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This post is the first in “MAGA and Masculinity in 2024,” an ongoing series examining the societal fallout from right-wing hypermasculinity — and the people fighting its toxic messaging by positively redefining what it means to be a man.
There’s been a song on my mind lately, by Gil Scott-Heron, called “Pieces of a Man.” Perhaps, you’ve heard it, too. It tells the story of a man who erupts into a violent outburst after learning he’d been fired from his job.
Scott-Heron sings:
Jagged jigsaw pieces
Tossed about the room
I saw my grandma sweeping
With her old straw broom
But she didn’t know what she was doing
She could hardly understand
That she was really sweeping up
Pieces of a man
Scott-Heron ends the song reminiscing over a broken man.
He was always such a strong, strong man
Yeah, I saw him go to pieces
The sentiment behind the song — that men often want to feel like breadwinners and supreme heads of their households, and can resort to toxicity when they feel deprived of an opportunity to play these roles — is arguably the most dominant theme of this year’s elections. Men have done such an effective job of promoting these roles as male birthrights that the sense of loss felt by not fulfilling any one of them can break a man to pieces if he lacks self-esteem.
Former President Donald Trump — and perhaps to an even greater degree his running mate, Sen. JD Vance — have learned that when men fall to pieces in the way Gil Scott-Heron described, they’re easily manipulated and their sharp edges can be used as a political weapon. So their campaign revolves around the false idea that men have fallen out of social favor. The Republican ticket has used that vitriol to boost crusades against everything from reproductive health care that allows women control of their own bodies, to DEI programs that help women gain a foothold in schools and in the workplace, to the existence of trans people who defy traditional gender roles.
Vance’s alignment with the misogynistic “manosphere” and his repeated denunciation of childless women have combined with Trump’s decades-long misogyny to boost the idea that male chauvinism is virtuous. And Trump’s followers have also fed the hypermasculine fervor with their repeated suggestions that “real men” don’t support the Harris-Walz campaign.
That’s why I think this election will largely be a faceoff between men of character, whom Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz seems to represent and Vice President Kamala Harris promotes, and caricatures of manhood, which Trump and Vance represent. It’s a distinction I’ve made in the past in noting how Vance — a veteran and a haughty rich guy — embodies a kind of cartoonish and toxic masculinity compared to Walz, who’s also a veteran (and a former football coach) and has used his masculinity for good.
When all is said and done, this difference could decide the election. If American men are truly broken and need their status as conquerors and cretins to be affirmed, they’ll find a home in the Trump-Vance campaign. But if they see manhood as something more positive and productive than that, the Harris-Walz campaign would be happy to have them.