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Toxic or tonic? Voting on masculinity in US election 

Washington — Unlike Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign slogan, “I’m With Her,” there is no overt gender messaging in Kamala Harris’ run for the presidency in 2024. Yet, gender is on the ballot as the Harris campaign and that of her Republican rival, Donald Trump, present competing narratives on masculinity, the latest front line in America’s culture war.

The contrast was clear at the parties’ conventions. At the Republican National Convention, retired pro wrestler Hulk Hogan took off his suit jacket and ripped off his shirt to reveal the muscles bulging under his Trump-Vance tank top. Hogan was preceded by Tucker Carlson, TV personality and star of “The End of Men,” a documentary on American men’s “collapsing testosterone levels.”

The message was unambiguous: Former President Trump, who days earlier had survived an assassination attempt, is the self-proclaimed “warrior” who will “Make America Great Again.” He was introduced by Dana White Jr., CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, and a day earlier walked into the arena to James Brown’s song, “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” The audience greeted him with raised fists, chanting “Fight, fight, fight!”

Trump’s persona is coupled with the traditionalist view of gender roles of his running mate, JD Vance. The Ohio senator introduced his spouse as “my beautiful wife, Usha, an incredible lawyer and a better mom.”

The 40-year-old father of three and Catholic convert has advocated pro-natalist views, including in a 2021 interview where he criticized the “anti-child ideology” of women who do not want to bear children. In the same year, he called Harris and other high-profile Democrats “childless cat ladies” who didn’t have a “direct stake” in the country. Harris has two stepchildren from her marriage to Doug Emhoff but no biological children.

At the Democratic National Convention, speakers focused on reproductive rights and all-gender inclusivity. As the country’s first female vice president, Harris has not focused much on her own gender identity. But her take on gender roles was in clear view as she ended her acceptance address at the DNC, sharing the stage with her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Emhoff.

Before entering politics, Walz was a high school teacher and football coach who served in the military. Emhoff is a lawyer who stopped his practice to dedicate himself full time to being the country’s first second gentleman. In their professional and personal backing of Harris, Walz and Emhoff, respectively, are outliers in the traditional thinking on presidential partnerships, where women usually play the supporting role.

Toxic vs tonic masculinity

Walz and Emhoff are portrayed by the left as embodying “tonic masculinity,” a term coined to contrast stereotypical male dominance over other groups that some brand as “toxic masculinity.”

Trump and Vance have “evidenced a desire for and a love for this old style of masculinity,” said Christine Emba, author of Rethinking Sex: A Provocation.

“The idea that men are in charge and are making the decisions,” she told VOA. “A particular kind of man, a sort of theatrically strong man, a man who has paternalistic control of the family.”

In many ways, Walz is a counter to that narrative. While he is known for being an avid hunter and outdoorsman who shares home and car repair tips, he is also famous for his award-winning “hotdish” recipe.

On gender inclusivity and reproductive freedom — key issues for Democratic voters — Walz speaks from personal experience as a former faculty adviser for a high school LGBTQ club and by going public with his family’s struggle with infertility. In doing so, he is messaging empathy and vulnerability, traits that stand in contrast with more traditional masculine leadership qualities, such as assertiveness and dominance.

That view of leadership is shifting, said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Voters have shown they also value “warmth and compassion and empathy, all of which are traits that are more likely to be associated with femininity,” she told VOA.

The campaign is positioning Walz to resonate with voters who seek those values in their leaders. At the same time, they hope his handy and helpful Midwestern dad persona will appeal to more traditional voters.

“Guys who hunt, the guys who fix their cars, the dads, the heads of families, showing that he can still be male and masculine, but also in support of a female candidate,” Emba said.

This narrative stands in contrast to the Trump-Vance take on masculinity that aligns with the campaign’s broader Make America Great Again message, said Matthew Levendusky, professor of political science at University of Pennsylvania.

Their strategy is to appeal to a particular vision of American life, “a kind of imagined past,” he told VOA, where a woman’s value “comes from being a wife and mother.”

The gender divide

Polls show an overwhelming divide along gender lines. Women favor Harris and men favor Trump, with the gap most apparent among young people.

Anxiety over shifting gender roles may be a contributing factor, coupled with the fact that American men are doing less well than women in general.

In his book, Of Boys and Men, Richard Reeves, a senior fellow focusing on gender inequality at Brookings Institution, outlined various indicators, including education, income, health and access to a social support network, to argue that while American girls and women are making huge strides in recent decades, boys and young men are struggling.

“Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have many losing ground in the classroom, the workplace and in the family,” Reeves wrote. “While the lives of women have changed, the lives of many men have remained the same or even worsened.”

At the same time, with the rise of the #MeToo feminist movement, liberals were increasingly seeking to disrupt the way that power is distributed, Dittmar said.

These conversations can be alienating for some men. “There was a sense that their masculinity and their manhood was in some ways precarious, and that they needed to reassert or reclaim that power that has been threatened or lost,” she said.

Male grievance

The Trump campaign has been aggressively courting male voters through what’s called the manosphere — online forums with male-centric audiences that promote masculinity and, in many cases, opposition to feminism.

It’s a continuation of Trump’s 2016 strategy of “tapping into male grievance politics,” particularly that of white males, Dittmar said.

On the other hand, Democrats are leaning into rights to abortion and in vitro fertilization.

All these issues, in addition to how the candidates “talk about women and talk to women” could influence voter enthusiasm by motivating turnout among different groups, she added.

In many places around the world there is societal discomfort about how quickly women are coming into roles outside the home. However, competing narratives on masculinity may be unique to American politics.

Countries with female leaders have not faced the same struggles; neither in Northern European countries that in general are more advanced in closing the gender gap, nor in developing countries where female leaders are often related to the male leaders who preceded them.

“There’s sort of a generational continuity that is soothing and attractive,” Emba said. “In the United States, we just simply haven’t had that.”

Instead, the idea of women’s role in society “feels very unstable in a comparatively new way,” she added. “America is experiencing that quite strongly in this moment, it’s just showing up everywhere.”
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US accuses Russia of using state media to spread disinformation ahead of November election

Washington — The Biden administration accused Russia on Wednesday of a far-reaching effort to influence the U.S. presidential election, including by promoting disinformation and enlisting unwitting American influencers to spread propaganda on Russian state media.

The actions taken by the U.S. government include sanctions against leaders of RT, a state media organization that was forced by the Justice Department to register as a foreign agent, as well as visa restrictions.

Intelligence agencies have previously charged that Russia was using disinformation to try to interfere in the election. 

In a speech last month, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Russia was the primary threat to the election, even as Iran raised alarm this summer for a hack of Donald Trump’s campaign and an attempted breach of the then-Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and “his proxies are using increasingly sophisticated techniques in their interference operations. They’re targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters to in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes,” she said. “They’re intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests.”

Much of the concern around Russia centers on cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns designed to influence the November vote. The tactics include using state media like RT to advance anti-U.S. messages and content, as well as networks of fake websites and social media accounts that amplify the claims and inject them into American’s online conversations. Typically, these networks seize on polarizing political topics such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.

In many cases, Americans may have no idea that the content they see online either originated or was amplified by the Kremlin.

“Russia is taking a whole of government approach to influence the election including the presidential race,” an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said this summer during a briefing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under rules worked out with that office.

Groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms within Russia to outsource some of the work of creating digital propaganda while also covering their tracks, the officials said during the briefing with reporters.

Two such firms were the subject of new U.S. sanctions announced in March. Authorities say the two Russian companies created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.

The ultimate goal, however, is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origin. People are far more likely to trust and repost information that they believe is coming from a domestic source, officials said. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two methods.

Messages left with the Russian Embassy were not immediately returned.
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US seeks to reassure voters that presidential election will be safe

washington — Top U.S. election security officials are asking American voters to tune out the noise and reject what they describe as unfounded claims that the coming presidential election will be rigged. 

Instead, in the first of a series of election security briefings planned in the run-up to November’s election, they say U.S. voters should have confidence that when they go to the polls their votes will be counted accurately. 

“Throughout the next few months, you are going to hear a lot of different things from different sources. The most important thing is to recognize the signal through the noise, the facts from the fiction,” said Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is responsible for election security. 

“Our elections process, election infrastructure has never been more secure, and the election stakeholder community has never been stronger,” Easterly said, briefing reporters Tuesday. “It’s why I have confidence in the integrity of our elections and why the American people should, as well.” 

Easterly’s effort to reassure voters comes a little over a month after the U.S. intelligence community issued its own warning that U.S. adversaries, led by Russia, Iran and China, are seeking to meddle with the November election. 

But those efforts highlighted in the intelligence community warning are spearheaded by influence operations or disinformation campaigns designed to sow doubt about the U.S. election process and to help or hinder certain candidates. 

In contrast, efforts by U.S. adversaries to attack or hack systems used to carry out the election, and tally votes, have so far been nonexistent. 

“We have not seen any intent to interfere in the elections process,” Cait Conley, CISA senior adviser, told reporters.  

And while some of that could be explained by what officials describe as a steady stream of investments in election security infrastructure — including the hiring of more field offices and election security advisers — CISA officials are not taking the lack of malicious activity for granted. 

“That is something that could change at any moment,” Conley said. “When we look at this threat landscape for this election cycle, it truly is arguably the most complex yet.” 

CISA said other efforts to safeguard the upcoming presidential election include a variety of election security exercises, accuracy testing for voting machines, and enhanced security measures to protect election-related computer networks. 

They also emphasize that none of the systems that record votes are connected to the internet and that 97% of U.S. voters will cast ballots in jurisdictions that have paper ballots as back-ups. 

None of that, however, will stop countries such as Russia, Iran and China from trying to convince voters that things are going wrong. 

Easterly said one of the biggest concerns is that U.S adversaries will portray minor hiccups as major scandals. 

“It’s almost inevitable that somewhere across the country someone will forget to bring the keys to unlock the polling location,” she said. “Someone will unplug a printer to plug in a crockpot. A storm may cause a polling site to lose electricity.” 

Cybercriminals might even find a way to temporarily disable what officials describe as election-adjacent systems, including websites for state and local agencies that record and tally votes. 

“We can absolutely expect that our foreign adversaries will remain a persistent threat to attempting to undermine American confidence in our democracy and our institutions and to sow partisan discord,” she said. “It is up to all of us not to let our foreign adversaries be successful.” 

Easterly and Conley said the best way to avoid unnecessary panic is for American voters to rely on state and local election officials for information. 

But if Americans rely on word-of-mouth social media accounts, it could cause trouble. 

“It’s a hard problem for social media companies,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said at a recent briefing, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. 

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] definitely uses influence actors on social media to try to at least stir discord in the United States,” the official said. “So, I would expect that platform to be [used].” 

And there is growing evidence that China may be ramping up its efforts. 

Graphika, a social media analytics firm, issued a report Tuesday warning that a Chinese-linked disinformation operation known as “Spamoflage” has grown increasingly aggressive. 

Graphika said it has identified more than a dozen accounts on platforms including X, formerly known as Twitter, and on TikTok “claiming to be U.S. citizens and/or U.S.-focused peace, human rights, and information integrity advocates frustrated by American politics and the West.” 

“These accounts have seeded and amplified content denigrating Democratic and Republican candidates, sowing doubt in the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral process, and spreading divisive narratives about sensitive social issues,” the Graphika report said, though it added that few of the accounts had managed to gain much traction. 

Graphika’s conclusions seem to be consistent with earlier assessments by Meta, the social media company behind Facebook and Instagram, when it first identified the effort last year. 

“Despite the very large number of accounts and platforms it used, Spamouflage consistently struggled to reach beyond its own [fake] echo chamber,” Meta said at the time. “Only a few instances have been reported when Spamouflage content on Twitter and YouTube was amplified by real-world influencers.” 
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