As I wrote some 15 years ago, many Republicans prefer someone who says the right things, even if they’re a sleazebag and hypocrite in private, over an ethical liberal. A faithfully married liberal who supports gay rights and opposes patriarchy is morally inferior to someone who’s banging their secretary but mouths the right platitudes about chastity, slut-shaming and gay-bashing. Sure, maybe they didn’t live up to their stated standards, but that makes them human, not immoral cesspools with no values like liberals (it’s a given for a certain type of conservative that liberals don’t have a different moral code, they have no morals at all). Or that no matter what someone’s done in the past, Christianity is all about forgiveness. A standard conservatives never apply to any Christian who’s not on their team.
As I pointed out elsewhere on this blog, trying and failing to be a good person does not make you a hypocrite. However if you then lie about your failings (“I would never look at porn online!”) you’re sliding into hypocrisy. And in many cases, particularly in politics, there’s no reason to think the hypocrite was even trying. Someone mouthing “moral” sentiments may not believe in any of them, as witness how quickly some companies dropped any support for DEI when it became inconvenient.
As noted at the first link, George W. Bush dodged the draft by his own admission but gave lip-service support to the Vietnam War. John Kerry served with honor but criticized the war. Conservatives who swore they despised Clinton as a draft dodger were all in on supporting W and treating him as a war-hero jet-jockey badass (by the time he took office, he’d been grounded from flying because he blew off a National Guard physical checkup back in 1973); Kerry was a traitor and probably faked his war wounds. Which was a lie — Kerry simply had the wrong stance on the war, and that mattered more than what he did.
The same thing is happening now with James Talarico, the Dem Senate candidate in Texas. He’s a Christian and apparently a moral, decent person so they hate him. And claim he’s a pedophile or at least gay. Or (gasp) vegan so he doesn’t understand Texas barbecue (Talarico quipped that he’s been eating barbecue since before opponent Ken Paxton’s first indictment for corruption). Or at least his girlfriend is vegan!! Or Talarico sacrificing children to Moloch (this could be a Qanon reference or simply a metaphor for abortion).
The same thing pollutes how right-wingers deal with sex. It’s been documented that comprehensive sex education coupled with access to birth control reduces teenage pregnancy and abortion rates. Republicans have a documented history of killing programs like that while supporting abstinence only sex ed that prevents nothing — not STDs, not pregnancy, not abortion. Because what’s important is not preventing abortion or pregnancy but sending the right message — teenage girls should not have sex! If they don’t want to get pregnant they should keep their legs closed!
Ditto the obsession with performing masculinity: Florida Republican Dan Weldon has quipped that — well, see for yourself.
As John Rogers says at the link, “I have to ask as a 59 year old straight guy who’s been married 34 years, worked on a pipeline, tagged a lot of markers for traditional masculinity — isn’t doing this gender thing all the fucking time exhausting? How do these people get through the day running ‘gender performance’ code?” Yes, I imagine it is, but it’s better than someone thinking you’re the unmanly one. Idiotic arguments like Weldon not only supposedly serve to other Talarico as Not A Real Man, they implicitly affirm Weldon is — he could sure identify obscure wide receivers! He’s got three Y chromosomes dude!
As Liz Plank put it a while back, “The men running the internet aren’t just controlling the narrative, they’re starring in their own all-male drag show, desperately performing masculinity for each other. Musk, Zuckerberg, and their billionaire boy band are so obsessed with proving who’s the most alpha that they’ve lost the plot. They’re not exuding strength; they’re just insecure men rigging platforms and rewriting algorithms like a group of closeted frat boys terrified of being the least manly guy in the room. At this point, their version of masculinity isn’t just fragile, it’s camp.”
