I have paid approximately 14 seconds of attention to whatever current Trump legal thing is going on, but I did see this column recently about Trump and the idea of “a family man.”
Basically, the op-ed there is discussing how Trump and his lawyers frame him as a “family man,” even though he was sleeping with porn stars while Melania was pregnant with Barron. Cool. I myself wouldn’t call that “a family man,” but I understand why his lawyers are trying to do that. I don’t receive Trump campaign emails (although weirdly I have gotten a few), but there’s apparently a series of emails now where he tells his supporters that the court system is forcing him to miss Barron’s HS graduation. He’s so upset about it, because, you see, he’s a family man. But when the judge let him off for that day, he decided to not only attend the graduation — but also go to Minnesota for a fundraiser. Ha. Family man.
The whole concept is really powerful for many reasons, not the least of which is that it’s probably the №1 thing you see on male headstones. Men I think are very concerned with notions of “legacy,” which then has downstream (20s and 30s) implications around “virility.” My sperm sucks so I think about this kind of shit periodically. I used to think about it essentially all the time, but eventually I had to free myself from that self-induced prison.
Now, anytime you talk about something like “a family man,” there are so many different aspects of that, and so many implications around it, it’s very hard to cover or condense in a quick Substack post. I will do my best.
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