Near the end of the 2004 movie Team America, the creators of South Park unleashed probably the most profanity-laced and underrated political analysis in American history. They broke the world into three groups of people, represented by parts of the human anatomy (warning: link is NSFW), with the implication being that people may not like those representative of male genitalia, but they are necessary to have around to keep some semblance of order, and they usually end up winning.
During part of Kayne West’s totally bizarre “is this really happening?!” moment with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office yesterday, I immediately was reminded of that scene from the film. I also found remarkable vindication for a theory that I have long held—but never yet fully articulated publicly—about why Trump’s “Cult 45” is so magnetically drawn to him.
West said this when comparing how he felt about Hillary Clinton’s campaign compared to the rush he got by putting on Trump’s famous red MAGA hat:
“The campaign ‘I’m with her’ just didn’t make me feel as a
guy, that didn’t get to see my dad all the time, like a guy that could play catch with his son. There was something about putting this hat on that made me feel like Superman.”
It seems pretty clear what Kanye is saying there is that supporting Trump made him feel “manly” in a way that backing Hilary would not have. Since Trump is obviously a man and Hillary clearly is not — though she probably had more of the traditionally positive male traits, like toughness, than he does — most people might blow past that statement as not having any greater significance than one really weird celebrity feeling more comfortable with someone of his own gender (although, Kanye also directly referencing the female-dominated Kardashian Klan he married into during the same rant does open up a whole lot of other questions about what happens to men who are dominated by them for too long).
However, there are some special circumstances here thanks to the unique nature of Trump’s persona and of his fanatical political base. Specifically, Trump is perceived (wrongly, in my opinion) among his strongest supporters as having big “balls,” a trait which may very well be the essence of all his political “magic.”
In fact, a strong argument could be made that, if Trump ever lost the image of having big “cojones,” it might be the only development which would cost him the support of his “Cult 45” following. Consequently, I will always believe
Trump’s political strength is the (mis)perception that he is strong, or has big “balls.” And yet Democrats, partly because they now seem to see anything that is “manly” as inherently bad, just can’t bring themselves to “feminize” Trump because in their minds it will make him seem less awful, when in reality it would make him politically impotent.
The key to all of this is that the core Trump supporter, the middle-aged and older white male, feels, rightly or wrongly, that their very manhood is under attack by virtually every aspect of American life. Political correctness has prevented them from saying what they really think, their wives now control every aspect of their life, they have to walk on egg shells at work no matter what their position is, and, hell, even the damn NFL doesn’t allow quarterbacks to be tackled properly any more without there being a 15-yard penalty flag!
Everywhere the Trump supporter looks his manhood has been demonized and neutered… except when it comes to Trump. As strange as it sounds, Trump has effectively become their surrogate manhood, When he gets brutally condemned by
All of this is exactly what it sounded like Kayne West was articulating yesterday, and it is a lesson which Democrats desperately need to learn before the 2020 election. Yes, there are many positive developments which have come from the dramatic feminization of our culture over the last generation, but, when it comes to who Americans (including lots of women) want to be led by, the instinct of at least half the people — and likely a majority of the Electoral College — is going to side with the “balls,” even if the brain they are attached to is both apparently diseased and significantly limited.
John Ziegler hosts a weekly podcast focusing on news media issues and is documentary filmmaker. You can follow him on Twitter at @ZigManFreud or email him at johnz@mediaite.com