The Race I Will Watch Most Closely in 2024 (Besides President)
Put on "Macho Man" and crank it. This one is a doozy.
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Let’s start with a couple of ads from Missouri Democrat Lucas Kunce.
This first one is from January.
Already you may have thoughts: it’s a well-made ad, it pulls you in, it makes use of the “look at Josh Hawley run away” punchline, and also WHY WON’T YOU LOOK AT US, LUCAS? WHY DO YOU SPEND ALL OF YOUR TIME IN THIS AD STARING PERPENDICULAR TO THE CAMERA? WHAT’S OVER THERE???
But anyway, let’s move on. Here’s another ad, from this past spring, in which Kunce (via a Jon Hamm voiceover) aims squarely for Josh Hawley’s manhood:
Penis Politics have become my sort of, uh, Thing in recent years, in large part because I see candidates explicitly running for office on how manly they are, and I look around and see no one apparently finding this odd, and I feel like I am, in the immortal words of Jacobim Mugatu, taking crazy pills.
This Senate race is worthy of a doctoral thesis for a gender studies grad student somewhere. (Scholars, students, I would read this.) Even these ads are rich texts.
To wit:
There’s Jon Hamm — who because of Mad Men will forever be the avatar of silent, struggling, troubled mid-20th-century manhood — doing the voiceover. (By the way, it isn’t totally random that he’s in this ad; Hamm is a proud Missouri native, as evidenced by the many videos out there of him at St. Louis Blues games.)
There’s military service – of course not solely the domain of men, but as succinct a signifier as the U.S. has of unimpeachable tough-guy service.
There’s the link between class and masculinity. The idealized picture of American manhood is solidly lower-middle class. It’s men who do jobs where they risk injury and get covered in fine layers of grit. It’s people who provide the economy with goods (crops, ore, cars), not services. And if those men happen to climb into a higher class, it’s because of hard work, by God. All of which is to say: showing off your lower/middle-class roots and saying your opponent was born with a “silver spoon” in his mouth is the political ad equivalent of administering a wedgie and calling him a pansy.
There’s also the fact of LUCAS NOT LOOKING AT THE CAMERA I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s meant to evoke something something sheriff something spinning a yarn outside a saloon (I don’t really watch Westerns) as he stares off into the middle distance, remembering when that no-good crook so-and-so and his gang of ruffians rolled into town, and immediately people’s spirits got lower than a dead snake in an open grave (again, I don’t watch Westerns). This is reinforced by the high-noon western score, complete with low-pitched chimes.
This may sound like I’m slamming Lucas Kunce, and I promise I’m not. I want to be abundantly clear that I’m not taking sides.
Because also, Josh Hawley has very, very much made Manhood his brand. He wrote a book on it (title: MANHOOD). This book is very much not the NFL or Army general version of tough, blustering manhood … it’s more church-deacon manhood, as Hawley sternly lectures you about what the Bible says an upstanding Man should be.
Hawley also had a podcast with his wife that emphasized the importance of Christian masculinity – one episode, for example, is about “the unique pressures of raising modern men who are adventurous, courageous, and excited about participating in God's greater plan for their lives.” (Full disclosure: I am reading Manhood, but I have not listened to the podcast.)
In short, there are two ways of looking at this race, which will be to some degree a dude-off, should Kunce win the nomination. (And Lord knows, he’s raised enough money to help him there.)
The first is that Hawley set up the field he wanted to play on, and Kunce wandered on and said, “Cool. I’ll defeat you here.”
Kunce’s strategy here makes sense, and it isn’t entirely new; the anti-Trump Lincoln Project also put out ads in the 2020 campaign featuring a woman in voiceover ridiculing Trump (a man famous for being obsessed with his manhood) for the crowd size at one of his rallies: “You’ve probably heard this before, but it was smaller than we expected.” [wink wink nudge wink nudge]
From this point of view, it’s clever to take on one’s opponent on the territory of masculinity – you might shake loose a few of the voters who happen to like him for being a big strong manly man. Furthermore, you might anger your opponent enough that he’ll get flustered and eventually make an ass of himself.
The second way to look at this, though, is that manly books and manly ads reinforce the existing, so-dominant-many-people-don’t-notice gender hierarchy.
The Kunce ads and the Hawley book make me try to imagine using any other identity in this way. That is, using a dominant identity (straight, able-bodied, white, attractive) and loudly, repeatedly, explicitly saying how great and important it is to be that thing.
For example, I try to imagine one candidate making the case that he is indeed very straight, and that that makes him a good candidate for office…so then his opponent puts out an ad that essentially says, “Oh he says he’s straight? Well, LET ME PROVE THAT WRONG and also let you know how straight *I* am.” This would not fly. It would be deemed offensive, not to mention nonsensical. But gender is an area where we tolerate this.
(I find myself trying to imagine a racial version of this – of a candidate, I guess, writing a book called “WHITENESS” and their opponent responding, “oh you think you know what whiteness is??!?!?!”...but I invite someone better-versed in racial politics to expound on this.)
Here’s another thought exercise, from a different angle: try to imagine two women duking it out for a political office by trying to show who embodies traditional womanhood more. (What would that even look like? Would the ads feature mothering and baking? But then again, do old-fashioned “traditional” women even seek higher office?) Or is it somehow about being one of Sarah Palin’s “mama grizzlies” – about being brash and provocative, and couching it all in “I’m doing this for the kids”?
The fun route is to try to picture someone – woman, man, any gender – wandering into the Missouri Senate race and trying an anti-gender-politics tack. Essentially: “Cool. You’re both dudes. Enjoy your pissing contest. Meanwhile, here’s my resume.”
Do I think this would work? I……I don’t know. I suppose I doubt it.
To zoom out: I have no doubt that this race will expand beyond who-is-more-manly. It will get more substantive, or simply personal on another level (damaging revelations that one or the other candidate did awful thing X back in the day, etc.).
But competitive masculinity is deeply ingrained in American politics, and it will continue to be a undercurrent in this race. Overcoming sexism in American politics is in no small part a function of making people aware of that undercurrent, of pointing to it over and over again (can you point to an undercurrent? Whatever, I’m rolling.) and asking if everyone is okay with it, if that’s how we want politicians to make their cases.
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Recommendations Galore
Sudafed (the real stuff) and NyQuil – The baby has started daycare. He has since gifted us with the gnarliest colds he can find. I am doped to the gills: high highs induced by Sudafed, followed by the thick syrupy sleep that only NyQuil can bring. 10/10, do recommend.
Apple Classical – I wanted to play some Joni Mitchell for my little adorable pathogen-ridden snot monster, and realized that remembered/rediscovered [guhhhh] that she had left Spotify. And so I finally tried Apple Music, much to the delight of my spouse (who has been hassling me for months to quit Spotify). Apple Music, it turns out, is fine. The Apple Classical app, however, is phenomenal. There are copious liner notes for each piece, fantastic “related composers” lists for when you want more Handel-like choral pieces, lists of different recordings of the same piece…it just really understands how to teach you about what you’re listening to and direct you to new music in an intuitive, non-scattershot way.
The Guest by Emma Cline – I’m still not sure how I feel about this novel. It is outrageously well-written for sure. But also I found it deeply anxiety-inducing: a young, poor, loner woman is booted out of her rich boyfriend’s house in an elite enclave (that is I think meant to be the Hamptons?). So she spends several days drifting around, trying to fit in and fend for herself. It doesn’t go great. It’s cringe comedy without the comedy…and I couldn’t put it down. Let’s call this a somewhat-recommend.
Dahlias – It is October, meaning my dahlias are losing their little plant minds blooming all over the damn place. I am making the bees happy and also have a relatively steady supply of cut flowers for my home. Hell yeah. Plant some dahlias for yourself next spring.
Panic Room – The latest installment in the Blank Check podcast series about the films of David Fincher, and so I of course had to rewatch it. Tense, claustrophobia-inducing, cheer-out-loud-for-the-badassery-of-Jodie-Foster fun. (Once again for manifesting: Blank Check dudes, I would kill to be on your show. When I finally write my 8,000-word essay on Fight Club here, I am going to hope against hope that someone sends it to you.)
Dwight Yoakam – OK first off, he’s a terrifying villain in Panic Room. Which reminded me that he is also a damn good musician. One of those rare, wonderful 1980s/90s country singers who managed to be alt-country cool but also land on mainstream country radio. Turn on his Apple Essentials playlist and two-step around your house. (Suggested tracks: “Fast as You,” “Guitars, Cadillacs,” “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,” also his rockabilly “Ring of Fire” cover (not on that Apple playlist but just go find it).)
Nonsensical old-millennial video of the week — Have I made you all watch Lobster Magnet yet? Well, now I have. And if I’m repeating here, here’s another early-internet treasure.
I would love for you to be on Blank Check!! Phenomenal guest 10/10
Hey Danielle!
Great article. On race: it definitely has been used that way before. I think of George Wallace saying he'd "never get out-niggered again" and then winning on segregation. Or, for that matter, Black politicians' politics of authenticity. It's definitely more subtextual most of the time now though. And it is *weird* how politicians will make extremely direct appeals to masculinity while at least talking around race.