Macho Politics: Schwarzenegger's "Girlie Men" And Dubya's "Bring It On"

by Roberto Lovato

(PNS) -- My governor is trying to put me between the rock of being a "girlie man" and the hard place of supporting policies that put growing numbers of California youths in manly prisons and "heroic" military environments.

Asking voters to "terminate" Democrats opposed to his Draconian budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger uses tough-guy humor and star power to disguise cowardly policymaking that hurts the poor, women, non-whites and others. Rather than discuss the effects of these policies on the vulnerable, his statements attack vulnerability itself.

If manhood means supporting Gov. Schwarzenegger or Cowboy President George W. Bush, then let me join "girlie men" and "wimps" in celebrating the decline of American -- especially voting, white American -- manhood.

On the surface, Schwarzenegger's statements about his Democratic opponents sound like the off-the-cuff comments of a drunken frat boy, or simply the continuation of the governor's previous offensive remarks. But a closer look at the cultural and political context of these statements reveals a more depressing and more dangerous motive: bolstering that part of the electorate that feels threatened by the growing power of women, homosexuals, non-whites and numerous others altering the face of formerly mostly white California and the entire country.

If you want to know what Schwarzenegger and Bush talk about during their meetings, it has to do with manhood and politics, with figuring out ways for both men to inject more testosterone and political Viagra into the November elections. President Bush's poll numbers have gone flaccid after the spike of the Iraq war first excited a large segment of the electorate, especially the white male electorate. How, they ask, do we win the macho vote? Like chivalric, colonial conquerors who first gendered the land with their language (i.e., the "motherland"), the former star of "Conan the Barbarian" and the self-described "war president" are trying to define the political moment as a time for "manly" sacrifices and solutions.

Now, with an uncritical media willing to cover anything the blockbuster governor says, Schwarzenegger's "girlie" and "wimp" comments become a national controversy over gender issues and homophobia, while completely ignoring a state budget that will destroy more inner-city schools, health clinics and other institutions supported by the "girlie" and "wimpy" among us. Schwarzenegger's statements fit nicely into a cultural environment dominated by "reality" television, history shows dominated by stories of men at war and by war news that depicts "robustness," heroism and "bring-it-on"-ism as standards of foreign policy. That these comments come from someone who has made a career fashioning contemporary versions of these dangerous myths comes as no surprise. War movies, sci-fi violence and television newscasts share many of the same ideas about what being a "real man" is all about.

The real tragedy is that statements like Schwarzenegger's -- or Vice President Dick Cheney's "F-word" remark -- are dismissed by the media too casually. Rush Limbaugh and others have already called criticism of the governor's remarks "overly sensitive." But philosophers such as Hannah Arendt have taught us that, far from being innocent, such statements mark a corrosive dehumanization, a desensitizing of the populace that facilitates pushing policies that imprison, humiliate and kill beyond anything in a war movie or in embedded and censored war reports.

Though many of us, men and women, gay and straight, have seen more bullets, bombs and tragedy than movie-action-hero Schwarzenegger and controversial former air reservist Bush, we have said little beyond our immediate community as to what constitutes American manhood. That task has been assigned by the media to manly politicians and stars of civilizational war epics such as "Troy," "Alexander the Great," the "Terminator" trilogy and other movies and news that have the effect of creating a culture -- and an electorate -- of the manly.

The ranks of the angry white male voter, while shrinking, still constitute a huge voting block in California and the country. Behind the posture are people searching for answers in a globalized, diverse and rapidly changing state, in a superpower that may also be experiencing the decline of its influence worldwide.

Polls have shown that the reputation of the United States is sagging around the globe. At the same time, U.S. polls have shown that a majority of Americans is concerned about the country's direction. Like it or not, all of us will have to deal with politicians who use this sense of American decline to win debates and elections. In response, we have to build an electorate and a culture that produces "girlie" voters and "wimpy" activists militantly committed to ending an old-school and dying notion of American manhood in the fastest and most peaceful way possible.