Josh Hawley’s book/polemic on the trials and tribulations of American men also gives us a window into the dark worldview that informs his politics– so unfortunately, we needed to see what all he’s saying. We decided to do an informal book club to discuss the horrors within, and we invited the only person whose opining on masculinity we actually want: Jonathan Van Ness.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Show Intro Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. It’s an old joke, but when an argued man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they’re going to have the last word. She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

 

Kate Shaw Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We are your hosts. I’m Kate Shaw.

 

Leah Litman I’m Leah Litman.

 

Melissa Murray And I’m Melissa Murray. And listeners, prepare yourselves, because this is a very, very special episode. We have such a treat in store for you. I almost cannot contain myself. I am, I know I have no words. So Leah, go tell them what the treat is.

 

Leah Litman So we had such a wonderful time with amicus of the pod, Jonathan Van Ness. We knew we needed to have them back on, and we think we found the perfect occasion to do so.

 

Melissa Murray A-plus occasion. A-plus occasion.

 

Leah Litman A-plus. Well, if we’re greeting the occasion, I might give it an F, but I’m hoping it will generate an A-plus experience for our listeners. So regular listeners of the show know that we stay up on the goings on of the sprinter who moonlights as a senator, Josh Hawley, who, in between some long runs and light jogs, manages to find time to conduct rather unhinged questioning of various judicial nominees on the Senate Judiciary Committee and some light insurrection encouragement to boot.

 

Melissa Murray So, listeners, if you are not familiar with Josh Hawley, we might run a few clips so you get an idea of who this person is. So here’s a clip of Josh Hawley at the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation.

 

Clip You had an 18 year old who possessed and distributed hundreds of images of eight year olds and nine year olds and ten year olds, and you gave him, frankly, a slap on the wrist sentence of three months, Senator, I regret it. I don’t remember whether it was, distribution or possession. It was. Do you regret it? In in the law, there are different, crimes that people committ in this area. You gave him three months. My question is, do you regret it or not, Senator? What I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court. We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences, and I’ve tried to explain. You regret that we’re focusing on your cases? I don’t understand. No, no, no, I’m talking about the fact that you’re talking about. Child pornography cases. Very serious cases. I’m glad we agree on that. Don’t you? Some, some some of which, some of which involve conduct that I sentenced people to 25, 30 years, three months in this case. Judge. Do you regret it? You haven’t answered my question yet to read the sentence. Senator, I would have to look at the circumstances. Senator, I’ve answered this question many times from many senators who’ve asked me, so I’ll stand on what I’ve already said. So you have nothing to add about about why these crimes, why these images, in your view, do not signal an especially heinous or egregious child pornography offense that Hawkins you say. And Cooper, I understand the government’s argument, but I don’t find them persuasive. The fact that there were prepubescent children, from the standpoint of characterizing this as an especially egregious child pornography offense. That’s page 58. Senator, I’ve answered this question. I’ve explained how the guidelines work, and I’ll stand on my end. But the guidelines are not mandatory. I wish they were, but they’re not. The Supreme Court made that determination. I’m trying to understand why you think it’s rational not to sentence criminals based on the number of images they have. You say that this is a policy disagreement that you have with the guidelines. This gets to the core of your judicial philosophy.

 

Melissa Murray Yes. That’s Josh Hawley introducing pornography into a Senate confirmation. All very, very normal. Equally normal has been Josh Hawley’s Islamophobic ask line of questioning at the hearing for Third Circuit nominee Adeel Manji. Adeel Manji has still not been confirmed by the Senate, and has actually lost the support of Democratic senators because of this line of questioning that is tried to link Adeel Manji to terrorism. That’s not the greatest hit, though. On the Josh Hawley parade of horribles at number one with a bullet is Josh Hawley, who has maintained that Naomi Rao of the DC circuit is simply not socially conservative enough to be on Trump’s Scotus short list query. Who would fit the bill for one Josh Hawley, if not Naomi Rao? It truly boggles the mind. So all to say, we occasionally habitually mock Josh Hawley and call out his actually disgustingly gross behavior. And we don’t do this because it sparks joy for us. We do it because Josh Hawley is actually among the authoritarianism forward. Gilead curious entrepreneurs in the federal government. So knowing what he is up to and what he is working toward is vitally important.

 

Kate Shaw And because it is so important, we, the three of us, as an act of service and of love for our listeners, not for Josh Hawley, held our collective noses and read his book Slash Polemic, which is titled, I’m going to try to say it with straight face, manhood, colon, the masculine Virtues America needs. So we read the book and we reviewed it for the Michigan Law Review’s upcoming book review issue, so it’ll be available for your reading or hate reading pleasure shortly. And more broadly, you know, we’ve talked on the show about how various political officials, with the cooperation of the courts, are engaged in an effort to restore traditional sex roles and claw back advances that women and LGBTQ people have made. And this book really lays all of that the entire agenda out, right? It says the quiet part out loud. And so we thought it was important to give both readers and listeners a glimpse of the worldview that animates Hawley’s book. But he is openly trumpeting because he thinks it is a path to political power. And we wanted to suggest that this worldview is very similar to the worldview driving the conservative majority on Scotus.

 

Leah Litman Or we should say Bro-dus.

 

Melissa Murray Or Scrotus.

 

Leah Litman As the case may be. And as we noted at the top, we are joined by Jonathan Van Ness ,JVN, who will help break down Josh Hawley’s conceptions of manhood and masculinity, read them for filth, and as importantly, help us have a good time doing so. So welcome to the show, Jonathan.

 

Jonathan Van Ness You guys, I’m so happy to be back. I miss you all the time. You are my Roman Empire podcast, except for I listen to you and think of you all the time. I think you’re doing such important work and, wow, that book is. All right. I mean, my eye just started twitching involuntarily, interestingly, on my right side, which, according to eastern medicine, is my sun’s side, which is your masculine side. So my right side, my sun’s side is literally rebelling at this very thought of this book. But I’m really proud of you guys for reading it. And let’s get into the horrors. And also, Melissa, your ability to assign pop culture references to such dark, conservative activism is equally as amazing and, like, inspiring as it also is scary because it almost makes it sound like I’m like Gilead curious yassss, but then I’m like, wait, no. Focus. This is serious.

 

Melissa Murray No, you don’t want to be Gilead curious. You don’t want to be Gilead curious.

 

Jonathan Van Ness No. No.

 

Melissa Murray No, I mean, but but again the gist of the book is a little Gilead curious. So I’ll just give you a brief description, listeners, because. We read this so you don’t have to. Basically, the gist of the book is that American men are really taking it on the chin, which is to say that men are the victims of a society with its woke laws and policies that are trying to rectify the historic discrimination that women and girls have suffered in this society. And to be very clear, Josh Hawley isn’t wrong about some of this. There’s considerable social science and empirical evidence that backs up his claim, at least when we’re talking about boys and men who are not in the highest income brackets and socioeconomic status. So there is just a lot of research about men falling behind in terms of higher education, especially among the middle and working class, not so much among the upper classes, who tend to be the leaders of society. But in any event, scholars and policymakers have all talked about the range of factors that contribute to the gender gap in higher education, the gender gap in employment. Then they have real, actual, factual, empirical support for what is driving this. Josh Hawley wants to talk about this, but again, he doesn’t really want to talk about it with any rigor. So by contrast, Josh Hawley’s description of this problem is that it is animated almost entirely by what Hawley calls Epicureanism, which is a code word for liberalism or progressivism. And he says, quote, men have been told this nonsense for decades now by the press and the politicians. The nonsense is apparently equality and equal rights for women in these circumstances. Under the influence of this creed, the creed is the equal protection clause. Is it any wonder that so many men now feel adrift, bereft and, yes, ashamed to be men? Question mark. That’s on page nine. And under that label of Epicureanism, or liberalism, Josh Hawley lumps a lot of different things. So there is the left’s denigration of men, the left’s insistence on self-care. Also, screen time, including video games, porn consumption, which, as I said earlier, Josh Hawley is very preoccupied with declining marriage rates are another symptom of Epicureanism delaying or abstaining from parenthood. Ladies, another sign of Epicureanism. And, of course, the zero tolerance policy found in many schools alongside the childhood diagnoses of ADHD and ADHD. All of this is the work of the liberal left, and all of it is a concerted campaign to stick it to men.

 

Kate Shaw And as Melissa was just alluding to, there are scholars and policy makers who have basically said there is a kernel of truth to what Hawley is saying, which is that American men are falling behind in all kinds of ways. But Hawley, of course, wants to lay the blame at the feet of women and progressives. And what folks who’ve actually studied this phenomenon have come up with is, you know, there are lots of different potential causes and interventions that might be appropriate to actually address the plight of American boys and men. But what Hawley thinks is that what we need to do is read the Bible and read it in a highly selective way, which I suppose is not surprising given the proclivities of the current conservative Supreme Court justices for highly selective reading of all kinds of texts. Here, let me just read a couple of quotes from Hawley’s invocation of the Bible. So Abraham was tempted to abandon the promise of his marriage and seek for solace elsewhere. He gave in for a time to his doubt and despair. And yet Abraham did not give up, not ultimately. He found his nerve. He pressed on. He honored Sarah, returned to his covenant. He waited for her child as his heir. And in time God rewarded him and Sarah with a son. Narrator. Voice. Melissa. What did what’s omitted from that version of the of the narrative that Hawley offers before.

 

Melissa Murray Abraham begat a post-menopausal baby on Sarah. He first had a whole ass kid with a servant girl named Hagar. And we might question Hagar’s ability, as said servant girl, to consent, but again, totally selective. The Clarence Thomas School of Bible reading.

 

Leah Litman Well, that passage has been read out of the Bible, much like we have read out the Establishment Clause from the Constitution, and other provisions as well.

 

Leah Litman [AD] Hawley invokes the Bible in part because he thinks that the solution to all of our problems is that American men need to live their lives according to five biblical archetypes, which we are going to talk about now. So I’m actually going to lump two of the archetypes together, because Hawley kind of does so as well. And that is the archetype of the father and the archetype of the husband.

 

Melissa Murray Okay. First, we are given what do you think about this? Like all the things that are befalling American society and American men?

 

Leah Litman Is it because of self-care? Is it because of self-care?

 

Melissa Murray It’s because someone put a mask on and, like, took care of themselves, took a nap.

 

Jonathan Van Ness I thought what was so interesting when I was reading all of my like, highlighted portions from the book, is how so many conservative policies are at the heart of what he thinks the problems are like the crisis of fatherlessness. Like if you look at family separation, which is like really mass incarceration and the way that we have like, can. And when you think about mass incarceration, it does affect people who have less income. Majority Bipoc people, I mean, but there’s just a lot of overlap that he refuses to see the nuance on. And I just keep thinking like the real enemy of conservativism is nuance. Like even when he’s talking about like, you know, they can’t even say what a woman is or they can’t even say what a man is, which are so much transphobia like all throughout this, like the refusal to see the difference between, like, biology and then like the expression of gender, like biological sex and gender, there’s a refusal to see that, a refusal to understand that. And just like this, when you look at what he’s talking about and where it comes to. Do you guys know about Sabrina strings, doctor? Sabrina strings. She’s major. She’s like one of my faves.

 

Leah Litman No. Enlighten us.

 

Jonathan Van Ness She just wrote this book on, like, The Death of Romance. I had her on getting curious and it kind of is talking about this from, like, the female’s POV, but on romance. But because anything is everything, so much of what you know, women are dealing with is all of this stuff that Josh Hawley, this these, policies are making things so much harder for women, and it’s making it harder for romance and connection and families of any type. But it’s just so interesting the ways that everyone are going about trying to approach this in such different ways, and such scary ways.

 

Clip Yeah.

 

Jonathan Van Ness We’re all so scared of each other, but we should be scared of him because, Jesus.

 

Leah Litman We should be scared of him. But it’s such a great point that many of the contributing factors that he identifies for the decline of men are, in fact, attributable to conservative, Republican supported policies. So, he noted, delaying or abstaining from parenthood. Well, who the fuck opposes parental leave and family leave? Newsflash, right. It’s not the Democrats or the zero tolerance policy is found in many schools who is all about right, like calling the police and having these, you know, disciplinary policies that are overwhelmingly affecting children of color. Again, like, it’s not primarily Democrats and progressives.

 

Kate Shaw And not just leave. Right. But funding for, you know, postpartum care and, you know, Medicaid expansion and other state programs that provide people who have just given birth and babies and kids access to basic fucking subsistence, like all of the most conservative states in terms of their governance, are the worst in terms of those.

 

Leah Litman Policies, like people.

 

Melissa Murray Plan their families and abstain or defer parenthood so they can afford it. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Van Ness And also like thinking about Sonia Parsi, who’s like the founder of free From, which is this organization that is like experts on intimate partner violence, because so much of this really goes to intimate partner violence, and we don’t even call it intimate partner violence. But the policies that Republicans refuse to, like, enforce when it comes to like the ability to prosecute intimate partner violence, like protect people who are in abusive relationships. And then the way that like, pregnancy can play into that. It’s so messed up. And then we’re like scapegoating trans people and all of these other people when really these policies are making it so much more dangerous for women, gender, queer people, anyone who doesn’t make a lot of money, it’s just making it worse for everyone we loathe.

 

Leah Litman So to this kind of vision for America that Hawley and treats men to follow, is to live according to these biblical archetypes. As I was noting, one is the father and one is the husband. And Hawley just proclaims, and this is a quote, the mission of manhood is bound up with fathering, and at the same time, right. He says, you know, marriage is where, quote, A man learns to open his life to another and bind his fate to hers. Right. And quote, so defining marriage as between a man and a woman and the idea again, that all of these problems would be fixed if. Men just have children is wild because it seems to depict and just expect that women are going to be these vessels for men’s redemption. Like they just need to bear children so men can be good. It’s.

 

Melissa Murray It’s almost like women should not wear sexy clothing so men won’t rape them or sexually assault them. Same. Same energy. Yeah.

 

Leah Litman Very similar.

 

Jonathan Van Ness You guys, it’s so hard. Like when I read the quotes, like my. I noticed my, like, toes curling and my, like, fingers curling, and it’s like, almost. I’m like, it’s like it’s almost like, looks like it’s so hard.

 

Melissa Murray Like to read this.

 

Leah Litman Book because I read this.

 

Melissa Murray Book and I was just like, Jesus. I mean, just like like the selective reading of the Bible, the fact of these archetypes, the I mean, this is a man with a family, and we hear very little about his wife, who is a Supreme Court advocate trying to keep medication, abortion, access off the table for people around the country. And he has a daughter. We never even hear about the daughter. Like women are completely erased from this book. I mean, it is about manhood. I guess that’s par for the course.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Well, like I noticed in some of my advocacy work in Texas that like a lot of people who worked in, like in the Democratic Party would like, observe from their colleagues on the right that, like they would say off the record that they didn’t even believe any of this, but they knew that if they could like, speak about like link, like their like religiousness to policy as much as possible that that would help them. But behind closed doors, like they don’t believe any of this. But his book is so convincing that he drinks the Kool-Aid that I’m like, maybe he really does actually believe. I can’t tell with him because he’s really committed to that and he’s not really I curious. He’s like full hardcore that he puts the G in Gilliard or what?

 

Melissa Murray It’s hard to tell whether this is complete opportunism, like he’s doing this instrumentally because he thinks it’ll be politically palatable to a certain group of people that he imagines will continue bolstering him and pushing him forward and advancing him in the political spectrum. But I will say, to the extent he is drinking the kool aid, other people are drinking the kool aid, too, because, as Leah suggests, there is a lot of this sort of archetype laced logic and language. In many of the cases the Supreme Court is spitting out under this new conservative 6 to 3 supermajority. So the emphasis on husbands and fathers and a man’s mission to be a father works right in line with Dobbs with, you know, and women must be mothers and 303 creative the case that basically said that gay civil rights have to yield to free speech, masterpiece cakeshop Fulton versus City of Philadelphia. All of these cases where we’re, you know, sort of talking about heterosexual marriage and the opportunity for those who are religious believers to abstain from a vision of marriage that might be more expansive than heterosexual marriage. So, I mean, all of that is very much in keeping with the court’s jurisprudence. And I wanted to call attention to two other archetypes, that Hawley spends a lot of time on. One of them is the archetype of the quote unquote priest. And Hawley is very clearly nodding to evangelical Christianity. He’s explaining in the book that men are not simply charged with building the world into a temple. They must also serve as priests. Quote, bringing God to the world, end quote. And it’s a lot easier, I think, to be a priest bringing God to the world. If you get a government subsidy to do that. And perhaps that helps explain the court’s jurisprudence in cases like Kennedy versus Bremerton School District, where the court authorizes the praying coach, Coach Kennedy, to conduct his prayers in front of an enormous audience on a publicly owned high school football field. Or maybe it’s more in keeping with Carson versus Macon, where the court allows a no aid policy to be invalidated so that religious schools can get public funding.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah. And I mean, to John’s point about it, has he really sort of like bought this all? Has he drank the kool aid or sort of what exactly is motivating him here? It is, I think that, you know, however terrible it is and it’s truly an atrocious book. I do think in some weird way it does. It is an authentic expression of his real convictions and not pure political posturing. And I say this, that could be wrong. Maybe it’s both. But if you wanted to suggest that, you know, kind of liberals, feminists, LGBTQ people, secularists like these are the villains and actually return to kind of traditional sexual mores and religiosity is the prescription. He could have cast religiosity and sort of like faithfulness in kind of broader, more ecumenical terms. It’s so narrowly focused on a single Christian and evangelical Christian vision of what it means to be godly and to live in a family and a marriage, and it doesn’t even pretend to be any more expansive in sort of who it is interested in reaching than that. And I think that maybe that is just the only valid, recognizable model of American patriotic manhood that Hawley is willing to concede. And even I think for a lot of conservatives, that is an unbelievably narrow conception of sort of like what it means to be a person, American and a man. But that’s what but Hawley thinks is valid and legitimate.

 

Jonathan Van Ness He also seems to think that, like Hawley would and just like the entertainment industry is like so much further left than it really is. I mean, I do think that obviously things like do lean a little left, but like the amount of like misogyny, transphobia and just like kind of pro man POV bias that is in Hawley would that people have to swim against every day. It’s not like a little, it’s huge. And you are very. Warded for. I mean, Joe Rogan has one of the most highly visible and profitable podcasts around. Chappelle is one of the most highly paid comedians on Netflix. People who have conservative values and who are, you know, say things that are widely considered to be transphobic and who clearly make trans people’s lives harder day in and day out, are very financially rewarded. So this idea that, like, things are just so left and Hawley would is also just not at all true. Like there is actually very, you know, wide, range of political views in Hawley would. And so just I think any time people try to separate it so much into like us versus them, like in the way that he does it here. When you just lack critical thinking and nuance, like because porn has been around. That is also what Sabrina’s doctor Sabrina Strings talks about in her book. But like, she really kind of lays that at the feet of like, you know, like at the start of it, it was like Playboy because like the idea of, like romance, the way that he’s talking about this is like that. You’re really supposed to have your partner’s, like, best interests at heart and stuff and, like, not be a misogynist, like, piece of shit. Whereas like, and it’s like in that was the time when people were like, oh, well, you you only treat women like this as she’s like, chaste enough and like honorable enough. And if she shows too much of this or that, then, like, she’s not, she’s not it. And she’s like, kind of not worth it. But that didn’t become like widely culturally acceptable until like after World War Two is like in the 50s with like the rise of Playboy. And that’s when she kind of things like culturally there was this like bigger shift, but this didn’t just now stop working like and I’ll and there was this really funny thing I saw in or someone sent to me like that had been a thing on X. It was a picture of, what’s that actor’s name from sex in the city? He was like Trey, you know, like he had erectile dysfunction.

 

Leah Litman And Kyle MacLachlan. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Yes. And it was like the death of woke is like, men are men anymore. But then it was like this picture of him from like 1982 with this, like, shirt off with this, like skimpy little like, kind of like early 80s outfit when he was like, playing something good, like the early 80s. Just to say that like, men have been expressing like a lot of different, like fashion and like ideas about breaking, like gender norms that we would consider, like, conservatively, like, not the thing for a really long time. Like this didn’t just start in like when target started, like having a pride such, you know.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah. I don’t know exactly when Hawley would say, like, we sort of took a wrong turn probably when Barack Obama was elected, if I, if I had to sort of pinpoint a baby.

 

Leah Litman Also when women gained the right to vote.

 

Kate Shaw So it could be a very recent like either either.

 

Melissa Murray 2008 or 1920. Unclear.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Right?

 

Melissa Murray Yeah.

 

Kate Shaw But there’s, you know, a flattening in a simplification, I think.

 

Melissa Murray Sort of part of the simple vacation too, is that. Which men are really behind here. I mean, like, he’s not down and out and beleaguered. The guys he’s palling around with aren’t down and out and beleaguered. They wield enormous power. They’ve gone to college. I mean, this is a guy who’s, like, talking about the educational outcomes of men. And he’s got three degrees from three elite institutions. I mean, it boggles the mind. I mean, like you said, even like the antithesis of what they’re doing is nuance. And that’s exactly right. This isn’t nuance at all. Like part of what he’s saying is true for a certain subset that he and his ilk will not minister to because they have such antipathy for redistribution, whether it’s economic or educational. So this book is not about the true down and out and beleaguered men who are falling behind. It’s about him and his cronies, and they’re not falling behind. They’re actually on top. That’s what she said.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Leah. That’s what Leah was saying. It’s like the policies, right? Because like, like Republicans are the ones who have, like, shipped all the jobs, like to like, country, like, you know, off of the U.S. like they’re the ones who have like, like weakened, like the middle class, or at least like the way that I understand it. Like they don’t pay people a living wage, they don’t give family leave. They don’t make it so that anyone can really achieve upward economic mobility easier. So like they’re really their policies and also like look at health care. Look at like gun control. Like people who are like working class and like don’t have as much money, like they’re the ones who pay the price for these policies that Republicans keep enforcing, that it’s just so true.

 

Kate Shaw So maybe to pivot back to the sort of structure of the book a little bit. So as we were talking about, the book is divided into these kind of archetypes that Hawley would kind of explorers. Lee already mentioned the father and the husband archetypes. And Melissa was talking about the priest archetype. So then there are two more. One is the builder and one. Save the best for last is the killer. So I’m gonna start with builder. You know, he suggests that, you know, there’s this affliction of dependance that he is is part of his diagnosis of the problem with contemporary American manhood. And he says the antidote to dependance is building. And just as we think there are important connections between some of the claims Hawley is making about the husband and the father and the priest and Supreme Court cases. I think that’s also true about the builder and Supreme Court cases. So you have the Supreme Court in recent cases really trying it seems to sort of value and valorize the kind of rugged individual who wants to build and make something as against this leviathan of the federal government trying to take something from him, because it’s, of course, a him. So there’s a case from two terms ago called Sackett about an individual, a couple that basically, like, wants to dump a lot of gravel on their land, and it’s going to pollute some wetlands. And, you know, wetlands are important to keeping water clean for all of us. And the Supreme Court basically says it’s fine, like we can’t really it would be intolerable to prevent them from doing that. And actually a case just this term called devil. Yeah. Versus Texas, which is, you know, just a case about whether a claim can proceed, but is also about this sort of Texas rancher who’s being disadvantaged by the state of Texas. And so it is just the court loves nothing more than kind of holding up this image of the rugged, manly individual against the federal government. And obviously siding with the, you know, manly individual. Okay. But I think we should talk about King as well, because the last section of the book is about exhorting men to lead. I mean, he is saying this like with a straight face, like he says, quote, it is good for a man to exercise authority. Good for him and good for those around him. So I don’t know if like, toes and fingers started curling, but like that he is like patriarchy. Return to patriarchy. That’s a it’s really a it is it is a scary that is a scary line of many, many scary lines in the scary book.

 

Jonathan Van Ness And then but despite the importance of men leading the left today warned shrilly that male leadership can only ever amount to domination. That’s like the whole like we’re just saying, like beating up your partners and like trying to force everyone to have the exact same religious, ideals as you is not great. That’s not saying that masculinity is bad. And your inability to make a distinction between those two things that scare me, even though you have a big Adam’s apple, which is, you know, we like a big Adam’s apple, but we don’t love, you know, anything else really about, you know? So, yeah.

 

Leah Litman Maybe it’s like linking what you were saying about the King archetype to one of the earlier archetypes we were talking about, which is father and husband. You know, again, the conceit of this book is that American men are downtrodden. But when you’re thinking about, say, some of the court’s recent cases, like the Impala case, which did effectively create one class of people who are required to lose bodily organs in service of Idaho’s preferred vision about how society should be structured, namely, that women and pregnant people should be forced to bear children again, even when they are at risk of serious health consequences and loss. And that is going to be so because of the Republican justices on the Supreme Court, because that is their vision for, you know, the country and how they think it should be ordered. And it is just really striking. Again, you know, we were previously talking about whether this is like an authentic vision of Hawley or some posturing, but I don’t think, you know, like the Republican justices on the court are posturing. I think this is an authentic vision for them about how society and laws should work, that, again, like women and pregnant people, can be pressed into service and made to do these things at immense personal, familial sacrifice, you know, because that’s just their worldview.

 

Jonathan Van Ness I mean, the next part when he says that, American men need to wake up because God made them kings, not subjects like. And you need to be a king of your domain the way that you’re like fathers and grandfathers were. What? Like Mr. Hall?

 

Melissa Murray Yeah.

 

Jonathan Van Ness This is. It’s not great, you guys. This is not. I think, actually, American people need to wake up because we are literally marching into it.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah, that’s one of the places where I think that kind of Hawley’s aspirations for this book, I think, are pretty clear, which is that he wants to be the new Andrew Tate. Right, with the criminal misogyny sheared off. But the basic vision of the proper role of men, as you know, the top of a profoundly and straight cisgendered men at the top of a profoundly hierarchical system in which they are owning this mantle of king and everyone below them is a subordinate subject. Like that’s really explicit. We sort of think his vision is that he wants to be, I don’t know, like the a kinder, gentler version of Andrew Tate and appeal to millions of American men, a less.

 

Melissa Murray Muscled version to less.

 

Kate Shaw You know, I think I’m sure Hawley works out. I feel like we’ve observed this before.

 

Melissa Murray Not like that.

 

Kate Shaw No no no, no. But he also clearly neglects leg day. He does not work out his like his. He’s got, like, very skinny legs and enormous shoulders. And I think you need better balance in your workout.

 

Melissa Murray What do you think? If you were his trainer, what would you advise to do to balance his physique better?

 

Jonathan Van Ness You guys. I’m not the person to ask about this. If you’ve ever come to my comedy show, I have a lot of deep rooted shame about this. I am like, I don’t know if I can say it to you guys after the morning that we’ve already had. It’s been a rough morning. It’s like hard for me to stay on topic with this book because he’s a nightmare to read. But now I’m reading, like, all my highlighted passages and I’m like, this is also like my first, like, book review podcast to my ADHD is like, was really refusing to play ball until now, but now I’m like really dialed in. I’m back to the book. I am, and maybe we need to edit this out cause I am ashamed to say it, I’m physically attracted to him. I’ll just fucking name it, okay? I’m physically attracted to him, but I hate his policies, okay? I hate its fucking policies. I hate its fucking policies. Okay, I do, but I we talked about it last time. I’m also physically attracted to Mitt Romney. There’s this principle vibe. There’s this shoulder pad thing when you have like a big Adam’s apple and shoulder pads, it just makes it. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t like it. And obviously, I think that the world has recently seen that I’m a complex person and I’m very layered. Okay. And I’m he’s, you.

 

Melissa Murray No, there.

 

Jonathan Van Ness But Hawley’s got that fucking Adam’s apple, honey. He’s got no I know he’s an it’s a fucking protectionist and he’s a white nationalist and he’s a Christian national.

 

Melissa Murray Not Mitt Romney.

 

Jonathan Van Ness It’s a problem I’m working on in therapy. Okay. No, I’m talking about Josh Hawley. Okay, I have this. I’m you guys. I’m recovering from sexual impulsivity. I’ve talked about it in my book. Okay? I have this uncanny ability to divorce someone’s personality from their physical body. I do, and even though I’m non-binary, you know, they’re always talking about biology, which I also talk about my show. Like, biologically, I’m hardwired attracted to men with big Adam’s apples. Biologically, okay. And my body can separate their hideous policy from their being, and I’m ashamed of it. Okay, but shame thrives in secrets, and so we just have to name it. That’s what the truth is. But I fucking disagree with him. And I want him to lose his fucking place in office. But can I just say something really quick about there is this quote in here that I just it really struck me about, well, the thing about, like, the center of God’s creation, that’s all really scary. Let’s get from it’s like, man for others is the title of chapter five, and he’s talking about how, the biggest threat our society faces is that the male longing for adventure and hurt and heroism is dangerous, that a man’s desire for accomplishment is oppressive, that masculinity is toxic inherently. So whatever identity men construct and life they they make had better take all that into account, and they better screen out the objectionable elements of of masculinity, which are, by liberals reckoning, most of them. This mixed message puts young men, especially in a bind. They are supposed to fashion an identity entirely of their own choosing in order to be authentic, but leave out the features that have defined for millennia. Good luck with that. No wonder young men feel but went bewildered. The classic identity of masculinity was never what it is now. It only became that recently, like it was a whole like invention in the last, like 40 to 60 years, like. And if you look, if you know anything about queer history, you would know that every culture has had all these different expressions of genders, even in the West. And he keeps talking about how, like the Bible has like guided, guided us through like the Roman Empire in antiquity, all the way through now, honey, the Roman Empire and into glory in antiquity was not what it is now like. It was a hot freaking mess where men had, like all sorts of wives, and they were doing all sorts of things with all sorts of people, and it was like, not cool for kids. And certainly not like this idea of like a good space for everyone. So the way that he just has like a selective idea of it, like it’s clear that he’s not a historian, nor is any of the justices, well. Clearly not Roberts anyway, who like, didn’t know that like, abortion is actually deeply rooted in this country’s history and like Benjamin Franklin had an abortion recipe and is like little diary. But other thing was like. This country in the Constitution was like for land owning white men. So that is a problem because everyone else has had to fight for the recognition here. And so when that’s really what we’re saying is bad, not masculinity. Just that like the Constitution was founded on the idea that only like white property owning men could vote. And we’re saying that like that ideal that it was built on and the wealth that was amassed under that and chattel slavery and the removal of, like, Native Americans from their lands and the funds that were made off of that, that refused to be redistributed. That’s the problem. And then, like men beating up people and like gun violence, these are the problems, not like traditional masculinity. We love towns that like, we love a big Adam’s apple. We love white shoulders, honey, but we just don’t love these fucking policies, you know? Like, so I just don’t understand what the goddamn problem is.

 

Leah Litman I mean, understanding what Josh Hawley’s problem is might be on the scope of this podcast and way above my pay grade. But what I think you were saying gets at something really profound and relates to something I think Melissa had alluded to as the clear subtext of the book, which is it is about the narrow group of elite white conservative men who have been accustomed to having all of the power and calling all of the shots. And the book is uncomfortable with the idea of sharing political power and authority. Right. Allowing anyone else to be in a position of authority, to actually be decision maker, to be Supreme Court justice, to be congressional representative. And that is, again, like the group of people that Hawley seems to actually be concerned with, given that he’s not engaging with any of the anti redistributive policies that would actually benefit, you know, people in lower income brackets and instead depicts that as some kind of evil dependance that his view for America would just remove. And so the vision that he’s clinging to like the reason why pointing out the fact that America has an exclusionary past is threatening to him is because, like, he wants the exclusionary past to be the exclusionary future. And that is, I think, part of what he is resisting.

 

Jonathan Van Ness He also quotes, and.

 

Melissa Murray I’m still back on the Mitt Romney thing.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Oh, but wait, he keeps talking about Andrew Tate. Didn’t Donald Trump have dinner with Andrew Tate?

 

Melissa Murray I’m sorry if.

 

Leah Litman Let me Google that. Did Donald did.

 

Melissa Murray Didn’t he? He had dinner.

 

Kate Shaw With, like, that white supremacist guy. What’s his name?

 

Leah Litman I don’t think that him.

 

Melissa Murray I don’t know.

 

Jonathan Van Ness It’s Nick Fuentes.

 

Leah Litman Yeah, yeah, I don’t see anything. I don’t think.

 

Melissa Murray He’s, like.

 

Kate Shaw Running under some criminal.

 

Leah Litman Anyway. Yeah, I don’t think we.

 

Jonathan Van Ness But I just like that. You’re right. But like in the day. But I wonder. But like, how is it the left’s fault? Like I wonder how. Hawley makes and annotate the enemy and the left the enemy because really like annotate is like heat. Like that is like a something from the right. Like the left didn’t do that. Like how does I don’t understand how like it’s like everyone has the problem except for.

 

Leah Litman Him. Should we explain who Andrew Tate is, and then maybe some.

 

Melissa Murray Connections between him? Maybe not everyone is. Yeah. Deepened men’s.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Right. Oh, yeah. I just got scared to read that message because it’s so dark.

 

Leah Litman Someone else want to take a stab at describing who is what is Andrew Tate?

 

Jonathan Van Ness Andrew Tate is someone who I was never physically attracted to. I’ll do it. He’s a guy, like I say, fulfilling. I’ve never been physically attracted to. I’m relieved. Yeah, I can use his words. So Josh Hawley says, the case of Andrew Tate, a social media provocateur and self-styled, quote, success coach for men, comes to mind. Tate’s idea of success apparently involves sleeping with as many women as possible, berating them, abusing them, and celebrating it all as manly and as, quote, freedom. As reported by the New York Post, a very reputable news publication, Tate quote advises followers to this is the part I want to read. It’s like, you know, just abuse people, women. And then he canceled that. If a man in a relationship has sex with someone else, it’s not cheating, it’s exercise. Meanwhile, if accused of cheating himself, it’s.

 

Melissa Murray It’s like day.

 

Jonathan Van Ness But then he’s talking about just, like, literally pulling a machete out to someone’s freaking, like to a woman’s neck. Like, this is like what? He was just, like, talking about intent. And also Hawley talks about this. I mean, it should have like a trigger warning if I posted something. Just talking about something like he just talks about it like it’s Tuesday, you know, raping this and doing that with Andrew Tate. Like there’s no like respect for like the violence that he’s talking about so casually like all throughout this. It’s so gross.

 

Show Intro Yeah.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah. And Tate, we should say.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Attraction to him by the second.

 

Leah Litman You guys glad we could help.

 

Kate Shaw Good. But. Yeah. But but Tate, in addition to killing that Tate. Yes. No, there was never a Tate attraction. No, we got that and that that that is excellent. And I’m sure that’s not changing over the course of this conversation.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Oh yeah. But then he got arrested because he had like Romanian Domino’s pizza boxes in this video that he made. And then he got arrested by Interpol. Yeah. Because of these, like Romanian domino boxes or something. And the internet turned his ass in. But he’d been like, I think he was like. He was like trafficking people and like, literally like been accused of, like, all sorts of really, like, rapey.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah. He’s under indictment for sexual assault, human trafficking, all.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Sorts of bad.

 

Kate Shaw All of that. No. That’s right. And, and Hawley does kind of nominally distance himself from certain, again, of the most violent and violently misogynistic aspects of Tate’s worldview and public persona. And we should say, even before he was a social media personality. Right. Like, I think he was a kickboxer. And, but it’s very clear that the distance that Hawley imagines, or at least posits, that separates him from Andrew Tate, is nowhere near as fast as Hawley seems to want and to convince his readers it is.

 

Leah Litman Yeah. And maybe just to take two examples of that. So, you know, we mentioned that Hawley is intriguing men to be fathers and husbands. You know, Andrew Tate just like tweets out or puts out on ex, you know, sexist for making children. And so like their worldview it is quite similar.

 

Melissa Murray There’s more to it than that. Oh yeah. Okay. There. Okay.

 

Leah Litman So that’s the other part of Andrew Tate’s tweet is also anti LGBTQ which we also identify.

 

Melissa Murray Anti-women.

 

Leah Litman And anti-women. Also in some ways it’s anti men. it’s anti everyone okay.

 

Kate Shaw So anti okay.

 

Leah Litman So the second part of the tweet that says sex is for making children says any man who has sex with women because it quote feels good is gay. So again anti-women anti pleasure anti men anti LGBTQ. He just packs it all in in one sentence. And that does me I don’t even know. That doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand like a man who has sex with women because it feels good is gay. Isn’t that like opposite?

 

Kate Shaw Fellas, is it gay to like sex?

 

Melissa Murray Is it okay to.

 

Leah Litman Have second.

 

Melissa Murray Thoughts about anything?

 

Kate Shaw That is a real self-own. It is a real self-own, right?

 

Melissa Murray Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

 

Leah Litman Yeah. And, you know.

 

Melissa Murray Mitt Romney would never. You can laugh at that, Kate.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Oh, my God, he really. Mitt Romney really wouldn’t. I do feel like he’s a little bit more. Yeah. You know, at least Mitt voted to remove Trump from office. That’s what I always tell myself when my timbers get severed, when I see him straight onto my TV screen.

 

Melissa Murray You know, you’re not the only one. There are a lot of people. So I know someone who is like a big muckety muck in the repro community, and she says she would climb Mitt Romney like a tree. Like you were not the first person to say that to me. That’s why I was taken aback by because I thought it was a very singular appetite.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Apparently that resonates. No. Yeah. That resonates. I thought that we talked about this last time. I’ve talked about this so many times. I can’t remember who I’ve said this to. But yeah, for me, it all started in Salt Lake City.

 

Leah Litman Yeah. I don’t think we’ve had this particular conversation.

 

Kate Shaw No, we did talk about John Roberts, but not I don’t think you.

 

Leah Litman Called Neil Gorsuch a silver fox, but.

 

Melissa Murray You did call Neil Gorsuch a silver fox. Yeah, I did make us throw up in our mouths a little.

 

Jonathan Van Ness I actually, I do take that back. I think I did that for a reaction, you guys, I do. I can legitimately say I’m Mitt Romney. Yes. You did. Gorsuch.

 

Melissa Murray No, not so much more, right?

 

Jonathan Van Ness Yeah. Not Neil, I mean that. Yeah. That face is like, not for me at all. I don’t know what I was thinking, you guys, I was I think I was.

 

Melissa Murray You would not say Neil Gorsuch.

 

Jonathan Van Ness No, I was going through it that day, I think I believe I take it off the record. But Mitt, I stand by that, and I refuse to budge on that one.

 

Leah Litman [AD].

 

Leah Litman Can I connect to something we were saying about Andrew Tate to Neil Gorsuch, though, even though you have, you know.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Yes.

 

Leah Litman About your previous statements about him. So as we were saying, you know, Josh Hawley kind of attempts to put some distance between Andrew Tate’s more violent expressions of misogyny and Josh Hawley’s other expressions of misogyny, even though their worldviews are in some respects quite similar. And I think this kind of relates to our efforts to draw connections between this book, and what the Supreme Court is doing. Because when you think about, again, I know I reference the case before, it’s just top of mind. When you think about what the court is doing, again, essentially requiring women to bear these life altering consequences, health altering consequences, that is a kind of violence. It is just done under the language of the law. And with these kind of questions that the justices are bandying about, about how about a conditional spending program or how about preemption? But when the rubber hits the road, the, you know, again, operative arrangement that they have endorsed is that states can prohibit care that is necessary to save someone’s major bodily functions and major bodily organs. And it’s again, if we want to talk about violence like that to me is like an example of it.

 

Melissa Murray She’s right.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Though, 100%. I mean, the the way that he keeps talking.

 

Leah Litman About no Adam’s apple, but I can make some.

 

Kate Shaw Points.

 

Jonathan Van Ness No. 100 100% and really good ones, by the way. He the way they talk so much about like Epicureans that he talks about it more and more and how that like it. It’s interesting because my, my friend, a local, who I’m just obsessed with, they have this theory where like part of why the, conservatives get so angry when they see, like, non-binary queer people expressing themself in public is because, like, when you let yourself express yourself and you don’t repress, there is this like anger and jealousy at the side of this. And he’s literally talking about that. You need to like, deny yourself what makes you happy, deny yourself who you are to conform to this idea. And the reason that our society is failing is because people aren’t doing that. They’re just expressing themselves too much. And that’s a lot of where I think his anger comes from in this niche of like evangelical, where they’re like, we’re suppressing ourselves. We’re doing what we were told to do by, you know, God and by this book or our interpretation of it. So other people should, too. I think that’s really interesting because he really is saying that with like not even saying it without saying it. He’s like literally saying that.

 

Melissa Murray So one thing I wanted to get your take on Javon is. Recently, Josh Hawley allowed his wife to argue before the Supreme Court, and I’m only being half. I don’t know what the dynamics are like. I mean, we got very little mention of her and very little mention of his daughter in the book. It’s almost as though women don’t exist, but we know she exists because she appeared before the lectern at the Supreme Court on behalf of the Alliance Defending Freedom to argue against the availability of men for press. Stone, one of the drugs in the two drug medication abortion protocol. Is it.

 

Leah Litman Inconsistent.

 

Melissa Murray With manhood to have your wife out in the world working and talking to five male members of the Supreme Court? Is that manhood? Is he enlightened? Like, what is this I don’t is this feminism? I don’t know. What do you think, Javon?

 

Jonathan Van Ness I mean, it’s just giving. If it weren’t so scary, you’d laugh. You know, it just. It just. So. Yeah, I he clearly hasn’t fully rejected nihilism, darling. Or something that’s like, you know, chapter eight, rejecting nihilism.

 

Melissa Murray Well, I mean but but it is interesting because like I say this in JD Vance two, this is sort of a thing with people like JD Vance, too, like JD Vance is always sort of espousing these kind of like, manhood adjacent themes about traditional families and, you know, like how important social family is. And he’s definitely against paid family leave and all of that. Yet he has a wife who he met at Yale Law School, who’s incredibly accomplished, who clerked for the Supreme Court and is a working lawyer. So, I mean, it’s some of that sort of feels a little bit like traditional family, traditional values, breadwinner, husband dependent wife for you, but not for me. I get to have like sort of, you know, a different kind of actually.

 

Jonathan Van Ness No, it’s actually really interesting because it’s very Gilead and like that mean here. It’s like it’s okay because she’s working to further the values of like Christian nationalism. So it’s like your wife can work as long as she’s working to enforce these structures and these ideas. And I think that men in power have often seen the way that, like, their partners, can help to further their influence and spread their influence, which, I mean, you even saw that with like, we love, oh, my God, my gay brain. We love. Who are the ladies who learned or who, like, fought for the right to vote in the 20s? The suffragettes.

 

Kate Shaw The suffragists, the suffragettes.

 

Jonathan Van Ness The suffragette. I wanted to be like segregationist. And I was like, that’s not it. But in some ways they were, because they did not fucking include black women. And when but they also did not include some women of color. You’re right. And so but that’s another way that you saw like, yeah, the way that power works and the way that like it has to work in its kind of own time. And I think that both, you know, the left and the right has this show.

 

Melissa Murray It’s a gendered aspect of white patriarchy.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Yeah.

 

Melissa Murray I don’t know that J.D. Vance, his wife, is involved in conservative causes. She sort of stays out of the frame. But I think it’s a real a good point that often.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Very Jenny.

 

Melissa Murray Times the gender politics, the racial politics. Yeah, it’s yeah, it is all wrapped up. And there is a way in which women can facilitate patriarchy, even as it ostensibly works against them or definitely works against.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Them, because it’s the whole idea that CC Abrams talks about, like fighting over crumbs, you know, instead of like, why don’t you have the whole cake? It’s like, if it’s in that is like the Jenny Thomas thing too, because we saw so much how she was, like, deeply ingrained and trying to, like, be all up in there and like, you know, her relationship to power. Also to just like the book review of it, all the titles of or the chapter titles are really like intense like and that isn’t the last one, like, who’s going to run the country? Like that’s really what he’s scared of. Like, other people have too much power and too much voice, like that’s really what he’s scared of. And this is like a call to action because he’s like, no.

 

Melissa Murray That’s that’s a great point.

 

Jonathan Van Ness He’s such a rude ass. I can’t believe I ever said he had a good Adam’s apple.

 

Melissa Murray Yeah it is. I think that’s right.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah, it is this kind of profound threat that sort of the advances made by women and people of color and LGBTQ folks represent to Hawley and Hazel, because Melissa was saying earlier, like, that’s the kind of fundamental anxiety at the heart of the book that motivates it. And I also think that, you know, Hawley and we were talking about his wife, Erin. You know, I think he is holding himself out as the he wants to be the standard bearer of the Republican Party in the next generation. Right. Like we right now have this gerontocracy and there is going to be a gap at some point in which there will need to be a new leadership class. I’m sure he wants to run for president. And he either way, like, wants to be an important defining figure in the political life of the country. And his views are terrifying. And so that’s why we thought it was worth like, you know, the maybe masochistic undertaking of reading this book and reading it carefully and trying to sort of pull the threads on the actual claims and worldview at the heart of it, because this is someone who is not only in dialog with the law as it’s developing on the Supreme Court today, but I think is poised to be a major national political figure, and this is the world that he envisions and would like to bring about. And it’s really important to be clear eyed in our view of that.

 

Jonathan Van Ness One more little tiny thing I feel. I hope I didn’t talk too much in here in this episode. I’m so glad that you guys have been back and I love you guys so much. I lived in Kansas City when Josh Hawley got elected in 2018 cause I was shooting Queer Eye at the time, and my dad and stepmom currently live in Missouri, and I talk and fight with my dad a lot about politics. But the point what I was going to say is, is that the brand of, the culture that Josh Hawley is selling is deeply palatable for a huge swath of our country. And, you know, I’ve been really curious on my part about spirituality and the way that, like spirituality and more importantly, religion interfaces with our politics and like in, like motivates people to do things. And this is a really important time. So what you guys have done here is really important. And, it’s really important that we understand, no matter how, masochistic and scary it is, what is going on on the other side, because they are not only deeply in conversation with like the future of the country, but they are really influencing what’s happening. And people are really buying what they’re selling. So thanks for continuing to do all your guys’s great work while likewise.

 

Melissa Murray Thanks so much for joining us today. I, I don’t know if I’m ever going to look at Mitt Romney the same way again. Well, I don’t think I can, but, Javon, thank you for reading this book. We know it was, it was a big lift. It was a big ask. We read it, too. We we read it, too. And that’s all I’m going to say. And we really appreciate all of your insights. Again, the book is out. You don’t have to buy it. We read it for you. Just listen to this or read our forthcoming review of the book and the Michigan Law Review. The review is called Of Might and Men by Me, Kate Shaw and Leah Littman with our research assistant Jonathan Mann does. We should give you a little credit.

 

Jonathan Van Ness You guys. It’s so good.

 

Melissa Murray We’re going to drop you in the dagger note.

 

Leah Litman Well, until next time, Jonathan. I’m sure we are going to come calling on you again to join us once more. Since, these clowns give us a never ending stream of material, to to be working.

 

Kate Shaw With, and it’s always so great to have you. Thank you so much for joining us, Jonathan.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Thanks for having me, guys. I just realized after you said that Melissa, this this is his idea of Profiles in courage. Like, this is his, like, love letter to America. I’m. Oh my God.

 

Melissa Murray Oh. Profiles in Courage, the JFK book that he wrote before becoming president that his dad got published.

 

Kate Shaw Well, that’s a terrifying thought.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Scary. You guys, we need.

 

Melissa Murray Yeah. You’re right. Yeah. Wow. That is a deep cut, Javon.

 

Jonathan Van Ness I had to save it for the end. You know, I pulled a Vanessa Williams.

 

Leah Litman Saved the best for last. So. Good. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Well, you know, also, we just need to talk about really quick, just really quick. And I’m going to, like, literally be late for filming. Before we started this, I don’t know if I hit the recording. I’m in Vegas shooting Queer Eye now, and I’m in a little closet in our Airbnb that’s covered in blankets. So that’s what’s giving, this, you know, view. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I look really shiny. I need to, like, just powder the face really quick. And then Kate was that. Can we say okay, sure. Tell your tell the full or our full healing story. Yeah. For the people because it’s also the antidote to this fucking book is.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah, your palate cleanser.

 

Jonathan Van Ness I was filming where you were filming yesterday and he left his powder. And so you’re like, oh my God, I need my powder. And I just think that is so great because I’ve literally done twice. I’m like, spoiler alert, these men love a little concealer and a little powder. They want to feel good too. So I’m teaching a lot of guys like how to do that this season because I’m like, they don’t even know how to color match. They don’t know like the right order to do anything. So I’m just like teaching them really quick so they can have like, you know, more confident under circles.

 

Kate Shaw Yeah. So they you need to actually have to teach them how to do it. And we all need to spread the word that it is completely fine to powder your nose and conceal those dark circles under your eyes, act.

 

Jonathan Van Ness With like.

 

Kate Shaw And we should all embrace that. And, you know.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Yeah, you guys should feel the pressure to do.

 

Kate Shaw It to the positive note.

 

Jonathan Van Ness You just feel so much.

 

Melissa Murray Cuter, normalize and even skin to normalize and even. Yes.

 

Jonathan Van Ness Thanks for having me, you guys.

 

Kate Shaw Thank you so much for joining us.

 

Leah Litman So the Supreme Court seems to think having Trump as a monarch sounds great. And to that we say no fucking way. Or, as Justice Sotomayor put it, with fear for our democracy, I dissent. So show that you’re mad as hell about the highest court’s recent decisions, taking away power from government agencies and giving the president permission to authorize a coup. Yes. Really? With a quote taken from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent to the court’s terrifying presidential immunity decision. This T-shirt shows where you stand loud and clear. It’s really a great conversation shirt that provides a way to talk to everyone about what is going on with the Supreme Court. Get your own dissent tee at Crooked.com/store now. Strict Scrutiny is a Crooked Media production hosted and executive produced by me, Leah Litman, Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw. Produced and edited by Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our associate producer. Our interns this summer are Hannah Saraf and Tess O’Donohue. Audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landes. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Madeline Herringer and Ari Schwartz. Matt DeGroot is our head of production and thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford and Joe McCaskey. Subscribe to strict scrutiny on YouTube to catch full episodes. Find us at youtube.com/StrictScrutinyPodcast if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps.

 

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