Inside MAGA’s 'pathetic' quest to sell a 'cartoon idea of manhood'

In a November 12 column for The Bulwark, Never Trump conservative Bill Kristol had fun mocking President Donald Trump's name for U.S. military strikes against Iran: Operation Epic Fury. Kristol described the name as "ridiculous and embarrassing," lamenting that it exemplifies the "tough-guy triumphalism" of the Trump Administration.

MAGA's idea of machismo is also the focus of an article by Salon's Amanda Marcotte published the following day. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other MAGA Republicans, Marcotte observes, look "pathetic" when they promote a "Saturday morning cartoon idea of manhood."

"Liberals have always laughed at Hegseth and his self-owning, try-hard energy," Marcotte observes. "But with the Iran war, even his fellow travelers in overcompensation, the MAGA bros, are starting to worry about the vicarious emasculation that is likely to come with his embarrassing failure to live up to his vaunted — and frequently espoused — 'warrior ethos.' Hegseth's rhetoric is so alarming that it sometimes eclipses how he also can come across like an eight-year-old boy inventing dialogue for the villain in his G.I. Joe game. He likes to say things like, 'maximum lethality, not tepid legality' and 'violent effect, not politically correct.'"

Marcotte continues, "It's impossible to hear the secretary spout these rhymes and not picture how he must have practiced them in front of the mirror in his rumored makeup studio at the Pentagon, imagining himself the hero of an action movie, unable to realize that he's making most listeners feel embarrassed on his behalf."

Hegseth's "cringeworthy" rhetoric, according to Marcotte, resembles a "third grader…. after watching his favorite comic book movie for the umpteenth time."

"Hegseth may be a joke," Marcotte observes, "but that doesn't mean he's not dangerous…. Hegseth talks about how he's 'politically incorrect,' as if that makes him tough. But there is no man that is weaker than one who revels in harming others in a pathetic bid to feel bigger."