The Baseball Cap of Punditry
Culture and Politics - Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Let us talk about the problem of Marcus Todd, and by this I am not referring to what ought to be the name of an upscale men's clothier, but rather to the problem of Marcus Bachmann and Todd Palin.
Anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in politics should know that in the last week there has been an incident on the playground involving Marcus Bachmann. The aspect of it that interests me is the enthusiasm with which the progs (my autocorrect tried to change this to prigs, but that would be an entirely different although equally fruitful line of discussion) began to attack the sexuality of Marcus, alleging that he is gayer than a unicorn covered with glitter.
Now the fact that they were entirely in the wrong does not mean that they had no point whatever, and hence this post. The first thing is to acknowledge that when it comes to certain mannerisms and gestures, Marcus Bachmann comes off as somewhat effeminate, true enough. He has a mincing step that seems a little light in the loafers, and his speech patterns sound like those of a curtain designer in Beverly Hills. This was more than enough for the left. Cher claimed that her gaydar went, like, OFF, and Jon Stewart said, among other things, that Marcus was one Izod shirt away from being a gay character on Modern Family.
My first point is that Marcus does in fact exhibit the sorts of traits that get boys picked on out on the playground, and that, true to form, the bullies who rushed to pick on him were the liberals. This treatment is always savage, and the boys will only lay off when the son of the pastor of the local fundamentalist tabernacle tells them to cool it. And though he will turn aside from this high entertainment reluctantly, a future Jon Stewart will soon cheer himself up by returning to a promotion of the "it gets better" campaign, in which he gives the l&h treatment (lecturing and hectoring) to conservatives -- warning us all about the dangers of such bullying. If denial is a function of closeted anything, and if I may reapply a comment made about Marcus, liberals are so far into the closet of bullying that they can see Narnia.
I sometimes feel that liberalism is the result of some place in the country which has building codes that do not allow the placement of mirrors anywhere in homes with growing children in them. And so they grow up with a near absolute inability to see themselves. That's just a theory. It still needs to be researched.
They have been mean-spirited enough as it is, and if Michele actually wins Iowa, then they will destroy Marcus. And as they are tearing him apart like they were the Bacchae on a toot, they will do it with a sense of smug and tolerant and serene moral superiority. So this brings me to my second point, which has to do with the practical advisability of Bachmann's run for the White House.
This is the point where it is impossible not to compare Marcus Bachmann and Todd Palin. But this is not done with any view whatever about Marcus being a closeted gay -- Cher's gaydar notwithstanding, we have no reason to believe him to be anything other than a faithful Christian husband. The issue is what he is out in the open -- and not what liberals are maliciously guessing about the interior of his closet. What he projects out in the open is the vision of a soft and effeminate man being pulled down the road by his dynamo of a wife. She appears to be a tornado in heels, and he appears to be a nice guy toiling in her wake.
The first woman president, if there is ever to be such, will present us with some interesting practical problems. I am speaking here with the baseball cap of punditry on, and not with the mitre of exegetical theology. One of those problems will be the problem of the First Dude. Just as American women have always wanted to admire the First Lady, so American men will want to look up to the First Man. And it has to be said -- and remember I am simply talking about electability here -- that this latter problem will be a thousand times more difficult than the former one has been.
Think of it simply, and I am talking about the image of masculinity projected. Most American men would think they could equal or far surpass Marcus Bachmann, and most American men would also think that Todd Palin's Iron Dog snowmobile was about three hundred miles ahead of theirs. If a woman is ever going to be elected president, this is a dynamic that has to be taken fully into account. In the Bachmann campaign, it really does not appear to have been.
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