Washington
Only a ‘macho man’ makes it big in Trump’s Washington
I was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital reading the newspaper while my wife, Marianne, was having a routine outpatient procedure.
When a nurse finally came in to tell me the procedure was over and that we would soon be free to leave, she smiled and added, “Nice purse you have there.”
The purse was turquoise with dark blue, swirly images of palm trees, which was, I admit, appealing.
She, of course, was proffering a well-worn joke about a man and a purse, which, by custom in our country, is exclusive to women. It was Marianne’s, and I didn’t give a thought to holding it for her, a fact the nurse likely registered from my equanimous smile.
I have no anxiety about manhood or how I am perceived based on superficial manifestations, whether it’s a colorful purse or a pink suitcase, which I do happen to use since pink was the American Tourister selection discounted 40% on Amazon.
I also must confess to having taken pleasure, in my 20s, in upsetting stereotypes held by friends on the right about liberal, socially conscious English teachers, when I bested them in football and softball, and then afterward in the sports bar at arm wrestling.
I wasn’t always so confident. At 16, I practiced wearing an intimidating scowl in the bedroom mirror, rolled up my sleeves to accentuate my budding biceps, and suffered frostbite rather than wear the mittens my mother bought me for Christmas.
If any of that seems familiar, it’s similar to what Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Josh Hawley, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Republican males have been doing to burnish their MAGA credentials. Hegseth, in particular, has been criticized for sophomoric bravado, though his arrogance more often comes off as whining.
Hypermasculinity is all the rage
Of course, these are not 16-year-old boys insecure about their testosterone levels. Instead, this is an administration trying to compensate for mistakes and an absence of vision and of policy successes with appeals of hypermasculinity.
Can’t come up with a health care plan, a peace deal for Ukraine, or a defense for endangering American troops by divulging classified information to your relatives? Let’s do pushups on TV, announce plans to build the biggest warships in history, and blow up 35 boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that may or may not have been carrying drugs.
Can’t fix rising prices at home or bury incriminating Epstein files? Instead, let’s unleash swarms of armed, masked enforcers into American cities and launch a massive invasion of hapless Venezuela.
The GOP saw that the macho man appeal worked in getting 55% of male voters to elect Trump over female candidate Kamala Harris in 2024, including double the percentage of Black males who voted for him in 2020, and 54% of Hispanic men.
But Trump’s blatant bait and switch, promising peace and affordability on Day 1, but then goosing prices even higher with tariffs, and starting a needless war, is less likely to fool them twice.
When I became an adult, I learned that using common sense and being true to your principles are more important and less embarrassing than trying to mimic synthetic standards of manliness cooked up by Hollywood, Marvel Comics, or professional wrestling. I credit my perspective to my father, whose life-navigating ease I admired.
Charles McGrath Sr. was an accomplished and athletic Army captain during World War II. Later, when he became a father, he would not have been mistaken for a macho man with his “dad bod” and hobby jeans. But he impressed upon me and my brothers that respecting his wife and our mother, caring about other people, especially those less fortunate, and solving problems with listening and logic and compromise, instead of tough talk, intransigence and violence, were the gold standards of manhood and leadership.
Rather than preach those truths, he taught by example, one of which I wrote about in 2023, when he showed how intellect and empathy inspire more confidence than machismo and braggadocio.
So, when President Trump has talked tough, threatened allies, belittled women, mocked the disabled, denigrated minorities and “s- – -hole countries,” and boasted about his power and cognitive tests, was he demonstrating authentic manhood? Or was he, instead, throwing up a smoke screen to occlude his broken promises, past and present failures, and future fears and insecurities?
I’d be less inclined to complain, were he not doing so at the expense of our country’s soldiers and the American taxpayer.
David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at College of DuPage and author of “Far Enough Away,” a collection of Chicago area stories.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “on behalf of the Department of Education (ED),” on Monday released a Notice Inviting Grant Applications for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. Applications are due by May 29.
Last November, ED announced that it had entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the CCAMPIS program. This is the first CCAMPIS competition conducted under this arrangement.
Approximately $73.5 million will go to institutions of higher education that awarded at least $250,000 in Pell grants to enrolled students in FY 2025. HHS will award about 148 grants, ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.
The terms of the grant competition are not significantly different than prior competitions. As before, there are two absolute grant priorities that every application must address – leveraging non-federal resources and utilizing a sliding-fee scale for low-income parents.
This year’s competition includes only one invitational priority that reflects the Trump administration’s general educational policy. The new priority, entitled “Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings,” encourages applications that “expand access to education choice … including by empowering parents in choosing the early learning setting that best meets their family’s needs.” Flexible childcare programs that include drop-in care and care during nontraditional hours are also encouraged.
One other notable difference from prior competitions is an expanded “Terms and Conditions” section that not only requires compliance with applicable civil rights laws, but also refers to Trump administration Executive Orders and guidance on racial discrimination that clarify “the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to programs or initiatives that may involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.” This includes any “discriminatory equity ideology [as defined in Executive Order 14190] in violation of a federal antidiscrimination law.”
The exact scope of these terms is unclear because courts have not found many of the practices described in these Executive Orders and guidance documents to be violations of federal law.
The Newsfeed
This week, the team brings you stories about how communities including Filipino immigrants, Sephardic Jews and Somalis arrived in the Pacific Northwest
Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
Group hopes to boost recognition for Seattle’s Filipinotown
By Venice Buhain
The group Filipinotown Seattle hopes to make sure that the legacy of Filipino Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District isn’t forgotten.
One of the group’s current projects is pushing for a Filipinotown placemarking sign in the CID.
“Filipino Americans have had a presence here for over 100 years in Seattle,” said Filipinotown Seattle Executive Director Devin Israel Cabanilla.
He said that the signage is important to remind people that “the International District is not just Chinatown. Japantown. Filipinotown is here as well.”
The group held a poll on what signage might look like and where it might be located. It would be similar to the Chinatown sign on South Jackson Street and Fifth Avenue South, or the Wing Luke Museum
In the early 20th century, the area now known as the CID was a hub full of businesses, entertainment, social groups and housing that served Seattle’s growing immigrant population from Asia and elsewhere. The communities all intermingled throughout the CID.
“This area was a central place for Asian Pacific immigrants simply because of segregation,” Cabanilla said.
Because the Philippines was a U.S. territory from 1898 to 1946, Filipino immigrants were unaffected by laws in the 1920s that restricted immigration from Japan or China. Many Filipinos came to study at the University of Washington or to work in burgeoning industries, like lumber, farming, canneries and factories.
While the physical Filipino presence in terms of buildings and storefronts in the CID dwindled in the later 20th century with redevelopment, Seattle Filipinos and Filipino Americans continued to make impacts locally, regionally and nationally.
“It may not have been in terms of storefronts, but our presence has always existed in terms of politics, culture as well,” Cabanilla said.
The Seattle Department of Transportation said it is aware that the group is working on its signage request, but the Department of Neighborhoods has not yet received a formal request. They are also working to develop a clearer process for this and other similar neighborhood signage proposals.
Filipinotown Seattle said it hopes that the sign helps remind Seattle of the CID’s unique designation as a neighborhood shaped by many immigrants and migrants to Seattle.
“Is it Chinatown? Is it Japantown? Is it Little Saigon? It’s all those things. And I think re cultivating that this is a multicultural district, Filipinotown is helping establish: Yes, it’s more than one thing,” Cabanilla said.
Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.
“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”
The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.
The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.
Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.
The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.
In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.
“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.
The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.
This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.
This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.
The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.
Five dozen temples are now under construction.
President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.
At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”
Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.
- May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
- May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
- May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
- June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
- June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
- Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
- Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
- Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
- Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
- Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.
Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.
Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.
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