Sen. Josh Hawley says 'the Left,' which 'controls the commanding heights of American society,' wants to 'give us a world beyond men'

Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri at the Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights on Capitol Hill on September 21, 2021. — Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri
Ken Cedeno/AFP/Getty Images

Sen. Hawley delivered a speech on "The Future of the American Man" at a nationalist conference in Orlando.
Hawley argued that "the Left" wants to "give us a world beyond men" by assaulting traditional masculinity.
He also criticized 'X' gender passports and said vaccine mandates were an attack on working class men.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said on Sunday that "the Left" - encompassing lawmakers, Hollywood, media organizations, universities, and even sports teams - want to usher in a "world beyond men" as part of a broader effort to "deconstruct America."

Hawley made the remarks at the National Conservatism conference in Orlando, a gathering of right-wing activists and intellectuals who promote a nationalist brand of conservatism as an alternative to the "excesses of purist libertarianism." Other speakers at the conference include Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Ohio Senate candidate and "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance, and tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

According to Hawley's prepared remarks, the Missouri senator opened his speech by arguing that "the Left" controls the "commanding heights of American society" and wants to usher in the total deconstruction on America through the power it currently wields.

"They believe that America is a systemically racist, structurally oppressive, hopelessly patriarchal kind of place. It's a dystopia, if only Americans would get woke enough to see it," said Hawley. "It's a nation that needs to be taught how unjust it truly is and after that, rebuilt from top to bottom."

The focus of Hawley's speech was the "future of the American man," and the senator said that "deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men." He noted that women were also central to the history of America, but that the assault on men was "already far advanced" compared to women.

Hawley argued that an array of disparate forces, including a "gender equity" agenda touted by the White House, the addition of a new 'X' gender marker to passports, the teachings of university professors, ADHD diagnoses among young boys, a 2019 Gillette ad about toxic masculinity, and even new vaccine mandates issued by the Biden administration were part of a broad attack on men and traditional masculinity.

"Working class men have been a particular target for this Administration," said Hawley. "President Biden's illegal vaccine mandate on private citizens puts millions of working class men squarely in the cross hairs. Shut up, get the jab, or get lost."

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Men, particularly those without college degrees, are a key demographic within the Republican Party, though President Joe Biden ate into some of that support base in 2020. Hawley, who was the first senator to announce that he would challenge states' election results on January 6, is a self-styled populist and proponent of traditional values.

The senator also claimed that much of the ideologies at the heart of the purported assault on traditional masculinity were derived from the works of Karl Marx, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and New Left German philosopher Herbert Marcuse.

"While Marx pinned his hopes on working class men, the proletariat, Marcuse saw those same men as the problem," Hawley said. "They were too culturally conservative. Too hidebound. Too traditional. Marcuse concluded the revolution would only come from the well-educated elite, who could see beyond mirages like manhood."

The Missouri senator highlighted as "particularly heartbreaking" a recent report in the Wall Street Journal about American men increasingly declining to go to college, falling into pathologies of despair and retreating into watching pornography and playing video games.

Hawley concluded his speech by calling for "explicit rewards in our tax code for marriage" and "requiring that at least half of all goods and supplies critical for our national security be made in the United States" as a way to support American men and make them into an "unrivaled force for good in the world."

"To each man, I say: You can be a tremendous force for good. Your nation needs you. The world needs you," Hawley said.