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Seriously, masculine chest thumping behaviour is a trait that is hard wired into humanity. Right wing politicians are naturally going to play to that mentality. Why? Well, for one, the left doesn't. Second, as I stated earlier, appealing to people who live by the hyper masculine chest thumping ethic is going to get you access to their resources, which are substantial. Politically shrewd if you ask me. Why are you so suprised by this revelation? Why do you hold political speech that would appeal to such a constituentcy in such contempt? I mean other than the fact that you consider your views to be immensely more enlightened and superior?

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First, politics is more than a game played by Machiavellian puppeteers whose only interest is to pull strings to get access to resources. There's a whole lot of sincerity to right-wing chest thumping – take this forum for example: posters on this board clearly don’t expect to gain anything from calling liberals whiny bitches other than for some level of personal satisfaction.

Anyone who has ever worked in politics knows there are a lot of people who put their nose to the grindstone fighting political battles when their personal gain (in regards to resources gained) are quite small. I’ve worked on campaigns where volunteers put in 20 or 30+ hours a week for a candidate, for months on end, where their personal gain was absolutely nothing. Maybe they were just part of some conspiracy on behalf of some power hungry politician, who duped them into sacrificing their time and energy. Or maybe there are things that matter to political actors other than just gathering resources. You might not agree with the Herbert quote you provided, but I think he's close to the mark when he says that language can matter to people more than wealth.

That is to say, no matter how much we might want to make politics like poker (just some game where everyone’s out to fleece someone else out of something) – it’s not. People have emotions invested in politics – emotions that can’t easily be explained away by the motivation to grab as many resources as possible. And I’m quite convinced the politics of anxious masculinity is one of them – that is to say, I think the right thrives on the insecurities of the modern male, whose gender role has been in flux for the better part of 40 years (if not longer – much longer; better historians than I can possibly cite evidence of gender roles being in constant flux). And I don't think we can explain those insecurities (nor the wish to resolve them) through account which center around competition for resources.

I think the consequences of such a statement could be alarming for the right. Might it be that right-wing positions on drilling for oil in ANWAR, defense spending, affirmative action, welfare, etc. – aren’t driven by anything more substantive than wanting to be the toughest SOB around?