In a Trump world, red meat rules
In a Trump world, red meat rules
The case for carnivores. Vegetarianism as resistance. And the novel that links them
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The Big Story:
America’s incoming Trump administration has triggered a conversation about red meat issues – literally and metaphorically – which revolve around the international political order, culture and gender.
Hours after Donald Trump’s November 5 election win, France’s president recommended Europe junk its “herbivore” preferences or “the carnivores will win”.1
Meat consumption looks set to become a political test in Britain with the Labour prime minister saying climate goals can be achieved without a drive to vegetarianism and the main opposition Conservative Party warning that forcing people to eat less meat could spark public unrest.2
In India, Hindu nationalism is premised on strength through vegetarianism.
But, ascendant in the US is the manly-man worldview of influential members of Trump’s inner circle, which includes podcast bros, crypto bros, tech bros and the bro of bros, Elon Musk. According to Janice Min,3 editor in chief of a “hit Hollywood newsletter”,4 a new-Trump-era in entertainment is dawning with sports and “white guy with a gun” shows.
This Week, Those Books:
A passionate argument in favour of eating meat.
A scholar argues that meat is macho.
A Nobel Prize-winning writer on one woman’s vegan battle.
The Backstory:
Trump’s oldest son, Don Jr, as well as private-sector entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, all champion so-called red meat policy positions and language.
Musk funds a political action committee that leaned into sexist attacks during the election campaign.5 He has amplified a social media post that suggested only “high status males” should run the government.6 And he told a podcast popular with young men that “animals will not make any difference to global warming…Eat as much meat as you want”.7
Ramaswamy, a strict vegetarian, espouses a tough worldview sans "the poison of wokeism and climatism and transgenderism”.8 He has argued the government is wrong to help single mothers as it “pays single women more not to have a man in the house than to have a man in the house”.9
Don Jr’s three-year-old hunting- and outdoors-focused lifestyle media brand Field Ethos10 is targeted at “the unapologetic man” aged between 25 and 55. Don Jr played a central role in convincing his father to choose J D Vance as his running mate and in crafting a strategy to appeal directly to young men.
This Week’s Books:
The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers
By: Scott Gold
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Year: 2008
This “call to arms” against woke-ism is in tune with the current moment. Scott Gold, who really loves all kinds of meat, argues that its consumption is “a very natural, instinctual, beneficial, even spiritual human act”. While acknowledging that human beings are omnivores rather than carnivores technically speaking, he says meat-eating may be a civilising influence. He quotes an anthropology professor’s theory that meat-eating is “one of the most contributing factors to the evolution of human intelligence”.
Gold adopts an entertaining, if provocative tone as he takes on the idea that eating meat is bad on moral, environmental and nutritional grounds. “I love sinking my teeth into the heart of a fresh hen,” he writes.
Choice quotes:
“…these days, if you’re looking to make a good impression, you’d be safer ordering a salad than a fourteen-ounce T-bone”.
“…glorious trifecta of the American male id: sexy girls, fast cars, and, of course, red meat”.
The Sexual Politics of Meat
By: Carol J Adams
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Year: 1990
When first published, this book was in line for an award for the most ludicrous title. Decades later, it could be seen as the harbinger of a movement. But like carnivore-celebrator Scott Gold, Carol J Adams admits that human beings’ natural survival mode is as omnivores.
While insisting that women are not “innately more caring than men, or have an essential pacifist quality”, Adams makes a powerful case for unpicking traditional notions that equate meat consumption with virility, dominance and power. “Meat is part of the cultural mythology of maleness,” she writes, citing numerous cultural references, including a Seinfeld episode that features the comedian desperately trying to hide the fact that he is not eating meat so his date will not mistake him for a “wimp”.
Choice quotes:
“What is ‘the sexual politics of meat’? It is an attitude and action that animalizes women and sexualizes and feminizes animals…also the assumption that men need meat, have the right to meat…”
“As Susan Faludi shows in The Terror Dream, after 9/11 the media hyped John Wayne-like masculinity, Superman-like male powers, and the hypervirility of rescuers and politicians. Thus we learned that, after the World Trade Centers fell, the first meal Mayor Guiliani wolfed down was a sandwich made of ‘meats that sweat’. Where there is (anxious) virility, one will find meat eating”.
The Vegetarian
By: Han Kang
Publisher: Portobello Books
Year: 2015
Nobel literature laureate Han Kang’s novel is about one woman's struggle to break free of the cycle of violence – within and without. It puts the concept of vegetarianism through its paces. Is it a madness, an obsession, an extreme attack on tradition? Or is it a justified resistance against patriarchy? The novel starts with Cheong, exasperated husband of Yeong-hye. His wife, he says, was “completely unremarkable in every way” until she suddenly decided to throw out all the meat and vegan products from the fridge and freezer. The storyline escalates from this point with Yeong-hye’s family joining Cheong in opposition to her radicalism, while ultimately remaining powerless to enforce obedience.
This novel links the two themes of the week’s other books. That eating meat is a necessary good. And that vegetarianism can be an act of resistance against violence.
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Macron likens Europe to a herbivore, Nov 7, 2024
That’s how The New York Times described Janice Min’s newsletter, The Ankler
Elon Musk’s America PAC uses crude, sexist attack against Harris in new ad. Politico, Oct 28, 2024
Musk’s tweet replying to one on “high-status males”
Fox News interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, Feb 2023
Home page of Field Ethos, co-founded by Don Jr.
A Field Ethos satire piece from Oct 2023 featured an imaginary interview with both Don Jr. and Hunter Biden. It had the following exchange: “Have either of you ever slept with your brother’s wife? Don: No. Hunter: Yes”.