RedState founder and paragon of manly virtue Erick Erickson is peeved at the U.S. Patent Office’s decision to revoke the trademark for the name of Washington's professional football team, calling it disparaging to Native Americans. The malicious actors behind this “threat to freedom,” Erickson writes, are “a bunch of overeducated white guys who cry during Love Actually,” and also “a class of men who pee sitting down.” Presumably there’s overlap between the two camps, but if not they should really consider pooling resources.
I’d like to respond to this, but before I do, I feel I should establish my manly bona fides so that I can’t be dismissed as an effete, womanly pantywaist. I’ve never seen “Love Actually” and I don’t care for Hugh Grant. I played rugby and ice hockey as a younger man, though was forced to give them up after too many shoulder separations and concussions. There’s a lot of Hemingway on my bookshelf and I ate a steak last night. I own a power drill and have more than 100 screwdriver bits. My dog weighs more than 70 pounds. I just did 15 push-ups.
(Belch)
There. With my shallowly defined masculinity established, we can continue.
The first thing to point out is that while Erickson puts the blame on white men, the chief plaintiff in the case against the Washington football team is a Navajo woman, Amanda Blackhorse. She’s been leading the effort to get the team’s name changed for eight years. Other people who recognize the name is offensive and are not snivelly professorial liberal caricatures include: Hall of Fame players, NFL executives, former coaches, former Redskins and John McCain.
But let’s assume that Erickson is right and white liberals whose bathroom habits he’s curiously interested in are an existential threat to his worldview – what does that say about Erick Erickson? I mean, Erickson clearly views himself as a superior manly specimen, constantly belittling those who disagree with him as “beta males.” And yet, the beta males and weenie girly men keep getting the better of him.
Last May, Erickson got in trouble for expounding on the “scientific” reasons for why the rise in female breadwinners usurps the “dominant” role men should play and is therefore detrimental to society. Responding to the outcry, Erickson pegged the controversy on “feminist and emo lefties” who “have their panties in a wad.” Erickson ultimately had his lunch handed to him by non-emo non-lefty Megyn Kelly of Fox News: “What makes you dominant and me submissive and who died and made you scientist-in-chief?”
It has to be terrifying to be so confident in the dominance of your gender identity, but nonetheless see the weaker, less virile specimens constantly gaining ground in the "war on masculinity." How does one respond to that?
The people who take offense at the Washington Football Team’s casually racist name are actually acting on their convictions and successfully working toward their goal. Erick Erickson, seeing his freedom curtailed and his worldview under assault, writes puerile insults on the Internet.
Way to strike a blow for manly action, Erick.
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