Maureen Dowd has published a column on “Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?”

The column takes the classic Western film Shane as a launching point for analyzing the toxic masculinity of President Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk.

Dowd comments on Shane: “The 1953 film is also a meditation on American masculinity in the wake of World War II. A real man doesn’t babble or whine or brag or take advantage. He stands up for the right thing and protects those who can’t protect themselves from bullies.”

“I loved seeing all those sentimental, corny ideals that America was built on, even if those ideals have often been betrayed,” Dowd explains.

“So it’s disorienting to have the men running America, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, relish bullying people who can’t fight back and blurring lines between good and bad.

“They should be working for us, but we suspect they’re working for themselves.

“After Elon met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Thursday, Trump admitted that he wasn’t sure if Musk was there as a representative of the U.S. government or as an American C.E.O. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They met, and I assume he wants to do business in India.’

“Trump and Musk see government workers as losers for devoting themselves to public service rather than chasing dollars.”

Dowd refers to the framing of Musk’s and Trump’s behavior as “masculine maximalism,” a phrase from a rescent Axios article.

Perhaps one motivation of Trump’s and Musk’s war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives is that they do not want the analytic tools of gender history and gender studies to critique their form of toxic masculinity and reveal it. In addition, they probably do not want American citizens to be aware of gender analysis so that they could read through this administration’s rhetoric and imagery of masculinity.

Dowd asks: “But if we lose our values and abandon what those before us have fought for, are we the same America? Our heroes preserved the Union and liberated Europe from the Nazis. We’re supposed to be the shining city on the hill. It feels as if we’re turning our country into a crass, commercial product, making it cruel, as we maximize profits.”

In the end, Maureen Dowd, is unfortunately not able to identify someone who is standing up to President Trump’s administration and their rampant violations of constitutional law.

The question lingers: “Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?”

Maureen Dowd’s column on “Who Will Stand Up to Trump at High Noon?” is published in The New York Times. The article on “Behind the Curtain: Masculine Maximalism” is published on Axios.

For sources on gender history, masculinity, and political culture, see:

Canning, Kathleen. Gender History in Practice: Historical Perspectives on Bodies, Class & Citizenship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity, 1995.

Dudink, Stefan, Karen Hagemann, and John Tosh, eds. Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.

Dwyer, Philip. “Violence and Its Histories: Meanings, Methods, Problems.” History and Theory 55 (December 2017): 7-22.

Goldstein, Joshua S. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Rose, Sonya A. What is Gender History? Cambridge: Polity, 2010.

Scott, Joan W. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” American Historical Review 91 (December 1986): 1053-1075.

Scott, Joan W. “Unanswered Questions.” American Historical Review 113 (December 2008): 1422-1429.

Spierenburg, Pieter. “Masculinity, Violence, and Honor: An Introduction.” In Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and America, ed. Pieter Spierenburg, 1-35. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998.

Stoler, Ann Laura. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.