As an electoral blue wave for the Democratic Party is predicted by many to arrive on shore in this week’s US midterm elections, one of the things Donald Trump is continuing to do is obsess over how men look. It is a persistent trait of his slobbering form of leadership: he loves men’s bodies and is endlessly impressed by them, while also presenting himself, a weak fool, as strongman-in-chief.

The most recent example of this was his drooling description of Republican senator Jon Husted’s body parts. “I examined his ass,” he told a Kentucky rally. “I then patted him on the shoulder, and it was like a piece of steel. I’m still recovering.” Last week, The New York Times reported that the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte – likened by an administration official to a “court jester” – made a poster of Husted for Trump to display on Air Force One.

Trump likes dancing bizarrely to YMCA, a song seen as the epitome of faux-macho camp. He comments on the appearance of men as “beautiful”, “handsome” and “studs”. Of the golfer Arnold Palmer, he honed in on genitalia: “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’” Palmer was, in Trump’s words, “all man”. This is deeply creepy, but it is also typical of Trump’s preoccupation with the male physique.

Trump is of course unhinged, and a man with a long list of accusations against him regarding disgusting behaviour towards women, including sexual assault. But why does he drool over men’s........

© The Irish Times