This Has Been Burning a Hole Through My Chest

Real men protect and provide.

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Something has been bothering me about the MAGA movement lately. It's not a new thought, but right now it's burning a hole through my chest: the way these men treat women — especially those closest to them.

There's plenty to be angry about. I could sit here and walk you through how violent and regressive their policy choices towards women are — how badly they want to restrict their rights and dictate what they do with their bodies. I could talk about the rhetoric men like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes use to describe women. But today I want to talk about the physical abuse, because this movement does absolutely nothing to protect its own women. Nothing for their wives, their sisters, their daughters. And it disgusts me.

A few stories from the last couple of weeks have been gnawing at me.

Congressman Max Miller of Ohio stands accused by his ex-wife — the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno — of beating her and throwing a pot of boiling water on her. He denies it, but a recording he himself leaked to the press has him acknowledging "the water incident". And nobody in the Republican Party will say a word, because Max Miller is close to Donald Trump, and they cannot afford to upset their king.

Ryan Fournier, the co-founder of Students for Trump, was just arrested again on domestic violence charges — his second accusation of assaulting a woman in less than two years. Police say he punched a woman in the face and asked her, "Do you want to die today?" The movement's response? Nothing.

The hypocrisy isn't subtle anymore. It's the whole movement.

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The same people who spend every waking hour talking about protecting women suddenly lose their voices when the accused is one of their own.

And this isn’t an isolated problem. The movement keeps producing the same kind of men because it keeps rewarding the same behavior. Andrew Tate built an empire teaching young men that women are property. Nick Fuentes built a following telling men that women should have less freedom and less power. These aren’t fringe figures. They’re the product.

That brings me to the story of Lauren Southern. She wasn’t some liberal feminist critic of Andrew Tate. She was one of the most famous female conservative activists of the last decade — a woman who built her brand rejecting feminism, a “darling” of the manosphere. Last year she went public: Tate targeted her through right-wing political circles, brought her to Romania under the pretense of discussing a media project, and raped and strangled her. She stayed quiet for years because she knew exactly what would happen if she spoke up.

She was right. No outrage. No soul-searching. No demands for accountability. Just silence.

That’s the part that should chill you: the women inside the movement know they won’t be protected either. They know proximity to power is not protection. They know the men who call them “one of the good ones” will turn on them the second they become inconvenient.

And yet Tate’s orbit reaches all the way into Trump’s inner circle — close enough, reportedly, to the president’s own son. I’m a father to a 7-year-old boy. I would not let Andrew Tate anywhere near him. Not for a conversation. Not for advice. Not for a joke. Not for a second. In Trump world, it wasn’t disqualifying. It was access. And that tells you exactly what their version of “protecting children” actually means. They protect themselves. They protect the movement. Everyone else is disposable.

Then there’s the Epstein files — evidence of the abuse of young girls and boys that the Republican Party is working overtime to keep buried.

I know this isn’t new. The examples of Republican politicians abusing women — up to and including Donald Trump — could fill a book. But it’s hitting me hard right now because these are the same men currently campaigning on their manliness. They’re out there telling you James Talarico is gay, that Josh Turek isn’t a real man. They come after me — a member of White Dudes for Harris — and call me a cuck.

It’s ridiculous. There is nothing masculine about men who hurt the women in their lives, excuse the men who do, and then demand applause for being protectors. This is why I want to retire the term “toxic masculinity” — because nothing these guys do is masculine. They are weak-willed, violent, angry haters who want to suppress women, and they are incapable of anything but cruelty. They worship the image of strength while excusing the violence and abuse of the actual men leading their movement. They care more about looking masculine than being decent.

No new ideas. Just grievance and hate. And I am so tired of it.

And before anyone rushes to the comments with Graham Platner: yes. That accusation is out there, it’s credible, and I’ve said so several times. I’m not pretending it’s a nothing burger, because I don’t believe it is. Being on my side of the aisle doesn’t earn anyone a free pass. There are scumbags in both parties, and we should root them out wherever we find them. But we do a phenomenally better job policing our own.

What we’re looking at is an entire movement of men in MAGA who do nothing to protect and provide for anyone — certainly not the women and children in their lives. That is the rot at the core of what that party has become. And it’s why we have to do everything we can to get them out of power.

They campaign as protectors and providers. They protect no one but themselves.