To the Editor:
Re “Republicans Really Do Care More About Masculinity,” by Michael Tesler, John Sides and Colette Marcellin (Opinion guest essay, March 3):
Without disparaging women in any way, it is essential that we appreciate the importance of male energy. When young men’s energies are channeled successfully, they launch into vital and honorable actions — fighting our wars, building nations, creating industries, taking responsibility for families and communities, generating new ideas. When those energies are left to stagnate, they find their way into criminality, meanness and self-destruction.
An ideal incubator for those energies would be a period of national service, military or civilian, attending to the needs of the community and the country. This would provide opportunities that young men need in order to realize the potential of their intense energy: opportunities for practical training, for purposeful work, for leadership and camaraderie, for pride and self-worth.
A national service program could provide hands for millions of tasks that our society needs done. And it could bring people together from all regions and backgrounds, to foster unity across our nation’s great diversity. It would be a great way to cultivate the immense resource of male energy.
Ron Meyers
New York
To the Editor:
Masculinity has its virtues, but its avatar these days is not Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. It is the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Admirable men control their emotions when the occasion demands self-control. They keep their promises, even when it’s not in their self-interest to do so. They stand up for themselves when treated with disrespect, even if they might suffer consequences. They put their lives and honor on the line to care for those who are weaker and more vulnerable.
We saw President Zelensky do all of these in the recent contentious White House meeting with Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The Ukrainian president is a man of honor. In contrast, Mr. Trump displayed all the vices that traditional masculinity is prone to: bullying, childish loss of self-control, a weak reliance on others (Elon Musk’s money, Mr. Vance’s co-bullying) to prop themselves up.
In saying these are masculine virtues, I don’t mean that they’re accessible only to men, but that they are real virtues that men should take pride in embodying. I hope Americans who respect and care about young men today, who think they have more to offer our nation than pranks and trash talk, will join me in thanking Mr. Zelensky for showing them, and us, what honorable men are made of.
Amy Shuffelton
Chicago
To the Editor:
In the dismaying public advocacy for a return to traditional roles, one factor is rarely mentioned: We live in an age when the male-female dyad is less essential to the perpetuation of our species. Male leaders and followers of the new authoritarianism know it: Today, women need only a lab to create the human future.
Sperm, yes. But men?
The majority of domestic arrangements will continue to be heterosexual couples who meet and mate for a vast range of reasons. (I am joyfully a member.) But the evolutionary necessity of maleness has undergone a transformation. Both the anxiety over masculinity and the expansiveness of gender identity may be undergirded — even if not consciously — by this new reality.
To the Editor:
The stories we tell have the power to shape how we think and to define the parameters of conversation. Right now, the Trump administration is telling the public that the dismantling of our institutions is for our own good.
It claims that by firing thousands of federal workers, it is ridding Washington of “deep state” bureaucracies and government waste — and that this is somehow going to help ordinary people.
Democrats’ responses to each new hideous violation are piecemeal — without a focused story of their own. We need to narrate this moment clearly and convincingly in order to define what is actually happening.
This administration is clearing a path for the most corrupt executive branch the country has ever seen. Officials are sowing chaos and creating hardship and risk for ordinary people so that nothing can stand in the way of their efforts to consolidate wealth and power for themselves and their cronies.
They are systematically removing every part of the government that benefits ordinary people. They are perpetrating an unprecedented raid on government resources and destroying all the systems that can provide a check on their corruption.
Corruption is the story that needs to be told in a sustained, concerted manner — both by Democrats and the media. This is a story that Americans can understand and around which they can mobilize.
Rebecca Seligman
Evanston, Ill.
The writer is an associate professor of anthropology and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.
A Constitutional Test
To the Editor:
Re “If Trump Defies the Courts, Then What?,” by Erwin Chemerinsky (Opinion guest essay, March 10):
Mr. Chemerinsky asserts it is “not hyperbole” to say that if President Trump chooses to defy the judicial branch’s court orders against the actions of his administration, we may very well witness the end of American constitutional democracy.
It is certainly true that when presidents aggressively conflict with the other branches of government, constitutional tensions prevail. But it is also true that such moments were considered in the crafting of the U.S. Constitution.
Mr. Chemerinsky does not mention that Congress’s sole power over the purse means that virtually every action of the executive branch requires some form of funding from Congress, or a possible threat of defunding, which James Madison called “the most complete and effectual weapon” to check any reckless policy (or president).
If Congress happens to be in the hip pocket of the president, as now appears to be the case, the Constitution requires elections for the House of Representatives every two years, ensuring that voters will have final say in any fundamental changes to government policy.
Yes, these are perilous times, and the fabric of the Republic is being tested. But the framers of the Constitution wrestled with these very issues, and crafted a system of government that has stood the test of time.
Stuart Gottlieb
New York
The writer teaches public policy at Columbia University.
A New World Order
Re “Sawing Away at the Pillars of a World Order Built on U.S. Power” (news analysis, March 13):
As I watch this president and his cultish coterie of worshiping Republicans dismantle the U.S. government with thoughtless cruelty, while wiping out a century of social and economic progress and dismantling our relationship with our allies, I find myself shaking my head in painful disbelief at the scope of the global wreckage that my children and grandchildren’s generation will have to dig out from under.
Bob Salzman
New York
To the Editor:
Our foundational American values were once displayed by proudly flying our flag. Today, paradoxically, to accomplish this same end, one might fly the Ukrainian flag. Strange times.
Anthony A. Boyadjis
Maplewood, N.J.
