Today’s most attention-grabbing headline — Republican Presidential Hopeful Soft-Launches 2024 Campaign on Premise That Men Are Masturbating Too Much. This is by Ben Mathis-Lilley at Slate, and the “hopeful” is Sen. Josh Hawley.
It turns out that Hawley’s premise is a big more nuanced than the headline suggests. Basically, Hawley thinks that American men are spending too much time watching video games and porn and not being real men. This is, of course, the fault of the Left.
Hawley’s premise is that by supporting free trade and transgender rights while condemning sexism and racism, Democrats have put white men out of work (corporate offshoring, outsourcing, etc.) while simultaneously telling them via cultural messaging that there’s nothing good about their identity. As Hawley put it then: “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?”
Putting aside that “free trade” is hardly a central cause of progressive Democrats — there’s the rhetoric, and then there’s the reality.
Is Hawley himself really concerned about this? Well, he recently voted against the just-passed (and actually bipartisan) infrastructure bill, whose purposes include the creation of manual labor jobs in the U.S. On the other hand, he supported Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for multinational corporations who create value for themselves by laying men (and other people) off, and he’s taken almost $300,000 in campaign donations over the course of his career from the Club for Growth, which is arguably the country’s most powerful advocate for free-trade, free-market policies that protect the interests of executives and shareholders vis-à-vis the workers who they supposedly leave behind with nothing to do but [redacted] themselves like [redacted] [redacted] Jeffrey Toobin. Hawley also doesn’t support unions or living-wage laws.
Pretty much the entire Republican Party, in microcosm. Now, why can’t Democrats get behind some consistent messaging that exposes this?
Consider Republican reaction to passage of the infrastructure bill. Remember when an infrastructure bill was something Trump promised and couldn’t deliver? Now infrastructure is bad. Paul Waldman:
As the week began, Democrats were celebrating final passage of a long-overdue infrastructure bill, which will address a range of pressing needs from lead water pipes to crumbling bridges to broadband deserts, while it will likely create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, Republicans were livid that a few of their representatives voted for the bill, and took their anger out on Big Bird.
Yes, Big Bird is a communist, according to loyal Republicans.
Meanwhile, Democrats are asking themselves whether their infrastructure bill can actually be turned into a political winner.
There are at least a few Republicans who worry that it might. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (who voted for the bill) is touting the good it might do for his home state of Kentucky; he clearly doesn’t want Democrats to get all the credit. But the more visible its effects are — and the more Republicans characterize it as a socialist boondoggle (or attack their own leadership because a few of their members in the House helped pass it) — the more Democrats will have an opportunity to use it as a case study in what Democratic governance actually does for people’s lives. Already, the White House is dispatching Cabinet secretaries and members of Congress across the country to promote the coming repairs and upgrades to roads, bridges and much more.
Josh Hawley wants you menfolk to stop watching porn and playing video games and provide for your families. But he’s not going to lift a finger to do that. If you want jobs, vote for Democrats.
Speaking of adult males who need some correction — Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona, tweeted an anime-style video that showed him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with swords. Gosar’s own sister was on MSNBC last night calling for somebody to do something about her horrible brother.
The sister suspects Gosar is suffering from some kind of neurodegenerative disease and is deteriorating. I think she’s probably right. Now House Democrats are reminding Kevin McCarthy that similar behavior would get one fired from any workplace in the country. Will anything be done? I’m not holding my breath.
How much is too much?
Just because (what a bad Joke) Hawley's been pleasuring himself while he's been reading his Reich-Wing press clippings since January 6th, and playing politics like he's not in the real world but some loony-tune video game, doesn't make him an expert on the subject of 21st Century American manhood.
Hawley is, though, an expert on screwing others – not sexually, but economically. People like his own constituents.
I haven't heard about Big Bird from the Fat Orange Turd yet, so I hope he can't contain himself, and opines on that subject soon. I mean, what else does that Orange Goodyear Simp have to do with his free time?
And let's not kid ourselves, kids, that's 24 X 7 X 365, and has been forever, because that gigantic slug in semi-human form and an XXXXXL fat man's suit has never really worked at anything but flapping his big fat mouth and gums.
It's a good thing for RepubliKKKlans that Alaska's a very conservative state, because it looks like that party's gonna need their own private Siberia in which to confine their ever-growing list of heretics.
"President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned House Republicans who are considering retaliation against the 13 members who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, speaking to the growing partisan divide in American politics.
"I've never seen it before. It's got to stop — for the sake of America," Biden said in a virtual town hall."
It's not just retaliation in going after committee assignments – MTG published their phone numbers (the 13 GOP memebers) and they are getting death threats even against family. You can play the 'dems in disarray' song until the needle wears the record out. (for those of you who remember vinyl.) But when we dems disagree, we don't call the mob to tear kids limb from limb. These people are sick, mentally and ethically. The closer they are to Trump, the sicker they are. Now, where did MTG learn that trick? Yep, Trump did it to Lindsey Graham.
We have to reach independent voters about what the moral breakdown really looks like. These aren't voters who like liberal policies, but they know Nazi when they see it. We have to make them see. The next two elections aren't 'normal.' We are fighting over what this country will be about.
Personally, I like the idea of a Constitutional Amendment to allow secession. If the country cut loose Texas and Florida, we'd own the House, Senate, WH and the USSC almost overnight. I'd have to move from FL to ??
Doug,
The mid-Hudson Valley in NY is beautiful.
A bit cold, but beautiful nonetheless!
Thanks.
Hawley is running for president. He's on track to win as his recent book lashes out at free trade and touts bringing jobs back home. Just a reminder, this is what the orange blob said that won him the nomination. The fact is, neo-liberalism is hated among Americans and any talk to get rid of it will win the hearts of many voters.
Hawley's comments about porn is just a test balloon. Over the next few months, he will toss out several other comments to to see what sticks. Will voters realize that it's all lies and Hawley is just using this rhetoric to win votes, and just like the previous fascist, won't do a damn thing about those hated policies? I doubt it.
Hopefully, the Democrats will rum on similar populist themes and sell themselves as the only people who will actually work to enacting them. Not sure if that will be Biden or not, but it would help if they could message that now.
Hawley doesn't scare me like this guy.
Special Session will address vaccine mandates, OSHA withdrawal (floridapolitics.com)
A series of bills address vaccine mandates, parental choice and Florida's jurisdiction over occupational health.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida legislative leaders early Monday outlined four pieces of legislation lawmakers will tackle during a Special Session scheduled to start next week.
The bills are aimed at thwarting vaccine mandates imposed by public and private employers — and which are being pursued by the President Joe Biden‘s administration.
“We’re going to strike a blow for freedom,” DeSantis said.
It’s not clear whether bills will address workers compensation issues or penalize private businesses that push vaccine mandates by eliminating COVID-19 liability protections, as the Governor has previously hinted at.
At press time the exact wording in the legislative proposals had not been released to the public. But according to information released by legislative leaders, Sens. Danny Burgess and Reps. Ralph Massullo and Erin Grall are sponsoring SB2 and HB 1B, respectively.
The bills prohibit employers from having a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for employees without providing staff with five options to opt-out of the vaccine mandate, including exceptions for pregnancies or expected pregnancies; religious reasons; or immunity based on prior COVID-19 infection as determined by a lab test. The bills also allow staff who are willing to undergo periodic testing (at the employer’s cost) and staff who are willing to wear personal protective equipment to opt-out of vaccines.
Rogue employers that fire staff for refusing to get vaccinated could face fines of up to $50,000, or they could avoid the fines by reinstating the fired employees. The Florida Department of Health, meanwhile, is empowered to levy upward of $5,000 in fines against public employers who violate the law.
The bill also gives parents the right to sue to stop the mandate and can recover their attorney fees and court costs to help ensure the above provisions regarding their children are not violated.
The bills also amend a law the Legislature passed earlier this Session called the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” and would also amend statutes to prohibit municipalities from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment. Moreover, the bills also amend the 2021 law to codify an emergency rule passed by the DeSantis administration that gives parents the right to decide whether their children wear masks at school.
Meanwhile SB 4B and HB 3B, sponsored by Burgess, Massullo and Grall, provides a public records exemption for workers’ medical information or information regarding an employee’s religious beliefs in case there is an investigation into whether an employer is violating the law.
Sen.Travis Hutson and Rep. Ardian Zika are sponsoring SB 6B and HB 5B, respectively, which lay the groundwork for the state to withdraw from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and assert state jurisdiction over occupational safety and health issues.
Lastly Sen. Aaron Bean and Rep. Alex Andrade are sponsoring SB 8B and HB 7B, respectively, which deletes a provision from Florida law that enables the state health officer to mandate vaccinations during a public health emergency.
We will be at the end of the second week of November before there is even a chance of a hard freeze. Locally this story should be front page news. It has real consequences for the people here and evidences the effects of climate change. Why is it not the talk of the town? Could it be that such a message is not the one Republicans want to be the talk of the town?
Diversion and message control seem the Republican stock in trade. Dominate the media with selected stories that work in their favor is to be expected, and we are forced into a constant game of whack-a-mole. In the interim we cannot make progress on real problems which are imminent as they clutter the media with nonsense.