When push comes to shove, Brigitte Macron’s swat was more a mirror than a meme

It came in a blur of cameras and confusion: French President Emmanuel Macron, jaw tense and posture assertive, caught a shove to the face from someone far closer than any protester. The hand belonged to his wife, Brigitte.

Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.

The world pounced. Was it a quarrel? Was it playful? Was it staged? Macron insists it was nothing but a fleeting moment, a stray hand, no story here.

But the shove has stuck, precisely because it felt like something. It felt like everything that we’re experiencing in the world today. I don’t know about you, but I feel like the French president most days, trying to duck out of the way of myriad and metaphorical intentional slaps and shoves.

In 2025, a shove, accidental or not, is never just a shove. It’s a symbol, a barometer of a world out of sorts, reflexively violent, perpetually on edge. The image of Macron being shoved, even by someone he loves, captured something raw about the moment we’re all living through. It’s a time when we seem unable to speak without shouting, to disagree without demeaning, to govern without punishing or pushing someone aside, literally or figuratively.

Look no further than Donald Trump, now four months into his second term, where the bully pulpit has become a shove factory by the world’s biggest bully. Since his return to power has used his Truth Social account exactly as he did when he was a private citizen. He uses it as a weapon to push people around. There is no difference between the Mar-a-Lago Trump and the gilded-gold White House Trump.

He does not use it to reassure or unify but to escalate. His rhetoric is packed with slurs and smears, calling opponents “scumbags,” “vermin,” and “disgusting degenerates.” These aren’t just insults. They’re provocations, political fuel soaked in the language of violence.

And while he uses words as weapons, Trump’s foreign policy has taken on the physicality of a schoolyard fight. He’s shoving around America’s allies and adversaries alike, economically and diplomatically.

His “tariff strategy” is less economics than ego management by a deranged man who not only wants to rule the globe but push around all of its inhabitants. Trump slaps on tariffs like he’s pounding a punching bag, targeting countries based not on sound policy but on perceived slights, bruised pride, or cable news segments that catch his eye and his ire.

Trump is also pushing allies away, swatting at Canada, Greenland, Denmark, and any country du jour that has done something to miff the pushy president of the United States.

And then there’s his behavior on the world stage. Just last week, Trump metaphorically shoved the president of South Africa in the Oval Office. This echoes his behavior of pushing around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February.

We are not only watching a world that’s getting more violent, Instead, we are being conditioned to accept violence as standard operating procedure.

The signs are everywhere. Airline incidents have become more unruly in 2025, with passengers brawling over everything from seat backs to pronouns to MAGA apparel. Videos of mid-air fights feel as frequent as weather reports.

Meanwhile, on the ground, LGBTQ+ Americans as well as those around the world are facing a rise in hate crimes since Trump’s reelection in November. Legal protections are being rolled back by the federal government and in red states, and transgender people, probably more than anyone else, are being beaten back in a way that defies explanation. It’s less of a slap or a push and more of a demolition, and that should frighten all of us.

Even the world of celebrity is mirroring the trend. In New York, the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs is unfolding like a fever dream of unchecked power and violence. Witnesses have testified to a pattern of abuse that feels eerily in sync with our times. We see a thrust of power used to intimidate, money used to erase or silence, violence lurking behind every closed door.

Combs may be in a courtroom, but his trial echoes the mood of the world.

The Middle East is a tinderbox. The bombing in Gaza seems endless. Likewise, Vladimir Putin can’t stop punching down at Ukraine with Russia’s intensified attacks. Push, shove, beat, and kill. And repeat. And again. An endless cycle of deadly violence.

So yes, when Brigitte Macron shoved her husband’s face, intentionally or not, the moment went viral not because it was unique but because it seems all too familiar. It looked like everything we’re living through. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels like I’m being pushed around like her husband.

We shove each other in airports, in legislatures, in war zones, outside of gay bars, in grocery store lines, at the border, in sanctuary cities, at sporting events, in courtrooms, and seemingly anywhere that draws divergent crowds.

Ideas are being shoved out of public discourse on university campuses. Marginalized people are being shoved out of communities and illegally sent to a dictatorial country. We are in the midst of shoving facts out of the public square, soapboxing only in support of our Dear Leader.

We elect leaders who shove everything legal out of the way to appease. The politics of shoving feels like the only language left that people understand.

Coincidentally, I just looked up at the television, and I’m watching New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer, a onetime boxer, beating the crap out of his opponents in his “boxing” ad that runs on a loop morning, noon, and night. Punch after punch after punch after punch until it’s beaten into your head.

The Macron shove may not have been born of anger, but it landed in a world full of it. And that’s why it struck a nerve. Because deep down, we all recognize the mood. Am I the only one feeling unusually aggravated, unstable, aggressive? I recently wrote about being more enraged than usual.

Maybe it’s time to step back, not forward with a clenched fist or an open hand, but backward with a little humility. The world seems to be on a collision course. And no amount of shrugging or smiling can soften the reality that we are shoving our way toward disaster. It’s more than playful bickering. These are knockout punches, and they are deadly serious.

Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.