And Democrats need to stop buying into that messageâitâs how bullies like Trump and Cuomo elbow their way into power.
For most of the reality-based community, seeing Donald Trump and JD Vance gaslight Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for being insufficiently grateful to the United States felt like we were bursting an aneurysm. But for champions of cartoonish masculinity like the disgraced Australian American city councilorâcumâTrump-approved hype boy Nick Adams, it was deeply gratifying. As Adams wrote on Substack:
What we saw was a glimpse of robust masculine diplomacy on display before the world. For decades, our weak and feminized leaders have talked in robotic and bureaucratic tones that might get you invited to a baby shower in Santa Monica but do not achieve the laying down of arms on the field of battle.
The decades-long partisan gender gap has left Democrats vulnerable to this kind of sexist backlash. Not unrelatedly, Adamsâs comments typify the attitude of the ballooning manosphere, now embodied by the 19-year-old Musk protĂ©gĂ© Edward Coristine, aka âBig Balls,â who is running whatâs left of the government. Itâs outrageous, and deadly serious: As of November, almost half of Republican men agreed that women should return to their traditional roles in society, up from 28 percent in 2022.
Democrats look completely lost by comparison, with a congressional rapid response team dominated by senior citizens and accepting the gutless censure of Representative Al Green. James Carvilleâs delusional advice in The New York Times to do nothing seems predicated on the false assumption that when voters wake up to the fact that Republicans have shit the bed, theyâll fall into the Democratsâ waiting arms. That mightâve worked 30 years ago, when podcasters didnât command million-dollar salaries and more attention than the nightly news. Young men in particular are, like Adams, mainlining the false narrative that dominance equals competence, despite the fact that planesâpluralâare literally falling out of the sky.
Itâs not just a problem among red-pilled voters with daddy issues: Dominance is a Trojan horse that disguises abuse as confidence, and itâs one of the most successful cons in human history. We have an actual confidence man in the White House as a result.
Average votersâand leading Democratsâfall for it all the time.
âThe two most important things we need are competence and courage,â state Representative Ritchie Torres declared recently in endorsing Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City. âWe donât need a Mr. Nice Guy. We need a Mr. Tough Guy.â
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Donât be taken in. During the pandemic, Cuomoâs âcompetenceâ led to 15,000 nursing-home-related deaths in New York, higher than any other state, thanks to a directive of his that protected his donors. His legacy also includes an anemic and mismanaged public transit system, slashed state funding for homeless services and psychiatric beds (mental health crisis, anyone?), and the repeated sexual harassment of his staff, as confirmed by the New York attorney general and the US Department of Justiceâfor which he has charged taxpayers $17.9 million in legal fees and subpoenaed the gynecological records of one victim, among other nonsense. Not to mention the Moreland scandal 12 years ago, in which Cuomo sought to interfere with a state ethics investigation that ultimately landed several of his closest associates in jail, thanks to former US attorney Preet Bharara, whom Trump fired during his first administration when he refused to pervert justice. Mind you, this is a short list.
If it sounds like dĂ©jĂ vu all over again, thatâs because it is.
Corruption is itself a form of incompetence, because it puts the individual interests of one person or group ahead of the public good and diverts resources and policy accordingly. In the simplest terms, itâs putting yourself before the job, and itâs the exact playbook of the man Cuomo hopes to replace: Eric Adams.
Basic competence in democratic governance is being able to deliver necessary services and build consensus support for policies that will benefit the most people. Single-minded dominance precludes cooperation. The dominance mindset is leading to crushing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, abandoning our allies like Zelensky, and siding with actual autocrats. To dominate something is to make it smaller. Leaders who think theyâre larger than the institution theyâre running can never be competent because their true desire is control and applause no matter what the cost. It makes them thin-skinned and susceptible to flattery, which is why candidate Cuomo strokes Trumpâs ego as a fellow âQueens boy,â lest anyone think theyâre at odds. As one former Cuomo staffer put it: âYeah, heâll look tough on TV. Will that make you safer from Medicaid cuts? Probably not. Voters will have to decide between the feeling of strength versus actual creative policymaking and governing that fundamentally protects the things that Trump is attacking.â
That feeling is unreliable. Gavin Kilduff, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, has studied the relationship between dominance and competence and how we assess a personâs abilities. âOn average [displays of dominance] can facilitate quick assessments with moderate accuracy, but there are scenarios in which it backfires in a big way,â he says. Kilduff and his coauthor, Cameron Anderson, published a 2009 study that found that âmore assertive individuals might sometimes gain influence above and beyond what their actual competence warrants, and skilled members who are low in trait dominance might be unjustifiably ignored.â It doesnât help when way too many New York Democrats who called for Cuomo to resign four years ago canât seem to find their voices now.
Voters who abhor Trump but find themselves seeking comfort in Cuomo should think twice before they make a man who once said âI am the governmentâ the next mayor. Corruption is more than just incompetence: Itâs costly and cowardly.
The daylight gets very narrow between Democrats who fail to grasp that and the people they detest on the other side.
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