Reductionist theories about the state of the world are deeply appealing, lord knows. I empathize with people who feel they can wave a hand at society’s many messes and declare, “Here’s the thing: X explains it all.”

X being, say, capitalism. Or White supremacy. Or economic stress. Or the insidious effects of social media. Or greed, or fear, or … sin. (Earlier this year I interviewed a man in a North Carolina diner who declared that society’s problems boil down to “the lack of common sense and morals that people don’t have anymore.” In past generations, the man said, people taught their kids right from wrong. “Now, you know, you can go out and commit a crime, nobody does nothing to you. Why do you think people keep committing the crimes?” You may have already guessed that this fellow who is so concerned about the collapse of Americans’ collective moral character — about our failure to stand for honesty, decency, and accountability — is, yes, a serial supporter of Donald J. Trump.)

These reductionist takes are probably never correct. Today’s crises and societal failings certainly flow from a confluence of causes and forces, including at least some of those mentioned above.

But following the news of the last few weeks, it’s tempting to blame our entire state of affairs, in all its toxicity and breathtaking stupidity, on something else: the striking predominance of entitled, thin-skinned, unaccountable men.

We live in a time of (hetero) White male backlash — against DEI, against Black Lives Matter, against trans rights, against #MeToo. A time when billionaire tech bros, including some who once positioned themselves as liberals, suck up to the authoritarian in the White House and send reactionary signals — see, for example, Mark Zuckerberg’s post-election embrace of “masculine energy.” A time of shameless self-interest among rich and powerful men who demand tax cuts and the reversal of climate action in favor of short-term profit. We have a lawless, blatantly corrupt presidential administration that acknowledges no limits, legal or otherwise, and lashes out at its perceived enemies — many of whom simply told the truth about Trump or tried to hold him accountable as their jobs required. A Reuters analysis identified 470 people whom Trump has attacked, prosecuted, or purged since January.

It feels like a collective tantrum — powerful men lashing back against any attempt to limit what they can do, have, or take.

Add to all this the newly-released Epstein emails, which laid bare a sordid world of elite men who felt entitled to prey on vulnerable young women and girls — or to hobnob with a guy who’d been convicted of doing so. And the latest flurry of cruel, misogynistic outbursts by the president of the United States.

On Thanksgiving Day, Trump lashed out at Nancy Cordes, the Chief White House correspondent for CBS News, for asking a question he didn’t like. “Are you stupid?” Trump snapped. “Are you a stupid person?” The day before, in a social media post, Trump attacked Katie Rogers of the New York Times as “a third-rate reporter who is ugly both inside and out.” Just days before that, Trump said "Quiet, piggy” to Catherine Lucey of Bloomberg News, and scolded Mary Bruce of ABC for a question that he called “horrible, insubordinate.” Insubordinate?

*

With all this embarrassing behavior by petulant dudes, it’s tempting, as a man, to take solace from the fact that Trump has henchwomen as well as henchmen: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Karoline Leavitt, Jeanine Pirro, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Elise Stefanik and other government officials, not to mention right-wing media stars like Megyn Kelly, Laura Ingraham, and Candace Owens. But the fact that some women sign on to abet MAGA doesn’t change the reality that it’s a movement largely defined by a reactionary embrace of male dominance and toxic masculinity. Sure, women can display humanity’s worst traits, just as men can be thoughtful and kind. But it doesn’t take psychoanalysis or a new theory of gender dynamics to explain the presence of women on the Trump train. All that’s needed is an understanding of ambition and opportunism. Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi were never, ever going to get cabinet-level jobs in a normal, non-Trumpian administration — anymore than Pete Hegseth was. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s decision to publicly disagree with the president led to her banishment from Team Trump, followed by her surprise announcement that she’s quitting Congress. Trump has turned on former allies who displease him no matter their gender, but Greene’s resignation statement was telling. It suggested an awareness that as a woman her place in Trump World was always especially tenuous — and that she’d aligned herself with an abuser. “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better,” she wrote.

*

In the famous letter that Abigail Adams wrote to her husband in 1776, in which she asked John Adams to “remember the ladies” when pondering the new nation’s laws, she also commented on the nature of men. “Remember,” she wrote, “all men would be tyrants if they could.”

She may have believed that was literally true. I don’t. Men come in many flavors. But I can hardly blame Ms. Adams for the generalization — anymore than I’d blame a woman who’s enraged at men today. “Are you as angry as I am yet”? asks Rachel Louise Snyder in a recent New York Times piece. As Snyder points out, the impact of sexism is not just personal but also systemic and societal. “The misogyny that is such a casual part of Mr. Trump’s entire modus operandi gives license to systems that prioritize men’s freedoms over women’s lives.”

We have to make it socially unacceptable — again? — to behave as a thuggish manchild. And I do mean we. More men need to raise our voices against the jackasses who give our gender a bad name. Celeste Headlee, my co-host for Scene on Radio’s MEN season, wrote an impassioned call for men to speak up in our daily lives when toxic men attack and demean women.

Abigail Adams had a dim view of the men she knew, but even she saw that dudes could do better — and that choosing our kinder nature brings benefits for us, too. “That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute,” she wrote to her husband, “but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.”

*

Know someone who might like Keeping ScOR? Please forward this to them!

If you missed past posts, find the archive here.