphasizing that Platner was not, in fact, a real oyster farmer, as he claimed, that he made most of his money from disability payments, took $200,000 from his dad. And there\u2019s something persuasive there.<\/p>\n

At least it makes me wonder, even if we do accept that there is such a thing as masculine values, what are they? We used to think they were working hard, self-sufficiency, those kinds of things. But is there some consensus about\u2014even if the Democrats and Republicans both accept that masculine values are important\u2014is there consensus about what they\u2019re supposed to be?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> I think the one place there is consensus is that being a man is different to being a boy. And that\u2019s a point of some kind of overlap.<\/p>\n

Josh Barro, who wrote a very good Substack post about both John Fetterman, the senator from Pennsylvania who\u2019s become very much a wild card, shall we say, and Graham Platner, saying that both of them were essentially kind of low-conscientiousness, overgrown adolescents\u2014they were chaotic people; they didn\u2019t take responsibility for themselves. And I think that is something that you would hear on both the right and left, is that a positive masculinity ought to be about being a grown-up.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s bits of MAGA that have let it slide, you know? That actually the point is you can kind of dog around, or you can cheat at stuff, and you should be let off.<\/p>\n

But I think the two models\u2014there\u2019s the dominance model of masculinity, which is very popular on the right. And then here\u2019s the left-wing version of it, which I think they would describe as the sort of \u201csoy boy\u201d model, which is the kind of equality version of it.<\/p>\n

There could also be a positive version of that on the left, which is the protector model of masculinity. I\u2019m strong, so I look after the weak<\/em>, you know? And I think that\u2019s the bit that if I were a Democratic strategist, which would be about the worst job in the world for me possible, I would say: Lean into that<\/em>. The idea about being strong is that you have a duty and a responsibility to look after people who aren\u2019t strong, not to dominate them and bully them into doing what you want.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Yeah. I guess what I\u2019m trying to get clarity on is: If we\u2019re going to accept that there are masculine values, what should the masculine value be?<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> I think strength and discipline yoked to each other. And I think, actually, American politics generally, and British politics to be fair, could do with a little bit more discipline. The idea that you don\u2019t actually always do what you want, the idea that you do make sacrifices, the idea that Yes, sir, you could make a lot of money flogging a dodgy crypto scheme, but you\u2019ve chosen not to, and that doesn\u2019t make you a sucker; that makes you somebody with principles and morals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the same way that you can have military discipline, or you can have the discipline that\u2019s getting three kids under 5 out of the house in the morning. These are accessible by both sexes, but the idea that the more strength you have, the more duty you have to harness that strength and put it to use in ways that are prosocial and benefit people around you rather than selfishly benefiting yourself.<\/p>\n

Rosin:<\/strong> Well, Helen, thank you so much. I really appreciate your filter on recent political events. Thank you.<\/p>\n

Lewis:<\/strong> No worries.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosin: <\/strong>This episode of Radio Atlantic<\/em> was produced by Jinae West. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Gisela Salim-Peyer fact-checked. Rob Smierciak engineered and provided original music. We also had music from Breakmaster Cylinder. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/em> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n

Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic<\/em> journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic<\/em> at TheAtlantic.com\/Listener.<\/p>\n

Read more A World Cup for a Divided Continent<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m Hanna Rosin. Thank you for listening.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The modern politics of masculinity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radio-atlantic"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=491\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The modern politics of masculinity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=491\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-11T11:40:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"24 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-11T11:40:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491\"},\"wordCount\":4734,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/88e73e6f2aedb13816f2358bf6ce0e13.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Radio Atlantic\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=491\",\"name\":\"When Both Parties Try to Out-Macho Each Other - 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