Almost Neanderthal, Charles Blow says!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2024

Perhaps he should drop that first word: Candidate Trump is playing for the masculine vote, Charles Blow writes today in the New York Times.

We're intrigued by the following passage, which comes near the start of Blow's column. That said, we'll guess that he's understating the emotional power of the gender-based revolt underway—a revolt which comes from way back when but also from way down below:

Why Trump’s Closing Argument Is Full of ‘Locker Room Talk’

[...]

For months, Trump has been engaged in a foulmouthed assault on Vice President Kamala Harris, reposting lewd comments about her on social media, reportedly referring to her with an expletive behind closed doors and demeaning her as “stupid.”

Last week at a rally, he said, “We can’t stand you, you’re a shit vice president,” shortly after sharing an admiring anecdote about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s penis.

We’ve heard this kind of talk from Trump before. In 2016, responding to a dig from Marco Rubio, he said, “He referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem.”

This all speaks to a toxic masculinity in which the definition of what it means to be a man is reduced to the size of a sex organ. There’s an almost Neanderthal quality to it, a primal call to what Trump seems to perceive as the base nature of men.

There’s an almost Neanderthal quality to this? 

Based on some of what we've been seeing on the grisly Fox News Channel, we'll suggest that Blow might went to lose the word "almost." Beyond that, we'll suggest that he might want to double down on that other key word: "primal."

The gender pushback has struck us as very angry and highly primal on the ugly Fox News show Gutfeld! 

As we've recently noted, the program's termagant-adjacent flyweight host has been trashing Candidate Harris as a drunk and as something perhaps resembling a wh*re. As far as we know, he hasn't used that second term yet, but the insinuation has been constant—and during this very week, he has begun to refer to her simply as "that broad."

In what decade—in what century—does this undergrown little guy live? 

Greg Gutfeld seems to be living in some other era—and he seems to be incel-angry about the way These Liberal Women Today won't get off his lawn. Pathetically, he seems to have found a string of D-list comedians and other flyweights who are happy to promote his vision about the unacceptably overweight liberal women he finds all around himself, but also about the troubling woman he now describes as "that broad."

The incel-based pushback seems remarkably strong—and yes, we'd call it primal. Just a guess:

Presumably, this sort of thing is very much bred in the bone. It's stunning to see the fervor with which it's being acted out on this demented primetime show as the women of Fox look on.

Speaking about this with a friend, we thought back to Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick's final film. If memory serves, the film wasn't all that well received in real time—the leading authority offers a somewhat different report—but critical judgment has apparently improved given the passage of time.

We can't quite remember the shape of the plot, but the whole thing turns on the discovery of a throwback, sex-based secret society operating in a mansion somewhat on Long Island. We'll only say that the rituals of this secret society involve a highly primal desire to return to highly Neanderthal gender roles, though some such statement may be unfair to the actual Neanderthals who once peopled parts of the earth.

The boys of Gutfeld! are very angry and they want their supremacy back. The executive who opens this garbage can every night and turns these angry children loose is, of course, Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News.

An angry revolt is underway from below. In major ways, we Blues have spent the past sixty years developing ways to earn our way out. (More on that next week.) 

In other ways, the world is dealing with the primal desires of undergrown children, one of whom comes from a sunny land and never quite seemed to grow up.

We'll guess that Blow should focus on that one word—"primal." An angry revolt is underway from below. In the hands of the Fox Channel's angry lost boys, it tracks back before the dawn of time, and it has an amoeba vibe.

Candidate Harris is now "this broad," the program's pathetic host says. For the record, Suzanne Scott is the corporate stooge who puts this creep on the air.