'Toxic Masculinity' and the Trump Assassination Attempt

The last week held one of the craziest news cycles I’ve seen in a long time, kicked off with the assassination attempt on former President Trump last Saturday. Pundits all over the place nodded their heads and wagged their tongues, but I hadn’t really thought about how that incident really was the shot heard around the world until I ran across the following clip a few days ago.

It features a crowd of children from Uganda, acting out the Trump assassination attempt. The kid impersonating Trump stands at a makeshift podium, the crowd cheering in front, and then suddenly falls down, surrounded by a team of mock Secret Service members. He then stands up, pumps his fist while yelling, “Fight, fight, fight!” and then the child army of Secret Service agents drags him off stage.

Now, you may think I’m going to delve into politics … but I’m not.

Instead, I find myself intrigued by these children. Let’s be honest: When’s the last time you saw kids in America playing like this?

Oh sure, there may still be a few creative American kids who would think up such a re-enactment—like homeschoolers or kids living out in the country—but for the most part, such displays would be met scolding from adults, upset that children were acting out something so traumatic with *gasp* fake guns!

That’s unfortunate. Because as I watched this little tableau, I realized that there are some important lessons taking place.

It’s true, these children are re-enacting something dangerous and violent. Yet they really aren’t fixating on nor exalting the perpetrators. Instead, they’re imitating the protective instinct, the defense of life, and the courage to stand strong under attack.

Those are traits or virtues we’ve often seen go by the wayside in recent years. They indicate “toxic masculinity,” we’re told, and little boys who aspire to be courageous protectors are sometimes brushed off as problem children who need to be toned down a bit.

But if we don’t encourage those traits and instincts in today’s little boys, then we will never see the Corey Comperatores of the next generation. In all likelihood, Comperatore, who died shielding his wife and daughter from the flying bullets at the Trump rally, was once a little boy like those portrayed in the above video—playing army or re-enacting dangerous situations, acting the hero, or fighting for worthy causes—as his generation was one that still played these “toxic masculinity” little boy games quite freely.

Imagine if he hadn’t. Imagine instead that he had been told by a nosy neighbor or even a protective mother that he shouldn’t yield to his boyish instincts, playing with guns and fighting to protect and preserve others. Had that happened, would we instead be mourning the death of his wife and daughter, and perhaps even other individuals around them, asking where all the courageous men have gone?

“Children learn what they live,” teacher and author John Taylor Gatto once wrote. “[R]idicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even.”

My guess is that the same principle applies to little boys: give them opportunities to play and practice at being protectors and providers, and they will turn into the type of strong men we need.

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Image Credit: Picryl