We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emili Jahnski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to
the premium version of our website as well. We're joined today by Senator Josh
Holly, who is the author of the new book Manhood, The Masculine Virtues
America Needs. Senator Holly, thank you so much for joining us. Thank
you for having me. It's such an interesting book and obviously an important topic.
At one place I thought might be a good jumping off point is actually
when you write about your nine year old son's love of cars, you write,
quote, he is a temple builder. All men are meant to be.
And I think it's a good place to start, because you do write
a lot about the sort of the purpose of man as temple building in the
book. It's kind of a central theme. So I wanted to see if
you could tell us a little bit more about what you mean, especially for
folks who haven't read the book, when you say all men are meant to
be temple builders. Yeah, it's it's a man's job to make the world
better, you know, to make it more beautiful, to make it more
productive, to make it into something that is that is beautiful. And here's
here's where that comes from me. It goes back to the Bible. And
what I do in the book is I try to make the argument that we
need stronger men in America and we need good models, role models for what
men should be and what a good man is. And the ultimate foundation for
that, the ultimate role models to me, are found in the Bible,
of the Biblical tradition. So I tell a lot of stories from the Bible.
I would say, well, let's look at a place where we can
find good role models from men. And so if you look at the you'll
see a very coherent narrative and picture of what it means to be a man
and what it means to be a good man. And what the Bible says
over and over through many different stories across its pages, is that men are
supposed to work with God to help make the world what He meant it to
be. And that is an incredible purpose, it's an incredibly high calling,
and it's something that every man can aspire to. I'm sure you're going to
get questions about this as you're launching the book, because you have a really
interesting section where you write about Andrew Tate. And before I had read the
book, I was actually going to ask about Andrew Tate because it's such a
relevant side show in the media cycle right now. But you kind of write
about the unhealthy masculinity that Andrew Tate demonstrates, and you compare it to the
materialism of the Epicureans, which is really interesting. Tate converted to Islam,
and that suggests maybe that even though he has this materialist ideology, ultimately he's
still looking for something transcendent, looking for something divine. Do you see that
as perhaps a contradiction in what you describe as modern liberalism, that even as
they are clinging to something that is almost hedonistic and its materialism, still so
often you see people looking for something transcendent. Oh. I think that that
people today are all of us, are desperate for something transcendent in our lives.
That's a human condition, right, and that's true not just today,
but across time. It's certainly true for men. And I think what the
modern left has done is they've tried to drain away all of the transcendent and
anything that speaks of eternity in our lives. And that's one of the reasons
why they have launched these attacks on masculinity, so that they don't want anything
that connects to what is permanent, what is true, what is beautiful.
They reject all of that. I mean, modern liberalism is basically atheistic.
And so that's why I think when you talk about, Okay, what does
it mean to be a man? To that matter, what does it mean
to be a woman, You've got to look at what are the sources of
truth where we can get good role models. And that's why in the book,
I've turned back to the biblical tradition, which has been so meaningful in
my life, but also so significant in our country's history, in our culture's
history, and look at those stories about Okay, what's it mean to be
a man who protects, what's it mean to be a man who provides?
What's it means to be a man who builds? And a man of courage?
And so I try to tell those stories and tease that out. Now
you asked about Andrew Tat in the book what I say about that is there's
this critique from the left that all of manhood is inherently toxic. You know,
if you're a man, you buy definition, are contributing to the systemic
injustice of America and on and on climate change, this that the other.
I think there are some elements within or some folks, I guess I should
say, who would want to react against that by adopting some of the premises,
who would say, Okay, yeah, manhood is toxic and I'm proud
of it. And I think a lot of what Andrew Tata has said is
in that thing, sort of like, yeah, absolutely, manhood is violent
inherently and it is inherently domineering, and I'm proudly so. And I just
want to reject the whole premise, say no, no, no, male
strength is good. We need strong men. We need men, though,
to step up and be responsible, the protectors, be defenders, be courageous.
And that's really what the book's about, you know. And that's an
interesting point because it's this idea that, you know, as you right,
to leftists, manhood is faked, to quote from the book, and then
at the same time they're constantly trying to demonize this thing that they also say
is fake, something they believe is not biological reality, something they believe is
entirely socially constructed. They say is inherently toxic when they talk about masculinity,
and it reminds me when you write about Rousseau. They're kind of idealizing the
state of nature, but without also recognize it, recognizing it. How did
they get to that disconnect? I mean it obviously makes no sense. Well,
I think for the modern left, and the modern left really sort of
Marxists at harder to be their cultural marxistem and they believe at the end of
the day that they're really no male or female. They're making that really clear.
There's just like this thing that is like the self, that you just
have your desires, right, you're what you want in life, what makes
you satisfize you, it makes you happy. And they believe that we're basically
androgen the cells who just have a whole bunch of desires and the universe of
meeting less right. I mean, that's the less view. There's no meaning
out there. There's no God, certainly, no eternity, no heaven or
hell, and so the only way you can find any meaning in your life
is do stuff that makes you happy, pursue pleasure, make pleasure your god,
make yourself your God. That's I think the real message of the Left
when you drill down into it. And so they dislike any tradition or institution
or a stead of practices or teachings that cut against that. And that's why
they are so hostile to the Bible. It's why they're hostile to traditional masculinity
and traditional woman that as well. And you see them insisting that, you
know, both of those things are oppressive and they need to be eliminated and
people should to choose many genders. And I think all of that comes down
to their heatonists. They think the universe is meaningless and they just want people
to go out and choose what makes them happy. Although although we have to
add to that that the modern left has this authoritarian element they add in on
top of it where they say, yeah, choose what makes you happy,
but actually, why don't you let us tell you what we'll make you happy?
And why don't you let us control that for you? And so it's
this headonism combined with authoritarianism, but I think is really characteristic of today's left.
No, it strikes me that must present a very strange challenge for lawmakers
at least who are sort of tapped into how dramatically the world is changing,
or the way that we see ourselves are changing, and all of this when
you kind of wake up every day and you have to legislate and govern a
country where some of the stuff a world is happening so very quickly, do
you think folks in Congress, maybe even just in the Upper Chamber have started
to grasp how dramatic a lot of the stuff is. As you write in
the book, you mean, this is a book on massive changes to the
way that we kind of think about biological reality, the way that we think
about men that have we've undergone them in the course of you know, some
people's lifetimes. Is there awareness of that at this point in the Upper Chamber
or is it still you know, people are still behind Well. I think
that the left and that includes those who are of the left in the Senate.
I mean, I think the left continues to drive forward this narrative that
masculinity is toxic, and I think you see that reflected all the time.
I mean, there's a real assault on the idea of gender on male and
female, and there's certainly a real assault on traditional manhood. And the book
is really a defense of the need for strong, responsible men. And we
have a need for policy that will help encourage strong responsible men. And I
talk about this some of the book, but you know, we need to
have good paying jobs in this country for men who want to work with their
hands, for what we traditionally call blue collar workers. You know, there
was a time in this country where you could support a family on a blue
collar way. I mean now so many of those jobs have gone overseas.
That was a policy choice. That wasn't like the an act of nature,
that wasn't inevitable. That was a policy choice, and it was a bad
one. So my message is strong men are good. We need strong responsible
men, and we need policy that will help us encourage that. Whether we're
talking about jobs, whether we're talking about encouraging young men to get married,
to start family, or we should be promoting all of those things and not
being apologetic about it. And this raises a very important question. And you
write about Marx, and you write about marcusa looking at America and looking about
you know, why does America not sort of go on the path that Marks
predicts that it will, which broaches the basic chicken or egg question. Is
it culture is an economy? March Marxist writing in a time of basically technological
economic industrialization and upheaval. Is there a way to reframe the question? And
maybe as masculinity is something that's declining, maybe not just because of the economy,
but more because of this combination of shifts and technology and shifts in culture.
Or is the economy Is there a primacy to any of those If we're
trying to get down to this chicken or egg question, well, I think
culture is king. And this is why the new Marxist, today's Marxists,
who have now taken over control of much of the Democrat Party, they really
what they don't like about American culture is they do not like it's grounding in
faith, in the tradition of the Bible. They don't like the elements of
Christianity and Judaism that are so pronounced in our culture. And I've given us
so many of our foundational ideals. I mean, let's just admit that that
is the truth. And that's why today's liberalism is really atheistic. And I
just stay. In the book, I make the argument this is a disaster.
I mean it really It cuts us off from our heritage, It cuts
us off from a sense of turn of the impermanence and transcendent meaning. And
it also opens up all of these crazy ideas that Okay, well, maybe
there's no such thing as manhood or womanhood at all. We could just do
away with these things. So I think what we need to do is reconnects
with the foundations of our culture, of our history, and our heritage,
and the Bible is really central to that. And I think the modern leftist
attack on our history, the modern leftist attack on manhood and womanhood, is
ultimately going to fail because it's just out of touch with reality. I mean,
is a reality and biological reality. Yeah, but more even more Fundamentalium
is written in a fabric of nature who men are, and the same with
women, you know, womanhood is a biological reality, written in the fabric
of the universe. And I think that's why the leftists have become totally out
of touch with the world as it is, and their program consequently has become
increasingly radical. Whether we're talking about men and women's sports, or we're talking
about pretending there is no such saying as gender, or re educating kids its
tools to believe that gender's fake. I mean, they increasingly are just way
way out there because I think they've lost touch with what's real. Yeah,
I was reminded of the viral video of Jordan Neelie's tragic desk in the New
York subway in the section of your book where you write modernity has perhaps learned
too much from Locke and it just as like, can can men even act
locally on these masculine virtues in a world where they're essentially in a social media
panopticon and a culture is going to pick apart? And this isn't even to
comment on, you know, the virtues of what happened in that particular situation,
but we all know that, you know, this is what happens constantly.
Men go viral and people pick apart, you know, Monday morning quarterback,
every different decision. Is that possible? Now? Is it is that
part of what disincentivizes men to act masculine in public? Well, I think
that there is a message that's sentiment from the time that they first start going
to school and from the time that they start attending kindergarten, for heaven's sake,
that is a steady drum beat of masculinity is inherently toxic. That to
be a boy, for instance, in school is inherently disruptive. I mean,
you can look at there's data on this. I mean, nobody should
take my word for it. If you look at the data. You know,
how often do teachers interrupt boys play at school and their young ages versus
girls, And he answers they boys much much more. How often do they
corral the boys and try to subdue the boys much much, much more.
So, there's a strong preference now over the last twenty thirty years, even
in our educational system to try and get the boyishness out of the boys.
And if it doesn't work by interrupting them and disciplining them and curtailing them,
then we medicate them. And that just continues. As men get older,
you know, they get the constant message that there's something wrong with you as
a man, if you want to be masculine, something wrong with you,
and not only that, you're making the world worse just by being you.
You're making the world worse. And I want to send just the opposite message.
And I think men are hungry to hear the opposite message because it's the
truth, which is that by being a man, you can make the world
better. The world needs you. It needs you to be a man.
It needs you to be strong, It needs you to be courageous, It
needs you to be self sacrificial, you know, it needs you to be
willing. America needs you and your family needs you to go out and be
willing to give your life away for other people. These are things that traditionally
we celebrate it in men. We told stories that valorize those things. Our
culture is not doing that anymore, and I think we need to. And
that's why my book is full of a lot of stories, stories from the
Bible, stories about men I know who are significant in my life and made
a difference, stories from history. I think we need to hold up those
role models again for all men and young men in particular, to say,
yeah, that's what a good man looks like. I want to be like
that. The watched Ont Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day,
Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your
wallet. Are you at risk of losing your job to AI? Although some
jobs will be eliminated, more jobs could be created as the fears of artificial
intelligence grow. Will creative destruction work in this decade? What should you do
to prepare? Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's
affecting you financially, be informed. Check out the Watchdout on Wall Street podcast
with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You
know, it's it's funny as a woman to think about all of this because
I have to imagine for men the I mean, women get this too in
a different way, but the messages are so mixed. You know, be
strong, but not strong like that. And the book is it's full of
stories and examples, and part of the problem in our culture is that we
don't point to enough healthy examples. But what is your you know, how
can young men navigate the difference? Walk that line between what's healthy masculinity and
what's healthy masculinity, you know, between what's Andrew Tate and what's maybe Jordan
Peterson. Well, what I do in the book is I talk about different
roles that I think men are called into, ways that they're called to serving
to contribute. So I talk about being a husband and being a father,
being a builder, and being a warrior, being a priest, and bring
being a king. And these roles are drawn out of again the biblical tradition
and looking at what does the Bible show us about what it looks like to
be a good man? And so we look at each of those and so
my message is, in brief, those are the kind of roles that men
are called to. You want to be a good man, do those things.
Acquire the virtues, you know, Acquire the virtues of husband, even
if you're not one right now, Acquire the virtues of a father, Acquire
the virtues of a warrior. Discipline yourself, discipline your passions, discipline your
desires, train yourself to be something better. I think men want that,
you know. I mean men want to be called a something high or they
want to be called to a purpose. And I just say again, I
think telling stories about men who've done this, telling stories that give us an
example something to aim at, I think can be powerful and giving men that
role model. I mean, yeah, every man is called in some sense
to be a husband, father, builder, warrior, priest, and king.
And that's really what the book's about. You know the I can imagine
somebody on the left reading this book and seeing it as entirely foreign, I
mean, almost a different language. It is so rightfully biblically rooted, and
I can just imagine the head kind of spinning there and someone saying, well,
if we understand things, for instance, like birth control pills, divorce
law, pornography, which you write about in the book as these clear material
catalysts for declining masculinity, does that mean that policy solutions will necessarily involve rolling
back access to some of that stuff. How would you respond to that question,
Well, you know, you mentioned pornography. I mean one of the
things that I talk about in the book is regardless of what the law is,
I think we should stay the men listen. I mean, there's the
siren song that the left wants you to believe, which is that, why
don't you spend your time looking at porn on screens and entertaining yourself in various
other ways. Don't spending your time making yourself stronger, providing for your family,
or otherwise being involved in a community. Why is that? Because men
who are strong in that way, men who discipline their passions, men who
learn to master themselves and then go out and become providers and defenders of their
families. Those men are actually pretty strong men. They're a threat to the
status quo, right, They're a threat to the liberal ruling class that wants
to run the country on its own. Those men are like, hold on,
no, wait, actually I want to have a say I'm going to
be involved in my community. I'm going to be involved in my church,
I'm going to be involved in my government. So I think there's this constant,
steady drum beat again to men, which is, yeah, just go
entertain yourself, go just go do here, you know, watch some of
this and let us run the country. And my message to men is the
most powerful and profound change that we can make in this country is to change
our own character. It's to say, no, I'm going to be a
man of integrity, a man of courage, a man of fidelity. I'm
going to learn to discipline myself, and by doing that, I'll be able
to help change my family, my neighborhood, and ultimately my country. You
know. So whether policy changes we should talk about, yeah, and I
talk about some of those in the book, particularly on the economic front,
and we can talk about cultural changes as well. But I think my message
to men would be really, the most profound, fundamental and important change in
America begins with you. It begins in your character. Well again, and
maybe if we talk about those economic things just for a second, especially as
generative AI is sweeping the country, chat GPT sweeping the country right now,
and people are wondering what the future work force looks like. But you write
about you building things. You write about the decline of blue collar work in
the country, and even with things you know, like chips factories, there's
a lack of Americans, we're told, who are able to staff high levels
of those positions. So in a world that's getting even more high tech every
single day, realistically, what does it look like to make things in America
again? And how can we do it? Well? Listen, We're not
going to cross as a country unless we actually build things in America. And
my view is is that we shouldn't be sky about adopting economic policies that try
to build up our industry, that try to provide good paying jobs to men
who have a skill, who want to learn a skill, who work with
their hands. Seventy percent of men in this country don't have a four year
college degree, and they shouldn't have to get one in order to get a
good paying job and provide for a family. So this is one of the
reasons why I'm in favor of policy like terraffs on China, for example,
that will bring back good paying jobs to this country, that will help encourage
industry here in the United States. And I just reject the premise that I
think has been adopted frankly by both political parties that will you know, manufacturing
and blue collar work is the way of the past, that's all gone.
Now we're only we're just going to subsist on white collar service jobs in America.
And if you can't do those, I guess you're the steps to take
a government check. You know, no way, no way. The future
of our country, if we're going to have one, is where men can
get good paying jobs and provide for their families, Where men and women together
can raise their families in the communities they grew up in and can provide and
can find good work for themselves there and support a family according to their values.
And we've we've got to make some economic changes to get there. I
thought this section of your book Actually on Dependency was really good and raises some
interesting questions for pronatalist policy. These conservatives who have been working on that,
Senator Romney, Senator Rubio, other offices that have been working on, especially
after dabs, what a conservative family policy looks like. Could you talk a
little bit about, especially, you know, those cash payment bills where you
know parents would I think this is just my argument that Foster's a sense of
dependency where parents are getting a check every single month and their bank account per
child until the child is eighteen. Great intentions, but I think you're getting
into dependency questions there. So could you talk about masculinity and its intersection with
that concept of dependency and how conservative should be thinking about that when they're looking
at how to create fathers and create husbands in the first place. Absolutely,
I think we have got to be doing everything we can to move men who
are currently not working or able bodied but they're not working, to move them
into work, and we need to send an unequivocal message that America needs your
work, your family needs your work. We are all less than what we
could be if we've got guys out there who aren't working because we need their
contributions. They can make contributions that are unique, and we need them to
do that, their families need them to do that. I'm really alarmed by
the forty fifty year trend now in more and more men who again who are
able bodied, who are choosing not even to look for work. They're dropping
out of the labor force. And you know, I think a lot of
this is the economic policies we've adopted were simultaneously. We have paid men not
to work on the one hand, and we sent good paying jobs away or
see. So you put those two together and you have our current crisis.
So the answer to that, I think is we've got to push men out
of dependency, which means those who should who can work, should work.
We need to look at the welfare programs for men that are allowing able bodied
men to avoid work where it's actually they can make more by not working than
they can in the labor force. You know, we've got to reform that
and say no, men, we need you in the labor force. We're
not going to pay you to not have a job when you're able to have
one. And then the flip of it is the flip side of that is
the complementary side. We've got to work to bring back good paying jobs,
blue collar jobs to this country, where a guy can go out and get
a job as an electrician, as a plumber in a factory building thing to
say, hey, this is a good wage. I can make a good
wage here. I can get married on this wage. I can have some
kids on this wage. My wife and I, you know, we can
raise our family together and to turn a course for our family together with these
jobs. That's the kind of policy I think we need. It is a
pro work, pro independence policy, and it's one that has healthy manhood,
that wants to be a contributor, wants to provide, wants to protect.
It has that at its core. I remember covering your campaign back in twenty
eighteen when you talked about three things over and over again, Hollywood, Washington,
and Wall Street. You said that in so many different speeches, and
I thought it was really really important coming from a Republican candidate. I want
to ask now that you have been in the United States Senate for a while
and presumably have come into contact with folks from Hollywood, Washington, and Wall
Street in your capacity as a senator. Often what we see in elite circles
is that they live lives that they aren't prescribing for others. Tim Carney has
called this the Lena Dunham fallacy, I think is what he says in alienated
America, where you have higher levels of marriage and less divorce and higher religiosity,
et cetera, et cetera. People in the upper class who are telling
people in the rest of America that it's okay to sort of break these chains
of tradition, etc. Etc. How do you rate the state of masculinity
in these these sort of elite circles. Is there is the problem as pointed
as it is in the rest of the country. Is it just as bad
or is it in some ways, perhaps even worse in these these corridors in
Hollywood, Washington, in Wall Street. Well, I think, on the
one hand, and rich people can insulate themselves from a lot of the trouble
they call us for others by just spending their money. You know. So
you think about the crime issue, you think about the drug issue. I
mean, what do what do the wealthy do and to go out and hire
their own police forces. Effectively, they go out and get private security.
They send their kids to elite private schools with rigorous screening processes for this,
that, and the other. Right, so they exempt themselves. You think
about the chaos that their policies are causing in our culture. You know,
the chaos that comes with the rampant drug abuse, that comes with open borders,
that comes with jobs loss and communities broken. Now rich people to sort
of spend their way out of that, which is, you know, nice
for them, I guess, but for everybody else, is a disaster.
In terms of the message though that these people are sending to the rest of
the country, especially when it comes to manhood. I think it's bad,
and it frankly makes me think of my boyhood hero, Fiodore Roosevelt, who
came from that class. He came from a very wealthy family. But he
was extremely critical in his day of the upper class and of the elite because
he thought that the example they were studying for the country and the message they
were sending the country was terrible. And he was right then and he'd be
right now to make that same critique. I think that the Hollywood, Washington
Wall Street class that constantly denigrates traditional manhood, that constantly says stuff like manhood
is inherently toxic, that constantly says we don't need more blue collar work in
this country, and that if you want to be a father and a husband,
that there's something wrong with you, and that that's you know, traditionalists
and hide bound and patriarchal. Right. I think that's a terrible message.
I think that is much the problem of the message they are sending to the
rest of the country, even as they spend their way out of the consequences
of that message. And so we need to reverse that. And again,
I think the way we do that is we tell better stories, we hold
up the truth, we provide good role models, and we say to men,
we need you, we need you to be strong. It's good to
be a man, be a man who is strong, who's a contributor,
who's a provider. In the sort of online right circles where people are chatting
about these things. The first Thing's story went really viral a couple months ago
by Lomez, and it was describing what's called the Longhouse phenomenon, and he
wrote, quote, more than anything, the longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection
of the last two generations towards social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for
controlling, directing, and modeling behavior. Many from the left, right,
and center have made note of this shift. What if I'm interesting about that
is one of my college jobs was helping Christina hoff Summers on the rerelease of
War Against Boys, and so I was like twenty fourteen a really important book
that picked up on Yeah, how the you know you write about this as
well, the way that we treat young boys in elementary school and high school.
How that actually also has ripple effects on women? Is there? How
do you describe the reverse of it if you look at not just elite institutions,
what maybe society as a whole that have largely been in some very important
ways. I guess you could say feminized. Is that really what we're looking
at? I mean, our men sort of forced not just in academia,
but also maybe in the workplace to deal with new norms that may push them
out of places they would otherwise be interested in or engage in. And if
so, what do we do about that? I would think that it's not
necessarily even feminized. It's really these days androgenized, because you see a corresponding
war on femininity I mean, this is the war on girls sports, for
example, the war on the very concept of what it is to be a
woman. I mean, now, biological males or can be women the less
said, and we must treat them as such, and we must honor them
as such. And this is bizarre, right, I mean, you talk
about an attack on femininity. So I think what you see from the left
is an attack on both manhood and womanhood. And you see them pushing this
idea that really what we are at bas is androgynous consumers, you know,
So just make yourself happy again, let them tell you how to make yourself
happy, but be an androgynous consumer. And is that disorienting to men?
Yes? It is? It is. Is it detrimental, Yes, it
is profoundly so. It's profoundly detrimental for a young boy to be told in
class that he mustn't he mustn't be energetic, that he has got to sit
still or be medicated, you know, I mean it. It is profoundly
disorienting for a teenage boy to be told, no, you shouldn't aspire to
be adventuresome or strong or trailblazer. You shouldn't be interested in hunting or fishing
or anything quote unquote traditional, because that's somehow systemically bigoted, racist, evil,
you know, pick your edgective. So I think that the trend here,
the messages that are getting sent to men are very disorienting, very disheartening.
And I think one of the reasons you see so many young men struggling
with depression and generalized lack of purpose is that they feel like, well,
if they pursue the passions and interests that they want to pursue, then they're
going to be making the world the worst place. And if they do nothing,
then they feel like they have no purpose in life. And I write
about some of my students. I was a professor of law school for several
years, and I write about some of the students who I interacted with who
are suffering from just this kind of malaise, if you like. And I
think so much of that is culturally driven, and it is this push towards
androgyny, this push toward just becoming a nameless, faceless consumer. Men don't
want that, women don't want that, and we need to provide, I
think, a better vision of what a responsible man looks like. It's interesting
because you know, Mark's actually write about that too, people just sort of
being whittled down to androgynous widgets that could be stuffed into any different place whenever
their corporate overlord needs them to be. That, you know, getting all
the distinctions of nationality and gender just being erased so that people are able to
be plugged into different boxes. And the Left remarkably is now the side going
along with that when it comes to, you know, pushing puberty blockers on
children and everything else. I mean, it's just remarkable how quickly that happened.
Yes, it's absolutely true, and it's a great, great point.
And this is I think part of the new Left, their embrace of Marks.
What they have taken from him is the emphasis on a victimhood, on
the emphasis on the need for the overturning of our social structures. But of
course what they really want to overturn above all is our culture, you know.
So they've come to accept this idea of global markets and global corporations.
The modern left loves those things, right, I mean, that's their base
now, they're base. And the modern Left are people who fly in private
jets and ten conferences and do us right. That's that is the base of
the Democrat Party. Today. So they love the global market and the free
flow of capital. They love that, they love consumerism. They're for it
one hundred percent. What are they not for? They're not for our culture
that says there is such a thing as a God, there is such a
thing as eternity, that our rights come from God, and that there's such
a thing as a man and a woman. And they want to tear that
down because they think what we need, above all is a new culture,
a new way of thinking about reality. That's the new Marxism. And you
see that everywhere on the left. You see it in practically every program that
they push these days. And I think that's why our fights our culture have
become so pointed, because we're really struggling over some of the basic beliefs about
what it is to be human, to be man and woman, and of
course to be an American. You know it. Just as we're wrapping up
here, the last question I wanted to ask is, obviously we talked earlier
about Andrew Tait, is there a risk that as we continue ignoring or downplaying
healthy incarnations of masculinity, what we're going to get is really unhealthy representations of
masculinity that are maybe hyper masculine or that as men, I mean we This
is a conversation every time there's another tragic and awful mass shooting, you look
at a young, often fatherless male is just sort of wandering through the cultural
wilderness and landing in some really dangerous places. Is that the risk that the
left actually is running us into here is that the more that you denigrate healthy
versions of masculinity, the more you deny the existence of masculinity in and of
itself, the more men are going to be looking in some really bad places
to feel fulfillment and purpose and order. As you right, Well, I
think you see that. I think the research bears that out, and the
statistics bread that out. And I'm thinking of just gang culture, for instance,
in all across the country, cutting across geography, it's a mostly young
men, of course, in gang culture. But but you know, cutting
across geography, cutting across race, cutting across you know, various other social
markers. But what you see consistently is young men who don't have fathers,
don't have positive role models. What do they do? Well? They adopt
a violent masculine pose, right, And it really is a pose because nobody's
ever helped them find a way to take their energy, their drive, their
ambition, and to turn that into something that is responsible, that is constructive,
that provides for others. So they adopt this sort of violent pose and
it has terrible consequences. And that's been true for decades, you know.
So we and people have researched this, written on it at length. So
yes, I think the answer to your question is yes. In order to
steer away from that, the answer is not to say, oh, men
are inherently toxic. That's ridiculous. The answers to say, we need to
recover what a good man looks like, and we need to start by saying
good men, strong men are good things. We need those in our country,
and we need to look back to our best and deepest traditions, like
the tradition of the Bible, the traditions of our culture, and to pull
out these stories are like, Yeah, that's that's what a good man looks
like. We need those kind of men again in our families, in our
neighborhoods, and in our nation. The book is called Manhood, the Masculine
Virtues America needs. Senator Josh Holly, thank you so much for joining the
show. Thank you for having me. Of course, you've been listening to
another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Joshinski, culture editor here
at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, be
lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray. All right, are young