Saturday’s must-read: Harvey Mansfield in the Wall Street Journal, “Why Donald Trump is No Gentleman.”
Here are some highlights:
The most obvious observation about Donald Trump is one rarely made: He is not a gentleman. “Not a gentleman” is a designation and reproach he richly deserves but has not received. And why is that? “Gentleman” is no longer a standard we enforce or even a term we use. The outstanding person in this election is Donald Trump, in that he attracts the most attention, but the outstanding fact is the voters behind him who excuse Mr. Trump for his ungentlemanly behavior…. Mr. Trump is not quite a liar, because a liar tries to conceal truths inconvenient to him—or her. It’s more that he doesn’t care, or doesn’t even know, whether he lies or not…. It isn’t that he cares about a cause, but as a demagogue he loves to be loved, and as a vulgar man he has an affinity for whatever is vulgar. Incapable as he is of appreciating the gentleman, Mr. Trump earns the disdain of the promoters of gender neutrality. Mr. Trump’s resistance to political correctness, however, has the coarseness of a male. Or what used to be the coarseness of a male. Now that women are practicing to swear like sailors, Mr. Trump is a reminder of male superiority in the department of vulgarity. Surely no woman would have run his campaign. Those of us who hanker for the return for some part at least of the gentleman are in a fix. We are caught between distaste for a man who is not a gentleman and dislike of the political correctness that he so energetically attacks—yet whose effect he illustrates.
Read the whole thing.
And for more of Mansfield’s reflections on manliness, gentlemanliness and the gender-neutral society, you might enjoy this Conversation with Mansfield.
