This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Real American men and the liberal war on meat

By:   []

Date: 2022-01 

On 24 April, Fox News broke out in a panic over “plant-based beer” and “grilled brussels sprouts” for a “Green 4th of July.” The tone and tenor suggested environmentalism was a deadly threat to the US, and especially American manhood.

Radical Right congressperson, gun enthusiast and Q-Anon supporter Lauren Boebert tweeted that US president Joe Biden’s climate plan would cut 90% of American’s red meat consumption by 2030 and that Biden should “stay out of her kitchen”.

The image of Biden in the kitchen evoked fears about the administration’s totalitarian overreach, and suggested an inversion of gender roles – Biden, and all vegetarians, were not real American men. Boebert and others repeated talking points by Larry Kudlow, the Fox Business host and former Trump adviser, who argued the Green New Deal would be the end of grilling and traditional 4 July celebrations, stoking a panic about the end of the most masculine form of cooking and the most American of holidays with casual racism.

Those covering the story used Mock Black speech or words or grammar associated by white speakers with Black language – such as “Up in your grill” – to evoke racial stereotypes. This links Biden to imagined urban Blackness and tells the audience that they know the “real American men” are white and suburban.

Meanwhile, in order to let everyone know they didn’t support Biden or brussels sprouts, right-wing men flooded Twitter with pictures of their meat. They retweeted several pounds of unseasoned grey T-bones, raw steaks, prime ribs – often accompanied by an American beer. One popular meme echoed the National Rifle Association, saying we could take their steak from their cold dead hands. Liberal Twitter responded by mocking the Right with #meatbeer; laughing that they didn’t know that beer is always plant-based (except Coors) or that you should order steak medium-rare. Almost nobody mentioned that we should, in fact, eat less meat.
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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/real-american-men-and-liberal-war-meat/
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