31 Comments

Barack Obama is an authentic person, and his masculinity is also authentic. He just goes through life being himself!

Trump is Faked-Up from the top of the hairball on his head to the toes on his clown feet!

Any masculinity that Trump has is also Fake and generated by his BS braggadocio! As usual, Trump is all Made for TV Mouth and no action!

He cheats at golf and he cheats at life! He gets his henchmen to do his physical dirty work! He says he will "pay" for it and then stiffs them! That's not masculinity! That's another one of his never-ending con-jobs!

The contrast between Obama and Trump has always been stark! Trump has been obsessively envious of him from the beginning! Obama has been a threat to Trump's narcissistic self! That's why he attacked him early on about where he was born! It's always Same Trump Different Day!

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"Barack Obama is an authentic person, and his masculinity is also authentic. He just goes through life being himself!"

Especially now that he can let his inner Luther Anger Translator out...

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I had the misfortune of seeing Key & Peele back in the day. That was some *great* shit. The painkillers I was on... not as great, sadly.

I never watched more than a few skits (a damn sight better than Tosh.0, how did anyone convince themselves Tosh is funny...) but damn they were good.

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Outstanding opinion and writing. Now turn it up to 11 for the home stretch.

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Oct 11Liked by Evan Hurst

So great, I finally donated!

Thank you!

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All I can think about when I see (my secret imaginary boyfriend Barbar) former President Obama is: there's a reason your hair is so white now... As if it weren't enough that he had to govern in a time of maximum multi-pronged crises in every damned direction, he's also had to suffer through the intense stupidity of this era. And it's not like I think this country was ever even a remotely cogent, adult place where human beings make decisions that aren't greedy/stupid/cruel for the sheer hell/thrill of it...but the idiocy is now so thick and so unavoidable and so loud...

Mostly I hear the echoes of my dad's voice in Obama's, that tone of, "what in the literal fuck is the matter with you/I raised you better than this, so act like it."

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Real men aren't pathetic whiny jerks (I was going to call them babies, but babies grow up and mature). Real men have matured into responsible adults, and are perfectly comfortable voting for a woman, no matter her color, for president, if she's the best candidate running. Real men know that trump is in no way a responsible adult, and so isn't a real man. He's just a guy, who inherited a lot of money, wasted it, but has leveraged his white guyness and seeming wealth into being perceived as wealthy, smart and strong. He's none of that, and I can't think of a single positive quality that trump has. That is why it's so baffling that anyone would vote for him.

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Completely agree. Con man extraordinaire, is all the credit I can muster, a creep full of bluster (interchangeable with shit) and whiney grievances (real and imagined) that normal people wouldn't want to be around. Josh Hawley "kissing" his wife is "poster child" for lacking in masculinity and the fact that so many Republican men wear makeup and play dress up but shun drag queens for doing the same?! Hypocrites all. Non weirdos Vote 💙

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Married to a transwoman! And we like bars and football. The ads are terrible. We're sitting in a local bar in the community we've lived in for over 30 years and it's like they are encouraging everyone in the bar to kill us. We're known, I have a badditude, and we're safe. But it is such terrible bullshit to go through, especially for my wife. Fuck those guys!

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It's one of the few things that occasionally makes me want to do violence. These haters. Their sadism. I want to make them cry. So is this my OWN sadism? I hope not. It's a desire to make them FACE the pain they cause and see how vile it is, not anything too gruesome.

I resent that the world has brought that out in me.

I comfort myself they are such petty stupid whiny little cockwombles. Even if nobody forces them to face up to what measley little worms they are, they have to live like that.

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Barack and Kamala must be taking cues from that classic, the Monstars anthem (Space Jam, 1996):

“I hit 'em high, hit 'em high, hit 'em high

And you hit 'em low, hit 'em low, hit 'em low”

Because now it’s Barry, not Kamala, will be the only thing occupying Trump’s attention for the next three weeks.

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Good point! He hates Obama so much, he's going to be obsessed with trying to best him somehow.

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People like Trump, Watters, and Tucker Carlson make me feel ashamed of being male. I wish there was a way I could lie about it, like how I told people I was Canadian when I went to Europe while Junior Bush was President. Unfortunately, I can’t do drag for shit.

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The fact that you don't want be on the same team with the MAGA bros exonerated you - no need to be ashamed!

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Funny, I don't feel exonerated. People like me - old white guys - did this. It's my responsibility to remedy that in any way I can.

Which is why I'll be on the sidewalk at Planned Parenthood's Kansas City KS clinic in the morning giving the anti-abortion protesters who show up to harass patients and staff a hard time. Atonement. So I don't have to feel so ashamed of my fellow men all the time.

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You're doing The Work. No need to feel shame if you're shouldering responsibility. And, as a fellow citizen, Thanks!

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How is it that he feels entitled to ever call anyone else "stupid"? He's a mouth; just a mouth —no brain; just a mouth (that resembles an anus, to boot!)!

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The gold-plated turd!

What he foghorns for and insists on that turns out badly, he just blames on others

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The orange guy, I mean

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I knew who you meant immediately 🍊🤡

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. . . Cranky-Infant Man!

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How is this election even within 20 points? We got a real nazi problem in this country right now I guess. Also yet another nail in the coffin of that worthless gop stooge Garland, he could've ended this years ago if he hadn't of sat around with his thumb up hist butt for the last 4 years. Biden's biggest mistake in 50 years of public service.

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They know it's not real strength. They want it cause it's easy. And then you get stuff and can be an asshole.

They are conformists so if other people like it--that's good enough.

It's only about how they feel, not what's real.

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Great essay, Evan-may I call you Evan? Oops, already did. I look forward to Fridays and your writing.

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Real men don't worry about what other men think of them.

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On the plus side Tim Walz enjoys pheasant hunting and football games so hopefully he’ll find it relaxing.

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Trump and his ilk are terrified of true masculinity because they know it stems from honesty and humility, and they have none of either. Rather than improve themselves, they instead try to lazily and arrogantly deceive everyone else into thinking the "they were strong all along, and everyone else was wrong not to see it".

It's a lazy, weak, dishonest approach by lazy, weak, dishonest cowards (endless redundancy there), and the only ones who buy into it are even lazier, weaker, and less honest. Any man with a shred of real masculinity sees their play clearly, and wants nothing to do with it or them. As has been said over and over, they're selling "a weak man's fantasy of strength, a poor man's fantasy of wealth, and a coward's fantasy of courage."

Those who live in and deal with honest reality have no time for such lazy fantasies. Real accomplishment requires real work, and real effort, something those people have no conception of whatsoever.

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Thanks - you made me feel somehow stronger and more resilient, no matter what the future holds. And I firmly believe either way, we've got some rough roads ahead. Whatever it takes, I'll keep keeping on.

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My band did this around 1981. We play it now and again for Sir's little dance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ifWsyo6Dng

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