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But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”

We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.

I highlight McRaven for a reason; he has perfectly articulated how to attack MAGA masculinity. Ten years ago, he gave one of the most powerful commencement speeches in recent American history. He addressed the graduates of the University of Texas, Austin, and three YouTube versions have racked up more than 70 million views combined.

It’s known — oddly enough — as the “Make Your Bed” speech. While it wasn’t aimed only at men, every person who forwarded it to me was a man. It appealed to universal values, but it connected with men I know at a deep and profound level.

McRaven draws on his SEAL training to teach students how to change the world. It begins with the small things, like accomplishing that tiny first task of making your bed, because “if you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right.”

Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.

I wonder if Democrats should answer the Republican men’s night with a men’s night of their own — a night that features heroes instead of bullies and showmen, a night that answers the Republican appeal to men’s basest instincts with an appeal to their highest ideals.

Trumpist masculinity is rooted in grievance and anger. McRaven’s message centers on honor and courage.

When you center masculinity on grievance and anger rather than honor and courage, you attract men like Hogan and Kid Rock and White. Worse, that is how you mold the men in your movement, including men like Vance.

Many conservatives rightly decry the way in which parts of the far left tend to use the words “straight white male” as a virtual epithet, as if there were something inherently suspect in the identities of tens of millions of men and boy

if men feel that Democrats are hostile to them, they’ll go where they feel wanted, the gender gap will become a gender canyon, and more men will embrace Trumpism because that’s just what men do.

We aren’t simply electing women and men; we’re electing role models, and Trump has unquestionably been a role model for countless men. He has molded not just the policies but also the ethos of the Republican Party. But America’s men need different role models and a different ethos.

let’s return for the moment to the Navy SEAL who served his country for decades, who helped kill one of America’s deadliest foes and who declared to American college graduates, “You must have compassion. You must ache for the poor and disenfranchised. You must fear for the vulnerable. You must weep for the ill and infirm. You must pray for those who are without hope. You must be kind to the less fortunate.”

The address builds to a conclusion that is alien to Trumpist masculinity: “Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if you take some risks, step up when the times are the toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never ever give up — if you do these things, the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today.”

there’s a better way for men — for all of us. It’s rooted in honor, courage and love. Or as McRaven put it, “For what hero gives so much of themselves without caring for those they are trying to save?

y contrast, a personal machine is willing to lose elections rather than share power with other leaders or factions. It puts the leader ahead of the party, and it would rather the party lose elections than the leader lose control.

The left is contemptuous of Mr. Trump, and since the Republican Party has implicitly become a party that stands for what the left despises, it has been very difficult to separate Republican voters from Mr. Trump in the name of any more positive vision or ideal. Mr. Levin put it this way: “The left isn’t going to hate anyone more than they hate Mr. Trump, so Republicans aren’t going to love anyone more than they love Mr. Trump.”

Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute told me that as a practical matter, the Republican Party at this point should be understood as the anti-left party. “It understands itself defensively, as speaking for a coalition that is being abused, excluded, mistreated and pushed around by a left-leaning elite in American life,” he said. “Its sense of purpose is therefore fundamentally defensive. That means it is largely defined in opposition to its understanding of the left, more than it is defined by a specific policy vision of its own.”

“That opposition,” he added, “obviously gives shape to some assertive or constructive action, too, but the vision of America underlying that action is largely a function of Republicans think Democrats are trying to destroy.” JD Vance, Mr. Trump’s pick for vice president, told The American Conservative magazine in 2021, “I think our people hate the right people.” (

“Because a personal machine puts loyalty ahead of electability, it must resort to authoritarian and anti-democratic measures like coercion and intimidation to preserve its hold on the party,” Mr. Rauch said. “It may physically threaten those who do not play ball. And it will use propaganda and the party organization to build up the leader as the one and only true expression of the party. That’s why Trump’s Republican Party is a cult of personality.”

A third way to understand today’s Republican Party, something that grows more obvious with every passing day, is that it has become a populist rather than a conservative party. Th

when traditionally conservative views aren’t in alignment with populist views, it’s the traditionally conservative views that most often get jettisone

Mr. Trump tapped into the growing resentment of millions of voters. He was seen by them as their tribune. Unfortunately, he exploited their fears and did almost nothing to solve their problems. But that doesn’t seem to matter to them. It’s all about the posturing.

The Republican Party, rather than embracing the best aspects of populism, has taken on its vices: anti-intellectualism, anti-institutionalism and anti-elitism; feeding off negative emotions like anger, grievances and vengeance; and a propensity to believe and to spread conspiracy theories

Populism often looks for scapegoats, frequently blaming immigrants and those who are ethnically and culturally different. Populists are also historically attracted to demagogues and authoritarian personalities.

But the most worrisome feature that has defined the Republican Party during the Trump era is a relentless assault on reality, fused with lawlessness and the embrace of illiberalism.

The Republican Party once preached about the importance of standing for moral truths and standing against moral relativism; today it is, in important respects, nihilistic.

It’s hard and haunting to know that the political party to which I devoted a significant part of my life has become the greatest political threat to the country I love.