One of the reasons I was always hesitant to go to college in America was the specter of thousands of students. Baying Bros rules social life.

Frat culture has a mystical name and may conjure up for Brits a sort of American dreamland of beefcake, beer and girls, but in reality it is a deranged tradition that fuels the most masculine behavior. intimidating, rude and physically disgusting. Hazing rituals sometimes leave recruits dead. Allegations of serious sexual assault are common and shocking.

Today, this culture, in all its primal energy, has arrived at the White House, transforming America into what increasingly resembles one great brotherhood. Intensified nationally by Donald Trump’s decade-long global influence, his second term has already been marked by a caricatured masculine lens of power and camaraderie.

As the Musk-Trump-RFK bromance dominates the new administration, the images keep coming: the guys from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighting at Madison Square Gardens, the guys returning from the fight. on a plane eating McDonald’s.

The Trump campaign seems to be as much about making men great again as it is about making America. If the odious misogynist Andrew Tate remains something of a peripheral political figure, his steroidal brand of anti-woman male booster extending into the feeds of young men around the world via TikTok, then The Donald solidified the gun-toting, fight-loving, pumping wishful thinking fisted, “men are men” online and swept them from TikTok to the polls.

Trump managed to close a 16-point gap between young men and young women, with 56 percent of men aged 18 to 29 voting for Trump, compared to just 40 percent of their female peers. THE A shift toward Trump among young men was attributed to a decade of enlightenment, which placed them at the bottom of the progressive hierarchy. Harris showed no signs of dismantling this unfortunate status quo, while Trump proudly wore his anti-woke credentials on his sleeve.

As a result, a half-century after the women’s liberation movement, large numbers of Americans reacted against progressives who, in matters of identity, cruelly abused their power. This revolt cast aside the prospect of a real return to central normalcy and sent feminism’s worst nightmare to the White House a second time. It’s hard to imagine a movement more aesthetically different from the Biden or even Obama years than from the Trump campaign.

Arriving to watch a testosterone-fueled UFC fight, we see Trump and Musk gripping the arm of a huge, sweat-beaded boxer after a victorious bout, with thousands of mostly male faces in the background . Trump entered the arena to the sound of American Bad Ass by Kid Rock. He is friendly with Dana Whitethe UFC CEO, a figure of mass influence credited with mobilizing young men to vote for Trump.

Having felt insulted for years by the dictates of progressives great and good, men’s anger has fueled the rise of alternative media ecosystems – some of which are known as the “manosphere.” The most popular platforms in the manosphere are YouTube brothers like Logan Paul and Theo Von, and popular podcasters like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman.

It’s no surprise that everyone joked with the president-elect during his campaign, sometimes during three-hour sessions. There was very little editing and almost no difficult questions to speak of. After all, the relationship was mutually beneficial. “These guys are an influence on us young people – we want to be like them when we grow up,” said a 22-year-old Paul and Von fan. “They’re dominating right now.”

Back to that photo on the plane: four men, all grinning goofily over their boxes of hamburgers and fries, with House Speaker Mike Johnson hovering almost out of the frame. Of course, Kamala Harris was disappointing, fluffy, unconvincing and too woke. But it was nice to see a woman in the ring, which was progress for America. Do women exist in the upper echelons of the Maga world? There are of course exceptions, such as the appointment of veteran Tulsi Gabbard as head of intelligence services, or the “Ice Maiden” Susie Wiles who was named the first female chief of staff.

The relative obscurity of women leaders makes you feel like they’ve simply been photoshopped, not just from Trump’s inner circles but, with Harris’ implosion, from the American moment itself. Was this what voters wanted?

After all, the Democrats have neither recruited enough women nor appealed to any male base. Harris bled away the male support that the Biden administration had built just years before. Richard Reeves, a researcher on masculinity, observed that “even my progressive feminist friends were watching the Democratic National Convention and saying, ‘Will there be anything for men?’ THE Republican National Conventionon the other hand, was a carnival of masculinity. The Republicans put out a welcome mat for men and said, ‘We’re OK with you being men.’

Whether addressed to women or men, it is an unfortunate message that must be relied upon. Demonizing men for being men, or white men for being white men, is morally unacceptable, but that doesn’t calm me down in the face of the extreme machismo that dictates American national policy.

As Britain moves forward with yet another female leader of the Conservative Party, whose gender is barely commented on, the view of America, Trump’s frat-boy, is strange and upsetting. America is both the most advanced and important country on the planet and, by European standards, one of the most backward.

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