OPINION:
It’s no secret that Vice President Kamala Harris is struggling to attract male voters. But her campaign thinks it’s found the answer: casting her running mate and her husband as models of the new masculinity to which all men should aspire.
Former President Donald Trump leads his opponent by 52% to 39% among men in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Trump is expected to increase his share of the Black vote from 8% in 2020 to 17% in this election, due mostly to his appeal to young Black men.
Democrats once owned the Hispanic vote. Today, 51% of Hispanic men 18 to 34 in Arizona say they plan to vote for the ex-president. President Biden carried the Hispanic vote 61% to 37% in the last election.
Minority voters like Mr. Trump’s style. Guys go for a candidate who gets up and shouts “Fight, fight, fight!” after he’s been shot. If that’s toxic masculinity, it’s the kind that made America great.
But the party of preferred pronouns and sex reassignment surgery isn’t taking it lying down.
Enter Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ms. Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff.
On MSNBC, former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki said that by actively supporting his wife’s campaign, Mr. Emhoff was reshaping “the perception of masculinity.” Mr. Walz is presented as a Midwestern regular guy — football coach and hunter — who supports women’s rights.
It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Stolen valor must be the new masculine ideal. After a 2020 school shooting, Mr. Walz said we had to ban the type of weapons “I carried in combat.” But he never carried any weapon in combat because he was never in combat.
When called to task, Mr. Walz said that he misspoke, and that his wife, an English teacher, often criticized him for his imprecise language. Baloney. He stated clearly on several occasions that the type of weapons used in school shootings were the kind he carried in combat. He didn’t misspeak. He lied.
Mr. Walz served for 24 years in the National Guard before retiring one month before his unit was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in 2005. His superior officer and the chaplain of his unit condemned his decision to abandon his comrades when they were about to go overseas.
Unlike his wife’s running mate, Mr. Emhoff has seen action — against women.
While he was married to his first wife, the now-second gentleman got his children’s nanny pregnant. Revelation of the affair ended the marriage.
There’s also a report that Mr. Emhoff assaulted a woman he was dating in 2005.
According to the Daily Mail, which investigated it, the alleged incident took place at the Cannes Film Festival.
The lady in question was waiting for the couple’s car when she touched a valet on the shoulder.
Mr. Emhoff thought his date was flirting with the valet and slapped her in the face hard enough to spin her around and leave her sobbing. At the time, she related the story to several friends.
The latest accusations come from the time Mr. Emhoff ran the Los Angeles branch of a law firm.
Former employees say he was a “misogynist” who had a penchant for hiring unqualified, “young, pretty girls” who were often invited to cruise around with him in his limousine.
On the plus side, there are no reports that he went Sean “Diddy” Combs on anyone or that disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was his role model.
I wonder what White Dudes for Harris thinks about their candidate’s choice of dudes.
It takes chutzpah for a gang that claims it can’t tell you what a woman is to redefine masculinity.
The new masculinity is nothing like the original.
A real man knows that the sexes aren’t interchangeable — that there are profound psychological and physical differences between them.
Men who are true to their better natures understand that it’s their responsibility to serve and protect — to create a home for the women they’re pledged to and their children.
It’s about honor, not power.
Once upon a time, a man who impregnated one woman while he was married to another would be shunned, a man who struck a woman would be reviled and a man who lied about his military record would be pitied.
Our failure to recognize the inherent differences between the sexes has led to such absurdities as men playing women’s sports, genital mutilation and brutes being celebrated as the masculine ideal.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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