I’ve been meaning to take a poke at Manly Man Josh Hawley’s attempt to open a new front in the culture war. The time is nigh:

“The left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues … as a danger to society. Can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?”

There’s an enclave of idleness? I bet that’s where the Impeached Insult Comedian can be found when he’s not golfing, chasing porn stars, or shooting off his mouth.

Ironies abound in this pro-manhood salvo fired by a preppie who attended Stanford and Harvard Law.  Hawley is not exactly the spitting image of “traditional masculine virtues.”

I bet Hawley thinks John Wayne was like the characters he played onscreen instead of a careerist who dodged the draft and was afraid of horses. I am not making this up, but Hawley makes up a lot of stuff. He only fights with his mouth.

Hawley’s discussion of manly manhood reminds me of a piece that Tom Nichols wrote for the Atlantic last year, Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly President:

But since his first day as a presidential candidate, I have been baffled by one mystery in particular: Why do working-class white men—the most reliable component of Donald Trump’s base—support someone who is, by their own standards, the least masculine man ever to hold the modern presidency? The question is not whether Trump fails to meet some archaic or idealized version of masculinity. The president’s inability to measure up to Marcus Aurelius or Omar Bradley is not the issue. Rather, the question is why so many of Trump’s working-class white male voters refuse to hold Trump to their own standards of masculinity—why they support a man who behaves more like a little boy.

I am a son of the working class, and I know these cultural standards. The men I grew up with think of themselves as pretty tough guys, and most of them are. They are not the products of elite universities and cosmopolitan living. These are men whose fathers and grandfathers came from a culture that looks down upon lying, cheating, and bragging, especially about sex or courage.

The answer is that the Republican brand in 2021 is hypocrisy. They claim to be conservatives yet support or minimize the Dipshit Insurrection, which was the worst attack on our constitutional republic in history. They claim to revere the military yet support a man who defames the honored dead as suckers and losers. They’re radicals, not conservatives.

As to Josh Hawley’s manly man shtick, like everything else in history, it’s nothing new. Remember the ridiculous men’s movement of the 1990’s? It led to dudes gathering around fire pits and beating drums like fake Native Americans. Oy, just oy.

Real men treat others with respect.

Real men believe women can do anything men can do; usually better.

Real men don’t parade around with guns.

Real men don’t lie or brag about sex or courage.

Trumpers like Josh Hawley and his ilk are little boys pretending to be manly men. They make me sick.

The last word goes to Todd Rundgren: