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How Trump appeals to men secretly insecure about their manhood

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How Donald Trump appeals to men secretly insecure about their manhood

Video Caption: A day after the GOP debate where presidential candidate Donald Trump defended the size of his hands, he continued with that theme on the campaign trail. (Reuters)

 

By Eric Knowles and Sarah DiMuccio

 

November 29 at 6:00 AM

 

From boasting about the size of his on national television to releasing records of his high testosterone levels, President Trumps rhetoric and behavior exude machismo. His behavior also seems to have struck a chord with some male voters. See, for example, the Donald Trump: Finally Someone With Balls T-shirts common at Trump rallies.

 

But our research suggests that Trump is not necessarily attracting male supporters who are as confidently masculine as the president presents himself to be. Instead, Trump appears to appeal more to men who are secretly insecure about their manhood. We call this the fragile masculinity hypothesis. Here is some of our evidence.

 

What is fragile masculinity?

Research shows that many men feel pressure to look and behave in stereotypically masculine ways or risk losing their status as real men. Masculine expectations are socialized from early childhood and can motivate men to embrace traditional male behaviors while avoiding even the hint of femininity. This unforgiving standard of maleness makes some men worry that theyre falling short. These men are said to experience fragile masculinity.

 

The political process provides a way that fragile men can reaffirm their masculinity. By supporting tough politicians and policies, men can reassure others (and themselves) of their own manliness. For example, sociologist Robb Willer has shown that men whose sense of masculinity was threatened increased their support for aggressive foreign policy.

 

We wanted to see whether fragile masculinity was associated with how Americans vote and specifically whether it was associated with greater support for Trump in the 2016 general election and for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.

 

How we measured fragile masculinity

Measuring fragile masculinity poses a challenge. We could not simply do a poll of men, who might not honestly answer questions about their deepest insecurities. Instead we relied on Google Trends, which measures the popularity of Google search terms. As Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has argued, people are often at their least guarded when they seek answers from the Internet. Researchers have already used Google search patterns to estimate levels of racial prejudice in different parts of the country. We sought to do the same with fragile masculinity.

 

We began by selecting a set of search topics that we believed might be especially common among men concerned about living up to the ideals of manhood: erectile dysfunction, hair loss, how to get girls, enlargement, size, steroids, testosterone and Viagra. (With the exception of how to get girls, these are Google topics rather than individual search terms. For instance, the topic erectile dysfunction includes searches for erectile dysfunction, ED and impotence.)

 

To validate this list of topics, we asked a sample of 300 men on Amazons Mechanical Turk platform whether they ever had or ever would search for them online. We found that scoring high on a questionnaire measuring masculine gender-role discrepancy stress concern that they arent as manly as their male friends was strongly associated with interest in these search topics. Although these men were not a representative sample of American men, their responses suggest that these search terms are a valid way to capture fragile masculinity.

 

How fragile masculinity was related to voting behavior

We measured the popularity of these search topics in every media market in the country during the years preceding the past three presidential elections. In the map below, darker colors show where these searches were most prevalent in 2016.

 

PHOTO

Photo Caption: Darker areas indicate a higher volume of search activity. Source: Google Trends

 

We found that support for Trump in the 2016 election was higher in areas that had more searches for topics such as erectile dysfunction. Moreover, this relationship persisted after accounting for demographic attributes in media markets, such as education levels and racial composition, as well as searches for topics unrelated to fragile masculinity, such as breast augmentation and menopause.

 

In contrast, fragile masculinity was not associated with support for Mitt Romney in 2012 or support for John McCain in 2008 suggesting that the correlation of fragile masculinity and voting in presidential elections was distinctively stronger in 2016.

 

The same finding emerged in 2018. We estimated levels of fragile masculinity in every U.S. congressional district based on levels in the media markets with which districts overlap. Before the election, we preregistered our expectations, including the other factors that we would account for.

 

In the more than 390 House elections pitting a Republican candidate against a Democratic candidate, support for the Republican candidate was higher in districts that, based on Google search data, had higher levels of fragile masculinity. However, there was no significant relationship between fragile masculinity and voting in the 2014 or 2016 congressional elections. This suggests that fragile masculinity has now become a stronger predictor of voting behavior.

 

Notably, fragile masculinity was unrelated to support for female candidates in the 2018 elections, once we accounted for the fact that female candidates are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. It therefore appears that fragile masculinity doesnt reduce support for female candidates but rather increases support for Republican candidates of any gender.

 

Heres the takeaway

Our data suggests that fragile masculinity is a critical feature of our current politics. Nonetheless, points of caution are in order.

 

First, the research reported here is correlational. We cant be entirely sure that fragile masculinity is causing people to vote in a certain way. However, given that experimental work has identified a causal connection between masculinity concerns and political beliefs, we think the correlations weve identified are important.

 

Second, it remains to be seen whether any link between fragile masculinity and voting will persist after Trump exits the national stage. We suspect, however, that Trumps re-engineering of the GOP as a party inextricably tied to many Americans identity concerns whether based on race, religion or gender will ensure that fragile masculinity remains a force in politics.

 

WaPo.

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It's a good read, but I really wish they would not......this is some attempt to shame Trump voters, but that is only going to p!ss them off. I would very much like the left to stop tormenting these people, or he might get re-elected......jesus, stop doing the same stupid sh!t guys!!!!

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Hey, you found two girls that share your passion for projection. If you keep reading this ###### you're going to be cross-dressing by St. Patrick's Day.

Classic example right here. Arent you going to call me a cuck too?

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Recent Washington Post news items:

 

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1068117143689007105

 

Melania chose red Christmas Trees, In Europe that's a bad sign! (ummm, well thank goodness the White House is in America) :lol:

 

 

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1068220160211918849

 

Tucker Carlson is a NEO NAZI FAVORITE!@#!

 

 

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1068182542468202496

 

Letting them get away with murder, Trump is a WEAKLING not a winner!

 

 

These are actual pieces from this national news organization.

 

WaPo is the not news, its not analysis. It's the epitome of how journalism has evolved from news to trash magazine. WaPo is batting cleanup in the lineup of news entities who've lost all journalistic integrity.

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Classic example right here. Arent you going to call me a cuck too?

 

Always with the negative waves, moriarty...

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Trump voters like to make fun of pink haired freaks with bullsh*t wedge issues too so fair is fair when they retaliate. They control academia and the legacy media so you get stories like this being judged fit to print in WaPo.

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So in conclusion:

"We cant be entirely sure that fragile masculinity is causing people to vote in a certain way."

 

Let's be real here. Whoever wrote this article is high on themselves as well as secretly insecure. It's a failed attempt to use psychology to affirm a random thought with a personal agenda. But after writing 10,000 words, they say, "well, we don't really know anything". Duh. Of course they don't. Because they are actually the ones with fragile character.

 

Angry weeping guys are much more so associated with the left. They get angry and cry a lot about Hillary not winning. They stand outside people's homes and cars wearing masks and shouting at them, or they simply fume at home and run around the internet and whine about everything that is Trump. I don't know how some people don't see this. Even taking the time to write this article comes from a fuming hatred of having lost an election.

 

I don't know about other male Trump supporters, but I feel just fine honestly. Go Bears!!

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And Midgets tend to act all tough.

Idk what midgets have to do with this... Seeing as how you fly off the handle here though, I would assume you are part of the insecure group?

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And Midgets tend to act all tough.

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Idk what midgets have to do with this... Seeing as how you fly off the handle here though, I would assume you are part of the insecure group?

5’6”

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Written by a woman and (probably) a very effeminate man. :sleep:

 

No doubt. This kind of trite excrement has been so over-used at this point, when losing an argument, or otherwise just frustrated at not getting their way this is what you get....

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Classic example right here. Arent you going to call me a cuck too?

Yeah, MDC, everyone that criticizes you is suffering from some repressed problem or lack of masculinity. I prefer to let you dwell on the fact that you're a cuck without having to say a word about it.

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I bet Trump voters are more likely to enjoy cuckold porn and have a wife with a wide stance.

  • Like 1

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I bet Trump voters are more likely to enjoy cuckold porn and have a wife with a wide stance.

 

Just don't incite them, they might be more inclined to vote.....poking them, not a good idea...

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56

From the guy who gets upset over anything on here. I don't remember seeing many more sensitive posters. Probably some insecurity floating around.

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Fixed

I know at least one Trump voter who cant enjoy focking his woman, at all. :(

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Does he enjoy sticking you though?

He probably would. Im much tighter than his his wife.

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Cuck is a nice catch all insult

 

You pleasure your wife?? Hah, cuck

 

You do work around your house?? Hah, cuck

 

You aren't insecure?? Hah, cuck

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Cuck is a nice catch all insult

 

You pleasure your wife?? Hah, cuck

 

You do work around your house?? Hah, cuck

 

You aren't insecure?? Hah, cuck

 

True, nicely done by the way, they use racist and misogynist the same way....it usually boils down to " you disagree with me then you are a <insert some arbitrary label>

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Trudeau reminds me of Gabe from The Office.

 

Ha, that's a good comparison. I love watching videos of him trying to navigate stuff in the public eye. Awkward and amusing. The fact he's decent looking and a first world nation's leader doesn't make him confident. It's intriguing. Meekness is not a bad thing when basically right. If I thought his worldview was basically right, I'd probably appreciate his demeanor.

 

eta: The signatures look like Trump signed with a sharpie and the other two used fine point pens.

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I don't need to read it to already know it's a dumb / ghey premise.

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Study: Physically Weak Men More Likely To Be Socialists

 

Surprise, surprise. Men who are physically weak are more likely to favor socialist policies.

An academic study from researchers at Brunel University London assessed 171 men, looking at their height, weight, overall physical strength and bicep circumference, along with their views on redistribution of wealth and income inequality. The study, published in the Evolution and Human Behavior journal, ​found that weaker men were more likely to favor socialist policies than stronger men.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/16850/study-weak-men-more-likely-be-socialists-amanda-prestigiacomo

 

Exhibit A:

https://giphy.com/gifs/dad-bod-VoGz9KMNV9pPq?utm_source=iframe&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=Embeds&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2F16850%2Fstudy-weak-men-more-likely-be-socialists-amanda-prestigiacomo

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