The Self-Made-Up Man: What Motivates Strongmen
When I saw Donald Trump hanging a medal on Sylvester Stallone as a Kennedy Center honoree, another image immediately came to mind. In November 2019, Trump tweeted an image of his head Photoshopped on the body of Stallone as Rocky Balboa.
A major component of the made-up ideal of masculinity in America came to revolve around being self-sufficient: a “self-made man.” But those who pose as strongmen are self-made-up men.
The fake image of Trump with Stallone’s body is a picture-imperfect example of the self-made-up man that Trump, Pete Hegseth, and so many other pathetic fake men are.
Throughout history, men who are afflicted with serious masculine insecurity have boasted about their “manliness” and how they are bigger and better than other men. Bigger in their sexual organs, of course, but also in other ways. And those are constant refrains of Donald Trump and his “angry white man” followers:
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