But here is the bigger problem with the conservative critique on masculinity and family issues: Hawley and Cotton and Carlson and Boebert and their crew all pay lip service to family values while lashing themselves to the Greatest Toxic Male in American history. They have embraced the vilest form of masculinity—strutting, bullying, disrespectful, selfish, vain, childish, and reckless, not to mention philandering and sexually assaulting. Theirs is the party of Hershel Walker, Eric Greitens, Sean Parnell, and Max Miller, all of whom, as The Bulwark’s Amanda Carpenter has documented, have or are alleged to have engaged in various degrees of assault against the women in their lives. They are members of the GOP in good standing, while Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are pariahs. And Hawley and Co. mock Buttigieg? He’s doing the hands-on work of fatherhood. If more American men were deeply involved in raising their children, many of the problems that worry social conservatives would be drastically reduced.

These avatars of manliness are confirming the worst suspicions of feminists, and moving us further from the goal that both sides should embrace—repairing marriage, decency, and family stability.