'Hectoring moralist' Josh Hawley demolished in scorching review

Sen. Josh Hawley's new book, "Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs," did nothing to impress one book reviewer who dismissed his arguments about the state of manhood in America with a dismissive, "Whatever."

In a review for the Guardian, Lloyd Green noted that the controversial Missouri Republican — most famous for his clenched-fist tribute to the Jan 6 insurrectionists — went out of his way to cherry-pick the philosophers he needed to make his point and the end result shows that he can best be described as "a neo-Confederate at war with modernity."

As the reviewer notes, Hawley selectively picked his targets and studiously avoided mentioning the toxicity of Donald Trump whose re-election he supports, with Green writing, "Hawley is a plutocrat-populist as well as a hectoring moralist," before adding, "For all his smut-bashing, the latest developments affecting Trump have left him profoundly unmoved."

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"He has nothing to say about Trump: the man who said, and has defended saying, 'When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p*ssy. You can do anything,'" Green elaborated. "Hawley blames 'Epicurean liberals' for the failures of American men. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity' is liberalism’s credo, he claims. Maybe yes, maybe no. Whatever."

"Hawley is also selective – surprise – about his philosophers. He is critical of Rousseau and Marx but delivers a bouquet to Burke. For what it’s worth, Burke cared about British plunder of India. These days, Hawley is at best agnostic about Ukraine,”Green continued. "He ignores Bentham and Mill, the intellectual fathers of 19th-century English liberalism and utilitarianism. It is as if – surprise! – Hawley wishes time and progress would stop."

Green went on to note that, after Jan 6, Hawley's book was dropped by his publisher he found a new home, with the reviewer adding, "Hawley got himself published anyway, by Regnery, a conservative imprint. He’s doing fine. He seems to believe, however, that he possesses a God-given right to be heard."

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