Jon Hamm cut a campaign ad for Democratic Senate candidate Lucas Kunce, who is running against expert runaway Republican Josh Hawley in Missouri. The ad ever so carefully destroys Josh Hawley’s claim to “manhood,” which to be fair, isn’t hard to do, but nonetheless is still rather enjoyable to watch.
Hamm: “In Missouri, you can’t fake courage. We’re the ‘Show Me’ state, courage is something you have to show us.”
Apparently, “courage” doesn’t involve fleeing from a fight one started.
Video:
Jon Hamm’s got a message for Missouri:
If you want to be told about “Manhood,” Josh Hawley wrote a book about it. But if you want a Marine veteran fighting for you and everyday Missourians in the U.S. Senate, then join us: https://t.co/1QADgv2AAw pic.twitter.com/2QWD4oHg2g
— Lucas Kunce (@LucasKunceMO) May 22, 2023
Hamm: “If you want to be told about manhood, some guy wrote a book about it. (Image of Hawley’s poorly received lecture on manhood.) If you want someone to show you courage, send Lucas Kunce to the Senate.”
Sure, it’s all well and good for his Marine opponent and a Hollywood actor to mock Josh Hawley, who identifies as an expert on manhood, but what about Real Men (TM)?
Rod Miller, a columnist for Cowboy State Daily, writes, “Josh Hawley is the last person qualified to preach to Wyoming men about what it means to have a pair. The first glaring difference between Hawley and a real Wyoming man is that we don’t run away from a fight, regardless who started it, as he comically did.”
“You remember Hawley, don’t you? He’s the skinny little dude who was caught on video running away from the January 6 insurrection that he helped foment. Running like his ass is on fire,” Miller continued.
Ouch.
Kunce might not be an actual cowboy, but he is a Marine who was exposed to burn pits and after 80 percent of Senate Republicans voted to block a bill to help veterans exposed to burn pits, Kunce took his argument to the source, that is to Fox News. The 13-year Marine wrote, “I’m a Marine who was exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq. Republicans have turned their backs on veterans like me.”
Back to the cowboys, though. Miller addressed the real issue of Hawley’s book on manhood as being a political tool to score points about people objecting to toxic masculinity and historical patriarchy, writing, “The men whose names I mentioned wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about that stuff. They were too busy fulfilling their responsibilities as men to the people around them. If someone got offended by how they went about doing that, well that’s just too damn bad.”
Miller’s take distills down to ‘a man who was actually fulfilling his responsibilities wouldn’t care enough about criticisms of cultural patriarchy to write a book whining about it.’ This brings up the real question: What is Hawley actually doing with himself and his manhood? He’s denying veterans help, he’s against women’s human rights, and he’s cheering what turned into a domestic terrorist attack on his own country, from which he later fled. Other than causing harm and undermining national security while enriching himself with culture war childishness, Hawley is not actually doing anything of use.
Speaking of which, the National Republican Senatorial Committee tried to mock Kunce for wearing a rainbow shirt and suggested he was the first male cheerleader at Yale. In reality, cheerleaders were male before they were female, and Yale had male cheerleaders as far back as 1925, which is around the timeline Republicans are trying to recreate apparently so that “men” don’t have to feel so bad about other men actually caring about their communities.
At any rate, Kunce was at Yale on a Pell grant and several scholarships, he was also a runner while at Yale, which is sort of like running away from a riot you incited but not:
Kunce replied:
In 2018, Hawley won his seat with just 51% of the vote. But since then, his approval has dropped to 42%. And in MO’s last senate race during a presidential election, the margin was only 2.7%. So I won’t tell you it’ll be easy—but we can win.
And even the @NRSC seems to agree… pic.twitter.com/rl3mr7xvRW
— Lucas Kunce (@LucasKunceMO) May 22, 2023
Ultimately, Josh Hawley’s real problem is that he desperately wants to stand for something, but he hasn’t the courage to actually stand for anything. So instead, Hawley writes lectures on manhood and he runs away from fights he started. The question is, do Missouri voters want someone who seems willing to take a tough stand for them or are they happy with a Senator who writes books about things he doesn’t understand.
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