This edition of “This Week in MAGA masculinity” brings us a bizarre moment from Trump’s speech at Arizona’s Dream City Church last Thursday: the kiss.
As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” And virtually all the words expressed in the image below — of Donald Trump kissing and embracing former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — are about the way Trump has made his toxic masculinity into a political credo.
“I don’t kiss men, but I kissed him,” Trump said as he was introducing Arpaio onstage during a campaign stop in Arizona on Thursday. “We had a real border with this guy,” Trump said. “People said he was too tough or too — now they’re saying, ‘Where is Sheriff Joe?’ You know, he’s 170 years old, but we want him back. Joe say something.”
The moment was the epitome of one of the animating forces in conservative politics: MAGA masculinity. It unites men around an ethos of hypermasculine paranoia, perpetual victimhood, overt rule-breaking and, most importantly, fawning praise for Donald Trump.
All of which Trump managed to distill — the paranoia, the rule-breaking, even anticipatory victimhood — into eight words and a gesture. Arpaio had the praise covered.








