Barack Obama Is (Still) The Negation Of Trump's MAGA Masculinity

Since the rest of this campaign is apparently going to be about WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MEN?

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Now let’s talk about that Barack Obama speech last night in Pittsburgh.

Flashback: 2011.

Barack Obama is president. Saturday night, April 20, was the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and Obama was there to make jokes. He made jokes about Donald Trump, at that time the loser leader of the Birther movement, who had himself kinda been invited to the party as a joke. In fact, both Obama and host Seth Meyers went relentlessly at Trump. One legend has it that the humiliation Trump experienced that night planted a seed that would later make him run for president, but that interpretation of the text has been disputed.

Of course, as Obama was making jokes about how Trump’s experience firing Gary Busey on “The Celebrity Apprentice” gave him the experience he needed to be president, Obama had literally just authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Everybody also remembers the next night, when all the TV shows were pre-empted so President Obama could announce to the nation that he had killed Bin Laden. Less well-remembered is the fact that on the east and west coasts, one of the biggest shows it pre-empted was … “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

Guarantee that loser son of a bitch Trump remembers it, though.

I was reminded of that as I watched Barack Obama in Pittsburgh last night, kicking off a campaign blitz for Vice President Kamala Harris. And I was reminded that Barack Obama — who has lived rent-free in Trump’s filthy head for over a decade now — is literally the negation of that man, and the very decimation of the landfill full of masculine insecurities that make up the MAGA movement.

Obama had some things to say about Trump’s and MAGA’s loser Little Man Syndrome conception of masculinity last night.

Here’s the speech. Watch it all if you haven’t yet. Below I’ll talk about some things.

There were times in last night’s speech when Obama was definitely doing some new material, mocking the everloving shit out of Trump in ways we all know pierced directly through Trump’s weak and thin skin.

Making fun of Trump’s whining and babbling. Making fun of his stupid grifting, selling his dumb gold sneakers and his idiot Trump Bible. “He wants you to buy the Word of God, Trump edition! Got his name right there next to Matthew and Luke!”

Obama laughed heartily trying to imagine if Old Gilded Toilet Trump had ever changed a diaper. An audience member yelled out something about “HIS OWN!” Obama laughed and said he was originally going to say that, but decided against it.

He also, talking about Tim Walz, cracked himself up trying to imagine Trump changing a tire. “I’m just trying to picture it,” Obama said, laughing.

Mocking the way Trump brags about how great his economy was before COVID, Obama said you’re right, that economy was great, “because it was MY economy!” He noted how he had to spent eight years fixing the economy after the last Republican fucked it up.

Obama was absolutely brutal about Trump’s “concepts of a plan.” He said Trump “spent his entire presidency trying to tear [Obamacare] down, and by the way he couldn’t even do that right!” What if you tried to tell your spouse you had a “concept of a plan” for washing the dishes, he asked? “If it wouldn’t work for you, why should it work for the president of the United States?”

The glee with which Obama makes fun of Trump, the way he laughs all the way through it — well, we all saw it at the Democratic National Convention when Obama was talking about Trump’s weirdo obsession with crowd sizes, and then made the hand gesture seen around the world.

But there were times in his speech when Obama was deadly serious.

He was deadly serious when he talked about what Trump has done to reproductive rights, and how creepy Trump — an adjudicated rapist, remember — was when he said he was going to be women’s “protector.”

And he was deadly serious here:

“If you had a family member who acted like (Trump), you might still love them, but you’d tell ‘em, ‘You got a problem,’ and you wouldn’t put him in charge of anything,” Obama said. “And yet, when Donald Trump lies or cheats, or shows utter disregard for our Constitution, when he calls POWs ‘losers’ or fellow citizens ‘vermin,’ people make excuses for it.”

Talking about the way Trump and his minions have joyfully spread lies to people in hurricane zones who may desperately need to hear the truth, Obama with emotion in his voice asked, “The idea of intentionally trying to deceive people in their most desperate and vulnerable moments – my question is, when did that become OK?”

When the audience cheered, he piped them the fuck down. “I’m not looking for applause right now!” It wasn’t lost on anyone who had authority over that room for almost an hour while he was speaking.

This entire section was extremely powerful:

Toward the end of that clip, Obama started talking about masculinity, and the men who think the way Trump behaves is somehow manly.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, I’ve noticed this especially with some men who seem to think Trump’s behavior of bullying and of putting people down is a sign of strength. And I am here to tell you, that is not what real strength is. It never has been. Real strength is about working hard and carrying a heavy load without complaining. Real strength is about taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth, even when it’s inconvenient. Real strength is about helping people who need it, and standing up for those who can’t always stand up for themselves.

“That is what we should want for our daughters and for our sons, and that is what I want to see in a president of the United States of America!”

In case you can’t tell from the transcript, he was shouting by the end of that.

Earlier in the day, in a more private setting at a Harris campaign office, Obama spoke more directly to Black men who might be thinking of voting for Trump, who is racist human trash, instead of Harris, because maybe they don’t want to vote for a woman:

“You’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody (in Trump) who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down?” Obama said. “That’s not acceptable.” […]

“You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that,” Obama said. “Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

He also said that “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,” and that “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.”

Two Versions Of Strength And Masculinity, Except The MAGA Vision Is Actually Some Weak Ass Shit

Not sure why I just thought of the Trump “jerking two dicks off at one time” dance, but take it from a gay guy, there are MUCH cooler ways to do it.

One of the primary drivers of the MAGA man tantrum the world is enduring is extreme masculine insecurity. You see it in their obsessions with birth rates and ball tanning and testosterone levels and sperm counts and eradicating the woke mind virus and — look, just watch Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk for 12 seconds, you’ll get enough masculine insecurity for a whole science project.

You see it in this hilariously creepy segment from this very week of Trump Nazi Stephen Miller and Fox News’s Jesse Watters, giving out sex/relationship advice to young men that basically amounts to “If you want to show the womenfolk that you’re an ALPHA, you have to show them how much you love Trump!”

You see it in this wild supercut from “The Daily Show” last night, where Jordan Klepper’s team compiled alllll these MAGA men (and a couple of the idiot MAGA women who gladly serve the MAGA patriarchy) working out their masculine insecurities as they wet their panties about men voting for Kamala Harris:

Some examples:

• “I don’t see why any MAN would vote Democrat. […] That person has mommy issues, or they’re just trying to be accepted by other women!” — Jesse Watters

• “If you want weak men and the angry women around them, that’s the party for you, for sure!” — Tucker

• “Women love masculinity, and women do not love Tim Walz, so that should just tell you about how masculine Tim Walz is.” — Watters

• “He’s like a SOFT man.” — Megyn Kelly

• “You look at the way Tim Walz dances around on the stage […] it’s not someone who comes across as this alpha male, someone who’s a killer.” — Trump adviser Jason Miller and his little butthole mouth

• “Men should not move this way! It’s not the way we move.” — Watters, who once bragged that he lured his now-wife into his car (he was married at the time) by letting the air out of her tires.

The whole clip is hilarious, especially when Jordan Klepper does his impression of strong MAGA men when they start shiver-shitting their Underoos over big scary Democratic cities, where minorities live. Also when he starts showing all those big manly comments, juxtaposed with clips of Donald Trump being his regular old manly self.

It’s been said before, but the kinds of men who think Donald Trump is a strong man are not themselves strong men. They don’t admire men who are actually confident in their masculinity, they admire men who reflect their own weaknesses back to them, but funhouse mirror-style, managing to convince them that their weakenesses are strengths.

It’s kind of like how Trump is a stupid man’s idea of a smart man and a poor man’s idea of a rich man.

WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MEN?

That was Barack Obama’s speech last night. And that segment above, that was on “The Daily Show” last night.

That’s not a coincidence.

There are 25 days until the election, and it turns out that in this historic year, when we are — God willing — about to elect the first Black woman president of the United States, a lot of the home stretch focus is apparently going to be about the poor men, and whether they can bring their poor man selves to vote for her.

The more things change, the more yadda yadda yadda.

Donald Trump is literally betting it all on the “bros,” since women detest him so fucking much, for obvious reasons. “Inside Trump’s push to win over the ‘bro’ vote,” reads the headline in Politico. The headline on Alex Wagner’s segment on MSNBC — again last night — put a finer point on it: 'Infantile, petulant masculinity': Trump aims low in appeal for American male 'bro' voters.

(The Stephen Miller/Jesse Watters sex creep tips — where Watters refers to Miller as a “sexual matador” — are in that clip, if you’re dying to see it.)

This is Trump’s entire plan. Well, that and plastering the airwaves with one million ads demonizing and fearmongering about transgender people, especially during football games.

Meanwhile, Tim Walz is having to go on some sort of MAN! tour of his own now, pheasant-hunting with outdoors influencers and doing other football and sports things. MAN!

We wouldn’t want America’s men — and I am one — to feel left out of this moment, the poor dear babies.

This is where we are. (For fucks’ sake.)

In related news, Trump spent some time yesterday whining in Detroit that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and he didn’t, awwwww, the poor fuckin’ baby.

Laugh at how pathetic he is all you want, but while you’re laughing, make sure you and your 5,000 best friends and family have a plan to vote.

We are literally deciding on November 5 which of these versions of strength we’re going to hand the reins of power to in this country, likely for a good long while.

[CNN / videos via Acyn / The Daily Show]

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-Evan