This is about as good a description of the identity of the Trump Army as you will find, a pure expression of what Pankaj Mishra described as a form of “rear-guard machismo.”10 But this is not just found in the U.S. It is an international phenomenon. Across the world, men have been more likely than women to support right-wing or protest parties.11 In Sweden, for example, one in four men supported the far-right Sweden Democrats in a 2015 poll, twice the level of support among women.12 In Germany, especially in the east, men have swung sharply to the political right. In 2017, a third of Saxon men
This is about as good a description of the identity of the Trump Army as you will find, a pure expression of what Pankaj Mishra described as a form of “rear-guard machismo.”10 But this is not just found in the U.S. It is an international phenomenon. Across the world, men have been more likely than women to support right-wing or protest parties.11 In Sweden, for example, one in four men supported the far-right Sweden Democrats in a 2015 poll, twice the level of support among women.12 In Germany, especially in the east, men have swung sharply to the political right. In 2017, a third of Saxon men voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany Party. “We have a crisis of masculinity in the East and it is feeding the far right,” says Petra Köpping, minister for integration in Saxony.13 In South Korea, young men are also swinging hard right, fueled by antifeminist sentiment. In the Seoul mayoral election of April 2021, 73% of men in their 20s voted for the conservative candidate, compared to 41% of women in the same age group.14 The overwhelming support of young men also helped to propel conservative presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol to a narrow victory in March 2022.15 Yoon has promised to abolish the Department of Gender Equality and Family. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, boasts of his 56-inch chest. There was alpha male Imran Khan in Pakistan (“feminism has completely degraded the role of a mother”), antifeminist Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (“women are not equal to men”)...
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