Roosevelt’s hypermasculinity politicized violent manhood by appealing to status-anxious men

Evidence

When Roosevelt became president in 1901, the embodiment of heroic American manhood became the undisputed leader of the American nation. By fashioning a violent, fantasized masculinity, and then injecting that sensibility into national politics, Roosevelt offered ordinary men the sense that they were participating in a larger cause. Roosevelt’s hypermasculinity appealed to men anxious about their own status, and the nation’s. For many, these anxieties would become inseparable. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 38

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to discussions of masculinity as political identity-building, similar to how consumer culture transmits identity in later chapters. — connects to: Elites like Theodore Roosevelt wanted Populists shot — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 61