The 2024 Gender Gap and Toxic Masculinity

It seems to me that American men are going through some things... and the pronounced gender gap in this election cycle certainly highlights it.

I cannot tell you the number of times I've been "gender policed" by other men on social media for supporting Kamala Harris. The worst of it is on Twitter/X, but there's plenty of this kind of internalized misogyny and enforced, confining, toxic masculinity on Facebook, as well.

According to these men, in 2024: Men are not "supposed" to vote for Democrats. Men are not "supposed" to vote for liberals. Men are not "supposed" to vote for women.

Though not exclusively, this trait is most acute among men without a college degree. And as the achievement gap / educational attainment gap between young men and young women in higher education continues to widen, this trend is going to get worse by 2028, not better.

The Apprentice (2024)

I went to see "The Apprentice" in theaters because no streaming service is currently willing to show this film. Donald Trump tried to stop it from being released. It's a dark, disturbing, well-crafted "origin story" of how Trump became Trump.

Set in the 1970's and 80's in NYC, the film at times feels almost like a Star Wars story, chronicling how one Sith Lord (Roy Cohn, Trump's nefarious, noxious, unrelenting lawyer and fixer) trains the next in the ways of the Dark Side. And true to form, Trump betrays those closest to him, violates them, belittles and dismisses them in their moments of great need... because that's what he learned how to do from Cohn himself.

If not Star Wars, the story arc could be among the darker works of Shakespeare.

So many of the essential moments of the film have already been verified several times over (via court documents and firsthand witnesses), thus the performances feel authentic and the chronology works effectively to chronicle the rise of Trump - often in ominous, unsettling ways - given what America under 45 has experienced (and may yet again face).

To that end, I turned to the people sitting next to me in the theater during the end credits.  I said, "can you believe someone would watch this film and think the guy would be a good choice for president?"