The End of Polite Politics

The era of polite politics is over. The right doesn’t care about policy debates; they’re staging a dominance ritual. They strut, sneer, pound the table, and call it strength. While Democrats craft resolutions and weigh words carefully, the GOP offers a cartoonish version of manhood to a generation of young men hungry for testosterone-fueled purpose. This isn’t a sideshow; it’s the main event. By appealing to the “alpha male” stereotype, the GOP cloaks its raw pursuit of power in cheap bravado.

The Republican Party has embraced the swaggering “alpha” persona like a wild frat house on homecoming weekend, pushing exaggerated displays of masculinity into the mainstream as if they were models for leadership, leaving cruelty, misogyny, and racism in its wake. Their inspiration comes from a long-debunked myth of the “alpha” wolf dominating the pack. Beneath the bluster lies fear—fear of losing status, fear of irrelevance, fear of being exposed as inadequate. And to mask that fear, they punch down at those less able to defend themselves: women, minorities, LGBTQ, and immigrants.

Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao laid it bare during a debate with Tim Kaine last year: “When you're using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that's not the people we want. What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds.” You can almost hear the chest-thumping in those words.

Self-described “alpha males” prey on those who can’t easily fight back. If you stand in their way, they’ll try to knock you down. That’s when it’s vital to hold your ground and defend the people they target, and show them what it means to face someone who can take a hit and will not back down.

Because here’s the thing: real adults don’t punch down. They lift up. Let this be your strength.

Strength, for progressives, isn’t a costume we put on. It isn’t something to cast aside when the fight starts. On the contrary, being a progressive is the ability to take the hits, hold the line, and still have the courage and determination to care. Republican “manhood,” on the other hand, depends on inventing weak enemies to feel strong. And when they run out of easy targets, they turn on each other.

Progressives fight because there’s something worth protecting. And when the fight’s done, they build. That’s the model we need, not just in policy debates, but in every public encounter. Meet the right head-on with a steady hand and unshakable will. Show that the measure of an adult—man or woman—isn’t in how many people they can knock down, but in how many they can lift up.

We can maintain that balance. We can be assertive in battle and generous in victory. By doing so, we won’t just counter the “alpha male” myth, but we’ll replace it with something far more powerful: real strength, grounded in purpose.

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