WARDSBORO — I am often not surprised when left-leaning journalists such as MacLean Gander, a frequent contributor to these pages, often defines and separates the good people of our country by pointing out this person as “white male” or that person as “cisgender,” or another person as “LGBTQ.” I feel that these words are being used by many people like him to divide us into subgroups to cause conflicts and hatred.
This was my feeling particularly when reading his 1,350–word essay on men, “From type to stereotype.” It carried the subhead “Apparently, Donald Trump's strength lies in those areas where men are most fragile and most susceptible to early death.”
After reading this nonsense, I felt compelled, for the first time in my life, to speak out in the press.
Gander states that he was “born into the white middle class in the 1950s. To be a white male in the era of my youth and early adulthood was to be the type, not a stereotype.”
But tens of millions of men, like me, were born into circumstances that set an example of masculinity that was surely far different than his - and who never for a moment considered themselves as being a “type” or a “stereotype.”
* * *
Here is how I learned what it means to be a man. My father was born on a very small dairy farm during the Depression in Québec, Canada. His family lived through seemingly unbearable hardships.
When he was 10 years old, he moved to New Hampshire, where my grandfather found work as a forester, cutting trees for the paper industry in Vermont and New Hampshire. He was pulled out of grammar school to work to help his family during World War II.
My father was put back two years in school when he came to the U.S., because he could not speak English, but by the time he finished eighth grade, he was awarded an American Legion medal for his excellence in academics.
He taught himself about electronics in the early 1950s and became a very successful businessman when television sales boomed.
He was never insecure about his masculinity, and he certainly did not consider himself a victim. He always knew that through hard work, faith in God, and a love of family, he could climb the ladder of success in America.
By setting the example, he taught me to be a man, and even though he came from a social structure in Canada where an individual could rise to the top only by being part of the British-Canadian bloodline hierarchy, I never heard him speak poorly of another human being.
* * *
Finally, one thing my father taught me - maybe the most important thing - is to judge a man by his actions and deeds.
In the eyes and hearts of millions of men across America, President Trump set an example by his actions of strength and independence, boldly taking on the East Coast–West Coast political domination that economically and socially appears to have not only ignored, but also entirely failed, my “type.”
In fact, tens of millions of American men (and as many women) did not fail America - highly partisan national politics failed them. It's no wonder then that they are classed as “vulnerable” by research teams and studies!
In voting for Trump for president in 2016, and by continuing to support his administration, I, like tens of millions of other men (and as many women), am respecting a leader who restored our confidence that those who work hardest in America are not only heard but are also considered important and valuable to this country. His steady approval ratings show that this endorsement is both strong and real.
Gander is wrong - I did not vote for Trump because I am weak, fragile, or pathetic. I did not vote for Trump because, as Gander says, I have “lost my sense of male identity,” or because, as Gander says, Trump “presents an image of manhood - macho, sexually voracious, avaricious, wealthy, powerful.”
I voted for Trump because I felt that he spoke to the kind of America I grew up in: hardworking, conservative, and deeply patriotic.
* * *
At a time when young men across our country see how families are torn apart by a court system that disfavors and sometimes punishes men in divorce and child custody cases, when they see how the policies enacted on college campuses make male students feel as if they have to create legal documents for their own protection before they ask a female student out on a date, when they witness the systematic destruction of the middle class, when they learn that farmers can no longer afford to keep their farms and work the land and their animals, when small-town mom-and-pop businesses can no longer be handed down to the next generation as profits succumb to higher costs, and when men start to consider that staying single is preferable to trying to support the lavish lifestyle that many women today feel entitled to, it is no wonder to me that many men feel threatened and come to feel that life is not worth living.
If Gander and others like him on today's college campuses see it as their charge to characterize the situations of their male students as to how terrible it is to be a guy in America, then it's no wonder that his students have a feeling of shame, hopelessness, and depression.
Gander asks: What does it mean to be a man?
To him and others, I advise them to set the best example.
Instead of spreading messages of victimhood, hate, identity politics, and division, accept that by college age, it's time for men to grow up, and begin do their part to make their family, their town, and our country better for all.