The defining feature of the American alpha male, circa now, is that he is very concerned about women, and you can tell because he is never anywhere near one.
Consider the Secretary of War. Pete Hegseth has, across his tenure, produced a steady stream of video content documenting his physical condition, and the content shares a consistent cast. There is Pete. There are the warriors, who are men. There is the grunting, which comes from men. There is the locker-room address about being unleashed and untied, delivered by a man, to men. At Guantanamo Bay he did morning PT with the men and filmed it. At the Pentagon he staged a pull-up contest with the 72-year-old Secretary of Health and Human Services, a man, and named it, out loud, without a trace of hesitation, the Pete and Bobby Challenge.
RFK Jr. participated in a portion of this while shirtless, on an exercise bike, wearing blue jeans, which is a sentence I did not want to write and which the historical record has forced upon me.
Somewhere in all of this, in theory, is a concern about masculinity, and masculinity is defined in this movement almost entirely in relation to women, and yet a careful review of the footage reveals a stubborn and recurring absence of women, replaced at every turn by other men, admiring each other, spotting each other, grunting near each other, and rating each other’s testosterone.
I want to examine this creature with the detachment it deserves, because it has been misunderstood, mostly by itself.