In spare moments between elbowing rivals, physically threatening colleagues and witnesses, dehumanizing their political opponents and refusing to stand up for the truth or simply to do their jobs, purportedly adult Republican males remain in a fever pitch trying to convince us they know what it takes to be a man.

Apparently, it’s all about vague notions of character and virtues and morality and — gosh darn it — not being some wimpy woke liberal-intellectual-hedonist-groomer-babykiller (or some version of that, ordered according to taste). Oh, and you need to stand back and stand by for Donald Trump’s next assault on the American experiment.

Men have forever worried about being manly enough. The disgraced former guy, for instance, found it necessary to reference his “manhood” during a debate and can’t seem to stop talking about his junk like an insecure adolescent. I occasionally fall prey to thoughts about my male bonafides. I don’t even own a table saw. What’s up with that? During the pandemic, I convinced myself I ought to learn how to tie more knots (I quickly noticed that having busy hands near your lap is not a good look in a Zoom call).

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Books on what constitutes masculinity keep churning out like a fraternity pledge spewing after shooting a tallboy. One notorious recent example is “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a weighty tome of supposed biblical lessons for how to raise boys and young men in the midst of what he decries as a plight of “Epicurean liberalism” that leads the males of the species astray into lives for hedonistic pleasure.

The Washington Post’s Becca Rothfeld opened her entertaining review of Hawley’s book pointedly: “For practically as long as men have existed, they have been in crisis. Everything, it seems, threatens them with obsolescence.” Again, despite Hawley’s fervor, this is nothing new: the alleged crisis of masculinity seems to be a recurring feature in Western culture. It's true, however, that there appears to be something of a crisis for young men in America at the moment. Graduation rates are down and suicide rates are up, and the more general epidemic of loneliness seems to afflict men in particular.

In Josh Hawley's supposedly Christian version of righteous manhood, men never judge other men for predatory sexual behavior.

Whether this is a chronic issue or an acute crisis, the situation has been exploited, and likely exacerbated, by self-styled manly politicians and podcasters who profit in selling fear and despair. Republicans in Congress constantly set awful examples of what it means to be an adult, much less a man. Among other things, these men never want to pass legislation that would give younger people, whatever their gender expression, a leg up in life.

In the Hawley version of righteous manhood, men do not judge other men for predatory sexual behavior. Donald Trump has been found liable for sexual assault and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case and has been accused........

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