The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Josh Hawley Breaks Down Why Ideological Left Targets Masculinity

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Sen. Josh Hawley believes that masculine, strong, virtuous men are needed more than ever in today’s society. That’s part of the reason that the Missouri Republican wrote his new book, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” the senator said in an interview with The Daily Signal.  “The masculine virtues are the virtues of a husband and a father, of a warrior and a builder, of a priest and a king,” Hawley explained, citing the chapters included in his book. “I really wrote the book for my boys. I’ve got two little boys at home, who are 10 and 8. I say ‘little’; I mean, they’re getting older now, but they’re 10 and 8. And I’ve got a baby girl.”  The premise is simple, the senator said: “America needs strong men. It needs good men, and we should call men to be those things.”  Corporate media, the entertainment industry, and leftist ideologues are all pushing the same message to young men, Hawley said—namely, that if you are a man, you are “toxic.” “To be a man is to somehow, in and of itself, to contribute to the systemic injustice of America, so-called,” he said. “And I think this message is relentlessly driven at men today.” Colorado Wants to Force Her To Create LGBTQ Wedding Websites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfk1q-EXNDE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America needs strong men, it needs good men, and we should call men to be those things. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, May 19th. I'm Mary Margaret O'Lahan, and that was Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. We'll discuss his new book, Manhood, His thoughts on the masculinity crisis, fatherhood, social media, raising children, and more. We'll get to my conversation with Senator Hawley right after this. Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101.

It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown of top cases in the highest court in the land. Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia. Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head toheritage.org slash podcasts. Here with me today is Senator Josh Hawley to discuss his new book. Senator Hawley, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me.

So tell us about your new book, Manhood, the masculine virtues every American needs. What are these masculine virtues? Well, the masculine virtues are the virtues of a husband and a father of a warrior and a builder of a priest and a king. So there we go. I remember them. I remember my chapter titles. I really wrote the book for my boys. I've got two little boys at home who are 10 and 8.

I say little. I mean, they're getting older now. But they're 10 and 8, and then I've got a baby girl. But the book really started as me as a father thinking about my boys and about my obligation as a father to help them become all that they're meant to be and to be good, strong men. And the premise of the book is really simple. It's that America needs strong men. It needs good men. And we should call men to be those things.

That's awesome. And I think we know that many men are struggling nowadays, whether it's from a lack of a role model or lack of a job. there's all these things that men, challenges that men are facing. What are some of the biggest hurdles that you're worried about for your sons? Well, I mean, I think for my kids, I just think about the message that they receive and that all young men receive from the corporate media, from the entertainment industry, all driven by the left. And that message is that if you are a man, you are toxic. You know, to be a man as to somehow in and of itself to contribute to the systemic injustice of America, so called. And I think this message is relentlessly driven at men to.

today. You hear it from the time they're in school and kindergarten. You know, I mean, the data shows that little boys, their play is interrupted many times more frequently, as early as kindergarten than girls. Of course, they are way overprescribed in terms of just the data, ADD, drugs, ADHD. So you see this drive to sort of eradicate boyishness from boys. And lots of scholars and researchers have written about this. It's part of this overarching philosophy that, again, there's something wrong with being a man. And I worry about that for my own kids. and I want the message that they hear and that all men here in this country, but especially young men, to be that, listen, it's good to be a man. We need you to be a strong man. We need

you to take responsibility. We need you to be a provider and a protector. We need you to live sacrificially. By doing those things, you can change the destiny of your life. You can change the destiny of your family. And you can change the destiny of this nation. And that's what we need. And why is masculinity so targeted? Well, I think it's the last. left's ideology. It's really their Marxism, to be honest with you. It's this cultural Marxism that really gained ground on the left in the 1960s and now has come to basically control the Democrat Party. This Marxism, it does not like the biblical influence in our culture, does not like the biblical influence in our history, and it does not like the categories of gender, man and woman.

Anything that's permanent, anything that has some connection to eternity, it wants to overturn. And you can see this in the war on women that parallels the war on men. These are the same people who say biological men should be in women's sports, that biological men should be in girls' locker rooms. I mean, this is crazy stuff. So at the same time that they're saying to men, you're toxic. They're saying to women, you don't exist. It's part of the same ideology, I think.

And so the antidote to that is to recover a healthy vision of manhood and womanhood too. Somebody else can write that book. That would not be me. but manhood in my case and to say, no, actually men are really needed. And there's nothing wrong with being a strong man. We need strong men. We need a vision for what that looks like. What role do you think women play in helping men recover this kind of lost masculinity?

Well, I think women are key. I mean, my wife and I've talked about this a lot. I mean, for a lot of guys, I mean, to be perfectly honest, having the approval and winning ultimately the acceptance of a woman, you know, to become his wife is a key motivator in his life. right? And you see a lot of men begin to grow up when they get married or want to get married. Now, one of the problems that we see today is fewer men are getting married and men are delaying marriage. And so you have like this extended adolescence that now reaches into the 30s in many cases where you've got guys who, you know, again, the culture says to them, don't make any commitments, keep all your options open, you know, spend as much time as possible on a screen.

I think we need to send the exact opposite message, which is, no, no, no, actually learn how to commit and to follow through on your commitments. It's as for the screens, like turn them off. You know, turn off your screen, get out of your basement, go meet a real person, go meet a real woman, take her out on a date, you know, get married to have a family. These are good things. We should encourage men to be doing those. But, you know, strong women, I'll just quote my wife. My wife likes to say, strong women want a strong man because, you know, women aren't stupid. They don't want to marry somebody who's going to contribute nothing to the marriage, right?

I mean, they don't want another child. I mean, you tell me if I'm wrong. but this is what I'm told. And this is what the data reflects, right? More and more women say, gosh, there aren't men out there who are marriageable because fewer men are getting a good job. Fewer men are getting an education that will allow them to get a job. Fewer men are holding down long-term work. You know, so I think having a strong man, having a strong woman, those things work together. And what role would you say that pornography and video games are playing in the current modern masculinity crisis? You know, it's interesting.

One of the few things that the modern left approves of that men do in large quantities is sit in front of screens these days. And the left's message to men on that score is, oh, yeah, do that more. So absolutely, be a consumer, you know, sit in front of the screen, entertain yourself. I mean, really, I think the modern left's vision of manhood and womanhood actually is androgynous consumerism. You know, it's like buy as much stuff as you possibly can, preferably cheap stuff from China, sit there, be entertained on the screen,

and let us run the country. You know, that's what the left says to men and to America. And I think that, you know, again, we need to send men the opposite message, which is, listen, you need to turn off the screen. I mean, and particularly when it comes to pornography, the left melts down every time you even mention the word. They are so attached to the idea of this.

But the truth is, you can look at the data. And what the data shows is, the porn epidemic in this country has led to men delaying marriage delaying family formation, delaying commitment. Those are all bad things for the country. And that's not good. I mean, let's just be honest, we need men to take on commitments, to work more, and to get married and have kids.

And I think we shouldn't be shy about saying that. So, you know, to my lefty friends who lose their minds every time you talk about marriage and kids and family, like, sorry, but that's the truth. So no porn, get married and have kids. I mean, that's a pretty good formula. Now, how far do you think we should go when it comes to pornography? There's been a couple states recently that have taken measures to, I think, put in age verification guidelines and things like that to make sure that kids aren't accessing porn. What kind of measures would you support?

Well, I mean, that's a good idea. I'm for age verification, actually, for all social media. And I think we ought to set it at least at 16. I mean, so I think if you did that, that would be a tremendous help. I say this as a parent. You know, I don't, my kids aren't on social media currently. I just, I'm trying to push that back as long as I can, hopefully, permanently. But sooner or later, they get to make their own decisions about this stuff.

But listen, I think that whether we're talking about porn, whether we're talking about Instagram, whether we're talking about, I mean, you know, the dad, those are different things to be clear. But the data is clear that screen time in general is bad in large quantities. And particularly for young people, for preteens and teens, it is a huge driver of mental health issues, feelings of depression, risk of suicide, drug abuse even. and the social media companies have done their own studies on this. So, you know, I think we should do an age threshold nationally for all social media. I mean, let's do it across the board.

Let's start there. I think when it comes to the porn industry, the other thing I think we ought to do that, frankly, I can't imagine anybody not supporting is we had to get people the right to sue the porn industry. For those who've been victimized by it, for those particularly who have been, they've had their own images used in it, either through deep fakes, or they were filmed without their consent, or they were lied to about what kind of a film that's going to be, whatever, fill in the blank.

Let those people sue to hold these companies accountable. I can tell you what these companies fear, and I'm not just talking to porn companies, but all of these social media companies, all these media companies, what they really fear is being held accountable in court. They do not want that. So I think let's open it up.

Let's let people get into court and sue for the harms that they are suffering because of these platforms. And I think you'd see a lot of changes in behavior. That's really interesting. And I think it's worth pointing out that it does cross over a little bit into social media too, where there's a ton of pornography on Instagram and on Twitter. And that kind of leads me to my next question is,

do you and Mrs. Holly have different parameters in place for your kids? I know they're little, but to protect them from stuff like this. Yeah, our parameter right now is no screens. We just, they're 10 and 8, and then our baby girl is too. And my kids don't have phones, they don't have tablets. We do allow them to watch TV, but my wife is a, She's awesome at this. Like she pre-screens what they watch on TV.

And she, we, although she's the one who really is the enforcer on this. She limits the hours. You know, so they get a certain amount of time in a week, basically. And she chooses the shows. I mean, there's no just, oh, sure, go down and here's the remote. And they spend no time on social media zero. So, no, I know as they get older, there's going to come a time when they will probably need a phone. Hopefully no time soon.

But realistically, I know that time will come. And then, yeah, then we'll have to think about what kind of software do we put into place. But, you know, I often hear it said by folks, you know, on left and right, they, well, this is really on the parents. You know, we don't need all this. We don't need age verification. And we don't need any curbs on social media because it's just a good parent would be able to stop all this. I mean, I just tell you, I think that's totally unrealistic. I mean, good.

It is hard to be a parent in this environment. My kids already, my 10-year-old knows more about my phone than I do. I mean, really, it's very sobering. I don't think of myself as a stupid person, but he knows more than I do. And I just think parents, to say to them, like, it's just all on you. So you've got a 15-year-old, and you're saying that if they encounter a predator online, that's the parents' fault? No, I don't think so. I think the platforms have responsibility here.

I think we need to give tools to parents. And that's why stuff like age verification, and frankly, the ability to get in court and sue if you've been harmed. That's why those are really important in my view. And the odds are kind of stacked against parents right now in general. If you put your kids in school, then their friends all probably have phones too. If you go to a sleepover, you might be exposed to that kind of thing there. You've got teachers in schools teaching gender ideology. Yes.

What role do you think faith plays in all of this? Oh, I mean, I think faith is so foundational. And, you know, in the book, I talk a lot about faith, in order to recover some good role models, examples of what it means to be a good strong man. I look a lot at the Bible and take stories from the Bible, you know, let's talk about Abraham, let's talk about David, talking about Solomon, and look at, you know, the mistakes they made, the things they got right, and then what we can learn from them, what virtues we can learn from them. So, you know, I think that that is absolutely critical. And you also pulled from some Greek and Roman influences, right?

Yes, yes, yeah, absolutely, and American history. And, you know, I just think that at this moment in our culture, in our country, history, giving young men in particular some examples of what it looks like. You've got the culture constantly saying, to be a man is to be toxic and constantly holding up in popular entertainment all of these distorted views of manhood, you know, men who are passive, men who are weak, men, either that or they're extremely violent, right? But usually violent in a totally irresponsible way. So it's another form of kind of weakness, actually. So against all that, I think the critical thing right now is let's tell some stories and find some examples of men who are strong.

and good and sacrificial and frankly who changed the world. And so I look at our history. I look at the Bible. I tell stories from people in my own life who had significant influence on me. My coaches, my grandfather looms really large in the book just because he was such, he was a farmer. And he had such a profound influence on me. And speaking of the distorted images of manhood, I was curious if you're familiar with Andrew Tate. Yes. Yes. I wanted to get your take on this fascination with Andrew Tate by young men these days. Yeah, I write about this in the book a little bit. I just think that Andrew Tate, the Andrew Tate phenomenon to me,

represents people buying into the left lies about manhood and reacting, but on the left's terms. And here's what I mean by that. So the left says, okay, yeah, manhood is inherently toxic. I think there's a group of people, and Andrew Tate maybe sort of symbolizes this, who basically agree with that. So, yeah, that's right. Manhood is toxic, and that's great, you know,

and we'll be toxic and violent and aggressive and absolutely. you know, yes to all those things. And I think actually the problem with that is you bought into the left slide. It's not true that to be strong is to be toxic. Not true. It's not true that to be strong is to be violent. Now, listen, sometimes violence is needed, you know? I mean, we need men who are capable of defending and protecting.

That's why, you know, cops sometimes, soldiers, you know, they've got to commit violence in certain circumstances. So sometimes, sometimes that's necessary. but this glorification of violence in general and sort of male toxicity is it's like, yeah, that's exactly what it means to be a man. I think that, again, I think that buys into the left's lie. And what we've got to do instead is put forward a vision of, no, what's it look like to be a strong man, but a good man? And really at the end of the day, my view is that the journey to manhood, which is one every man goes on his whole life, is really a journey of character. It's really a journey of shaping your soul and shaping your character and growing into what God calls

to be. So it seems like you kind of have to have this desire to be a dignified, virtuous man that strives for excellence. Yeah, I think so. This goes back to your question about faith. I mean, what role does faith play? I think it's foundational. I mean, one of the things that the left does now that they're adamant about is they're very anti-faith. I mean, the modern left is basically atheistic. And this is one of the reasons why they want to eradicate the biblical influence from our culture and our history. You know, you see so much the effort to basically wipe away any kind of faith influence from our history. You can't tell the story of America without telling the story of faith. I mean, sorry, it just is, it's not possible. And I think that you see this, this atheism,

you see throughout the left side ideology. And you want to talk about something that's toxic, that's toxic. It's really, really toxic. For young people, especially to say, there's no meaning in life, there's no purpose. All there is is whatever you entertain yourself with, you know, so keep yourself entertained because you're not going to find anything else to do with your life. Boy, that is toxic. That's how we end up with the rates of depression and mental health that we see now. Now, when I was prepping for this interview, I kept coming back to Jordan Neely and the young man who's a Marine, he's 24, and he is now being charged with manslaughter charges in the death of Jordan Neely. I'd love to get your take on that situation, but also, you know, how is this situation

and other ones like this going to impact how young men today and our culture look at heroism and it's taking a stand for others. Yeah, I think that this is a good example of the extremely confusing signals that the culture and the media and the left send to young men, which is that you don't hear much outrage on the left, if there is, I haven't heard it, about the fact that New York subways and streets are extremely unsafe. and that if you are an everyday citizen walking or traveling, you may well be subject to violence.

Like that's just wiped away, right? We just, we're supposed to just live with that. But then you've got a guy who actually puts himself in danger to try to help other people. And I think you've got a subway passenger now saying, like, he saved my life. I mean, he put himself in danger. That is automatically condemned before we even know all the facts.

It's like, oh, that must be wrong. That must be crazy. So I think if you're a young man, it's like, well, now, hold on. I thought that a man was supposed to be willing to put himself on the line. Isn't that what we celebrate in the greatest generation, for example, whole generation of men, young men, who went out there and sacrificed for their country? But you're telling me now if I do that, I'm going to be vilified, sued, charged, you know, what have you? And listen, I don't know all the, we'll learn, I guess, and this the criminal justice system plays out here about all the facts,

not to prejudge it, but just based on what we do know, it sure looks like the guy who wanted to do good and wanted to protect others is being, immediately condemned while the criminality or potential criminality of, you know, the aggressor here is just sort of being overlooked. So I think that for men, this is in young men especially, you can see why it sort of pushes them sort of into neutral, so to speak. It gets them out of gear and into neutral where it's like, well, if I try to do something with my life, if I'm ambitious in terms of wanting to actually achieve something, if I put myself out there, I'm going to be told I'm toxic, I'm going to be told that I'm making the world worse. I'm going to be vilified. If I want to be heroic, I'm going to be told, no, don't do that. On the other hand,

if you do nothing, if you sit around in your parents' basement and look at a screen all day, you feel terrible about yourself. And this is what we're seeing in men today. I mean, this is why so many young men especially say they lack of purpose. They feel depressed. They feel a lot. I mean, yeah, of course, no doubt, you know. So this is the cultural dysfunction that the left ideology has led us to, I believe. And the antidote to that is a better vision. It's a better message. Just to say, no, we want you to be a hero. We want you to sacrifice yourself. We want you to put yourself on the line. We want you to try and serve others. Like, that's what you should do as a man. You should try to take on the roles of father and husband and warrior. Those are good things. And we should

encourage our young men to do that. Well, we hope more men will hear your message. And thank you so much for joining us and sharing this with us. Thank you for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to my interview with Senator Josh Hawley. Make sure you subscribe to The Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts. And help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback.

Thanks again for listening. Have a great Friday. And we'll be back with you all this afternoon for top news. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.