Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., seemingly got under Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s skin. And she could hardly contain her happiness after Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Miller to respond to a viral clip of Ocasio-Cortez mocking his height during a livestream she hosted, in which she pushed back against the Trump administration’s authoritarian tactics and the performative machismo driving them.
For what it’s worth, Ocasio-Cortez later recorded a video saying she carries no bias against short men — or “the short king community,” as she put it — and that she was primarily referring to “how big or small someone is on the inside.”
But the fundamental point in the viral clip — that anti-authoritarian movements can benefit from making a mockery of that which seeks to be menacing — is a point that historians and experts on authoritarianism have also made. To be clear, their argument is not that authoritarianism itself is a laughing matter, but that highlighting the ridiculousness of dictatorial figures and their underlings can help chip away at the formidable image they often seek to uphold.
In this case, AOC touched on what one could argue is a sensitive topic for Donald Trump’s administration and the MAGA movement, which centers on a hypermasculine ethos that portrays ideal masculinity as violent, brash and/or willfully ignorant of the world and all its diversity.
I addressed this ethos last year in my election-related series on MAGA and masculinity, and I’ve written more about the topic — along with the weird ways that conservatives have sought to promote hypermasculinity — this year. Trump official Monica Crowley gave a sense of how central performative bravado is in the MAGA movement in an interview shortly after Miller’s appearance, in which she boasted to Fox News host Jesse Watters that Trump and his “bold, muscular leadership” have ushered in “an era of real masculinity.”
A new era? Perhaps. A good one? That’s a different question entirely.
One might argue that this period in our nation’s story — in which our country is being led by someone who has been found liable for sexual abuse, has downplayed domestic violence, has permitted cushy accommodations for a convicted child sex trafficker and is known for cartoonish displays of hypermasculinity — is not a shining moment for American manhood.
Officials in the Trump administration seem to disagree. But it’s clear that manhood is heavy on their mind.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
