Vice President Kamala Harris holds a microphone and rests her chin on her hands smiling in front of an American flag during an interview with NABJ.

Kamala Harris will be the first female president in U.S. history if she defeats Donald Trump in November. But the sitting VP isn’t harping on her gender. Instead, she’s leaning into a new, evolved version of masculinity.

While Trump presents himself as an uncompromising strongman, she paints the 78-year-old as an unhinged hysteric. Her strategy to “un-man” Trump was apparent at the debate, when she baited him over his rally sizes.

“He talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer,” she said. “And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”

Trump, of course, fell right into Harriss’ trap… as she stood back and smirked.

“First let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don’t go to her rallies. There’s no reason to go. And the people that do go, she’s busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can’t talk about that. People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” he stammered.

Though men across all ages are more likely to support Trump, the gender gap is greatest among Gen Z. Young women, who came of age in the era of #MeToo and the Supreme Court overturning Roe, are galvanized over issues of gender equity.

Meanwhile, young men are listless. They’re struggling across the board, finding less personal fulfillment and full-time employment than previous generations. Overall, boys are less likely to attend college, more likely to drop out and twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or suspended from school. And the results can be fatal.

Young men are four times as likely to commit suicide than young women.

With this troubling trend in mind, Republicans have tried to promote an atavistic view of masculinity. Perhaps no politician embodies the trend more than quick-footed Missouri senator Josh Hawley, who published a book called Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. (Yet whenever Hawley attempts to act “macho,” things seem to go terribly wrong.)

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JD Vance also pushes a regressive view of gender relations, denigrating childfree women as “miserable cat ladies.” Along with other Republicans, he’s attempted to emasculate Tim Walz, casting doubts about his military service and family relations. They’ve tried everything, from calling into question his relationship with his wife to the way he drinks milkshakes.

Fox News host clown Jesse Watters is one of the more shameless propagandists.

“Women love masculinity, and women do not love Tim Walz, so that should just tell you about how masculine Tim Walz is,” he said recently on his show. “The other day you saw him with a vanilla ice cream shake. Had a straw in it. Again, that tells you everything.” (Such as… Tim Walz enjoys not splashing his milkshake all over his face? Tim Walz wants to taste his beverage? Tim Walz likes girly milkshake flavors? We’re not sure!)

Walz, for his part, preaches a more compassionate kind of masculinity. As a high school teacher and football coach in rural Minnesota, he was the head of his high school’s GSA back in the late ’90s… way before that kind of thing was broadly accepted.

“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” he’s said.

As governor, Walz continues to support queer youth. He’s designated Minnesota as a “trans refuge,” protecting the right to gender-affirming care. It’s apparent that Walz encourages his teenage son, Gus, to embrace his emotions as well. The two shared a special moment of affection at the Democratic National Convention.

As the Guardian points out, Harriss is challenging men to vote for her… because she embodies the composure and leadership traits necessary to succeed in the Oval Office.

The Lincoln Project’s latest ad, which features the deep voice of veteran Hollywood frontman Sam Elliott, challenges men to look past outdated biases.

“What the hell are you waiting for? Because if it’s the woman thing, it’s time to get over that,” he says before issuing his directive.

“It’s time to be a man and vote for a woman.”

A former prosecutor, Harris also highlights her own tough-minded qualities.

“Democrats don’t need Harris to go out and shoot guns in her campaign ad or on the campaign trail,” Nichole Bauer, a Louisiana State University professor in political comms, told the Guardian. “But they do need her to display those masculine qualities that we associate with political leaders, and those are really masculine qualities that we don’t always think of as being gendered–like talking about her experience as a vice-president, an attorney general, a senator.”

During her recent sit-down with Oprah, Harris played up her resume in law enforcement. She also spoke about being a gun owner, much to Oprah’s surprise.

“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” the VP said, before adding she “probably should not have said that.”

But actually, she probably should have said that. It’s the perfect line for a candidate who’s trying to turn gender on its head, even as the political divide grows.

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