Alpha males are rarely liberals IMO.
Mike
The reason Mike Dukakis, John Kerry, Al Gore and this LaHood guy don’t get away with the “manly” photo-ops such as riding in a tank, hunting or putting on a bike helmet is that their audience KNOWS its all a stupid stunt, things they never do in real life.
The same audience knows when Sarah Palin is hunting or fishing that she has been doing it all her life and its not a stupid photo-op.
Algore, in Vietnam, with Arctic sleeping bag rolled up like a girl scout, sweater under new cammo, brand new boonies hat.
After his horrific posting on the ramparts as a journalists, young Algore had his heroic posting cut short to attend divinity school, where he promptly flunked out. Rumors were that he refused and even threatened to carry on his own LURP patrols into the outskirts of Hanoi, but it was only by having his beer roofied by a mysterious full bird Colonel, and him awakening at the family estate in Tennessee, still in his Arctic Vietnam cammo gear, reeking of cheap Philippino beer, and bar tranny perfume, that convinced him that dark satanic forces required him to question his operational foundations.( Later he would redeem his religiosity as the patron saint of global baloney )
I had a pasty gaunt Lithium-adjusted group home resident tell me years ago that I work too hard at being masculine.
At the time I walked away with a little question mark hanging over my head, wondering if that was good or bad.
Now, I would tell him thanks for the compliment.
I think this is a generational thing.
Whenever I see an adult wearing one of those, I immediately think “gay” (not literally, but you know what I mean).
To me, there’s something unmanely about willing to look stupid just to avoid a fairly small risk.
However to younger folks, it’s just plain stupid to not take every precaution possible. Beyond that, it’s like a fashion statement to them that says “I’m a modern man, not a neanderthal”.
The meaning of being a man is has been largely lost in in just a few generations.
I think it started with Alan Alda.
The green mantra is the triumph of ignorance. They are constructing bike lanes on Happy Creek Road which goes from town to a subdivision where nobody has a bicycle. Anyone dumb enough to ride a bike there now is from out of town.