Shaking hands is getting downright dangerous for Republicans. Just last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump has shaken so many peoples hands that his right hand is constantly injured, something she came up with after a reporter pressed her on why we always see Trump in public with bruises on his right hand, or makeup or bandages to cover the bruises. Related Trumps new pick to head the CDC will make you sick President Trump is a man of the people, Leavitt said last Thursday. The president is literally constantly shaking hands. The Oval Office is like Grand Central Terminal. He is meeting with more people than any of you even know about on a daily basis.Trump is obviously not the first person to shake a lot of hands, and getting bruised up from normal handshakes is, frankly, bizarre. The bruising started earlier this year and has been noticed by photojournalists every single month this year, leading to speculation that Trump is suffering from a serious medical condition that causes bruising. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today The story is reminiscent of another instance of a Republican who recently claimed to be injured by a dangerous handshake. In late 2024, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) got a foster advocate who she referred to as a pro-tr*ns man arrested for allegedly shaking her hand so hard that she needed to wear a brace for her arm.Witnesses to the handshake said that it was a normal handshake that didnt look like an assault or intended aggression. The charges were dropped several months later. I was injured, intentionally, and I am still in pain, Mace said of the too-firm handshake. I filed charges, and they were inexplicably ignored. But I will not be. I will not back down. I will not be intimidated. And I sure as hell wont stay silent.Obviously, I have not witnessed all this violent handshaking, but its interesting to see how it was brought up in both situations. For Trump, the handshaking is being used as an excuse for a persistent injury of some kind and presented as a sign of his strength. Trump isnt sick, hes just really social! Trump has always been concerned about projecting strength, which, to him, means being free of disease.Who can forget when Trump stood on the White House balcony in October 2020 after he was hospitalized for 72 hours for COVID-19? He left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center early in a move that even CNN called reckless at the time, and to prove to everyone that he wasnt sick, he stood on the balcony without a mask for a photo op as he looked like he was about to collapse. But getting those pictures in and making people believe he wasnt sick was more important than protecting his actual health.Maces dangerous handshake served the exact opposite purpose. Shes 48, and theres no reason to believe that shes not in good health. She should be able to handle a handshake just fine, and it seems unlikely that an advocate for foster kids would shake her hand that hard and do it in such a way that no one at the crowded event would notice. And yet she went out of her way to make it seem like she really was so feeble that she was injured by the handshake, with a story so exaggerated that a court wasnt even willing to pursue a case that involved a sitting member of Congress as the victim.Feigned weakness has been central to Maces message for the past year, ever since she claimed that she would be in danger if forced to share a restroom with trans Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), who appears, by the way, to be one of the nicest people ever to get sent to Congress. Even this past week, as Mace was called out by police for her temper tantrum at an airport that involved her allegedly cursing out police officers, she wanted everyone to know that she is the real victim. If youre conservative, if youre well known, if you have fought the transgender community like I have, exponentially in the wake of Charlie Kirks public assassination the death threats, the amount of political violence, the celebration of the killing of conservatives, is deeply disturbing, she said on Fox News last week when pressed on her alleged meltdown.The handshake, here, is a symbol for authoritarians conflicting desire when it comes to projecting (or not projecting) strength. They want to be seen as strong so people will respect and follow them. But they also want to have the moral power that comes from being an underdog so they argue that they are the real victims here, facing a malevolent force thats usually a small, historically oppressed class of people.And that class is always simultaneously weak and strong. Gay people are weak sissies whose sexuality and desire are a threat to everyones well-being. Trans people are a tiny portion of the population that can and should be ignored by everyone else, but theyre also very powerful and a threat to women and children, and even allowing them to appear in public could cause Western civilization to collapse. Conservatives talk like this about other historically marginalized groups, like immigrants, who come to America to steal all the jobs and buy up all the housing while they are also lazy and shiftless and a drain on public funds.There is a kind of power in being seen as both strong and dominating as well as weak and oppressed. Being seen as strong can make others respect and fear you, but being seen as oppressed can pull on peoples hearts.The goal of movement conservatism is the accumulation of power, not ideological coherence. True believers on the right are willing to say whatever they need to say in order to get a win, who cares if it makes sense?And perhaps Leavitt and Mace believe that, post-COVID, we all forgot what normal handshakes are like, and that they can let their imaginations run wild.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.