Trump has not been ‘emasculated’ by his second impeachment. But even if he was, who cares?

A violent mob breached the US Capitol, and I have to watch men debating the maleness of another dude in a suit?

Donald Trump greets supporters at Valley International Airport on 12 January 2021 in Harlingen, Texas (Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

When a violent mob stormed the US Capitol in a deadly insurrection last week, it was shocking but, at the same time, sadly foreseeable. The images that emerged on social media were almost unbelievable, and they were also the only logical conclusion to the rhetoric deployed by Donald Trump – not just since the 2020 presidential race, but since before he even launched his presidential campaign.

In the days that followed, the House of Representatives began discussing impeachment — and then went ahead and impeached him for the second time on Tuesday, with the support of a record 10 Republicans. But at the same time as impeachment chatter ramped up, another talking point began to surface. It’s a topic I usually try to keep as far away from my consciousness as humanly possible. I am referring, of course, to Donald Trump’s genitals.

How did we end up here? I, like a movie character after a record scratch and a freeze-frame, ask myself this question every day. The speaker of the House of Representatives, you see, is Nancy Pelosi. Back in 2007, Pelosi became the first woman to ever hold the speakership. She held that role until 2011, until her re-election in 2019, and again in 2020. As the speaker of the House, Pelosi has repeatedly demonstrated her opposition to Trump – by tearing a copy of his speech, giving him what can only be described as a “f*** you clap”, and, most notably, successfully leading efforts to impeach him. Twice.

Every time Pelosi has sought to counteract Trump (also known as “doing her job”), the language of emasculation has reared its ugly, sexist head. Maybe you’ve seen it on social media. Maybe you’ve noticed it in casual conversations. Or maybe you recently watched Fox News (but why would you do this to yourself?) and witnessed a surreal, useless, absurd segment about Trump and his purported masculinity.

The sequence occurred, somewhat notably, not in response to the most recent efforts to impeach Trump, but to a series of measures taken by social media companies following the Capitol insurrection. Trump’s personal account has been booted off Twitter – forever, we have been promised. At last, America, our long national nightmare is over. Other companies, such as Facebook and Instagram, have restricted the president’s use until at least Inauguration Day. All reasonable measures. The bare minimum, really, when you consider that Trump’s words were interpreted by his supporters as a call to storm the seat of the legislative branch of the US government.

But Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer didn’t see it this way. On his programme Bill Hemmer Reports, Hemmer – perhaps projecting the tiniest bit – asked Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley if the president feels “emasculated” by “the social media crackdown”.

Most conservatives have tried to paint Trump facing bare-minimum consequences for his behaviour on social media as a grave infringement on his First Amendment rights (it’s not; the First Amendment is here to protect individuals’ free speech against the government, not the other way around, and no one is guaranteed the ability to do whatever they want with a private business). The emasculation interpretation was… creative – which, yes, is a polite word for far-fetched, absurd, and entirely inappropriate.

But Gidley ate it up. He played directly into Hemmer’s rhetoric, and promptly proceeded to reassure him that Trump, far from feeling emasculated by anything, remains a big, powerful manly man. “I wouldn’t say emasculated,” he told Hemmer. “The most masculine person I think to ever hold the White House is the president of the United States.”

Oh, good. For a second I feared the worst had happened and the president’s masculinity was in serious danger.

This isn’t only a problem on the right. Over on CNN, Don Lemon somewhat shared the feeling. He played the sequence between Gidley and Hemmer, wished out loud that Gidley would “shut up”, and added with clear exasperation: “I’ve heard a lot of pathetic things from this White House. This one really takes the cake.”

Yes, Don! Have at it. Tell it like it is. But wait…

“He is the biggest snowflake of them all, the biggest one!” Lemon then continued. “The president’s legacy will be not the most masculine president, but the biggest loser we have ever had as president.”

Look. I understand the impulse. We know Trump cares about coming off as a big, tough, ultra-masculine guy. This is the same man who said he doesn’t want a dog because, as he wondered at a 2019 rally, “How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?” Calling him a snowflake (I guess snowflakes aren’t masculine) is probably a way to get under his skin, at least a little bit. It’s not sophisticated, but it likely works.

But the obsession with masculinity doesn’t help anyone. Claiming that Trump doesn’t confirm to the model of masculinity he has incorporated into his brand still, to a significant extent, plays into that same model of masculinity. “He’s not a tough guy” is not the same argument as “Who cares if he’s a tough guy?” and “Being a tough guy has nothing to do with being a competent leader anyway.”

When Twitter, Facebook et al finally start holding Trump to the same standards as other users after four years of free rein, they’re not emasculating him. They’re holding him accountable for his actions, something most adults experience with decent frequency over the course of their lives. When Pelosi leads impeachment efforts, or when she tries to keep the nuclear codes away from the erratic man in the Oval office, she’s not emasculating him. She’s doing what she was elected to do.

Who cares if Trump is masculine? What does that even mean, anyway? Gender is a construct – one that has historically not benefited those who fall outside of the confines of masculinity.

If Trump has failed to conform to his own strong man aesthetic, it’s about the least offensive thing he has ever done. I mean, have you heard about that time he tried to overturn a democratic election and elicited a deadly insurrection? That really was something.