AOC Wants Us to Mock Stephen Miller’s Height. Is That a Good Idea?

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Stephen Miller is a lot of things: a protofascist. An angry bigot with a longtime detestation of immigrants. A man who uses his position of immense power to crush political opposition, crush free speech, and crush American freedom.

And, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it, a short, clownish insecure troll.

When it comes to the angry men of MAGA, Ocasio-Cortez had this advice for her audience on Instagram Live: “Laugh at them! Stephen Miller is a clown! I’ve never seen that guy in real life, but he looks like he’s, like, 4′10″.”

She added: “People talk about this toxic masculinity. Let’s put that to the side for just one second—this is about insecure masculinity, and one of the best ways that you can dismantle a movement of insecure men is by making fun of them.”

Few people in American politics are as deserving of condemnation and mockery as Miller. He was the impetus behind Donald Trump’s family-separation policy. He has been pushing the outrageous claim that left-leaning groups are “domestic terrorist organizations,” a lie (domestic terrorist organization also is not a legitimate legal designation) that seems to be a pretext for bringing the full force of the federal government down on Trump’s political opponents. It is truly difficult to overstate how authoritarian, dark, and dangerous Miller’s politics are, and how much sway he maintains over the president. And it seems to stem mostly from the fact that despite actually being closer to 5’10”, he’s a big, scared baby: scared of immigrants, scared of liberals, and begging Big Daddy Trump to send in the troops to protect him. If there were ever a legitimate target for mockery, he’s it.

And Ocasio-Cortez is right that MAGA is a movement premised on insecure masculinity—and in that, it is like many other authoritarian movements throughout history. (There’s a reason we talk about strongman politics and not strong-person politics.) There is a wealth of social science^[2] on the connections between traditional masculinity and authoritarianism, and authoritarian leaders routinely co-opt the aesthetics of hypermasculinity to portray themselves as muscular defenders of their nations. In Nazi Germany, imagery of strong men and maternal women sold the nation^[3] on an ideology of patriarchal control. Dictatorial leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-il disseminate pictures of themselves (often photoshopped) astride^[4] horses^[5], looking impossibly ripped, or engaged in other traditionally masculine pursuits (shooting guns, catching fish). As misogynistic politics have risen in Spain, fetishization of former dictator Francisco Franco has risen with them^[6].

And Trump, of course, is no stranger to doctored images and A.I. propaganda^[7] portraying him as a fit and vigorous manly man, sometimes even as Jesus Christ^[8] himself—when in reality he’s a clinically obese^[9] 79-year-old draft dodger.

The mockery is merited. And sometimes it works. Revealing men like Miller for who he is—an anxious scaredy-cat dweeb—helps dispel some of the mythology that this administration is trying to create. It also sends a message to men that the leaders of MAGA are not impressive tough guys but embarrassing cowards: men not to emulate but to move away from. The strategy of mockery is finding some efficacy in Portland, Oregon, right now, as Trump deems the city a crime-ridden hellhole that can be saved only by sending in the troops, and Portlanders respond by dancing in inflatable animal costumes, sending a clear visual message that undermines what these supposed tough guys say they’re scared of.

But there are risks to the mockery strategy. And they come when the mockery shifts from being pointed at specific figures like Miller and toward MAGA-voting men more broadly.

Here, I should make a distinction between what I think would be fair and what I think is strategically wise. I believe that most hardcore MAGA men are also pathetic and insecure misogynists who in a just world would be mocked and marginalized. In a world in which Democrats need voters to win elections, though, and women need to be safe in our homes and communities, broad mockery of MAGA men might be a bad idea. People voted for Trump for an enormous range of reasons, but we know that a sense of displacement and humiliation factored in, especially for men. Racial anxiety is longhand for racism, but the phrase also connotes a sense of status loss—that things were better when one could be proud and feel as if one belonged in a country where everyone from the politicians to the people on television shows to the prominent business leaders looked like you (you being a white man). A changed politics and a changed culture, in which white men still sit on top but no longer have a monopoly on power and influence, seems to some men like a loss—especially, it appears, those who don’t have much other than their gender, racial, and American identities to give them a sense of importance.

To be clear: I find this kind of status anxiety eye-rollingly deplorable, and I think the actual answer to it is “Be an adult and buck up,” not “Use the government to engineer a white man re-takeover.” But having now witnessed Trump win two terms in office, and seeing the damage he is doing, I’ve changed my view on how liberals should react.

Men who feel insecure, scorned, and emasculated are typically not the men who are jonesing to join liberal causes or advocate for feminist politics. These are men whose politics seem more likely to trend toward the reactionary, and who may take out their anger not just at the ballot box but on the women around them. Entire online subcultures have grown up around the idea of being unfairly emasculated, incels being the best known, but research has long shown^[15] that men who believe in a hypermasculine ideal and those who believe they are disrespected^[16] are more likely to be violent toward the women (and others) in their lives.

That doesn’t mean that liberals have to embrace or court these guys. But it does mean drawing a line between mocking the MAGA men in power and MAGA men writ large. The trick is making MAGA less appealing to men by being honest about how unappealing MAGA male leaders are. (Miller, despite what Fox News hosts may argue, is not exactly the image of an alpha male, and I have to imagine he repulses even the most MAGA adoring of women.) The trick is doing this without making it feel as if elitist liberals and man-hating women are taking aim at all conservative men. To be honest, I find this conclusion somewhat painful, since we would certainly be justified in mocking and marginalizing Trump-supporting men well beyond those who work for him. But if we go down that route, the joke may eventually be on us.

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