Yes, Even the President is Expendable

One of the problems of today's public square is that its conventional wisdom takes for granted the feminine notion of protection.

Victor Davis Hanson demonstrates this in a piece about Trump. The president should not be cowering in basements or masked up to the nines.

It is leadership to go out and, with proper caution, to brave the contagion, on the theory Trump is indeed replaceable while cowering is inexcusable.

Yeah, guess what. There is an Amendment in the Constitution all about presidential succession. If Trump dies, the Vice President becomes president. President Trump is expendable.

That is what various characters opine about in Shakespeare. There is Worcester, in Henry IV Part One. Says he to King Henry IV,

It was myself, my brother and his son,
That brought you home and boldly did outdare
The dangers of the time.

 Then, of course there is the famous speech of the young Henry V at Harfleur:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;

In your average Napoleonic War novel, you run up against the "Forlorn Hope," the volunteers that swarm through the breach in the city walls of the enemy, facing almost certain death as they try to take the city by storm.

The basic fact about being a man is that you are expendable, and you are expected to risk your life as a leader of men or a follower, because Job One of a man is to demonstrate courage. Honor among men is about courage, the willingness to be expended.

But the basic fact of being a woman is that you carry the future within you. You need to stay alive, because it is women that bring forth the future. Thus for women, honor is chastity, doing the proper thing. You do the right thing and your kids survive.

In the old days, it was exclusively men that populated the public square, men that died for their country, men that operated in the culture of courage and fought anyone that dared to question their courage. And women operated exclusively in the domestic sphere, nurturing and "keeping the kids alive."

But when women came into the public square they brought their culture of safety with them. And as women have propagated into administrative positions throughout government and education they have transformed the culture from a culture of courage to a culture of safety.

This is how to understand the current concern about "microaggressions" and "safe spaces." It is the women's culture of safety modifying the public square to "suit a more feminine sensibility."

That is why the world's response to the COVID epidemic has gone so solidly for lockdowns and masks. Because women expect to be protected; they instinctively "shelter in place."

But, of course, for every woman that gets to shelter in place, someone else has to boldly outdare the dangers of the time.

Now it is my contention that almost all women are incapable of understanding anything other than their culture of safety. I talked with a nice liberal lady with a gubmint job down the street here in liberal North Seattle, and she expressed how glad she was that our Democratic Governor Jay Inslee was insisting on a tight lockdown. She has #WeBelieve and Black Lives Matter yardsigns at her house. She seems to have no clue that there are millions of people suffering extreme disruption to their lives so that she can live in North Seattle safety behind her social-moralizing yardsigns. She has no clue about this.

And, of course, the whole feminist culture maintains the innocence and helplessness of women. We saw this with the covering for the rather unimpressive debate performance of Sen. Harris (D-CA). It's sexist to interrupt her. It's mansplaining to disagree with her. Of course, because women expect to be protected.

So much for Here Me Roar.

I think that we now know that the lockdowns were a mistake. The school closures were a mistake. we should have done everything possible to protect senior citizens and other vulnerable people, but everyone else should have gone about their business. To say, as Gov. Cuomo did, that "if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy” is rubbish. That is not how the world works. 

But it is how women's minds work. And the modern politician has to cater to women and their expectation of protection.

It will be interesting to see how President Trump's bravely outdaring the dangers of the time works for him in the remaining weeks of the presidential campaign.

Do women voters conclude that he has been protecting them by getting COVID and recovering? Or do they decide that he has put them at risk?

Honestly, I don't know. All I can do is listen to the women I know and wait for their judgements.