Sooner or later, it was going to come down to dick size. Donald Trump isn’t so much inventing something new, as he is exposing a “preference cascade” for the vulgar. The culture changed a long time ago, Trump isn’t causing that—he’s merely creating a permission structure for us to quit pretending otherwise.
Al Gore was a pioneer in this effort. Younger readers probably won’t remember the Rolling Stone cover photo of Gore, where he—to paraphrase Spinal Tap—looked as if he had an armadillo in his trousers. He was running against George W. Bush in 2000, and was desperately attempting to pretend he was the Alpha Male. He wasn’t. But somebody (perhaps Naomi Wolf?) keenly understood that, beneath all the bullshit—you know, leadership, machismo, policy differences—it all comes down to the fact that size matters.
Now, it’s unclear whether or not Gore’s package was artificially enhanced (perhaps only Tipper and a hotel masseuse know the answer), but the fact is this was obviously deliberate. It was part of a larger plan to make him seem like The Man. We saw a hint of the same thing when Al Gore attempted to invade Dubya’s space and physically intimidate him during a presidential debate. That also didn’t work out so well. But it’s clear what he was trying to prove.
Nothing much has changed. For much of this campaign, we have substituted other things (toughness, height, finger size, etc.) for what this race—every race between men—really comes down to.
Perhaps we should thank Trump for finally dropping the pretense? It’s the 21st century, and ironically, we are more carnal, base, primal, and tribalistic than ever.
Again, this sort of competition has always existed. It was just dormant in our more civilized and sanitized world. But nothing could be more real or deep-seated. An example: There’s a story about the Cold War (it matters little whether this is true, or an urban legend) that America sent huge condoms to Russia that were labeled “medium.”
The attempted game of psychological warfare is obvious.
I like to think of politics in more positive terms, but there’s an argument that it’s all about power and competition over scarce resources. If that’s the case, then it really all comes down to dominance. Everything else is a surrogate battle over who’s the bigger man.
There’s an old George Carlin bit that really stresses this point. “Men are insecure about the size of their dicks and so they have to kill one another over the idea,” he says.
That’s what all that asshole, jock bullshit is all about. That’s what all that adolescent, macho-male posturing, and strutting in bars and locker rooms is all about, it’s called “dick fear!” Men are terrified that their pricks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another to feel better about themselves and since war is the ultimate competition, basically, men are killing each other in order to improve their self-esteem. You don’t have to be a historian or a political scientist to see the Bigger Dick foreign policy theory at work. It sounds like this: “What?! They have bigger dicks?! BOMB THEM!” And of course, the bombs and the rockets and the bullets are all shaped like dicks…
Honestly, it seems like he has nailed the 2016 Republican primary, as well.
This brings me to a final question: Have we gone too far? As one wag quipped, we might have finally jumped the penis.
I have been lamenting the dumbing down of politics and the cultural degradation that makes someone like Donald Trump popular. But honestly, the vapidity of this primary—the fact that it looks more and more like a reality show—has progressed faster than I could have imagined. Trump obviously was a tipping point, not the cause of all of this.
And it’s not just the debate over penis size. We also saw it during the debate when people obsessed over something falling out of [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore]’s mouth. And what’s up with the “dabbing” at these debates?
My gut is that this is bad for civilization, but I think there might also be a silver lining. For most of my life, the GOP was rightly cast as a stogy party. For better or worse, you can’t really say that anymore.
The culture has changed, and the GOP has become more edgy and irreverent along with it—and more in touch with pop culture. Could it be that Republicans are becoming the more fun party to watch?
The debate ratings, at least, are very large—and so is voter turnout. Meanwhile, Trump is promising to build a “huge” wall that keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Isn’t the whole point of this that size matters?