Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is an insurrectionist seeking to overturn American government and society in the name of white, patriarchal Christian theocracy. What the above picture shows is that Hawley supported the insurrectionists at the Trump rally on Jan. 6 while he was on his own way to the Capitol to vote against the legal transfer of power to Joe Biden. In December, Hawley indicated his commitment to U.S. regime change by responding to a question about the Jan. 6 Committee with a comment on the Committee’s work as “state propaganda” from an essentially illegitimate government. Still, there are some ways Hawley is different from other insurrectionists and right-wing subversives. Not unlike Nick Fuentes of the farther right, Sen. Hawley is honest about the minority status of conservatives in the U.S. characterizing conservatives as a “counter-culture” rather than following Trump in calling conservatives as “the people” in general. Where Trump and most of his supporters see MAGA as American society seeking to overcome the woke straightjacket being imposed by white liberals and minorities, Josh Hawley views himself as in opposition to “society.”
In his recent speech to Turning Point USA, Hawley indicated another barrier to re-establishing the white patriarchal regime he covets–the inadequacy of young conservative men. Hawley called for young men to “turn off the computer and log off the porn and go ask a real woman on a date. . . Young men. Why don’t you be the one to do the asking?” When he interviewed with Tucker Carlson about his speech, Hawley emphasized that “American society needs them. We need them to step up. We need them to get married and have children and be responsible husbands and fathers. This society is impoverished because too many young men are too despairing or too checked out on social media or porn to be doing what we need them to do as a country.” The “manosphere” of online male discourse on masculinity that can be found on dating sites where men engage in trolling women, PUA (Pick Up Artists), incel discourse, and misogynist celebrities like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate is intensely hostile to women and either opposed to heterosexual dating altogether or opposed to any kind of gender equality. When Hawley used the term “men,” he primarily meant white, conservative, evangelical men who participate in this kinds of anti-woman discourses. Conservative men either give up or turn against women for a variety of reasons but Hawley understands that patriarchy can’t be re-established in the United States if young white conservative men refuse the roles of husband, father, and social authority.
For Josh Hawley, the future of patriarchy depends on white conservative men being more interested in heterosexual dating.
Early Blackface, Cultural Change, Latest Politics 