Given the Trump Administration’s encouragement of trophy hunting, it’s not that surprising to see that one of the former president’s sons has embarked on a new venture in that realm. That would be a publication called Field Ethos, desceribed by the younger Trump as “a passion project in the world of hunting, fishing and adventure.” The project’s “Who We Are” page features multiple people toting guns and at least one winking reference to Black Rifle Coffee. Ernest Hemingway’s great-grandson is also on board, apparently.
All of that might sound enticing or appalling, depending on your feelings about guns, trophy hunting and the Trump family. It also begs the question: how’s the actual magazine? Thankfully, Slate’s Rebecca Onion has an answer for that question after reading the six issues produced to date. Onion’s article offered a nuanced take on the publication, which she dubbed “strangely captivating” while also noting that Field Ethos seems to have the goal of making hunting less “woke.”
The Trump Admin Is Rebranding Trophy Hunting As Good For Animals
Critics worry the advisory board will protect the hobby, not the creatures.All of that may leave you wondering if there is a political dimension to all of this. It seems like there is, at least in part. Onion cites an interview that the company’s COO, Mike Schoby, gave to Hunting Life where he said, “At our core we are about embracing toxic masculinity and rejecting the woke, P.C. culture.” And the Field Ethos podcast includes interviews with Rep. Andrew Clyde — who recently opposed renaming civil works projects currently named for Confederate figures — and Baker Leavitt of the aforementioned Black Rifle Coffee.
The Slate article also points to a Field Ethos article about what Onion describes as “homestead defense in Rhodesia during the Bush War.” It’s worth mentioning here that contemporary discussion of Rhodesia often has a disquieting component — mass murderer Dylann Roof wore a Rhodesian flag patch on his jacket, for instance.
This isn’t to say that hunting doesn’t already have a political component — it absolutely does. But a hunter concerned about the environment who also opposes gun control won’t necessarily fit into a partisan binary. Trump’s new venture, meanwhile, sounds like it comes down more firmly on one side of that divide.
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