Big Mad

THE BIG MAD

A Man’s Word

Josh Hawley reveals his porn theory, Halloween fails to deliver and Parson loves some media

Compiled by DANIEL HILL

GOPORN: Looking grizzled, and if we’re being honest, a touch haunted by what he’s seen, Josh Hawley emerged from the killing fields of The Culture War to deliver a lesson on manhood. A man like Hawley is not here for your whining or to make excuses. But a man is also compassionate, and Hawley would like all of us to consider what feminism and plain old mean talk about men are doing to our 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?” asked Hawley, smelling faintly of Facebook napalm and smeared with the dust and grime of a social media firefight as he spoke on Sunday at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando. No, sir, we cannot. Some of those beta males out there will not understand the senator’s message. They’re too far removed from the days when combat, patriotism, giant teeth and anchorman hair were the masculine ideals. “The Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage and independence and assertiveness — as a danger to society,” said Hawley, delivering a hard truth with the 1,000-yard stare of a man who has seen the carnage of cancel culture up close. (Do they even give Purple Hearts for Twitter burns? Ask yourself that, America.) Toxic masculinity? Is it toxic to promote racism through thinly veiled speeches about “traditional values”? Is it toxic to encourage mobs of QAnon followers as they prepare to storm the U.S. Capitol? And is it toxic to use conspiracy theories to promote yourself at a cost to the country? As the man himself opines, “The last thing we need more of in this country is the victim mindset. And men who blame others for their problems and then slink away to do nothing, or worse, who embrace violence or cruelty, deserve rebuke.”

BAIT AND SWITCH: We’re always depressed after Halloween. All of the fun of picking out or designing a costume has passed and we have to go back to being ourselves. (Lame.) Then there’s the sugar crash. (Also lame.) But do you know what is actually the lamest? Once again, we carefully dug through our entire pile of candy and did not find one edible! What is this garbage in our candy buckets? Tootsie rolls? We were promised drugs! So many news stories warned us that our neighbors would definitely be taking a trip to the dispensary in October so they could fill our plastic pumpkins with highpriced marijuana edibles. But nope, just some stupid fun-size Heath bars hiding out at the bottom of the pile. Do we need to move? Are there neighborhoods in St. Louis known for giving away free edibles to hard-working journalists? We didn’t find any razor blades, either. How are we supposed to write stories based on good people giving good candy to good kids for free? What a rip-off. Maybe next year.

HUMBLE MANSIONS: Is it elitist not to be an absolute moron? We were confused on this point after listening to Missouri Times publisher and television host Scott Faughn coach Governor Mike Parson through an attack on journalism during a recent airing of his show, This Week in Politics. After commiserating about federal vaccine mandates during the interview in the governor’s mansion, the two moved on to Parson’s bad-faith claim that a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter “hacked” a state education website and “removed” teacher’s personal information. The governor and Faughn know that the reporter actually found a massive security flaw, confirmed it with experts and then, following best practices, informed Parson’s administration so that it could be fixed before publishing a story. Other experts across the country debunked any idea that it was somehow hacking. But this is how Faughn, who infamously delivered $120,000 to an attorney involved in taking out Parson’s predecessor and rival Eric Greitens, introduced the topic: “Governor, the state teacher’s database was hacked by a Post-Dispatch reporter.” Parson, nodding affirmatively to the false premise, went on to repeat his accusations, recasting a public service as a criminal act. Faughn then added, “It just feels like there’s a hint of elitism in some of this stuff. Maybe it’s because you’re not — what did they call Obama; was he a community organizer? Maybe it’s because you had a real job or something. It just feels a little hint in some of those high-falutin’ ivory towers in St. Louis, a hint of elitism about how they talk about this.” Parson agreed, “Yeah.” The governor of the state and the owner of multiple media operations then continued their conversation in a literal mansion. n