Few folks anticipated the marketing campaign to elect the primary girl president to spark a referendum on masculinity, however what it means to be a person has develop into “arguably essentially the most dominant theme of this yr’s elections,” in line with MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones.
The talk between vice presidential nominees Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance on Oct. 1, 2024, showcased two candidates who not solely had contrasting debate kinds but in addition competing views of girls’s and males’s autonomy.
As a political communication scholar, I’ve written about how gender formed the dynamics of presidential and vice-presidential debates that includes opponents of various genders. The 2024 Walz-Vance debate illustrated how gender can develop into a focus in a debate between two males.
Belief was an vital theme all through the talk, one which – maybe surprisingly – revealed a key distinction between Walz, Vance and their respective political events.
Throughout an prolonged dialogue about abortion rights, Vance strengthened his working mate Donald Trump’s assertion that girls’s reproductive well being care choices needs to be made by state legislatures. Vance then launched a brand new argument, suggesting that what the GOP ought to give attention to is incomes ladies’s belief by proving that the social gathering can by some means make it extra palatable for ladies to … not have an abortion.
Later within the debate, Vance acknowledged that he helps “a household care mannequin that makes selection doable,” however the vary of decisions referred to little one care choices, not decisions about whether or not to have youngsters.
Walz, conversely, urged that girls needs to be free and trusted to make their very own reproductive and little one care choices.
All through the talk, Vance subtly instructed that authority and autonomy are the purview of males, reinforcing how patriarchy is shaping the Republican technique.
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Masculinity on the marketing campaign path
Each the Republican and Democratic events have featured masculinity prominently of their campaigns for the White Home.
Though Vance and Walz have every introduced themselves as typical “Midwestern guys,” they differ on what meaning.
Walz has embraced the moniker of “America’s dad” in methods which might be each recognizable and revolutionary.
Esquire reported that he impressed “social media posts by the hundreds” that “imagined Walz doing good, midwestern-dad-like issues.”
Utilizing the “BigDadEnergy” hashtag, Walz supporters imagined, “Tim Walz will take your little league group to Dairy Queen even after you lose a sport, as a result of doggonit, you performed your finest” and “Tim Walz brushed the snow off of your automobile too, because you had been parked subsequent to him and he already had the darn brush out.”
However he additionally expanded that stereotype by ceding his standing as patriarch to develop into Kamala Harris’s dutiful working mate and proving that pheasant-hunting soccer coaches can even advocate for homosexual and trans children.
Vance featured his dad credentials in his speech on the 2024 Republican Nationwide Conference, however his standing as a distinguished member of the “manosphere” – an unofficial community of reactionary males’s teams selling the supremacy of patriarchy – has given his masculine persona a tough and typically excessive edge.
Impartial political teams have additionally made masculinity one of many presidential marketing campaign’s central issues. The Lincoln Mission – a corporation comprised of present and former Republicans against Donald Trump – lately launched a marketing campaign advert geared toward average swing voters that featured the iconography of the American heartland made well-known by President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” re-election marketing campaign advert.
The advert is voiced by actor Sam Elliott, a frequent silver-screen cowboy with a deep bass drawl, who asks voters, “So, what the hell are you ready for? As a result of if it’s the lady factor, it’s time to recover from that. … It’s time to be a person and vote for a girl.”
The group “White Dudes for Harris” took a special method to the identical pitch, placing out an advert with a brash male narrator who observes that males are “fairly sick of listening to how a lot we suck,” however contends that “Trump and all his MAGA buddies are on the market making it worse, shouting nonsense of their silly crimson hats and appearing like they converse for us once they don’t.”
The narrator then says that Harris and Walz “are literally speaking to guys like us” and providing “actual options that defend our freedoms and assist us deal with the individuals who matter.” The advert concludes: On the “finish of the day, you’re your personal man. It’s your name. But when anybody offers you crap about it, inform them it’s none of their rattling enterprise,” echoing one in every of Walz’s hottest applause strains.
The talk put Walz’s and Vance’s competing views of masculinity in direct competitors as they made their pitches to swing voters.
Deference and doubling down in the course of the debate
Earlier than the talk, Washington Put up politics reporter Ashley Parker puzzled whether or not Walz’s “flannel-wearing, gutter-clearing, football-coaching Everyman shtick” may play higher in entrance of a “pleasant rally crowd” than it might “whereas dealing with an assault canine opponent.”
Vance, conversely, has embraced the vice-presidential nominee’s conventional function of “assault canine.” He campaigns by “borrowing his boss’s playbook of brazenly sparring with the media and infrequently, if ever, apologizing for what he says,” as Vivian Salama of The Wall Avenue Journal reviews.
However Vance took a special tack in the course of the debate, making assured however cordial assertions whereas magnanimously agreeing that he and Walz shared good intentions for the American folks.
He was much less magnanimous when chatting with or about ladies.
Twenty-eight minutes into the talk, Vance’s mic was turned off after he mansplained immigration legislation to moderator Margaret Brennan.
Brennan, importantly, was correcting Vance’s declare that unlawful immigration was harming the residents of Springfield, Ohio, noting that the inflow of Haitian migrants to Springfield was a product of authorized immigration.
After Vance continued to talk past his allotted time, producers turned off his mic. Tellingly, Vance violated the foundations of the talk when a girl moderator corrected him.
Vance additionally indicated, repeatedly, that Walz may very well be trusted however Kamala Harris couldn’t.
It’s, after all, common for a vice-presidential candidate to assault the opposing ticket. Historically, that’s a vice-presidential candidate’s first precedence within the VP debate.
However Vance took specific care to defer to his white, male counterpart and demand that the Black girl main the Democratic ticket was the actual downside.
For instance, when responding to a query about housing costs, Walz argued that immigrants shouldn’t be blamed for the rising prices of housing, responding to a declare that Vance made about housing in Springfield, Ohio.
Quite than objecting to Walz’s reality verify – as he had Brennan’s earlier within the debate – Vance stated, “Tim simply stated one thing that I agree with. We don’t need to blame immigrants for larger housing costs, however we do need to blame Kamala Harris for letting in tens of millions of unlawful aliens into this nation, which does drive up prices, Tim.”
Vance was cautious to defer to his white male opponent whereas doubling down on criticism of immigrants and the Black girl working for president.
It’s a delicate technique, however one which may very well be probably efficient with swing voters who’ve responded positively to Walz’s “Massive Dad Power” however who, consciously or unconsciously, are inclined to be skeptical about voting for a Black girl candidate.
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