Phallocentrism, the ideology that the phallus is the central element in the organization, is central to the manosphere of Trump world. By Hal M. Brown

 If you click here you can hear the 1954 jingle promoting Manishewitz wine. I was 10 when it came out and I remember it well. Below is an article about the wine brand and how Sammy Davis, Jr., who had converted to Judaism, made commercials for it.

This has little to do with my topic today. It is just what popped into my mind because I was thinking that it could be adapted to be a jingle for Trump. “Man, oh Mano Trump, what a manly man” or something like that.

This photo below is from The NY Times article A Different Kind of F.B.I. Chief: Jet-Setting Patel Loves the Limelight.

Her’es a cutout enlargement:

We’ve all seen the fake pro-wresting photos of Trump with Vince McMahon (here).

This is an article in RawStory: 

That article includes this post from the deputy FBI director on X:

I know may of you refuse to look at X but sometimes it is worth it to see the replies:

The reply from Gary (above middle) is right out of the Trump phallocentric manoshere.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on phallocentrisicm. Another similar concept is the manosphere. Wiki defines this as “a varied collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.” While limited to the online community, the defintion can be expanded to include Trump and MAGA because they have created their own version.

You don’t have to be a male like a muscle bound Pete Hegseth, or a desperately trying to prove he still has manly man biceps RJK Jr., to be a manly man-ish member of Trump fawning flexing brigade.

Membership in the Trump manosphere does not require that one be born with a penis.

Read my two Substacks about this:

Trump's Hitlerian Henchwomen: Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt offer the feminine tone as their Führer sets the stage for sending people to the modern day version of concentration camps.

Kristi Noem does the blonde Trump Barbies one better by proving her malevolent sadism with an assault rife.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the Trump turkeys we haven’t seen shirtless photos of with hard rippling muscles are busy buffing up at one of DC’s many weight lifting gyms or training with Marjorie Taylor Greene. I’m sparing you a photo of her pumping iron or doing pull-ups.

Poor Elon Musk, he probably doesn’t want to put in the actual sweaty work to avoid articles like “Elon Musk Responds to Viral Shirtless Pics: 'Free the Nip'.”

Somehow bulging muscles and attending fake or real grappling events has become a measure of the man in Trump’s world.

One of most ruthless dictators in modern history had this written about him:

Adolf Hitler was so squeamish about being naked in public, he even refused to have physical examinations. Reference.

You don’t see old photos of Stalin or Mao showing off their physique. While the often pictured shirtless Putin is a member of the more muscles the more powerful club, you don’t see photos of Kim Jong Un or Xi flexing.

While the concept of malignant narcissism fits Turmp and many of his cadre, there’s no term “malignant masculinity’ in the psychological literature. The term for this is toxic masculinity. This is from Wikipedia:

The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions to refer to those aspects of hegemonic masculinity that are socially destructive, such as misogyny, homophobia, and violent domination. These traits are considered "toxic" due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. Socialization of boys sometimes also normalizes violence, such as in the saying "boys will be boys" about bullying and aggression.

Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance use disorders. Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behavior among incarcerated men, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.

Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one's family, are not considered to be "toxic". The concept was originally used by authors associated with the mythopoetic men's movement, such as Shepherd Bliss. These authors contrasted stereotypical notions of masculinity with a "real" or "deep" masculinity, which they said men had lost touch with in modern society. Critics of the term "toxic masculinity" argue that it incorrectly implies that gender-related issues are caused by inherent male traits.^[3]

The concept of toxic masculinity has been criticized by conservative writers and authors as an undue condemnation of traditional masculinity. In January 2019, conservative political commentators criticized the new American Psychological Association guidelines for warning about harms associated with "traditional masculinity ideology", arguing that it constitutes an attack on masculinity. Some feminists have argued it is an essentialist concept that ignores the role of choice and context in causing harmful behaviors and attitudes related to masculinity.

Google Trends search term for "Toxic masculinity" began a substantial increase in 2016, at the time of the campaign for the U.S. presidential election.

This Substack has become too long, so I won’t speculate on what is covered in this 2011 reasearch study: Relationship between penile size and body measurements. I’m resisting temptation to write about this. Use your own imagination to wonder if there is a certain amount of compensation going on with some of these men. I will, however, share this:

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.

Unsolved mystery: We know Trump is creating chaos, but why? By Hal M. Brown - He shows no signs of caring when his malevolent cadre of clowns proves to be a gang that can't shoot straight.

 

The Harvard email sent by error is an example of the most recent royal screw-up by people who Trump has unleashed to wreak havoc on the country. How much does Trump care? There isn’t a violin small enough to play a song of regret to accompany any feelings he has due to this.

The article in The New York Time title headline reads Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard (subscription)  There’s a space in the middle of the page so I added a row of AI created clowns, because, why not?

If you don’t have a subscrption to the NYT, RawStory summarized the story here.

I wrote about Harvard, Harvard Law School in particular, on April 17th.

Since Harvard took their stand, as a Michigan State University graduate I was pleased to read in the student newspaper, “MSU faculty join call for Big Ten 'mutual defense compact' against Trump administration.”

From this we go to the story which shows that the Trump administration is populated by a cadre of clowns. While they are members of a gang of malevolent clowns hell-bent on causing pain and destruction, they have proved to be a gang that can’t shoot straight. An accomplished clown may wear giant shoes, but they don’t accidentally trip over their own feet.

Their fuckups don’t matter to their Capo dei capi, Godfather Trump. Unlike Mafia bosses, when a soldier botches a job may suffer dire consequences, he is forgiving and sends them out on another job. 

By leaving the country unprepared to deal with tornadoes and hurricanes by cutting NOAA to firing staff at the IRS (just being reported on as I type this) I wonder why Trump is doing these things.

Trump is many things. Many smart people have weighed in speculating, with varying degrees of certainty, why he is, to put it bluntly, unhinged and weird. Is he a madman? Is he just plain evil? Is he a secret agent working for Putin who carries an FSB badge in his back pocket?

One thing is certain. Whenever Trump does things like this, he scores points with a large segment of his supporters. 

Big deal, he sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to prison and announced, the Supreme Court Court be damned, he is the decider-in-chief and that’s that, case closed. He doesn’t even have to remind anyone that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussien. This alleged gangster has three foreign names.

This is a win for Trump.

Some day we may have the answer to the question “why did he do all this?”

While highly unlikely, we may discover that Trump has been a high functioning schizophrenic for decades and has been obeying the commands coming from voices he hears in his head.

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.

Read my previous Substacks here.

“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "The president is getting bored," David Ignatius on the war in Ukraine.

 

Our top diplomat, Marco Rubio, says U.S. will decided in days if the end to the war in Ukkrain is “doable.” On MSNBC David Ignatius said he thinks “the president is getting bored” with the war.

“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as he departed meetings in Paris. The following is from The New York Time’s article on this:

“It is not our war. We didn’t start it,” Mr. Rubio said. “The United States has been helping Ukraine for the past three years and we want it to end, but it’s not our war.”

He added: “If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen — then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done. We’ll do what we can on the margins." He described Mr. Trump as feeling “very strongly” about this.

This is the subtitle of The Washington Post article on the same subject: “Rubio’s remarks appear to reflect the president’s frustration with the difficulty of achieving peace in Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.”

The president is frustrated. Poor baby! We dare not have a presdient who is frustrated.

I wish someone would remind Rubio, who I assume knows a bit of history, that we didn’t start World War I or World War II either. Rubio says he wants to see if winning the war is “doable.” Doable!?!? 

While two other presidents must have had dark days of uncertainty during wars we were fighting to save the democratic world, the country never heard Woodrow Wilson or FDR going public saying that they wondered whether winning either war was “doable” and say they would stop helping our allies because it wasn’t.

On MSNBC David Ignatius1 interpreted this as “the president is getting bored.”

The Washinton Post doesn’t have proof that Trump is frustrated. David Ignatius doen’t know for a fact that the president is getting bored, but I think both are making educated guesses based on an accurate assessment of Trump’s personality.

The war in Ukraine, while obviously not a world war, is the closest war to a world war we’ve been engaged in since World War II. It is a proxy war between the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism. It is a war against the most powerful evil country in the world which invaded its neighbor. 

Russia invaded Ukraine to overthrow its pro-Western government and reassert control over Ukraine, which President Putin views as part of Russia's sphere of influence. The invasion aimed to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, reflecting a distorted view of Ukrainian identity and history. (Reference) Putin’s goal was more modest than Hitler’s, but that shouldn;t make a difference. 

Even so, the president of the United States is getting bored with it the war and doesn’t want to be bothered thinking about it. 

Add to this, to the extent he cares about being called “Putin’s puppet” and having people suggest another strongman is pulling his strings, if the United States pulled out of the war he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

At least he wouldn't unless Russia defeated Ukraine and instituted a reign of terror and revenge there which Trump would be blamed for. Then again, Trump probably wouldn’t care because he’d be consulting with Putin at the White House about how to dump our traditional allies and become a partner with Russia.

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. 

Read my previous Substacks.

1

David Reynolds Ignatius (born May 26, 1950) is an American journalist and novelist. He is an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. He has written eleven novels, including Body of Lies, which director Ridley Scott adapted into a film. He is a former adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and was a Senior Fellow to the Future of Diplomacy Program from 2017 to 2022

Wait until Trump & Co. find out about Harvard Law's initiatives to "honor the enslaved people whose labor generated wealth that contributed to the school's founding." Harvard took a stand for truth, justice, and what should be the American way. By Hal M. Brown --

 

Trump’s war against Harvard is all over the news, but he has missed Harvard Law in particular.

In 2021 Harvard Law School changed it’s crest because the previous one had a connection to a slave owner. The Latin words mean truth, law, and justice. This is similar to Superman’s slogan about his fighting for “truth, justice, and the American way” which also has a complicated, albeit not tawdry, history (here). 

Here’s an article about this from The Harvard Crimson:

The dean of the school, John F. Manning, wrote “I believe that the simple, elegant, and beautiful design of the new shield captures the complexity, the diversity, the limitlessness, the transformative power, the strength, and the energy that the HLS community, in Cambridge and throughout the world, sees in Harvard Law School.” There’s that verboten D word, diversity.

As if this isn’t enough reason for Trumpworld to go after Harvard here’s another.

Trump continues to try to make good on his promises about ending wokeness in universities:

Donald Trump’s vision for education revolves around a single goal: to rid America’s schools of perceived “ wokeness ” and “left-wing indoctrination.”

The president-elect wants to forbid classroom lessons on gender identity and structural racism. He wants to abolish diversity and inclusion offices. He wants to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ sports.

Throughout his campaign, the Republican depicted schools as a political battleground to be won back from the left. Now that he’s won the White House, he plans to use federal money as leverage to advance his vision of education across the nation.

Trump’s education plan pledges to cut funding for schools that defy him on a multitude of issues.

On his first day in office, Trump has repeatedly said he will cut money to “any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.” On the campaign trail, Trump said he would “not give one penny” to schools with vaccine or mask requirements. Reference.

I don’t want to give the Trump and his anti-woke sleuths another reason to go after Harvard, and especially such a bastion of liberalism as their law school. This reputation is in spite of the fact that notable conservatives like Ted Cruz got their law degrees there. While not lawyers, Trump has had many advisors who went to Harvard including Stephen K. Bannon, Jared C. Kushner ’03, Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Michael R. Pompeo, and Elaine Chao (Reference). 

From: Harvard Alumni Have Powered the Trump Administration.

Harvard’s silence on graduates as recent as 2016 using their Harvard degrees to wage a full-fledged assault on the truth is unworthy of the University’s own “Veritas” motto. Failure to take a position or set the record straight on Harvard’s expectations of its alumni is a tacit endorsement that power itself is the school’s only true value. Discussions of ethical and moral leadership in my classes at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School ring hollow against this reality. Harvard should publicly commit to higher expectations for its alumni than achieving the social cachet to dance with the stars (as former Harvard Institute of Politics fellow Sean Spicer quite literally did last year).

I am getting off-topic here. 

Back to Harvard Law: I am surprised the Trumpers haven’t already found out about Harvard Law and gone after it in particular. Not only about the logo change, but what they did the following year:

Excerpt:

A report issued on April 26 by the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery recounts in detail the many ways Harvard University participated in, and profited from, slavery, and the long history of discrimination against, and exclusion of, Black people by the university long after slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.

In a statement to the Harvard Law School community shortly after the release of the committee’s report, Dean John F. Manning ’85 commented on the report and the law school’s own connections with slavery, and he announced several initiatives to honor and commemorate the enslaved people whose labor generated wealth that contributed to Harvard Law School’s founding and to better understand the legacy of slavery and the as yet unfinished business of advancing racial justice.

“[T]hough it is difficult, indeed heartbreaking, to read in cumulative detail the pervasive and grievous wrongs committed here at our university, only by honestly reckoning with this history can we together find new ways to make meaning of our past,” said Manning.

“We must also do these things in part because of the distinctive roles that law and the legal profession, at their best, can play in furthering the highest ideals of law and justice,” Manning wrote, stating that the law school must recommit itself to remedying the ills of “racism, inequality, and many other injustices that continue to this day in our society.”

Harvard Law is proudly woke, but when it comes to teaching about slavery, so is the the rest of the university. For example here’s just one of their courses from their Department of Continuing Education: Slavery and Race in American Law. “This course explores the relationship between enslavement and racialization in American law. The course starts from the premise that American slavery was an institution that enlisted law in support of power and exploitation.”

I do not think this it is any accident that if you look up Harvard Medical School this is what you see on their website:

Here’s the article about Harvard rejecting the Trump administration’s demands.

Trump obviously is going after Harvard with a vengeance because it is our preeminent university and has a legitimate reputation as being liberal. 

He’s going after Columbia and other colleges too, see for example “Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups.”

The Trump administration brushed aside decades of precedent when it ordered Columbia University to oust the leadership of an academic department, a demand seen as a direct attack on academic freedom and a warning of what’s to come for other colleges facing federal scrutiny.

Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of antisemitism.

I think that the anti-Semitism rationale is merely an excuse. The same goes of all the transgended and DEI attacks. If it wasn’t these issues Trump would find another reason to attack and try to control what universities taught. He may not know much about Mao’s reeducation camps where for decades, the Communist Party of China relied on reeducation camps to reform “parasites” and persuade people to support the communist cause. I have no doubt he wants our universities to be loyal and obedient supporters of him personally and his regime.

Here’s another quote from the article about Columbia:

President Donald Trump has been threatening to withhold federal funding from colleges that do not get in line with his agenda, from transgender athletes’ participating in women’s sports to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. On Friday, his administration announced investigations into 52 universities as part of his DEI crackdown.

What do freedom loving people around the world think about all of this? What do they think about the fact that the United States not only has an Education Secretary whose assigned mission is to demolish the Department of Education and comes from the world of Professional Wrestling, but who earned herself a fact check on Snopes? It is true that U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon twice referred to artificial intelligence — AI — as "A1."

Here she is in one of her X posts:

It has become hackneyed to bring up 1984 where the truth is what Big Brother says it is and to share this photo from the movie, but in closing, I will do it anyway.

On a related matter: 

What I don’t understand is how Trump can take away the tax exempt status of a university. I can see him having legal grounds for cutting their federal funding, but eliminating the tax exempt status of Harvard or any other university seems problematic. 

Even the Church of Scientology, after a several years long battle, maintained their tax exempt status as a religious insitition.

This is what the Association of American Universities says about the tax exempt status of colleges. The detailed article begins:

The vast majority of public and private universities and colleges are tax-exempt entities as defined by IRC Section 501(c)(3) because of their educational purposes—purposes that the federal government has long recognized as fundamental to fostering the productive and civic capacity of its citizens—and/or the fact that they are state governmental entities. In turn, states generally grant tax-exempt status to organizations, including universities and colleges, which qualify as tax-exempt entities under Federal law.

Thanks for reading Hal Brown's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.

Addendum: 

If you have 22 minutes I strongly recommend you watch this video.

Read my previous Substacks.