When the Enhanced Games were first announced in 2023, the reaction was derision. Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) called them a “dangerous clown show that puts profit over principle”. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) condemned the concept as “dangerous and irresponsible”. Lord Sebastian Coe, head of World Athletics, offered the bluntest verdict: “Well, it’s bollocks, isn’t it?”

The early coverage reinforced the freak-show narrative. Australian swimmer James Magnussen, the 2011 and 2013 100-meter freestyle world champion, promised to “juice to the gills” and break the 50-meter freestyle world record. He gained 50 pounds of muscle and became so large that it took four people 30 minutes to squeeze him into his racing suit.

Two years later, it doesn’t look like bollocks. Athletes are signing contracts and cashing checks — the most money many have ever earned, given the modest pay available to amateur competitors.

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At an Enhanced Games-sponsored event in February 2025, Magnussen lost a $1 million prize to a leaner Greek swimmer, Kristian Gkolomeev, who had been on performance-enhancing drugs for only eight weeks and swam 20.89 seconds: 0.02 seconds faster than the existing world record. Gkolomeev’s wife had written that he earned “as little as $5,000 a year” as one of the world’s top swimmers competing by the rules. In those 20.89 seconds, Gkolomeev changed his life.

The Enhanced Games debut on 24 May 2026. What began as a laughing stock is becoming something harder to dismiss. The organization now has around 50 to 60 athletes on its payroll across swimming, track and field, and weightlifting — including Hafþór Björnsson, the Icelandic strongman who played The Mountain in Game of Thrones, who will attempt to exceed his own 510kg deadlift record while competing against longtime rival Mitchell Hooper — with 40 participating in supervised clinical trials. Athletes who choose to enhance will travel to the UAE for four months of supervised training starting in late January, with protocols managed by a global clinical trials organization for health, safety, and performance reasons. The permitted substances include testosterone replacement therapy, approved steroids, estrogen, peptides, and sleep aids. Cocaine and heroin remain prohibited.

It helps that there’s serious money behind the venture. Don Jr announced his backing in February 2025, declaring that the Enhanced Games represent “the future — real competition, real freedom, and real records being smashed”. He linked the venture explicitly to the administration’s broader agenda: “This is about excellence, innovation and American dominance on the world stage — something the MAGA movement is all about.”

The Trump family’s involvement raises uncomfortable questions. Michael Duff, a labor law professor at Saint Louis University and former trial attorney with the National Labor Relations Board, told me the arrangement “meshes all-too-well with transhumanism, which is what these games seem to represent”. He drew a comparison to other instances of presidential relatives shrewdly monetizing proximity to power: “To me there is not a whit of difference between the Hunter-Joe Biden and the two-Donalds pairings. It is a form of dynastic aristocracy that goes back a long, long way.”

The timing is notable. The US government has been withholding $3.6 million from WADA over a Chinese doping scandal involving dozens of swimmers. Enhanced Games founder Aron D’Souza has publicly welcomed what he calls an “age of disruptors” in the White House, and has framed the event as a populist challenge to corrupt international bureaucracies. “The IOC president flies around the world in a private jet. He lives in a palace,” D’Souza has said. “The IOC system is designed to benefit bureaucrats, not the athletes.” WADA’s Witold Bańka has called on American authorities to prevent the event from happening. The Trump administration — skeptical of international bodies and with the President’s son heavily involved financially — almost certainly will not comply. A Truth Social post from the President endorsing the Enhanced Games would be worth more than any advertising budget.

There is an irony here: even as Trump celebrates the United States hosting the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics and the 2034 Winter Olympics, his son is investing in a venture that seeks to undermine conventional sport’s entire legitimacy.

The organizers have studied another recent transformation of vice into mainstream entertainment. Christopher Jones, the Enhanced Games’ Chief Communications Officer, previously worked at FanDuel, the sports betting platform now valued at approximately $31 billion. Some of the same people who helped legitimize one previously stigmatized industry are now trying to create another. “Look at the investors involved,” Jones told me. “They do not get involved with losers.”

And those investors want to make money. Jones described the Games as “the kickoff to a consumer products division”. The organization is already selling testosterone therapies, peptides, and enhancement protocols on its website, using social media clips and athlete testimonials as proof points. Clinical data generated by athletes could support an FDA approval process for additional performance and recovery products aimed at the general public. The billionaire businessman Mark Cuban once funded his own study into the effect of human growth hormone on injured athletes, telling me there was simply no other way to gather such data legally. The Enhanced Games hope to generate far more.

The organization has announced plans to go public in 2026 at an enterprise value of $1.2 billion — a valuation tied up primarily in their pharmaceutical business. To understand what’s at stake, consider the comparison: the global market for GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is currently worth around $70 billion and is projected to exceed $200 billion by 2033. The Enhanced Games are betting that testosterone, peptides, and performance-enhancement protocols could capture a meaningful slice of that demand — pharmaceutical self-improvement marketed with the same slick simplicity as a Hims & Hers subscription.

Shane Ryan, a 31-year-old, three-time Irish Olympian and world medalist in swimming, described the arrangement as something closer to a tech startup than a sporting body. “It’s a business,” he said. “Once you learn how much money is actually invested in it, you realize it’s not going to go away.”

Ryan joined the Enhanced Games after retiring from traditional competition. “I made like $20,000 or €18,000 a year,” he said of his time competing for Ireland. “You can’t live on that.” The Enhanced Games offered him a salary, comprehensive recovery support, and the chance to see how far his body could go.

Whether any of this truly succeeds may depend on Kerley’s race. Given that the 100-meter record is the one thing even the most casual of fans will understand, the Games will remain a curiosity until enhanced athletes run faster than clean ones. A USADA official who spoke on condition of anonymity put it plainly: “If somebody breaks that record, everything changes.”

The official identified a specific scenario the organization might be hoping for: a white sprinter breaking the record in a discipline dominated by athletes of West African descent since Jim Hines first broke 10 seconds in 1968. “If the first iconic Enhanced sprint record comes from a white guy, the marketing machine goes into overdrive,” he said. Only two white athletes have ever run under 10 seconds — France’s Christophe Lemaitre (9.92 in 2011) and Virginia Tech’s Cole Beck (a wind-aided 9.87 in 2023) — and neither is currently signed with the Enhanced Games. But the USADA official argued the commercial potential would be, in Trump’s colorful turn of phrase, “yuge”.

Anthony Roberts, author of Anabolic Steroids: Ultimate Research Guide and a fitness journalist who has broken major steroid stories for The New York Times, offered a realistic view. “The Enhanced Games stick around as long as rich people fund it,” he told me — and in my conversations with the Enhanced Games team, it is clear they have a great deal of financial runway, carrying them through multiple iterations of the signature event. “Because it has mostly attracted retired athletes off the podium, I can’t see it becoming popular at the mainstream level. The top sprinter in the Enhanced Games isn’t currently faster than the top sprinter at the Olympics.”

The USADA official was similarly doubtful about the Games supplanting traditional competition. “The Olympics are baked into national identity, government funding pipelines, and a century of habit,” he said. But he acknowledged the organizers had put serious money in. His primary concern was the message the event sends to young athletes, most of whom are already experiencing money pressures in their chosen sports. “We already fight a constant battle to keep kids from thinking they need drugs to chase a scholarship or a pro contract.”

The organizers are not, as they explain it, trying to destroy the Olympics. They are trying to piggyback off conventional sport’s legitimacy while building a pharmaceutical empire on the side. Even so, the Games arrive at a time when moralistic conventions are under threat. Sports betting, once viewed as dangerous and confined to the shadows, is now embedded in all major broadcasts. GLP-1 drugs have made pharmaceutical weight loss mainstream, rapidly supplanting the more respectable custom of dieting. The Enhanced Games are betting that performance enhancement will follow the same trajectory, going from taboo to tolerated to normal: a future in which ordinary consumers pay for testosterone, peptides, and recovery protocols to get stronger, leaner, and younger-feeling. The long-term health consequences of mass-market hormone use remain largely unstudied, but the Enhanced Games are wagering that demand will outrun caution — as it did with sports betting, and as it is doing with GLP-1s.

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Importantly, they are also a post-national venture in a time of declining trust in and identification with nation-states. Athletes will not represent their countries; there will be no anthems, no medal counts by nation. Whether audiences will care as much about competitors without flags remains an open question, but the organizers are wagering that records and spectacle will prove sufficient.

For athletes like Shania Collins, a 29-year-old retired American sprinter and former US Indoor Champion, the appeal is transparency. She competed for six years as a professional, earning what she described as the bare minimum. “I had confidential sources and I’ve seen things that led me to believe that [competitors] were taking performance-enhancing drugs,” she said. “It always felt like an unfair playing field.” Her mother has taken to calling it “the honest games”.

Come May, amid the manufactured glitz and 24/7 gambling of Las Vegas, enhanced athletes will get to chase — and possibly exceed — times that clean competitors have never approached. If Fred Kerley breaks Bolt’s record on a global broadcast, investors such as Don Jr will have seen an early return and the Enhanced Games will have proved their thesis: that the appetite for superhuman performance outweighs any squeamishness about how it was achieved.

If no one does, they will at least temporarily remain what their critics have called them — a well-funded sideshow still awaiting its big moment. Either way, the answer will come down to a fraction of a second.

This recent interview with one of the world’s most significant leaders represents the culmination of a remarkable transformation. The Nelk Boys, whose name combines the first initials of their four Canadian founders (Nick, Elliot, Lucas, and Kyle), began in 2010 as politically neutral YouTubers pulling harmless pranks such as their viral “Coke Prank on Cops”. They’ve since evolved into significant political actors in Trump’s America, relocating from Canada to Orange County, California, to build an empire on outlandish pranks and party documentation, generating 1.3 billion views in the process. At the beginning of their career, they were telling LAPD officers they had “coke” in their car, only to reveal Coca-Cola; now, they are interviewing a politician embroiled in a major regional war. The journey illustrates something profound about how young American masculinity found its political voice, however halting and stuttering, in the algorithmic age.

The transformation wasn’t immediate. For years, Forgeard, who is the sole remaining original member, worked to transform their “Full Send” brand from drinking slogan (“party hard”) to lifestyle empire (rebranded as giving “your absolute best”). YouTube demonetized the group in 2020 for “creating a widespread public health risk” after they threw massive parties violating Covid protocols, but the punishment proved meaningless when they reportedly sold $70 million in merchandise the following year. Their content was laser-targeted at males aged 16-25: fake employee pranks at Walmart, Spring Break documentation, university lecture disruptions. As one analysis noted, they “tend towards the apolitical”, with viewers seeking entertainment rather than ideology. Women appeared only as props; diversity came through their multiracial, multiethnic cast, with Americans, Canadians, and even a gay Brazilian immigrant making conservative messaging more palatable than if delivered by the stale, pale, and male Republican establishment.

The political awakening of the Nelk Boys came in October 2020, when Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — truly an important point of connection for so much of the latest iteration of the American Right — introduced them to Donald Trump. Suddenly, these Canadian pranksters were aboard Air Force One, dancing to “YMCA” at rallies. “Back in 2020, it really wasn’t [cool to have public dealings with Trump],” Forgeard later reflected. “We were kind of the first podcasters to have him on when it wasn’t cool.” Their reward? Trump thanked them by name on election night 2024, recognising their role in his 15-point gain among young male voters.

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Between these bookends lies a fascinating case study in audience capture. In August 2022, the Nelk Boys posted a video of themselves being bullied by Andrew Tate. The footage, which has garnered 11 million views, showed the Tate brothers “demonstrating” how to manipulate women, later spraying the Nelk Boys with champagne after allegedly “stealing their girl”. This went beyond mere entertainment, introducing their young male audience to the manosphere’s toxic gospel of traditional masculinity and female subjugation.

The Netanyahu interview exposed the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of this movement. When “Steiny” asked why Netanyahu was “so hated worldwide”, the Prime Minister deflected with propaganda about a rabbi’s brother in Europe. When asked about starving Gazans, Netanyahu blamed Hamas while the hosts nodded along. Their most substantive pushback came over fast food preferences. The YouTube comments were brutal: “38-year-old frat bros interview Adolf Hitler,” one user wrote, garnering 117,000 likes.

The backlash forced them into a nearly four-hour damage-control stream featuring an unlikely coalition: Hasan Piker (Leftist streamer and, some hope, the Left’s answer to Joe Rogan), Nick Fuentes (gadfly alt-Right, Holocaust denier who has seemingly feuded with everyone on the Right and argued it’s gay for men to have sex with women), and Sneako (banned from YouTube for alleged antisemitism).

Taken together, it all represents a complete inversion of comedy’s traditional political pipeline. The 2000s Judd Apatow generation of frat humorists, which consisted of slobs or nebbishes such as Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, followed a predictable trajectory: crude masculine comedy led to Hollywood success and eventual performative liberal politics. Rogen, Hill and Cera reunited in 2020 for a Democratic fundraiser, looking old and bloated in Zoom windows while earnestly discussing their enthusiasm for reproductive rights. These were the same comedians who’d built careers on jokes about semen and being gay, and they were now positioning themselves as enlightened male feminists. Their politics weren’t so much sophisticated as simply polished, a professional obligation in Hollywood where being a “good liberal” meant career survival.

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The phoniness of this generation’s politics was exposed in moments of crisis. When real working-class grievances emerged, these millionaire comedians retreated into vague platitudes about “doing better” and “having conversations”. They performed progressivism like another movie role, complete with the right Instagram posts and carefully crafted statements drafted by publicists. The “White Dudes for Harris” phenomenon, with wealthy entertainers awkwardly performing allyship, represented the endpoint of this hollow politics: privileged men congratulating themselves for having the correct opinions while changing nothing material about the systems that enriched them.

The Nelk Boys embody the newer, more generous, more small-d democratic pipeline: YouTube pranks lead to Trump adjacency and what might be called “confused conservatism“ (or simple/basic conservatism, if one is being more generous). The bro podcast king Joe Rogan offers intellectual curiosity (however performative); the ascendant, formerly cancelled comedian Sam Hyde offers articulate extremism; but the Nelk Boys offer pure vibes — a vague politics of male-coded cultural resentment that plays on justifiable audience concerns yet lacks ideological coherence. They’re less sophisticated than Hyde, who evolved from edgy comedy to shrewd policy criticism, yet seemingly more committed to the cause than Jake and Logan Paul, whose political engagement remains more transactional. For the Paul brothers, it is their various sports-related undertakings that constituted their real bread and butter.

The data reveals the Nelk Boys’ impact. With 73% male viewership aged 16-25, over 21 million followers across platforms, and videos regularly exceeding five million views, they’ve become what less sympathetic researchers call a “Trojan Horse” for Right-wing messaging. Their evolution from apolitical content to hosting extremists demonstrates what these scholars, who are undeniably political themselves, term the “gateway drug” effect — in which mainstream entertainment content serve as an entry point toward such excesses as “extreme anti-feminism, nativism and overt white nationalism”. Commentary of this kind sounds like the sort of rhetorical overreach that makes most people question the validity of Left-coded academic “research” and, in turn, fail to ask questions about what the long-term impact of the Nelks’ political influence actually is.

Too big to fail or to shut down their profitable operation, the Nelk Boys exemplify how young male content creators are pulled rightward by audience pressure and algorithmic incentives. UC Davis research found that YouTube’s recommendation system leads Right-leaning users toward ever edgier Right-coded content. The economic logic is simple: controversial political content generates higher engagement, conservative audiences provide better monetization, and platforms reward transgression. The result? A generation of creators profits from performing politics they barely understand for audiences seeking validation of their cultural grievances.

These grievances are real. The Nelk Boys’ young followers face legitimate economic challenges: housing unaffordability, wage stagnation, social atomization, looming AI sunsetting of many white-collar jobs, particularly those offering entry to the corporate world. The manosphere offers clear albeit simplistic answers: feminism destroyed traditional relationships, diversity hiring stole your job, liberal elites hate you for being male. Content creators package these resentments as entertainment, creating what Left-wing researcher Rebecca Lewis calls “reactionary ideologies” sold through influencer tactics.

The 2024 election validated this strategy. Trump systematically courted the manosphere by appearing on podcasts that reached 50 million views, a move that contributed to a 15-point Rightward shift among young men. As the UFC’s Dana White took the podium to praise Trump’s victory, he specifically noted the contributions of “the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, and the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan”. These weren’t mere entertainers, but political activists who’d successfully converted politically homeless young men into Trump voters.

The phoniness of the Apatow generation created a vacuum for the Nelk Boys to exploit. Millionaire comedians who’d built careers playing pot-smoking man-children tried reinventing themselves as progressive allies, but their working-class cosplay fooled nobody. The Nelk Boys offered something similarly hollow but superficially honest — they never pretended to be sophisticated, socially conscious, or even capable interviewers. Most crucially, YouTube democratized their content in ways Hollywood never could. Any teenager with WiFi could access the Nelk Boys’ world, while the Apatow crew remained products of an insular industry that preached inclusivity while practicing groupthink and nepotism.

As Forgeard stood onstage at Trump rallies declaring “We need Trump back and we need him back bad”, he embodied this transformation. The fake employee prankster had become a real political employee, selling Right-wing politics to young men seeking meaning in meaningless or absurd lives. The “Full Send” lifestyle, which was once about partying hard, now meant saving democracy from an addled Joe Biden (to which end, among other things, they sold loads of merchandise that proclaimed “Biden is a half sender”).

In the aftermath of the Netanyahu interview, we can see possible limits to the trajectory. Having platformed alleged war criminals (Netanyahu) and actual Holocaust deniers (Fuentes), where does the Full Send operation go from here? In the attention economy, the answer is always the same: further out there, more extreme, endlessly transgressive until the platform itself becomes the message — wayward masculine energy searching for lost, strayed, or stolen meaning in all the wrong places, finding only more content to consume.

Let’s start with a simple fact: testosterone levels in men have been declining for decades. A man aged 60 in 2002 had about 85% of the testosterone level of a man the same age in 1987. Even more alarmingly, we’re seeing a 20% deficit in testosterone levels in adolescent and young adult males. This isn’t just a matter of feeling less manly — it’s associated with a host of health problems, from obesity to diabetes. After all, as well as regulating libido, testosterone is crucial for building bone and muscle mass, distributing fat, and producing red blood cells.

For many men aged between 45 and 50, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) could provide significant health benefits. When properly monitored by a physician, TRT can improve mood, increase muscle mass, reduce body fat, enhance libido, and even help with cognitive function. And yet, instead of treating this as a normal part of ageing care, we’ve stigmatised it, driving people to seek dangerous alternatives or suffer in silence.

This reluctance is rooted in misconceptions about the risks of testosterone therapy. Yes, like any medical treatment, it has potential side effects, such as increased blood pressure, cholesterol, and stroke risk. But these more remote dangers are often exaggerated, while the immediate and obvious benefits are downplayed.

I speak from personal experience. In March 2022, at age 40, I tore my left pectoral muscle. Coming on the heels of two decades of “clean” lifting, this injury led me to explore testosterone replacement therapy under the supervision of a physician. My regimen consists of weekly doses of self-injected testosterone cypionate, with regular blood work to monitor my health. The results have been significant: my testosterone levels have increased from 600 to around 1,000 nanograms per decilitre, with no increases in bad cholesterol or other negative side effects related to liver or kidney function. This hasn’t made me into any sort of superhuman — and I’m still nowhere near as ripped as I was in my late twenties — but during this period, I squatted 600 pounds and deadlifted 700 pounds for the first time in two decades of strength training.

Of course, for every story like mine, there are others that are far from successful. Indeed, just as with every case of stigma, the misleading debate around steroids has created an environment ripe for charlatans and unsafe practices. Just consider the case of Brian “Liver King” Johnson, who built a fitness empire on the claim that his muscular physique was the result of eating raw organ meats and following “ancestral” practices. When it was revealed that he was actually spending thousands of dollars a month on steroids, many were shocked. But should we have been? From “natural” bodybuilders who are anything but to supplement companies peddling magic pills and boilerplate “customised” workouts, the entire ecosystem is built on a foundation of lies. It’s a classic case of prohibition creating more problems than it solves.

So, how do we remedy this? Most obviously, we could bring the subject out into the open, creating the space for better regulation, education and safety. This could start with the acknowledgement that there are legitimate medical uses for steroids and hormones beyond just athletic performance enhancement. Their therapeutic potential in treating conditions like muscle-wasting diseases, severe burns, and hormone deficiencies is well-established, but is often overlooked in the moral panic about “cheating” in sports.

This is, of course, as much a marketing problem as a medical one. The distinction between “natural” and “enhanced”, for instance, is often arbitrary and inconsistent. Over the course of a two-decade career in marketing, I’ve been paid to promote everything from stem cell injections (even getting them myself and making a documentary about it) to kratom powder. Most of us don’t bat an eye at these unconventional treatments, much less caffeine use, nutrient supplementation, or even cosmetic surgery. We accept that a 70-year-old woman might take oestrogen to alleviate menopausal symptoms. Yet the moment someone mentions testosterone for a man the same age, people react as if it’s fundamentally different.

This inconsistency extends to how we regulate these substances. Current laws and regulations around steroids are often not based on sound science. In 1989, against the advice of the American Medical Association, then-Senator Joe Biden led the charge to classify anabolic steroids as controlled substances. This decision, driven more by sports moral panics, has caused more harm than good by driving usage underground, where users resort to unregulated black market sources, underground labs, and dangerous self-experimentation.

Biden’s crusade against steroids is a perfect example of how hysteria can lead to bad policy. In 1989, as he led the push to reduce access to steroids and increase penalties for their distribution, he claimed: “The illegal use of steroids is a major drug abuse problem in this country. Steroids are dangerous drugs that threaten the physical and mental health of hundreds of thousands of young people.” There was, naturally, no mention of their potential benefits when used under medical supervision. Indeed, in 2004, when the Controlled Substances Act was made even stricter by removing the requirement that an anabolic steroid classified as a controlled substance had to actually “increase muscle growth”, Biden was that bill’s sponsor, too.

More than three decades have passed since then, and the current system treats them as if they’re nearly as lethal as opioids. This, despite the fact that you can’t overdose on testosterone the way you can on fentanyl. Yet possession of anabolic steroids can lead to hefty fines and even prison sentences — punishments that far outweigh any potential harm caused by the drugs themselves.

So, what’s the alternative? Well, imagine a world where, instead of being ashamed to discuss declining testosterone levels with their doctor, men viewed hormone check-ups as a routine part of health maintenance, like checking cholesterol or blood pressure. The fact that vanishingly few men know that the normal range for male testosterone levels falls between 300 and 1,000 nanograms per decilitre is criminal; such information should be as widespread as awareness of normal blood pressure. This is more than a matter of virility: low testosterone is associated with a host of health problems, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and cognitive decline. By addressing hormone imbalances early, we could potentially prevent or mitigate these issues, improving overall health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs in the long run.

There are also problematic double standards in how male versus female hormone therapies are regulated and perceived. Women’s hormone replacement therapy is widely accepted, while men’s is often viewed with suspicion. Or consider the case of transgender individuals. Here in the United States, if a transgender man is prescribed testosterone (a controlled substance), the physician must hold a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) licence in addition to being registered with the relevant state medical board. The quantity of the prescription is strictly controlled. However, when a transgender woman is prescribed oestrogen, these stringent controls do not apply. This discrepancy is difficult to justify on medical grounds and seems to stem more from cultural biases about masculinity and femininity.

A more rational approach to hormone regulation could also help tamp down some of the hysteria associated with gender transitioning itself. Today, hormone therapy is treated like some radical act that has to be shouted to the heavens. But if we normalised the idea that hormones are just another tool for optimising health and well-being, it might take some of the charge out of these debates: turning them into discussions about identity rather than simply chemical imbalances.

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Hanging over all this is the need for a more evidence-based approach to steroid and hormone regulation. This means several key changes in our approach. First and foremost, we must decriminalise personal use and possession of steroids. Treating steroid use as a criminal issue rather than a health issue has been a costly failure, driving users into the shadows and preventing many from seeking proper medical guidance.

We should also regulate steroids like other prescription drugs, not as controlled substances. This shift would allow for better quality control and medical oversight, ensuring that users have access to safe, pharmaceutical-grade products rather than potentially dangerous black market alternatives. Encouraging more research into the potential therapeutic uses of steroids and hormones — something long championed by the likes of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban — is also crucial. However, as Cuban told me when I interviewed him and his research team in 2020, the regulatory environment as it currently exists makes it difficult to conduct large-scale, publicly-funded studies on the long-term effects of hormone optimization. By easing these restrictions, we could gain valuable insights that would inform both medical practice and public policy.

Finally, we must address the root causes of declining testosterone levels in the population. This could include research into environmental factors, dietary changes, and lifestyle interventions that might be contributing to this troubling trend.

Imagine a future where hormone optimisation is viewed as a normal part of health maintenance — and where following the best available science might mean most men starting TRT as they enter their mid-forties, if not earlier. A future where athletes can be open about their use of performance-enhancing substances, allowing for better monitoring and research. Where men don’t have to suffer in silence as their testosterone levels decline with age. Where we can have rational, nuanced discussions about the role of hormones in gender identity that are fully divorced from performative partisan politics.

This future is possible, but only if we’re willing to step out of the shadows and confront our societal hangups about hormones and enhancement. It’s time to clear away the smoke and break the mirrors. As I’ve learned from my own careful experimentation, the future of health is one of normalisation, not prohibition. Let’s embrace it.

The past year has been particularly rough for the once-robust but now-obese and physically frail Thomas, beset by investigations into financial improprieties and heightened scrutiny over gifts and favours from wealthy benefactors. The oldest member of the Court at 74, he doesn’t seem to be long for the bench. And when he finally departs, not only will it mark the exit of the Court’s most polarising — and, perhaps surprisingly, most relatable and down-to-earth — figure, but could also alter the trajectory of American jurisprudence.

Thomas’s journey to the Supreme Court bench was, as lawyers might say, sui generis. Raised in poverty in Pinpoint, Georgia, his early life was framed by hardship and resilience. He was reared by his grandfather, Myers Anderson, a self-made man who built his own home and instilled in Thomas a rigorous work ethic and staunch moral code that the young man has, at times, struggled to follow.

After entering a seminary with the intention of becoming a priest, Thomas’s path dramatically shifted: he swiftly developed a pornography addiction so profound he wallpapered his apartment with nude pin-ups. To accommodate his less religious tendencies, he moved to the College of the Holy Cross, a liberal arts school in Massachusetts, where he embraced and then critically questioned the radical ideologies prevalent during the Seventies. His shift to conservative thought crystallised during his time at Yale Law School, where he began to question the efficacy and morality of affirmative action and other liberal policies he felt patronised rather than empowered African Americans.

Though one of America’s few black conservative intellectuals, Thomas’s ascent to the Supreme Court was anything but smooth. Nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, his confirmation hearings — conducted in a rushed fashion by then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden — were nearly derailed by accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, a former colleague at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They soon became a national spectacle that polarised public opinion and highlighted deep societal rifts around race, gender and power.

Largely because Biden closed the hearings before more witnesses could come forward, Thomas was confirmed by an exceedingly close Senate vote, 52-48. However, the scars of the process left a lasting imprint on his tenure and public persona: rarely speaking during oral arguments in the decades thereafter, Thomas adopted a jurisprudential approach that favoured colourful written opinions, where his advocacy for an unorthodox conservative interpretation of the Constitution could be fully articulated without immediate rebuttal.

Crudely speaking, Thomas could be considered an “extreme originalist”, often seeing cases through a lens that emphasises the Declaration of Independence and its revolutionary principles (instead of the later Constitution, which actually established the government). Along the way, he has freely taken peculiar positions — such as his opinion in Virginia v. Black (2003) that cross-burning constitutes racially intimidating conduct rather than mere speech, and should be unequivocally banned — aligning him unexpectedly with more liberal views on this issue.

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But these were rare occasions. In United States v. Lopez (1995), by contrast, where the Court evaluated the constitutionality of the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act — which banned the possession of firearms in school zones — Thomas concurred with the majority that this act exceeded Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. He argued that regulating guns in schools was a fundamentally local matter that had insufficient impact on interstate commerce to justify federal oversight. However, in doing so, he potentially provided the grounds to invalidate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a host of other landmark federal laws enacted under the Commerce Clause that helped end state-based segregation in the South.

A decade later, in another significant case, Kelo v. City of New London (2005), Thomas dissented from the Court’s decision, in which the combined liberal-conservative majority ruled that the city could legally seize private property without the owner’s consent — in this case, someone’s actual house — and sell it to private developers as part of an economic development plan. Thomas criticised this decision, arguing that it strayed far from the founders’ intent that “eminent domain” be used only for direct public uses, such as the construction of roads or bridges, not to coercively transfer property from one private owner to another under the guise of economic development. His dissent underscored his deep scepticism of expansive government powers. “Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution,” he wrote.

As well as presenting himself as an advocate of a more restrained interpretation of federal authority, Thomas is the most relatable justice in another critical respect: he was born poor and always sought material comfort. Over the past year, ProPublica has highlighted multiple embarrassing instances where Thomas received gifts that included international vacations on private jets and luxury yacht trips, financed by billionaire donors who, depending on one’s interpretation, were either sympathetic friends or cynically buying access.

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Early in the 2000s, for example, Thomas found himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, his financial strain coming to a head after he borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV. Eventually, mounting political pressure sparked discussions about his potential resignation from the Supreme Court; in response, Justice Thomas advocated, albeit unsuccessfully, for the lifting of restrictions on paid speeches by justices. This change was necessary, he argued, to alleviate the financial challenges faced by public servants like him, who he felt were paid significantly less than they could earn in the private sector for comparable roles. In reality, his perspective has indeed been valuable, but at what cost?

These late-life controversies all but ensure a miserable end for Thomas. As health challenges and ethical controversies cloud the twilight of his four-decade career, Thomas likely won’t leave with his held high, regardless of whether he retires due to infirmity or is forced to step aside. Nevertheless, his story — tragic though it might be — highlights the importance of genuine diversity in government, in thought and approach as well as background. For while his legacy will be a subject of intense debate and reflection, he has already ensured his place in the annals of American legal history as a common-man justice so silent on the bench that he almost wasn’t there — at least in the conventional sense, but profoundly present in every other. He will be replaced by another elite in disposition and background. And we can rest assured that we will never see his like again.

Yet beneath the superficial sheen of this success, one finds a paradox: Johnson, once celebrated for the originality and raw charisma of his wrestling character, has spent the past two decades navigating a career marked by sterile blandness. Even in a marketplace brimming with astroturfed celebrities, Johnson’s deliberate brand-construction is remarkable. Unlike fellow ubiquitous megastars — see Taylor Swift — he has managed to earn billions without generating even a single news cycle’s worth of controversy, hot takes, and “discourse”.

This is, of course, nothing to be sniffed at. Johnson now showcases a fatless, hairless and thoroughly hyper-masculine physique that far surpasses what he achieved in his youth, during his days as a college football player or as a young wrestling icon. Such hyperbolic musculature normally invites speculation, yet Johnson’s vehement denial of steroid use has largely gone unquestioned. Somehow, he is both the most jacked human to ever front action movies — far larger than Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime — and one of the least interrogated. It’s as if his massive size renders him invisible, the perfect cover for selling the self-as-content in this latest stage of capitalism.

In a similar vein, despite being hailed as one of Hollywood’s premier stars, Johnson’s solo drawing power remains startlingly nebulous. His most lucrative cinematic ventures, notably the Fast & Furious series, are ensemble pieces, while his foray into the superhero genre with the DCU’s Black Adam (2022) was a resounding dud. Only in a pair of critically panned roles in Southland Tales (2006) and Pain & Gain (2013) — in which he plays an anxiety-riddled actor and an anxiety-riddled bodybuilder respectively — does his capacity for depth and nuance emerge. Perhaps such feckless characters represent his truest self; it would explain why his attempts at gravitas and bravado have always fallen short.

The prolific nature of Johnson’s career further complicates the narrative. His relentless output — from film projects to business ventures such as the acquisition and merger of two minor spring American football leagues — paints a picture of a man in constant motion. Yet his relentless productivity, while admirable, often feels devoid of the originality and vibrancy that defined his first half-decade as a pro wrestler. Once someone who defined wrestling’s “attitude” for an entire generation, he now struggles to define anything. Even the occasional calls for him to run for president are met with lukewarm bipartisan support solely because so little is known about him; when, for instance, he appeared at the 2000 Republican National Convention, he spoke about the importance of voting.

One might think, then, that Johnson’s wrestling heritage, arising from the storied Anoa’i family that has produced dozens of all-time greats, would add a much-needed layer to his persona. Yet while his career undoubtedly benefits from nepotism — both his grandfather Peter Maivia and his father Rocky Johnson were major stars — his mainstream success outside of wrestling has been carefully curated to transcend specific cultural or racial identities, positioning him as a universal symbol of success and appeal. This strategy, however, while effective in broadening his audience, has only diluted the authenticity of his connection to his roots and the wrestling community.

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Perhaps blind to this, the recent build-up to April’s signature WrestleMania premium live event — the largest pro wrestling show of the year — features Johnson confronting fellow second-generation star Cody Rhodes while simultaneously flaunting his heritage as the head of the WWE’s true royal “Bloodline”. This narrative, engaging as it may be, highlights the constructed nature of his public persona, blurring the lines between the authentic and the performative, the personal and the corporate. It raises the question of whether Johnson’s engagement with his cultural identity and the wrestling world is driven by a genuine connection or, now that he serves on the board of directors of TKO (which owns WWE), merely another role to be played in the grand narrative of a career devoted to the ruthless acquisition of money.

Some might retort that Johnson is simply embracing a narrative of success, but this masks a deeper, more troubling reality: his evolution is emblematic of the rise of the hyper-manufactured star, devoid of any distinguishing features that could tether them to a definable identity or cultural lineage. And while it may prove lucrative, there are obvious pitfalls: his deliberate positioning as a post-racial, cross-genre juggernaut not only obscures his own cultural heritage but also reinforces the problematic notion that true mainstream success requires a dilution of one’s ethnic and cultural specificity. In striving to be all things to all people, Johnson inadvertently perpetuates a homogenised vision of celebrity that prioritises palatability over authenticity, a troubling precedent for a society grappling with issues of representation and identity, from “pronouns in bio” social-media posting to corporate DEI training and the backlash to both.

Moreover, the relentless expansion of Johnson’s brand across various media and industries exemplifies a capitalist ethos run amok, where every facet of one’s life and identity is commodified and leveraged for maximum profit. This commodification of self is not unique to Johnson, but his case does represent a broader trend where public figures are expected to be endlessly consumable and completely anodyne, their value measured by their marketability rather than their lasting contributions to the cultural landscape. The result is a celebrity culture saturated with figures who, despite their omnipresence, offer little in the way of meaningful engagement or artistic innovation.

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We can even witness this sacrifice of culture for the sake of spectacle in Johnson’s sporting activities elsewhere. Consider his involvement in the revival of the XFL spring football league: while such efforts to provide an alternative to the NFL for lesser or still-aspiring players are commendable, the endeavour also reflects a focus on value, often at the expense of deeper cultural or social significance. These spring leagues have minimal viewership, with ratings lagging behind reruns of decades-old sitcoms — but they have significant value as “streaming content” for networks such as ESPN to make available to “content consumers”. Johnson, if nothing else, is a content man, producing vast amounts of “entertainment” for his entertainment-studio paymasters.

In this, Johnson’s tortuous path to the top confronts us with a disquieting portrait of modern fame: a landscape dominated by figures who, in their quest for universal appeal, lose sight of the very qualities that made them compelling. In a country overseen by a doddering octogenarian president challenged by a risible septuagenarian foe, Johnson and his ilk are quintessential end-of-empire figures; indeed, the Johnson that shows up in Black Adam or the Fast & Furious films might as well be an AI deepfake.

For this great star, then, what began as a promising blend of charisma, talent, and cultural specificity has been gradually subsumed by a sterile brand of market-driven celebrity. And while this may be a testament to his adaptability and business acumen, it also serves as a cautionary tale about the costs of such adaptability, both for the individual and for a culture increasingly bereft of authentic voices and visions. The Rock, in other words, has made himself into the perfect voice for this generation’s ears, content to say the same things in the same way until his run, and perhaps ours, has reached its logical end.

Haley’s recent comments about the Republican primaries tell the tale. Speaking on a local Iowa PBS station, she remarked: “[The Iowa Caucus] starts it. You change personalities, you go into New Hampshire.” These words encapsulate her approach: adapt, morph, become whatever the moment demands. In Iowa, where she is rising in the polls but still trailing both frontrunner Donald Trump and DeSantis, who has several political endorsements influential in Iowa, she paints herself as the tribune of patriotic, God-fearing America.

But in New Hampshire, where she is polling much higher and even getting within striking distance of Trump, she adopts a different persona, one that supposedly resonates more deeply with the emotional and forthright nature of its independent-minded voters. The gameplan, however, is the same, as she told the state’s voters last week: “You know, Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it [in New Hampshire]… And then my sweet state of South Carolina brings it home. That’s what we do.” This flexibility is both her secret weapon and her Achilles’ heel, betraying her lack of a core, enduring identity. It’s a remarkably transparent act of political shape-shifting that indicates a deeper identity crisis within Haley’s campaign.

Haley’s political biography is rife with instances of flip-flopping, none more illustrative than her stance on the Confederate flag. Once a staunch defender of its presence at the South Carolina statehouse because — one cannot make this up — “not a single CEO has complained”, Haley quickly reversed her position following mass shooter Dylann Roof’s attack on a Charleston church. This pivot, while a response to a seismic shift in public sentiment, highlights a pattern of opportunistic realignment rather than principled leadership; her hand was forced, in her words, because Roof had “hijacked the flag”. She added that it had to go because “no one should feel pain” at the sight of it, even as it remained a symbol of “service, sacrifice, and heritage” for “some” South Carolinians. It’s always a dance of two steps forward, one step back, leaving observers confused about where Haley truly stands amid all the practised corporate doublespeak.

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Haley’s relationship with Trump continued her career of political vacillation. Initially a critic, particularly during the 2016 election when she won a modicum of fame by replying to an attack from the GOP insurgent by saying “bless your heart”, she gradually warmed to Trump and ended up supporting him despite her reservations. “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK,” she once said, only to later call Trump, of whom she was still “not a fan”, the “best person based on the policies”. For her trouble, she received a post as UN Ambassador — from which she resigned in December 2018 after news came to light of her receiving improper luxury plane trips from South Carolina business leaders. (She met the much sillier allegation of a possible affair with Trump raised by journalist Michael Wolff with justifiable derision.)

Following the events of January 6, her stance shifted again, oscillating between criticism and support. This remains the tightrope that Haley — unlike DeSantis, Ramaswamy or Christie — spends much of her time walking. And in comparison with those three, who each have their signature issues, whether it be DeSantis’s putative Right-wing march through Florida’s institutions or Christie’s blustery anti-Trump posturing, Haley occupies a place of no-place. She must offer a safe alternative to Trump — or, perhaps more cynically, make herself attractive enough to be a possible running mate for him — while keeping her rebukes within acceptable bounds. One need only analyse her public statements to understand how strange this is: she chastised Trump for his response to the Capitol riots, yet strongly opposed his second impeachment (“Give the man a break”).

A month later, Haley was writing in the Wall Street Journal that she largely supported all of his “outstanding” policies, which “made America stronger, safer, and more prosperous” — policies she has spent much of the current primary season promising to protect and extend. However, she has also said that Trump himself, the architect of all this outstanding policymaking, “cannot win a general election”. Nevertheless, she added: “I would support him because I am not going to have a President Kamala Harris” after Joe Biden steps down. How, one wonders, could she avoid this eventuality if she is throwing the weight of her endorsement behind a figure she regards as unelectable?

This love-hate dynamic with Trump speaks to a deeper issue: Haley’s inability to carve out a distinct political identity independent of the prevailing winds within the GOP. Her strategy, however, is not without its small measure of cunning. She targets the “moderate” conservative voter, a shrinking but well-off demographic disillusioned with the extremes yet hesitant to embrace the Republican Left, especially in the narcissistic “NeverTrump” guise it has adopted à la Liz Cheney. It’s a savvy move, but one that may underestimate the intelligence of these voters. Perhaps they seek substance, not just a polished veneer of diversity and business acumen. If so, Haley offers them little more than platitudes and carefully calibrated sound bites.

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Then again, maybe this is all such voters want. I recently found myself on a long car journey with a well-off, self-described “moderate”, Right-leaning boomer. Between discussions about the challenges facing Biden and the state of our investments — his certainly put mine to shame — he expressed a certain admiration for Haley, describing her as “attractive and well-spoken”, and sympathising with how she, much like Biden with the “loony Left”, is in a sympathetically “tough spot”. As our conversation continued, it became evident that his support was superficial, rooted more in her persona than her policies. He couldn’t quite articulate what she stood for — and indeed was even confused about her valuable “diversity”, wrongly thinking she was Native American — only that she seemed like a palatable alternative to the more polarising figures in the GOP.

In a field of candidates which includes the sharp-minded Ramaswamy and the policy-focused DeSantis, the vacuum of Nikki Haley raises critical questions about the nature of modern political leadership. Is the GOP electorate content with a candidate whose silhouette mirrors their own, or do they yearn for a leader with a steadfast compass, unwavering in conviction? As Haley treads her way through this carefully choreographed ballet, one wonders if the larger audience — the vast expanse of the American electorate — will tire of a performance that recalls similarly unsavoury and power-hungry Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, who never met a regional accent she wouldn’t affect.

Will Haley somehow find her place in a fixed orbit around the bright orange sun that is Trump, or will she be consigned back to the storeroom closet as her party’s ultimate empty suit? Only time, and the ballots, will tell. In the meantime, the curtain continues to rise on the 2024 primaries, and the spotlight is unforgiving.

Each of these offerings converge on several key arguments. Foremost among them is the portrayal of Trump as not just a disruptive force but as a fundamental threat to the Republican Party’s core values and traditions. The authors long for a return to the policies and ethos of the Bush years — a combination of hawkish foreign policy, tax cuts, and socially conservative stances, such as opposition to abortion. More potent than this, however, is their united willingness to overlook a crucial aspect of Trump’s presidency: the fact that his governance was largely in line with conventional Republican policies. Trump’s administration was marked by significant achievements that resonated with the party’s base, such as the appointment of Supreme Court justices instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade.

Having read them all, I can safely say that Cheney’s contribution stands as the archetype of the Never Trump genre. The book reflects what Cheney views as her divine right to hold a prominent role within the Republican Party. Her upbringing and lineage positioned her as a key figure in Washington, and Oath and Honor is an echo of this predetermined significance.

As befitting a modern-day Moses, Cheney’s tone is notably dramatic, characterised by an oscillation between exaggerated indignation and heavy-handed moralising. Its opening lines set a grandiose stage: “This is the story of the moment when American democracy began to unravel,” she warns. Cheney, or more likely her ghostwriter, thereafter embarks on a journey that paints a dire picture of the Trump era, framing everything in the context of America’s “unravelling”.

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Beneath the surface of this dramatic narrative lies a more personal story of jealousy and resentment. In Republican Rescue, a Never-Trump memoir by Chris Christie published way back in 2021, the former Governor of New Jersey makes a point of describing his initial positive working relationship with Trump. Similarly, Hutchinson’s Enough includes detailed friendly accounts of her interactions with her future Republican opponents. These narratives, at their core, are tales of friendships that deteriorated in the turbulent waters of Trump’s presidency. What makes Cheney’s stand out, however, is the way she seemingly fell out with everyone of note in the GOP.

Yet in every volume, the emphasis on the personal comes at the expense of a more comprehensive and objective analysis of the broader political implications of Trump’s presidency. In essence, these books, particularly Oath and Honor, aren’t genuine political critiques; they are instead historically valuable reflections of personal disillusionment and the fracturing of long-standing relationships within the Republican Party, much like records of the American Whig infighting that preceded the creation of the Republican Party in 1854.

In this light, Cheney’s contribution is best understood as a culmination of a personal vendetta against both Trump and a party whose direction she has never been able to grasp. Once a prominent figure in the party and vice-chair of the House January 6 Committee, she has since found herself increasingly alienated. Her resounding defeat in the 2022 Wyoming Primary by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman marked not only the end of her tenure in the House but also symbolised the party’s definitive shift away from the Cheney brand of neoconservatism.

This becomes apparent in her descriptions of encounters with individuals such as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, whom she criticises for not tempering Trump’s actions: “I had met both Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka, several times… they should have done more to stop him.” Yet Cheney’s criticisms extend beyond individual anecdotes into a broader indictment of the party’s direction. She labels the transformed GOP as the “anti-Constitution party”, a dangerous departure from the party’s traditional values in favour of a movement she deems dangerous and anti-democratic. At the heart of this is a more prosaic truth: today’s GOP is simply an anti-Cheney party.

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Elsewhere, her arguments fail to address the complexities of the political landscape. She speaks of the millions of Americans who believe in election fraud narratives — warning that the GOP is on the brink of becoming a “party of QAnon” — yet fails to explore the reasons behind such beliefs. Indeed, the book is marked by its lack of consideration for context, even when it concerns her own political convictions. For instance, she conveniently omits her previous support for most of Trump’s policies, particularly during his first impeachment. She also suggests that the Democrats’ failure to subpoena John Bolton was a key factor in her opposition to that Russiagate-related impeachment, even though she didn’t give this explanation at the time; like the rest of the Republican leadership with whom she had yet to fall out of favour, she was content to call it a “sham” and a “waste of time”.

The result is that Oath and Honor is less a patriotic defence of American values than a tragedy of personal ambition. Along with every other book in the Never Trump genre, if it is to serve any function, it is as a chronicle of a tumultuous period in a Republican Party marked by ideological shifts and broken alliances. These are records of a messy and very public divorce, not just between a country and its president, but also between that president and some of his former allies. With her fondness for overblown rhetoric and love of Abraham Lincoln, Liz Cheney might even go so far as to claim they could constitute valuable last testaments in advance of a future civil war.

One such casual — my cousin — has an approach to the MCU that embodies this form of “detached involvement”. He buys tickets to each new release, not for the cinematic journey but for the shared cultural moment. He engages with the films peripherally, often multitasking on his phone, sometimes snoozing or even leaving to eat a meal in his car. He only goes so he can watch the post-credit bonus scenes so he can talk about them at the water cooler. To him, the rest of the film is a palatable time-waster.

Yet relying on this was never going to be enough — and finally the Marvel Universe is starting to unravel. Its latest instalment, The Marvels, which reportedly cost $250 million, looks set to be a flop, joining the ranks of its other failures this year, Ant Man and The Wasp. Meanwhile, one its new stars, Jonathan Majors, whose portrayal of the time-bending villain Kang the Conqueror was intended to revitalise its brand, now faces domestic violence charges.

Marvel’s imperilled big-budget approach to superhero cinema is a far cry from my comic-crazed youth, spent in the rolling hills of rural Pennsylvania and the tidewater of North Carolina. Back then, collecting comics was more than a hobby; it was a rite of passage. I remember the visceral thrill of the hunt, driving from town to town, seeking the next instalment of narratives plotted by unsung creators such as Mark Gruenwald and Jim Starlin. These stories — particularly Starlin’s multi-part, multi-crossover Infinity Gauntlet saga — wielded a raw energy that their cynical deployment in subsequent movie adaptations could scarcely capture. In the pages of Starlin’s decades-spanning magnum opus, characters were not just avatars of power but embodiments of philosophy and human frailty. Thanos, with his nihilistic love affair with Death, was a villain of Shakespearean complexity, his every move in pursuit of power a stroke in a grand, dark saga of narrative ambition.

Crucially, these quests weren’t crafted for universal accessibility on the big screen; they were a haven for us nerds, a testament to our dedication to trivia, continuity, backstory, and our little imagined community. And as soon as they were repackaged into a blockbuster formula, they alienated those of us for whom every detail was a breadcrumb on the trail to the heart of a vast and intricate universe — our universe.

My pilgrimages to San Diego’s Comic-Con from 1998 to 2004 charted a similar journey from niche to mainstream. With each visit, the infiltration of Hollywood became more pronounced. The Comic-Con I first stepped into was a labyrinth of cardboard boxes overflowing with dog-eared comics, a place where the most valued currency was knowledge of back issues rather than the sheen of new video games or action figures. The comic vendors, custodians of this lore, guided us to hidden gems and long-sought-after back issues. Artists and writers, the unheralded architects of worlds and weavers of dreams, sat slump-shouldered at cluttered tables, ready to discuss the art of storytelling with anyone who held a passion for the craft.

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As the years progressed, however, the tide began to go out. One could watch, almost in time-lapse, as the old guard of vendors began to vanish, their places taken by the glimmering displays of upcoming blockbusters and the latest video-game tie-ins. Promotional materials, once modest handouts, grew into towering banners and ostentatious set pieces. Discussions of Jack Kirby’s artistry and the nuances of his Fourth World saga were edged out by panels dominated by sound bite-spewing celebrities and sneak peeks of next summer’s tentpoles.

By 2003, the transformation was nearly complete. The convention floor, once a haven for the comic faithful, became a temple of multimedia franchising meant to captivate not just fans, but a global audience. And yet, the Comic-Con of that era still retained vestiges of its roots — the sight of cult icons such as a then-controversial Kevin Smith, who mingled with fans in a way that would seem alien amid today’s polished celebrity walkthroughs.

But this evolution wasn’t just about a changing industry; it was personal. It marked the end of an era when conventions were a crucible for forging individual identities within the collective of fan culture. Each of us, clutching our own satchel of back issues, could craft a unique persona built on the esoteric knowledge of story arcs, character histories and creator biographies. Two decades ago, you could count on your fingers the number of individuals who could navigate the complex mazes of various crossovers — but when you met them, it was like meeting a brother.

And then came the beginning of a new, albeit less intimate, chapter. Soon everyone would get to be a vague Captain America fan, clad in a shirt with his logo, without knowing any of the hundreds of unique tales that Mark Gruenwald had told about the character. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, considering that Starlin, one the Greats, did not attain vast wealth from his creation due to the nature of work-for-hire agreements.

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As for the future of comics, can Marvel reclaim its former glory? While Disney, with its billions invested, might be hoping for a resurgence, it’s hard to see what it might look like. Despite Marvel’s continued efforts to extract fresh concepts from its comic division, the process seems strained. Currently, its loss-leading print division is going through yet another of its frequent “reboots” — a laborious effort that feels more like a tired publicity stunt than a thrilling narrative reset. Timeless, a new series designed to lay the groundwork for Marvel’s forthcoming tales, is set in a dystopian future that features a showdown between “Power Man” and “Immortal Moon Knight”. Such a trite narrative, for all its attempt at grandeur, smacks of desperation — a flamboyant plea for fans to hold on just a little longer in the hope that we’ll have something else for you, another place to park your money.

But perhaps it also speaks to the only way forward for Marvel: to see its decline not as a cause for mourning, but an opportunity for a reinvigoration of creativity. After all, comics still possess the potential for remarkable storytelling — provided the creators’ vision is given centre stage. Consider Amazon’s admirably faithful adaptation of Invincible, the blood-and-guts superhero story that catapulted its creator Robert Kirkman into the limelight. Or take Adi Shankar’s The Guardians of Justice, an overlooked Netflix jewel that makes Watchmen seem practically pedestrian. It was a spectacle of creative freedom, one that somehow attracted an extraordinarily diverse cast without pandering to the patronising, focus-grouped tropes of the big studios.

And outside of Marvel’s studios, the brilliance within the superhero genre also still sparkles. Japan is leading the way here — in the extraordinarily inventive manga of My Hero Academia and One-Punch Man, both flourishing under the stewardship of their Japanese creative teams rather than corporate interests.

Yet perhaps the greatest solace can be found closer to home. More than anything, the twilight of Marvel reminds me of the death throes of another genre: the Western. And how did that end? In Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven and David Milch’s Deadwood — masterpieces of genuine passion rather than commercial viability.

But as much as these moments underscore the art form’s past audacity, they also highlight the pallor that has settled over it. Once a platform for such biting wits as Don Rickles and Joan Rivers, the comedy roast has become a sanitised ritual, a showcase of quips that hardly go beyond the skin. Perhaps the last time we heard a roast joke that truly shocked was in 2019, when Blake Griffin took the mic to thank Caitlyn Jenner “on behalf of black men everywhere” for giving her daughters “daddy issues”. Since then, roasts have transitioned into an assembly line of safe, formulaic jokes that don’t even scratch the surface.

Yet looking at the roast’s decline, perhaps it’s understandable that nowhere in the entertainment world is the existential crisis over the rise of AI more palpable than in comedy. After all, there is no field of creative endeavour that’s become more dependent on cliches, groupthink and repetition. But while the malaise is widespread, the roast, in particular, looks set to be an early casualty.

Consider the recent “roast battle” between a human comedian and an AI counterpart. Earlier this year, Matt Maran, a comic from Queens, faced off against a ChatGPT-powered version of Sarah Silverman. Maran faltered early, attempting several jokes that clearly misfired. In contrast, the AI dished out jokes without so much as stopping for a sip of water. Though the AI was unflappably corny — “you’re as edgy as a butterknife,” it told Maran — it won the roast by ceaselessly throwing cliched barbs that were more agile and responsive to Maran’s hit-or-miss material. (Perhaps the AI’s biggest hit: “You’re from Long Island and you lost your virginity to a prostitute… talk about starting from the bottom and staying there.”)

Yet rather than serve as another warning of a Skynet-like robot takeover, this episode was more an indictment of human comedians’ inability to excite. Look past the hype, and ChatGPT stands as a glaring example of AI’s limitations: its output may be rapid and cost-effective, but its algorithms still can’t replicate the spark of human wit or the depth of human emotion. It certainly can’t capture the true essence of laughter: what French philosopher Henri Bergson described as “a slight revolt on the surface of social life”. In his view, comedy is not just about robotically eliciting a laugh; it’s a social endeavour. The emotional connection between the human comedian and his human audience isn’t just beneficial — it’s essential for the success of the joke.

Ironically, then, it’s almost as if AI were precisely calibrated for churning out the type of lame, uninspiring content that now defines roasts as well as late-night comedy — a genre that has long suffered from a lack of originality; jokes about SNL being “Saturday Night Dead” have made the rounds almost since the show premiered in the late Seventies. Given one or two fast-working hack writers to oversee its output, ChatGPT could easily pump out entire seasons of it.

And perhaps it already is. Joe Toplyn, for instance, a former writer for David Letterman, has ventured into this uncharted territory with his bot, Witscript, which takes topical headlines or themes and generates what it believes to be the “best” joke, leveraging algorithms to optimise for elements such as timing and punchline effectiveness. The output is beyond cornball: in response to a user prompting it to make a joke about the Bidens’ aggressive German Shepherd, it wrote: “Sounds like he was more of a BITE-en than a Biden.” Yet for all their banality, Witscript’s jokes are merely a reflection of the modern comedy circuit.

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By contrast, genuinely artistic comedy will always thrive on a certain rebellious spirit — a willingness to stake out and work on that edge. This is the comedy of David Letterman in his early years at NBC, of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross at HBO’s Mr. Show in the Nineties, of contemporary comedians such as Sam Hyde and Nick Rochefort of Million Dollar Extreme. This is the comedy that doesn’t just elicit laughter, but also provokes thought.

Recall that last show’s most unforgettable sketch, in which Rochefort portrays a burnt-out teacher so convincingly that it is almost uncomfortable to watch. His character wrestles with self-loathing and moral apathy, manifesting a bleak internal monologue that touches on career failures, his complex sexuality and an eagerness to escape his dismal reality. This form of humour is deeply unsettling — it ends with his imagined suicide set to rock music — and yet groundbreaking, the likes of which AI can’t come close to replicating. Here, then, is an important clue for saving the traditional comedy roast from automation: re-embracing the raw, unfiltered humour that made roasts a staple of American comedy in the first place.

Yet, if we are to be brutally honest — in the true spirit of the roast — the odds of such a revival seem extraordinarily slim. From economic pressures that favour risk-averse humour to a polarised comedic landscape that leaves little room for edgy jokes, the variables are stacked against a revival. The recent Writers Guild of America strike exemplifies the trend, with the industry’s creatives clamouring for a bigger slice of an increasingly bland pie — temporary protection from the bots — rather than attempting to surpass them by creating great art. As a result, any hope of reigniting the fire in the roast seems less like a potential future and more like the fading light of a bygone era.

By the standards of American political discourse — never quite on a par with the UK’s Oxford Union tradition — Ramaswamy has displayed all the quintessential qualities of a great debater. Each of his words, whether you agree with it or not, strikes with laser precision. He knows exactly what he is doing. And it’s working: his poll numbers are on the rise, resonating well beyond Trump’s staunchest supporters while retaining this critical base.

Yet Ramaswamy’s adept leveraging of Trumpian language is less an embrace of ideology than a shrewd tactical move. In a political climate where Trump’s influence looms large, Ramaswamy has made Trumpism his own, albeit with a bit more nuance. When it comes to politically sensitive topics such as Ukraine or Taiwan, Ramaswamy is adept at threading the needle. He panders to Trump’s base with an initial broad stroke — arguing for a more hands-off approach to these nations’ security affairs — only to follow it up with a meticulously detailed explication that he can seemingly recite from memory. This strategy allows him to engage a broad swathe of Republican voters, from the most zealous Trump supporters to those who prefer a more nuanced stance, as well as some anti-imperialists on the isolationist Left. When media outlets or rival candidates accuse him of U-turning or selling out his own party, Ramaswamy counters by claiming his remarks are taken out of context. And then, with remarkable alacrity, he delivers the much-needed context, nullifying the critiques.

For all the attention he commands, however, Ramaswamy remains an enigma. Yes, he’s a family man, a monotheistic Hindu, a Harvard and Yale graduate, and an an accomplished national-level tennis player. But what else is there to him? Is it pure, unadulterated ambition, or is there more than meets the eye?

In the realm of American politics, few debaters have shown Ramaswamy’s rhetorical skill. Consider Senator Ted Cruz, who served as Solicitor General for the state of Texas and has appeared before the US Supreme Court nine times — securing victories in five cases. Cruz has delivered 34 appellate oral arguments, a record unmatched by any practising Texas lawyer or current member of Congress. Yet Ramaswamy’s talent eclipses even Cruz’s considerable gifts. Cruz is smooth, but he is thoroughly unlikable and can’t respond in the off the cuff the way that Ramaswamy has mastered.

At this point, the competition seems less between Ramaswamy and his Republican opponents and more between Ramaswamy and the boundaries of political discourse he is continually pushing. In that battle, he seems to be carving not just a niche but an entirely new landscape.

Ramaswamy’s aptitude for floating between conspiracy theories and fact-based arguments places him in a league above contemporaries such as the gravelly-voiced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On the subject of climate change, Ramaswamy demonstrates an intellectual dexterity that allows him to reach across the ideological aisle. While he claims not to deny climate change, he simultaneously challenges the prevailing scientific consensus. During last week’s primary debate, he decried the climate-change agenda as a “hoax” and contended that “more people are dying from climate policies than actual climate change”. Later, he acknowledged the impact of burning fossil fuels but lambasted the “climate cult”, advocating for increased oil production and criticising support for a carbon tax.

As always, he has a way of squaring this circle. It’s this acuity that allows him to touch on sensitive topics such as federal-agent involvement in 9/11 or the Capitol riot without igniting the firestorm one might expect from Trump or other less nimble Republicans. It seemingly grants him a greater latitude to explore controversial opinions, as he can unfailingly add layers of caveats and qualifications to everything he says.

Given his talent for argumentation, what Ramaswamy truly believes will remain elusive; this is a man who can say anything. His admiration, for instance, of Elon Musk’s lean approach to business management reflects his libertarian core, exemplified by a desire to reduce the federal government’s workforce by 75%. Yet his political ambition goes beyond libertarian ideals; he aims to exercise presidential power almost akin to an elected monarch: he vows to fire the majority of federal employees, dismantle civil service protections, abolish numerous federal agencies such as the Department of Education and the FBI, and challenge long-established executive orders — a government-trimmer in personnel, if not in budget.

To implement his audacious vision, Ramaswamy would have to topple two political “kings” — the exiled Donald Trump and a seemingly fading Joe Biden. It is a project whose scale mirrors that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, who spoke of “vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself”. While it’s difficult to ascertain what Ramaswamy truly seeks or who he fundamentally is, the force of his drive is undeniable. And as with Macbeth, it is a double-edged sword: a driving force and a potential downfall.

It’s a tendency that no fitness company has reflected better than CrossFit. Once a branded fitness regimen combining different gymnastic and strength-training disciplines into a competitive community of leaderboards and point-scoring, the company has crystallised into a cult-like movement.

As someone with a lifelong interest in fitness, I was ripe for grooming and initiation, and duly became a dedicated member. And proselytiser, too: I helped expand the Panther CrossFit affiliate at the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 and practised the CrossFit methodology for three years. While many criticise the programme — for its links to supposedly Right-leaning first responders, its internal issues with sexual harassment, or past controversial remarks by its former CEO concerning the BLM movement — these issues never bothered me during my years of practice; the entire fitness world leans Right. No, the simultaneous appeal and sickness of CrossFit lies deeper, beyond the headline controversies, reflecting an undying hunger for a slickly-marketed blend of fitness, community, and competition. It’s an obsessive, dogmatic programme that I ultimately couldn’t handle.

CrossFit has achieved one feat that many thought impossible: it motivated a multitude of women to embrace heavy lifting. Even though many often demonstrated unsafe or improper form, it persuaded both genders to experiment with Olympic lifts, deadlifts and squats. It highlighted the value of plyometrics, kettlebells, and standard circuit training. As strength coach Mark Rippetoe — himself a critic of CrossFit — aptly stated; “Since the invention of the equipment a hundred years ago, nothing has placed more hands on more barbells than CrossFit.”

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However, a crucial distinction arises when one looks more carefully into CrossFit’s methodology. The programme, with its emphasis on “Workout of the Day” and techniques introduced in their certifications, can be categorised as exercise rather than training. At a fundamental level, exercise denotes physical activity undertaken for immediate outcomes, often limited to the workout session’s duration. In stark contrast, training is an orchestrated endeavour, meticulously designed for long-term goals. While training maps a well-planned route towards a future objective, CrossFit’s randomness, typified by time-bound, randomised, and often high-intensity sessions, fits snugly into the exercise bracket.

This scattered approach reflects a deeper issue with the programme which goes well beyond exercise praxis. When executed diligently, the CrossFit inductee’s life begins to revolve around CrossFit. Suddenly, their social media brims with CrossFit-centric images, their routines become unyieldingly anchored to its workouts, and to question the ordained methodology becomes borderline blasphemous. A poignant instance came when a friend experienced a catastrophic injury in a car crash due to not wearing a seatbelt. CrossFit, to its credit, produced a video highlighting his predicament to raise funds for his medical needs. Yet, it seemed almost reflexive for some in the video to attribute his survival to his CrossFit-honed fitness, overlooking the undeniable importance of basic safety measures.

Such an approach is symptomatic of CrossFit’s sales technique, of how it appeals to a world desperate to look good. It positions itself as a unique sanctuary, an oasis of elite fitness in an otherwise out-of-shape, indifferent, normie world. The plethora of CrossFit documentaries and the seemingly ceaseless surge in CrossFit-centric social media postings reveal an insular, almost narcissistic universe. Sure, showcasing routines in minimal attire may garner “likes” and comments — perhaps even “sponsorships” and a little money (always less than one thinks). But beyond the digital applause lies an unsettling truth. The exercises might not be groundbreaking, but they are elevated to an undeserved pedestal by a community reluctant to explore beyond and a company ultimately motivated by one thing.

As a business model, CrossFit resembles a pyramid scheme, with enthusiasts splurging on costly monthly affiliate memberships in the hopes of ascending to the elusive apex. The irony is stark: many top CrossFit athletes likely spend more than they earn, often on performance-enhancing drugs. The world of competitive CrossFit has experienced its fair share of doping scandals, with men and women constantly searching for loopholes in a system perennially playing catch-up. And the nature of the allegiance to CrossFit becomes evident when the workouts, which are ostensibly random, are treated as gospel, exactly the kind of reverence that leads to injuries.

The more enlightened trainees soon realise that there isn’t a singular path to fitness. CrossFit’s branding as “the sport of fitness” is almost cyclical: you train using CrossFit to excel at CrossFit. Unlike, say, baseball, where exercises enhance specific skills like pitching or running, CrossFit lacks a distinct endgame. The CrossFit Games are mere amplifications of standard routines, chosen for spectacle rather than substance. In an age dominated by digital personas, CrossFit provides an enticing avenue for social media optimisation, not physical contentment. It relies on constantly stimulating a demand for perpetual improvement, a demand born of perpetual feelings of inadequacy. It’s the process by which an interest can become an isolating dogma.

Two decades ago, Robert Putnam offered a prescient diagnosis of this sense of atomisation in his book Bowling Alone. He observed that while more Americans in the late-20th century were bowling, they were increasingly doing so not in leagues or teams, but on their own. Though most easily observed in sports clubs, it’s a tendency across Western societies, from Masonic lodges to trade unions. The associative networks we used to practise leisure in have been swept away by the tide of hyper-individualisation that has rushed across all of civic life.

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CrossFit has updated and exacerbated this to a terrifying degree. In a world where community ties continue to fray, it creates a semblance of togetherness (at a hefty price) while actively pitting its participants against each other. Beneath all the surface camaraderie and personal pride lies a more solitary reality. This isn’t akin to community sports leagues of yesteryears, woven with continuity and local legends. It’s a dog-eat-dog competition to climb a rope, thrust a barbell into the air, and then row on a rowing machine rather than the open water. Not for achieving personal bests but for social media clout in the relentless race to determine who looks coolest while exercising.

Unfortunately, there’s no singular path to holistic health — not raw eggs, raw meat, SoulCycle, CrossFit, or any other smartly-marketed fad coming down the line in 2023. As we navigate the maze of modern fitness, here’s a golden opportunity to remember that diversifying our approach to health might not only protect us from injuries but also from the empty echo chambers that modern fitness cults, like CrossFit, can all too easily become. The world of fitness is vast, filled with myriad effective ways to train and grow. But it shouldn’t become a route to better social media posts, or reduced to a game that, years in, you forget why you started to play.

Most professional commentators are far more interested in the question of whether a US government department has been lying to congress than in whether aliens actually exist. In a recent column, the New York Times’s Ross Douthat questioned the credibility of a long-standing conspiracy, noting that the scope and depth of the secrets involved would be too vast to withhold. For most online commentators, meanwhile, this congressional hearing is simply entertainment. Even if either camp thinks it’s proper that the US government is looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life, neither seems inclined to ask: what if they find it? Those who ask “are there aliens?” rarely seem to ask “so what if there are aliens?”.

It’s easy to see why we might not take seriously the idea that alien spacecraft have crashed on Earth, not least because the Pentagon released its much-hyped and long-awaited report on UFOs last year, maintaining that there is no definitive evidence that aliens have set foot here. But if a government department really has been withholding information, we might question the validity of that report. Still, even the late-night radio hosts who speculate about various alien species — “grays”, “reptilians”  — are more interested in the question of whether aliens exist than how we should react if they do. Should we make plans? Should we think about it in the same way as, say, the possible deceleration of the pivotal North Atlantic current system that shapes our global climate? Should we be scared?

Unlike climate change, the possibility of an alien apocalypse doesn’t seem to inspire much fear. Orson Welles’s radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds caused a minor stir — nothing like the nationwide panic that some would later claim — and Ray Santilli’s 1995 film allegedly depicting an autopsy of an alien from the infamous 1947 Roswell crash invoked curiosity but was also debunked. Indeed, the ways in which our culture has imagined aliens are more likely to reveal human anxieties than genuine curiosity about what might exist beyond Earth. Popular dramas such as The X-Files, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival often revolve around conspiracies or hoaxes of human origin — until the revelation of extraterrestrial life serves as a deus ex machina, subsequently obscured or left unexplained.

These narratives are often less about the aliens themselves and more about illuminating societal fears, challenging authority and questioning institutional integrity. Even Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterful 1972 adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris — perhaps the most “realistic” depiction of humans reacting to an unusual planetary life form — doesn’t examine the long-term implications of our global society merging with that of another species. Introspection is easier than imagining something totally unprecedented.

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The trouble is, the more knowledgeable we’ve become as a species, the less humble we’ve become about our ignorance. We too often assume that things we haven’t yet found don’t exist, and don’t take seriously the alternative. Here, we might benefit from emulating the wisdom of Epicurean philosophers. Democritus, and Epicurus himself, considered the existence and even the potential habitation of other worlds a likely outcome of the random collision of the atoms that they believed had formed the universe. Metrodorus of Lampsacus, a disciple of Epicurus, compared the idea of our world being the only one to “a single ear of wheat growing on a vast plain“, emphasising the unlikelihood of such a scenario. And the Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius proclaimed: “Nothing in the universe is unique and alone and therefore in other regions there must be other earths inhabited by different tribes of men and breeds of beasts.” Even though these ancient philosophers brought forth the concept of other worlds, they too did not directly grapple with the “so what?” aspect of the idea. Their wisdom primarily lay in recognising the limitlessness of the universe, acknowledging rather than truly grappling with the existence of the unknown.  

However, then as now, such claims failed to shake the foundations of the dominant philosophy. Unlike the Epicureans, Aristotle and his followers were fundamentally empirical in their approach, focusing on what could be observed, studied and understood through our senses. One of Aristotle’s central doctrines was the principle of noncontradiction; the existence of multiple worlds, especially inhabited ones, would have introduced paradoxes and ambiguities that his philosophy was not prepared to accept. Today, our natural inclinations lead us towards the Aristotelian perspective. We gravitate to the observable, the testable and the verifiable. Perhaps this is a constant throughout history, though — an immutable human instinct: this near-inability to engage with the truly abstract and unobservable, the preference to focus on the immediate and tangible.

It was not Christianity that robbed us of our humility in the face of other worlds. Whereas now, belief in aliens’ existence is seen as fringe, it used to be expostulated by the most elite thinkers, who were usually theological authorities. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and the French priest Jean Buridan in the 14th century both addressed the potential existence of other worlds, suggesting that denying their existence would limit the omnipotence of God. Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican Friar in the 16th century, further expanded on this idea in a somewhat heretical vein, stating, “I can imagine an infinite number of worlds like the earth… half of infinity is infinity, so an infinite number of worlds will fall from grace and there will be an infinite number of crucifixions.”

In recent years, high-ranking members of the Catholic Church, including the directors of the Vatican Observatory, have grappled with the theological implications of extraterrestrial life, questioning how the concepts of sin and redemption would apply to them. In this, they are perhaps more prepared for the arrival of UFOs than most governments. Pope Francis has even stated that space aliens could seek baptism — a benevolent thought, to be sure, but an anthropocentric one. Human theology won’t neatly adapt to beings that are out of this world.

So, the concept of extraterrestrial life brings us face-to-face with an immense intellectual challenge. St. Anselm of Canterbury’s famous proof of God’s existence — the concept of a being “of which nothing greater can be thought” — has its bounds tied to human thought. What if these extraterrestrials exist in a realm that is beyond our cognitive reach, a realm where our laws of physics and logic hold no sway? Extraterrestrial life, should it exist, may be so fundamentally different from our life on Earth that we might not even recognise it as “life” at all. We may not be sure if it appears among us.

There is also a practical question to consider: would we even be able to interact meaningfully with extraterrestrial life? Would it even be possible to communicate with them? There might be no shared basis for understanding — a possibility that Stanislaw Lem and Andrei Tarkovsky considered in their presentation of the sentient planet in Solaris. The living place interacts with human explorers by materialising their memories and deepest psychology, creating “visitors”. These ineffable interactions are barely understood by humans, representing a form of communication so alien to our ways of knowing that it remains ultimately inexplicable.

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The appearance of UFOs or the confirmed existence of extraterrestrial life would likely push us into uncharted cognitive territory. Or, these beings could exist on such a scale and in such a manner that it might be completely incomprehensible to us — we couldn’t alter our worldviews because we wouldn’t even begin to know where to start.

Maybe that’s why, when we think about aliens, we think about hoaxes, created by humans, or stories of alien invasions, more often than not about human failure. Maybe that’s why it’s funny, listening to extraterrestrial life being forced into the technical, administrative language of the US government. Maybe the sheer abstraction and complexity of extraterrestrial life exceeds our cognitive abilities.

For now, we humour David Grusch, as he expostulates about a massive UFO cover-up — because we don’t know how to answer the question of: If he’s right, what then?

Manchin’s rejection of the Democrats has been a long time coming. His voting record is complex, diverging from the party line on numerous occasions. A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), Manchin opposed the more progressive elements of his party after Sandy Hook. And as one of the few anti-abortion Democrats in Congress, he has consistently voted in favour of restrictions on abortion access. Meanwhile, his support for the coal industry — an important economic driver in his home state and the industry that made him a millionaire before he entered politics — has often put him at odds with their green agenda. He was also the only Democrat to vote in favour of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination in 2018, drawing the ire of many within his party, and he voted with Donald Trump more than 50% of the time.

Manchin’s ideology is consistent, though. It’s grounded in the history of West Virginia, a former Democrat stronghold that has become solidly Republican in recent years. And his conservative bent could be perceived as a survival strategy. After all, he is currently staring down a 55% disapproval rating in West Virginia, as he contemplates seeking another term in the Senate. His opponent is likely to be the state’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, a former conservative Democrat who switched parties. And one does wonder: why doesn’t Manchin jump ship to the Republican Party, given his voting patterns seem slightly more aligned with theirs? Trump, in 2022, actually suggested on Truth Social that Manchin be brought into the GOP.

But Manchin’s comments signal a desire to reject both major parties. In America, there is a large cadre of “politically homeless” voters: roughly 49% of the electorate according to some polling. Where once they might have been drawn to candidates who could see the other side’s point of view, these voters now seem disenchanted with party politics altogether, put off by the extreme fringes of the Republicans and Democrats alike. Manchin is appealing to them.

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While polls show dissatisfaction with candidates within both parties, Manchin’s potential candidacy would inevitably benefit one of them. He could appeal to a critical 1% or 2% in Rust Belt swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, which would probably be enough to tilt the scales in favour of the GOP.

More broadly, his rhetoric is a sign of a shift in American politics. Bipartisanship and consensus decision-making, celebrated ideals for nearly three decades after the end of the Second World War, have lost their lustre, ceasing to animate the base of either party. Marginal struggles currently define internal and external political battles. But Manchin and allies, such as former Democrat Krysten Sinema — now representing Arizona in the Senate as an independent — believe there’s still a silent majority to be found in the centre, one that is indifferent to the culture war that drives the loudest political engagement. 

Manchin’s paradox is that, while the most active voters are increasingly drawn towards the extremes of their respective parties, he is gambling on the centre. While his voting record paints a picture of a moderate Democrat — often erring on the conservative side — this suggestion of a third-party candidacy implies a critical redefinition of his political stance. Instead of being the swing vote within his party, Manchin would be a fulcrum between the two major political forces. Would he survive it?

Much of Manchin’s political career has been characterised by his unusual resilience in the face of the onrushing deep-red political tides in West Virginia. His endurance owes much to his somewhat unconventional stances, which resonate with a Rust Belt populace disenchanted by what they perceive as the Democratic Party’s preoccupation with identity politics at the expense of working-class concerns relevant to their area, such as the protection of jobs in fossil fuel industries.

But is there a national appetite for this brand of centrism? The country is polarised. The Pew Research Center has found that twice as many members of the two main American parties now view their opponents unfavourably, compared to 1994. In a sociopolitical environment where labels — LGBTQIA, America First, MAGA, they/them — have become essential to the identities of young people, not to mention their self-marketing, will there be significant support for a “No Labels” campaign?

Third-party bids have gained some traction in America’s political history. Billionaire Ross Perot’s Reform Party campaign racked up some impressive numbers in 1992 and 1996. But while Perot aimed to transcend partisan politics in order to win, Manchin appears more focused on exerting influence to create a moderate shift in policy. If he runs, he’s more likely to follow in the footsteps of activists such as Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, remembered more for inadvertently tipping the scales in favour of Republican George W. Bush in 2000 than for his actual campaign. And since America today is even more polarised than in the Nineties, ultimately the implications of a third-party bid are more dangerous.

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The mooted “No Labels” party does seem like a hurried experiment in political transcendence, a far too simple answer to the broad discontent with the current political binary. But if Manchin wants to be remembered as the man who shed the shackles of partisanship, this move may tarnish the legacy he has already created for himself. His bold attempt to coax the country towards the centre could end up deepening the divisions he has exposed.

This has been the case with his prior attempts to preserve or create a “centre” on controversial issues. On gun control, Manchin co-sponsored the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey bill following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, which proposed expanded background checks for gun sales. Seen by much of the Left as an inadequate middle-ground solution, it failed to gain traction. As a result, the United States has been unable to make even minor changes related to background checks, and the two sides have only become more entrenched.

On energy policy, Manchin’s support for the fossil fuel industry is out of step with his party’s support for a progressive “Green New Deal”, while his reluctance to fully endorse the coal industry’s unregulated expansion has drawn ire from the Right. Manchin has recently joined with Republicans to oppose the climate legislation to which he had added a degree of moderation. But in general, seeking the centrist position in America does not lead to a union of the factions; rather, it leaves the centrist isolated, at odds with both sides.

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His campaign would simply highlight the structural flaws of America’s political system, in which centrism can empower extremism. Part of the problem is the dynamics of party primaries. Candidates often find themselves compelled to pander to the ideological extremes to gain the nomination, pushing them away from the centre. Even if they later shift, their original stances are remembered; in the long run, this discourages bipartisan cooperation.

Here is a lesson for moderates, if they really want to effect change: instead of conforming to extremism, they should look to their long-term influence on political norms and the policy-making process, as Manchin at least tried to do prior to signalling his frustration with the Democrats. They need to somehow communicate the importance of pragmatic governance, and the necessity of compromise in a democracy — ideally through political advertising that emphasises the value of bipartisan dealmaking over ideological purity, of “fighting gridlock” and “getting things done”.

It won’t be easy. Divide and conquer has always been a potent strategy for generating enthusiasm, and centrists such as Manchin are working in an atmosphere where both parties are cynically leveraging polarisation. Democrats have recently started funding extreme Republican primary candidates, whom they believe will be easy to beat in the general election. It’s a manoeuvre that, while it may yield short-term electoral gains, could backfire, by enabling candidates with more extreme views to gain power. And, if moderates abandon the major parties, they will only empower these extreme candidates, driving the Democrats and Republicans further and further apart. It would be an ironic outcome for Manchin, who claims to want the parties to come together.

So what is Manchin really trying to achieve? He has been a self-avowed independent within the Democratic Party for years; his last-ditch embrace of a potential “No Labels” movement, then, could be characterised as an act of egoism. At the age of 75, Manchin is probably not seeking political longevity. Rather, “No Labels” feels like a legacy move. Manchin might just be looking back at his long career of crossing party lines, and making a final, and perhaps sincere, plea for American politics to move back to the centre. 

Then again, if he is against the erosion of collective solidarity by personal politics, there would be an irony in him launching a highly individual campaign. There’s no point standing in the ideological centre if you’re there all by yourself.

This reflects a profound anxiety among boys, that no matter how intellectually superior you are, physical defeat trumps everything. Even the ever-triumphant protagonists of the Revenge of the Nerds film franchise never manage to shake a sense of profound inadequacy, regardless of how many bullies they “school” by other means. And the anxiety of a boy can be formative as he grows into a man.

In the world of internet celebrities and tech tycoons, a trend has been picking up steam over the past few years: high-profile figures from the digital realm have been donning boxing gloves and stepping into the ring, to square off in physical matches. This isn’t the scripted amateur wrestling of the past, as in WrestleMania’s “Battle of the Billionaires”. These are real, bare-knuckle brawls with genuine stakes.

These “creator clashes”, as they’ve come to be known, rake in millions of viewers and generate substantial revenue for the participants. They’ve even served to revitalise the careers of D-list celebrities whose stars had begun to dim — or been snuffed out by cancellation — such as Epic Meal Time host Harley Morenstein and controversial comedian Sam Hyde. But why would men in need of neither revenue nor a reputational boost engage in such an activity? Why are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, men whose combined worth is over $300 billion, hinting at an upcoming cage fight?

These creator clashes are just the latest chapter in a long tradition of intellectuals seeking to prove themselves physically. Norman Mailer, for instance, wasn’t just a literary giant; he was also known for his penchant for physical altercations. And his two instincts, of the writer and the fighter, often collided. Mailer’s book, The Fight, centres on the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Not content to be an impartial observer, Mailer implicated himself in the narrative, showcasing his gritty, tough-guy literary persona as both participant and spectator.

The bookish Mailer graduated from Harvard at the age of 20, the archetypal “geek”; yet he worked towards proving that intellectual prowess and physical strength aren’t mutually exclusive. Another Harvard man, George Plimpton’s project was similar. His book, Shadow Box, recounts his experience training and then sparring with light heavyweight champion Archie Moore. In elite circles, Plimpton’s Ivy League pedigree and physical delicacy might have been celebrated, but in a wider society that equates masculinity with physical strength and courage, his was suspect. Through his participation in boxing, his manhood was validated — even though Moore thrashed him.

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Political leaders, too, also prefer to appear strong rather than nerdy, even though an analytical mind is more useful in running a country. Barack Obama never missed an opportunity to show off on a basketball court. And RFK Jr has recently made a lot of headlines by bench-pressing. But the best American example is undoubtedly Theodore Roosevelt, a prolific author who was also renowned for his love of boxing, wrestling, horse riding and judo. He extolled the virtues of “the man in the arena” — one who actively challenges himself — and a “strenuous life“; in pursuit of one, he was actually blinded in one eye, during a boxing match with Colonel Daniel Moore, his military aide.

The injury became part of his public persona, a testament to his unwavering dedication to his ideals. As did his response to an assassination attempt on the campaign trail in 1912: after he was shot in the chest, he waved away concerned aides and gave a scheduled speech. But it was actually his textbook knowledge of anatomy, rather than his courage, that convinced him to go on: he knew that if he wasn’t coughing up blood, the wound didn’t need urgent attention. His mind was, in a crisis, more valuable than his courage. It was this that allowed him to present himself as not simply brain or brawn, but a thorough amalgamation of both.

At its heart, the trend of creator clashes might just be the same, age-old attempt to reach for this masculine ideal, but with a modern twist: as we increasingly live our lives in the digital realm, becoming more and more disembodied, there is something subversive about proving ourselves to be physically powerful. It’s also fused with the imperative to create and maintain a personal brand online that can be ranked in terms of followers, retweets — or victories in the ring.

The concept of getting famous people to beat each other up took off in 2002 with Celebrity Boxing. The two-episode Fox series attracted millions of viewers, despite the backlash against its exploitative nature. (One match featured the legendary basketball player Manute Bol, whose 7’7″ height and deteriorating health raised ethical questions.) Still, celebrity boxing remained a spectacle, occasionally resurfacing in various forms.

Earlier iterations of celebrity boxing often leaned towards the sensational (boxer versus wrestler!), and the absurd (watch physically unwell men like the giant Bol and obese former American footballer William “Refrigerator” Perry flail about in the ring!). But the advent of digital media has introduced a new dynamic. When influencers, entrepreneurs and digital celebrities face each other now, they are engaged in something more than physical contests with a small television audience. Social media platforms allow these events to be staged, promoted and consumed in real time, on a global scale; they have become major vehicles for personal and brand promotion, strategic tools for audience engagement.

A case in point is the boxing forays of YouTube personalities Logan and Jake Paul, influencer-turned-boxers whose fights are part spectacle, part marketing strategy. The build-up often involves an array of promotional activities — including viral videos and social media sparring — that riles up digital audiences. The payoff comes in the form of millions of viewers worldwide, heightened brand visibility and increased follower engagement, all of which can lead to substantial revenue streams.

Hence the hype about an impending clash between Musk and Zuckerberg, which suggests a future where the convergence of physical sports and digital personas becomes increasingly commonplace. Few tech bros are happy with their level of visibility, just as few nerds feel secure in their physicality. Some digital elites, such as Jeff Bezos, have invested heavily in developing impressive bodies.

However, this trend is not solely about transforming from the bullied “geek” into the well-respected “jock”. It’s also about embracing the spectacle. The internet age has taught us that visibility equates to power, and what better way to grab the spotlight than to step into a boxing ring? It’s an audacious move. But there’s another, more nuanced dimension to this phenomenon. In the digital age, the lines between “geek” and “jock”, between intellectual and physical, are blurring. With the rise of online entrepreneurs, success no longer fits into neat categories.

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Today’s digital elites have access to the best drugs and trainers needed to succeed both intellectually and physically. They can be someone who can code a groundbreaking app, run a billion-dollar company and throw a knockout punch. Someone, in other words, who is simply better than you, the mere spectator and consumer of content, in every conceivable way. Someone superhuman.

So, as the spectacle of celebrity boxing goes mainstream, we’re not just watching a fight; we’re witnessing a cultural transformation. Society that is increasingly recognising the multi-dimensionality of success and power: money really can buy everything. Capital, rather than hard work, can fuse the geek and a jock. The boxing ring has become a stage for the reinvention not only of masculinity, but of the limits of humanity itself.

The online abyss, with its proliferation of the repugnant, the vile and the downright perverse, makes the vast oceans my grandfather navigated appear almost quaint. Still, he grasped what would prove to be an essential truth of the internet: inhumanity is overlooked in the distribution of awards. In our digital era, attention goes to the most shocking, the most outrageous, the most hurtful.

Like many disaffected young men, I spent a phase of my life drawn to the grimmest corners of the internet, frequenting shock sites such as Ogrish. I would stay up late into the night, the glow of my screen illuminating images of brutal violence, the aftermath of bombings and scenes of torture — much of it related to the various global conflicts occurring in the early 2000s. This was, perhaps, a misguided attempt to understand the depths of human suffering. But does the internet merely reflect our inherent depravity, or does it make it more extreme?

I recently spoke to Monica Garnsey, the executive producer of  a harrowing BBC documentary which some of her colleagues described as among the worst assignments of their careers. These were veteran reporters who had seen the horrors of war zones, yet the subject they were uniquely disturbed by was an online underbelly: a monkey-torturing ring. What bothered them was that, unlike soldiers, or even individuals with abhorrent sexual desires, many who revelled in these gruesome videos displayed an unsettling lack of guilt. These videos showed innocent animals subjected to unspeakable cruelty at the viewer’s request, with other individuals who sought out the clips admitting they also took pleasure in it; for some, it was just a way of “passing the time”. They spoke of it as an intriguing hobby, a release valve for pent-up anger, or even, in some twisted cases, as entertainment. One of the primary sadists recalled stumbling upon a torture video and “chuckling to myself”.

Though much of the actual torture was taking place in Indonesia, the videos were mostly being watched by people in America. Propping up this twisted subculture are “torture-media influencers” — individuals who monetise the abuse of stars like Mini, a monkey whose popularity made her too valuable to kill, despite the complaints of torture aficionados who had grown weary of her starring role. (“Mini is so over,” some would post.)

The business model of these “torture-media influencers” was sickeningly straightforward, selling videos on a pay-per-view basis. But the internet doesn’t actually make it easy to make money; the financial gain was relatively minor. After expenses, even the top purveyors were earning only a few hundred dollars through private sales of more explicit films. There are plenty of easier ways to make that amount of money. These influencers must derive some satisfaction from their work.

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The majority of this disturbing content is circulated on platforms such as YouTube, where unsuspecting viewers stumble upon it; it’s a site with resources, and one that most people believe to be relatively well-regulated. Indeed, its content moderators are required to watch anything from acts of suicide and murder to incidents of child abuse. The depraved content that slips through the net is actually only the tip of the iceberg.

The job is known to be traumatic. In 2018, a lawsuit was filed against Facebook and its associated companies alleging that the companies failed to protect their content moderators from the psychological impacts linked to reviewing disturbing images. The case was settled in 2020, with Facebook agreeing to pay $52 million to thousands of American workers. Might it be possible that some derive perverse pleasure from this line of work? Since we know that there are people who pay to watch this content, surely there’s a possibility that some people want to watch it and get paid. Most, though, claim to do it out of necessity. And it’s a growing field of employment, especially in regions where employment opportunities might be scarce.

These content moderators are real-life incarnations of Alex from A Clockwork Orange, a juvenile delinquent “reformed” into utter brokenness through non-stop involuntary exposure to violent films. It reminds me of my grandfather. He joined the military with intentions that were less than noble — to avoid jail time — but what he did, in the name of service, left him psychologically broken. Is the internet as corrupting a force as war: a system that rewards depravity and punishes those charged with maintaining order?

Mike McCartney, a former gang member now known as the “Torture King”, is an incontrovertible piece of evidence that the internet actually inspires abuse. He knew nothing about monkey torture until he stumbled upon a video on YouTube. He found it amusing. And it served as a gateway drug. The very worst monkey torture content is shared on private, and therefore unmoderated, channels. The Torture King sought out out likeminded people on Telegram, where the abuse is both normalised and escalated to unimaginable levels, with members conspiring and voting on cruel methods of torture. He started selling and trading torture videos, deriving a meagre profit, starkly disproportionate to the risks he took, including a potential seven-year prison sentence.

In some ways, this is an extreme case of a broader pattern, whereby people pursue validation and clout on social media at any cost, even when it involves catering to their basest impulses. The founder of Ape’s Cage, known as Mr Ape, told the BBC investigation that he felt affection for the monkeys, particularly Mini, whom he hoped would make it out of the ordeal alive (she did). Like several other torture fans, he even justified his actions by claiming he was trying to expose others involved in the trade. Perhaps he was just trying to avoid the consequences of his actions, but he wouldn’t be the first man to profess one set of beliefs when alone and online, and quite another when offline and in the company of others. The internet encourages psychological compartmentalisation, as well as the feeling that you can escape reality. But let us be clear: these depraved men were the instigators, not the liberators.

Can anyone take them on? Earlier this month, Meta, the conglomerate that owns Facebook and Instagram, established a task force dedicated to curbing the distribution and sale of child sexual abuse material on its platforms — a problem further exacerbated by ceaseless improvements in deepfake technology. This move was a response to a damning report by the Stanford Internet Observatory that unveiled a network of accounts peddling self-generated explicit material, primarily through Instagram’s direct messaging feature. A key point in the researchers’ findings was that the site was enabling buyers and sellers to find each other, thanks to the effectiveness of its algorithm.

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But are these sites giving people what they want, or making people want it? Perhaps it’s both. They are designed to keep users hooked because that’s their business model. They promote and amplify our darkest desires; they whet our appetite for more. TikTok has, for instance, faced criticism for contributing to the radicalisation of individuals by leading them down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

And this then has resonance in the real world. What we see on the internet can directly impact our faith in reality — in other people. As an insider from the BBC documentary expressed: “What you realise is that anyone — the person in front of you in line, the person next to you on the street — could be a monkey torturer.” In a society where trust is already fragile, the danger is profound: bombard us with the worst aspects of human nature, and we view each other as suspects. We retreat into isolation, further eroding our faith in others. In other words the internet, in feeding our darkest desires, fans the flames of societal fragmentation.

The omnipresence of depravity has other consequences. It can numb us; or it can inspire a terrible guilt, akin to my grandfather’s, about our inability to prevent inhumanity. It leads to dehumanisation, and political apathy: if humans are terrible, what’s the point of trying to make society better?

But perhaps we can draw comfort from the fact that, while depravity generates a lot of views, so too does the fight against it. The BBC investigation into monkey torture is, in many ways, a successor to NBC’s television programme To Catch a Predator, affectionately known as TCAP. In the early days of social media, the show capitalised on the commonality of child predators, setting up intricate traps to catch these maladjusted individuals in the act. It was immensely popular. The programme paraded the perverts before the public eye, drawing attention to the staggering number lurking online. It featured the shy and morbidly obese Peter Sciacca, who went by the username “Don Ceech” and met his lonely demise in 2021 after serving time in prison. The trouble is, this sort of voyeurism is also problematic. Was Sciacca vulnerable? Marginalised? Exploited by the internet, just as he used it to exploit others? Exploited by the TV show, which turned his emptiness and alienation into a spectacle for others to consume, deepening his isolation, escalating their propensity for depravity?

We do have to take some responsiblity. The internet is, after all, a reflection of us — a mirror to our collective consciousness. But that digital mirror also allows us to detach consequences from action and to leave empathy behind. And it is this, arguably, that poses a far greater threat to our societal fabric than the individual acts of depravity. So even as those sickos are brought to justice, we ought to ask ourselves: what would we do, if we thought we could get away with it?

Unlike Theodore “Ted” Kacyznski, I have no criminal record — the only person in my immediate family who can claim that. Perhaps most important, my flight to Montana was temporary: I returned to the world after coming to my senses, and started a family in Pittsburgh, only 40 minutes north of my small hometown. Kacyznski, at my age, was living in the waterless and electricity-free cabin where he typed out his 35,000-word manifesto while coordinating a 16-year mail bomb campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others. He died last week at 81, having whiled away his final years in a federal penitentiary.

For as long as America has existed, its men have fled for the hills. In Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry Thoreau wrote “we need the tonic of wilderness”. Almost 150 years later, his words influenced Christopher McCandless, who died after going into the wild. Regardless of the tragedy and suggested inauthenticity of stories like this, they fascinate the political chattering classes: from Barry Goldwater’s speechwriter, Karl Hess, who relocated to rural West Virginia later in life, to full-time proponents of “agrarianism” and other “back to the land” ideologies. These ideologies are diverse in their themes but, in the main, argue for a reconnection with the natural world. Modern life, they say, has severed our intrinsic relationship with the environment. Often gaining prominence at times of social upheaval and discontent — as with hippie communes in the Sixties and today’s homesteaders — they claim that industrial society’s obsession with progress and consumption eclipses essential human experiences and values. Sometimes, they wind up idealising a past that was, in reality, fraught with hardship and inequality.   

Underlying these ideologies is a powerful sense of foreboding. Those who advocate fleeing to the hills would seem to be eagerly awaiting doomsday — be it environmental, racial, class-based, or a horrific combination thereof. On both Left and Right, there’s a bumper crop of texts to excite their imaginations. The apocalypticism manifests in a call to action, to prepare, resist, or attempt to reverse course before it’s too late; it highlights genuine concerns while also making readers partners in an exciting race against destruction.

The inclination to escape is not inherently outrageous. Who hasn’t yearned, in a moment of stress or dissatisfaction, for the simplicity of a life untangled from societal woes? Yet, throughout human history, most of us have either chosen or, more often the case, been compelled to remain near home; escape is a privilege of which only a few can avail themselves. Even those who claim to live without money in remote places often rely on resources inaccessible to many. Moreover, these individuals tend to have the privilege of choice: the option to reject modern conveniences, the opportunity to learn and hone survival skills, the safety net of a family to return to if things go awry. In this sense, dropping out of society — as with those Roman senators who took to their grand countryside villas during the waning days of that empire — is a fantasy of the upper classes.

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But beyond issues of class and economics, most of us are held to our communities by invisible, powerful ties. We are entwined in a complex web of relationships, responsibilities, and affections. The young feel the weight of these things less. Back when I was a superficially educated 19-year-old college graduate, Kacyznski’s Industrial Society and Its Future held a preeminent place in my worldview. Kacyznski believed autonomy was impossible in an industrial society. “As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities, it still has them on a leash,” he wrote. Reforming this “Industrial-Technological Society” was impossible; only radical revolutionaries could bring about lasting changes. Karl Marx’s concluding exhortation from “Theses on Feuerbach” says much the same: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”

Kaczynski’s manifesto and Marx’s calls to action appealed to me, and many other young adults, precisely because they promised a means of breaking free from societal confines.  The young long for autonomy, to seize control in a world that often seems controlled by faceless entities and systems. It took some time for me to realise that Kacyznski, venturing outside his own academic field of mathematics, was in fact summarising fairly well-established critiques of capitalism and Leftism. The Frankfurt School theorists’ critique of the “culture industry” or Herbert Marcuse’s theories of one-dimensional man echo similar sentiments about the dehumanising effects of modern industrial societies. However, what set Kaczynski apart was the way he packaged these criticisms into an eco-fatalist, doomerist narrative with carefully numbered paragraphs.

“Had we but world enough and time”, we might be able to take the advice of revolutionaries like Kaczynski and Marx to heart. We could possibly devote our lives to relearning the skills necessary for physical labour, striving for a self-sufficient existence, toiling away while the world around us succumbs to apocalyptic decay. However, the reality for most people, as they navigate the complexities of adulthood, is a series of compromises and an acceptance of societal norms, conflicts, and even banalities. We work steady jobs, contribute to society in our own ways, and seek a balance between our ideals and the practical demands of our daily lives. After my time in Montana, I returned to academia, before settling into a career in the private sector and starting a family. My desired ending isn’t in the wilderness, but rather here in the Rust Belt, like most of my predecessors. 

Looking back, I see my Montana sojourn as a phase, an exploration of ultimately unsustainable idealistic philosophies. My life now bears more similarity to those of the well-educated cultural critics who often spout back-to-land ideologies, while paradoxically relying on modern technologies to promote their books and podcasts about self-sufficient living, or offering to let you toil on their land for free, as part of a quasi-cult or glorified multilevel marketing scheme. I get it: when I lived in Montana, I believed I was the last sane person in a soon-to-be-extinguished world. At the same time, I harboured aspirations of writing the next Great American Novel: I wanted to communicate with the world, to share my experiences and ideas, even if those ideas involved little more than getting people to acknowledge my prescience. Even those who flee into the wilderness want to connect — perhaps especially.

Kaczynski was unable or unwilling to reintegrate into society, whereas I became disillusioned with his ideas because they began to seem impractical — interesting, to be sure, yet also surprisingly childish. For all its failings, society offers us human connection, a shared history, and communal resilience in the face of adversity. We endure the disappointments of civilisation because, at its best, it provides us a framework to collaborate, innovate, and work towards something better. Kaczynski, it appears, never had this moment of disillusionment — nothing compelled him to grow up and simply accept “Industrial Society’s” leash.

The end of the world has been eternally predicted. Perhaps it really will extinguish the lot of us, and the collapse and decline that each succeeding generation’s bumper crop of Cassandras predict will come to pass. These theories of moral decline and accompanying societal collapse are evergreen. The terminology and concerns may change — overpopulation, underpopulation, heat death, a new ice age — but the adolescent anxiety remains the same. “Things ain’t like they used to be and they never were,” now at least has some social science research buttressing it. 

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My dissertation advisor used to jest about the inherent appeal of the collapse genre. There’s a certain romantic allure to the idea of witnessing and surviving the “world’s last night“. This apocalyptic charm — a once-in-a-lifetime chance to die with the world, to be there when the lights go out — invariably attracts those people who struggle to grow up.

Kaczynski was apparently unable to truly grasp the cyclical nature of history — the one field neglected in Industrial Society and Its Future. He was caught in a loop of perceived decay without recognising the possibility for growth and improvement. Alas, we still face a seeming repetition of all the problems outlined in Peter Finch’s endlessly recyclable rant from the 1976 film Network — inflation, the Russians, air that’s unfit to breathe, crime in the streets — yet none of us can know how these things will sort themselves out, only that whatever happens will be unlike anything that came before. History repeats itself — life always ends in death! — but never the same way twice.

As mere mortals born into that history, we must live in the world as it is, not as we imagine or fear it to be. The world may not be getting better, but neither is it necessarily spiralling towards global disaster. And those who attempt to flee, to escape the complexities of society, often find themselves reaching back towards it, be it through writing blogs from the wilderness or through violent acts like Kaczynski’s bombing campaign. As for the rest of us, our life may feel banal, fraught with the usual concerns about our family’s future and the state of the world. Yet it’s also tempered by an acceptance of mortality — perhaps the most powerful counterpoint to the more extreme doom-laden narratives.

At first glance, this group — made up of internet-savvy provocateurs, anonymous contributors, eccentric celebrities, and some vestigial “alt-Right” figureheads — still seems to be supporting Donald Trump, their once and future president. In 2016, they viewed him as a figure of entertainment, a political outsider who was wittily disruptive and assumed the status of a fantastical, Warhammer-esque “God-Emperor”. The portly University of Chicago graduate William Thomas Clark, also known as “Kantbot”, was among those who fervently amplified this narrative, riding a small wave of internet virality after he was filmed shrieking about Trump “completing the system of German idealism”.

Though pollsters and political scientists continue to debate the extent to which this group swayed the outcome of the election, there’s little doubt that their online activities played a role in shaping the larger narrative. Their memes and posts, known for their unique blend of political cynicism, irreverence and humour, served to attract some undecided voters and further embolden Trump supporters. Twitter user @Ricky_Vaughn99, one of the most prominent and vitriolic voices within this community, expressed a keen insight into the fiery populist movements emerging on both the Left and Right. “There is definitely anger among the youth,” he told me in 2016. “The Bernie people are angry. The #BlackLivesMatter people are angry.” (Vaughn, it bears noting, was later outed as Douglass Mackey and convicted by a federal jury of depriving individuals of their constitutional right to vote for his role in a conspiracy that used memes to convince black voters to vote via text, which is not possible.)

Trump, a master of obtaining free publicity in his own right, benefited immensely from the countless articles scrutinising the role of the alt-Right in his campaign — articles of which I wrote more than my fair share. However, it was only after the election, as the alt-Right splintered into factions such as the “Post-Left”, the “Based Right” and a partly tongue-in-cheek, partly earnest “racist Right”, that the complexity of the Online Right’s influence began to fully reveal itself.

Into this arena steps Ron DeSantis, an exceedingly unexciting and well-qualified gentleman known for his relentless pursuit of upper-middle-class excellence. Whether it was leading his Yale baseball team in batting average, graduating with honours from Harvard Law School, or earning a Bronze Star and other military medals in Iraq, DeSantis has consistently demonstrated an unwavering dedication to lining his CV. And now, he’s aiming to add the support of the Online Right to it.

As befits such a plodding overachiever, DeSantis’s approach has been methodical and overt. His systematic attempts to usurp Trump’s dominance in this arena reveal his characteristic ambition, yet also underscore a glaring deficiency in political charisma. Despite his obvious intellect, DeSantis’s rigid demeanour and unusually high-pitched voice can seem off-putting to those accustomed to Trump’s brash and theatrical style.

In a move that couldn’t be more emblematic of his ham-fisted efforts to capture the Online Right, DeSantis chose to formally announce his candidacy in a glitch-ridden Twitter Spaces session, alongside none other than Elon Musk, a veritable rock star within these circles. Despite technical difficulties and a less-than-stellar audience count of around 150,000 listeners, DeSantis pressed on, evidently reading his campaign announcement off a script. Immediately afterwards, DeSantis’s campaign released a video featuring Musk so prominently that one might have mistaken him for DeSantis’s running mate.

Elsewhere, DeSantis’s campaign seems to have actively courted Seth Dillon, the head of the Right-leaning satire site, The Babylon Bee. In return, apparently, the Bee has been churning out pro-DeSantis content in support of his ongoing dispute with Disney, and even purging those who publicly clash with DeSantis’s associates. Only last week, for instance, Gavin Mario Wax, a pro-Trump Bee staffer, was unceremoniously fired by Dillon for a brusque tweet directed at Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s top media advisor. The spat culminated in Dillon telling Wax — via Twitter, of course, because this is how HR business is transacted today — to remove his association with The Bee from his Twitter bio, triggering a fiery response from its readers, particularly those loyal to Trump.

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As DeSantis wrestled with these issues, Trump, who had seemed adrift on the meme and comedy performance fronts for months, found his groove again with a lively CNN Town Hall. Trump delighted the audience with memorably nasty lines, showing a return to form that contrasted starkly with his opponent’s struggles. Later, on the day of DeSantis’s fraught Twitter Spaces event, Trump’s team did not miss the opportunity to land a body blow: they shared a bizarre fan-made parody of the event, which was doctored to include figures such as Hitler, George Soros, and the devil. And the jabs didn’t end there. Donald Trump Jr. later posted an AI-generated video featuring DeSantis superimposed onto Steve Carell’s character from The Office.

Not everyone in the Online Right was forthcoming with applause, however. For instance, prominent figurehead @LindyMan, a lawyer named Paul Skallas, misses the charm of the 2016 meme war. In a now-deleted tweet, he mourned the loss of “crude photoshops”, deeming the recent onslaught of Trump memes “too much” and comparing their appearance to “encountering a neanderthal on the street”. Despite this, a number of high-profile Online Right figures have told me that Trump still maintains an edge as a captivating figure. But even so, the tenor of the meme landscape has undoubtedly evolved since 2016. Back then, the goal was conversion; today, the aim seems to be to galvanise an existing base.

By this metric, Trump’s recent performance is certainly better than it was following his 2020 loss, though not quite at its 2016 peak. DeSantis, meanwhile, merely provides meme material, à la Jeb Bush, through a persona that lends itself to ridicule. His technical debacle during the Twitter Spaces event didn’t help his cause either. The stark contrast between the two candidates only fed the popular alpha/beta dichotomy that fuels many Online Right memes.

Even the proxy battles, such as the Babylon Bee incident, have taken an eccentric turn. An otherwise unremarkable Twitter scrap between Claremont fellow Dave Reaboi, a DeSantis supporter, and Trump-backing pundit Scott Greer led to an amusing ad hominem exchange over physical stature, age and marital status. This might seem absurd and pointless, yet it aligns with the dynamics of an online arena that amplifies and distorts, especially during political primaries.

These online dust-ups, all too easily dismissed as mere noise, play a critical role in shaping the narrative of a primary election. As thousands of them unfold in real time, they offer raw material for the media to dissect and amplify, drawing attention away from policy issues and focusing instead on personality clashes and personal drama. This can have a significant distorting effect, as perceptions of the candidates end up being influenced as much by these disputes as by their actual policy positions or leadership abilities — two areas in which DeSantis, at least on paper, would seem to hold an edge over Trump. Some Online Right posters have told me they hate seeing their cohort descend into this sort of linguistic violence, but this is precisely what happens during a political dogfight: a political poster can choose to either see the show — and thus risk losing the war for attention — or weigh in and gain followers by being the show.

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In such a scenario, how can DeSantis hope to win? At present, his primary tactic seems to be to harvest online discourse and then turn off the internet — with the result that his attempts to sell himself to the Online Right come across as an application for admission to Harvard rather than genuine engagement. It’s as though the group’s highly memeable and mockable concerns — lax policing, black-on-white and black-on-black crime, corporate and public school diversity programming, transgender rights, unsafe lockdowns and hastily released vaccines — have been diluted in his new strategic approach, which merely involves attempting to address these concerns through legislation.

In other words, DeSantis, a decidedly offline figure, is attempting to serve up a beggar’s banquet of Online Right issues. The problem is that this offering feels disingenuous to the intended consumer. It’s akin to a diner at a restaurant, peering down at the plate of food they’ve ordered from DeSantis’s meme-inspired menu. A friend notices their hesitation and asks: “Is there a problem?” The diner responds: “This is what I ordered, but now that I see it, I realise it was a bad choice.” It’s as if there’s a growing sense of buyer’s remorse with regard to the dullness of DeSantis, or a shock that he is either cynically or selflessly attempting to turn their smoke-filled chatroom banter into a cohesive political platform.

From this perspective, the overarching lesson is that the best and most viral memes cannot be forced into existence through market research (a lesson Hillary Clinton’s social media team learnt all too well). They are an improvisational performance that one can neither script nor control. And, for the time being, despite his age and political scars, Trump remains the most adroit improviser in the Republican field. As we hurtle towards the 2024 election, this tale of two meme strategies will continue to unfold. For now, though, “The Donald” still appears to be winning the war.

The modern Republican Party, aiming to re-establish itself in the aftermath of Trump’s shambolic administration, should pay close attention. The path to a successful future may not lie with the likes of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin or South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, as competent and capable as they appear to be. These figures, though skilled, often appear hesitant to challenge the MAGA base on divisive issues such as immigration, foreign policy and LGBT rights — yet offer the base far less red meat than leading contenders like Trump or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is strongly courting this contingent. Instead, the party’s future might be best served by the extraordinarily unassuming figure of New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. This leader, far less contentious, embodies a less polarised approach that might resonate with a broader spectrum of voters — particularly the Independents who swing the crucial elections in America’s toss-up “purple” states.

Born and raised in Salem, Sununu is firmly part of the state’s premier political lineage: his father, known for his terrifyingly high IQ, also served as New Hampshire’s Governor, while one of his seven siblings was elected as the state’s Senator. Yet despite hailing from arguably the most “boring” political dynasty in American history, Sununu may well be the steady hand the Republican party needs. Of course, his candidacy is rightly considered a long shot — but the allure of his pragmatic approach to politics is increasingly compelling.

Consider the striking figures of former North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn and New York Congressman George Santos, both of whom have made headlines for less than desirable reasons. Cawthorn, the youngest elected official in Washington D.C. and a wheelchair user, made claims about his Paralympic aspirations, academic background, drug use and even his sexuality that were subsequently debunked or exposed during a primary campaign that he lost to a boring Chamber of Commerce-style Republican rival. And Santos, an openly-gay representative seen as a symbol of the party’s diversification as well as a habitual liar, is now facing a litany of serious charges including wire fraud and money laundering. Then, of course, there is the inescapable Trump: the bright orange sun, recently found liable in a civil proceeding for battery and defamation, and immersed in a half-dozen other legal proceedings.

Amid such turbulent times for the party, Chris Sununu’s steadfastly fiscally-conservative approach and well-grounded governance stand in stark contrast. His political journey over four terms in office exhibits a balance between maintaining personal convictions and adapting to evolving societal demands. His record on abortion rights, for example, shows a clear progression. Starting from a vote while serving in New Hampshire’s legislative assembly to defund Planned Parenthood in 2015, he reversed his stance and has repeatedly endorsed contracts with the organisation, even declaring himself a “pro-choice governor” in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Furthermore, Sununu has demonstrated allyship to the LGBT community during a period when even Trump, who once declared “the gays, they love me”, has seemingly disappeared from that scene. He has enacted legislation to protect LGBT rights, such as laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and banning conversion therapy for minors. He has also supported the inclusion of a non-binary gender option on driver’s licences and vetoed a bill that could have resulted in trans children being inadvertently outed to their parents in schools. Admittedly, this could be viewed as excessively progressive or perhaps something a “Republican in name only” governing in a Northeastern state might be compelled to do. It may, however, serve as an effective strategy to pacify the GOP base and shift focus towards major economic issues. This strategy, of course, could be precarious during the primaries, as MAGA voters may oppose him. Yet, there’s a slim possibility that figures such as Trump and DeSantis could split the hard-Right vote, allowing Sununu to eke out a victory with the support of centre-Right voters.

There, Sununu has maintained conservative stances, supporting state-funded school choice vouchers for disadvantaged and low-income students — critical at a time when more and more parents are pulling their kids out of failing public schools — and vetoing a bill for a paid family leave policy which entailed a state-wide payroll tax. In essence, Sununu’s record presents a unique blend of principled conservatism, fiscal responsibility and an understanding of social shifts. While the spectre of scandal or stupid sloganeering looms large over other figures in the party, Sununu’s comparatively mundane, yet effective, political career offers a refreshing divergence that could represent the Republicans’ saving grace in this politically tumultuous era.

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Consider how this has worked for the Democrats. President Joe Biden, a centrist Democrat for as long as he belonged to the party, has somehow made good on four decades of blustery “Middle-Class Joe” and “Amtrak Joe” rhetoric. From the perspective of his conservative critics, he’s an aged figurehead manipulated by “woke” elites, while to some progressives, he’s perceived as a detached incumbent under the sway of corporate interests. An objective analysis, however, shows that Biden is handling the complex challenges of presidency in a more nuanced way than he’s often given credit for.

Initially, expectations were tempered for the elder statesman: could he merely get out of bed each day, mumble a few words to the camera, and avoid wetting himself on television? Yet Biden’s administration has spearheaded significant policies — from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to the bipartisan $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — which, if associated with a more vivacious ideologue, might have sparked significant enthusiasm across the political spectrum. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the Democrats fared remarkably well in the 2022 midterm elections — a success that can partly be attributed to the party’s capacity to resist ultra-conservative contenders backed by influential figures such as Trump.

Who knows, perhaps Biden’s centrist approach might offer a blueprint for a novel style of leadership that could reshape America’s political landscape — a style of leadership that the much younger and much sharper Chris Sununu, who lacks only national name recognition despite a fairly well-known political surname, could emulate for the Republicans. Certainly, as we look towards the 2024 elections, it’s worth considering the importance of a calm, steady contender against President Biden.

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The GOP is fighting the wrong culture war

By Geoff Shullenberger

It’s unfortunate, then, that the prospect of a tranquil political landscape seems improbable. The potential return of Trump to the Republican ticket will be good news for media outlets and social media platforms that thrive on conflict, but less so for the functioning of a society we call home. Indeed, in the coming months, the likely reality is that we’ll be inundated with Trump-centric media coverage, reminiscent of the intense attention he received during a recent CNN town hall in which he used the hapless former Daily Caller listicle writer Kaitlan Collins to dust off his greatest hits. Potential contenders like Sununu, in comparison, may remain relatively unknown, much like former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in the 2016 Democratic race, or Ohio Governor John Kasich on the Republican side. We’re all set to lose from this situation, becoming the victims of content algorithms designed to prioritise engagement over quality discussion.

The resulting indifference towards a “mundane” Sununu candidacy reveals a profound predicament: a political landscape that undervalues stability and practical policymaking. Addressing this is not merely a matter of preferring dull personalities over dynamic ones, but electing leaders committed to the collective welfare, rather than those who thrive on division and disharmony. In this context, Sununu emerges not just as a quiet politician, but as a soothing balm to the heated partisanship that has marked recent years. His calm demeanour could be just what we need to restore tranquillity in the turbulent sea of American politics. As Sununu said earlier this month: “If you can’t assure the Republican Party that you can cross the line in November of 2024 — and it’s pretty clear [Trump] can’t — then we have to find somebody else. That’s it. It’s nothing personal. We’re moving on as a party.”

The party does indeed need to move on: it’s time to allow reasoned dialogue and pragmatic policy to echo within the not-so-hallowed halls of our fraying democracy. It’s time to make America boring again.

Armstrong started mining the rest of her life. Dooce pivoted to offering carefully-scripted “unvarnished realities” on parenthood, marriage, and Armstrong’s struggles with depression. The market in the early 2000s was far less crowded than it was even a decade later, allowing a cornball line like this to land in a way it probably wouldn’t today: “I am here to tell you that there is no possible way to have an 8-pound creature GUMMING your tender nipple without the slightest bit of discomfort……the only way to describe it to a man is to suggest that he lay out his naked penis on a chopping block, place a manual stapler on the sacred helmet head, and bang in a couple hundred staples.” Off the back of insights such as these, Armstrong gained a monthly readership of 8.5 million fans, raking in anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a month at her peak. In 2011, Forbes ranked her 26th on its list of most the influential women in all media. Federated Media, the entity responsible for managing advertisements on her blog, celebrated Armstrong as one of their most prosperous bloggers, a top performer who generated over $1 million a year in ad revenue.

The same year, Armstrong contributed a foreword to Mom Blogging for Dummies, writing: “Some women who do what I do reject this label altogether because they consider the term mommy to be belittling. I understand this complaint, but I’m quite proud to be a member of this movement, this revolution of women determining their own destinies.” Hers is a cautionary tale, however, for those of us who write and consume content for a living.

Armstrong’s fame and online presence had greatly receded by the time she committed suicide at home earlier this year. In The Valedictorian of Being Dead, published in 2019, she details a life spent battling depression — on ten occasions, she went into a medically-induced coma, simulating brain death, in an attempt to alleviate her symptoms. Somewhere between introducing a guide to making money from nonstop mommy blogging and declaring mommy blogging dead, Armstrong came to recognise — or decided to admit — the negative impact her work was having on her mental health. In the foreword, she writes with a sense of pride, “I don’t get to go on vacation.” In The Valedictorian of Being Dead, she expressed her longing for an escape “the hamster wheel of my day-to-day existence”:

“I knew I just couldn’t do it anymore when I was trying to get my kids into the car to play a word game while driving to a ranch in the mountains. This would be the third of three posts I was to write for an automotive brand about quality time with my kids in the car … Marlo did not want to participate in yet another ruse, and I had to bribe and threaten and cajole to get her in that car. Right as she opened her door, she looked up at me through tears and begged, ‘Please, Mom, don’t make me do this.’”

Armstrong’s transition from viewing her work as a fulfilling occupation to a trap reflects the paradoxical reality of life as a content creator: the same facts, framed differently as market conditions changed, transformed from a testament of her dedication to a cry for relief. But it also speaks to a universal experience of life lived in the digital age. Her journey — from a person who wrote about her life on the internet for fun to an entrepreneur supporting not only her family but also employees with her blog revenues — illustrates the tremendous opportunity of the dotcom boom. But it also reveals the precarity inherent in what was then a burgeoning marketplace of intimate stories that would, as one critic observed later, gradually evolve into a “personal-essay industrial complex”.

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Armstrong was praised for offering humour, heart, and what some perceived as unflinching honesty. Long-time editor of The Rumpus, Lyz Lenz, likened her to the Hunter S. Thompson of domestic life — “a wild, weird gonzo journalist of domesticity and dog poop”. She had a knack for transforming ordinary experiences into amusing anecdotes, comparing her sick toddler to a “drunken blues singer whose wife done kicked him out of the house” — an utterance that would be described as “problematic” today — or injecting making a trip to the gynaecologist sound less horrific with a quip: “Somewhere there has to be a Garfield comic that talks about how Mondays aren’t bad enough already, and here you have to go and throw an enlarged ovary into his soup?”

Armstrong describes her blog as a “therapeutic outlet”, initially to process her postpartum depression. The carefully-composed, yet candid-sounding revelations of her struggles — often leavened with a bit of circa-2000s gross-out comedy — fostered a sense of virtual community among readers, who developed a strong attachment to, and a sense of entitlement over, Armstrong, their “queen mother”. This was a world where people were becoming ever more isolated — “bowling alone”, as Harvard professor Robert Putnam put it. These sad folk, existing at the murky “IRL/URL border”, turned to screens to soothe existential hurt and validate what were gradually becoming identities.

But the challenges of sustaining a profitable blogging business in an ever-evolving digital economy started to fracture the authentic voice that had once resonated with readers. Ad revenue declined. The need to shoehorn sponsored content into her blog posts became more pressing. Instead of writing about experiences, Armstrong had to manufacture them, experiences to fit the expectations of brand partnerships. The connection between the real Armstrong and the commercialised version of herself that the audience saw became increasingly flimsy.

So when Armstrong announced she was getting a divorce, her loyal readership felt betrayed. Here was an unwelcome reminder that her carefully-told story of a perfect family life was nothing more than fiction. Parasocial followers commented, “If you’ve read a blogger for years, you feel like you know them…the saddest thing I’ve read today“, “they’ve always seemed like a good couple”, and even the ironic “I wish you could have privacy“. Such intimate reactions echo those experienced by uber-public figures such as J.K. Rowling, whose stance on gender ideology has alienated fans who were clearly identifying far too strongly with her books, and now by Taylor Swift, whose fans are obsessively calling for her to dump her supposedly “problematic” new boyfriend. In any case, the story Armstrong was telling no longer fit what the marketplace desired; it had been corrupted by the complexities of a real life. And that led to the difficult realisation that she was, as she told Vox in 2019, an outdated product.

As many in the sales and marketing world can attest, the process of constantly reinventing yourself to meet external expectations can be a maddening endeavour — there is no escape, only yourself and your content, and if people aren’t buying, it’s hell on Earth. The hardest thing about her obsolescence, Armstrong writes in The Valedictorian of Being Dead, is that “writing was therapeutic”. And yet, no one forced her to stop writing; it’s just that fewer people wanted to read her. She could have kept writing without monetising it — many of us keep private journals, even in 2023 — yet she seemed to conflate writing with being read. So, what was it that she feels was therapeutic: writing, or creating a fictionalised version of her life that other people bought into?

I have argued before that blogging — indeed, many forms of social media — allows people to unhealthily distort themselves for profit. This isn’t therapeutic, despite Armstrong’s repeated claims to the contrary; in fact, as my own therapist has pointed out, reminding everyone around you that your creative work is “therapeutic” is a sure-fire sign that it probably isn’t. When personal reinvention for commercial success becomes the norm, it’s easy to lose sight of your own needs, while focused on catering to an audience’s demands. There is a vast difference between performing wellness for an audience and actually achieving it.

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The relentless cycle of selling and repackaging the self not only creates a dizzying array of personas to uphold but also lays the foundation for an existential crisis when the demand for one’s curated identity dwindles. In the final years of her life, Armstrong was already posthumously known; writing on Instagram to a fraction of her former audience, her past was better-known than her present. Many of today’s top posters, podcasters, and pundits will have the same experience. Countless people have invested themselves in the game of personal content creation — making moves that will invariably lead to diminishing returns, until they have no moves left to make.

Intriguingly, those most drawn to this lifestyle — and to social media in general — seem to be those seeking an escape from their present realities. Consider Armstrong’s aforementioned quip about her gynaecologist visit — the lame Garfield joke about her enlarged ovary. Clearly, this is a heavily filtered version of her experience in the doctor’s room, designed for the consumption of her audience. While the joke may have elicited a polite laugh, it detracts from the genuine fear anyone would feel at a medical diagnosis.

Armstrong saw herself as being in the business of making herself better. But did she write about it for herself, or for her audience? Even her final autobiographical work, The Valedictorian of Being Dead, was ultimately designed for consumption. So the question remains: who was she really trying to influence?

America’s laws on sports betting have been getting increasingly permissive since 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. My cousin, who is in his early thirties, lives in Colorado, where it was legalised in 2019. In his twenties, he tried college, but never finished. Nor did he show a real interest in anything — including serious romance and traditional employment — except DraftKings, which has been his preferred online game since 2014. Back then, it offered nothing but virtual prizes for success in virtual sports; but as states have legalised sports betting, the company, and others like it, have launched highly lucrative gambling apps.

A hamster-wheel life going nowhere is profoundly boring. Sports betting gave my cousin meaning: suddenly every game, every event — even sports he didn’t care about — mattered. It wasn’t only the outcomes he cared about; he placed bets on various scenarios within the games. He was, and is, hooked. There are hundreds of thousands of men like him: the target audience of sports betting apps.

As of April 2023, 33 states have legal, operational sports betting, and a host of companies — including DraftKings and FanDuel — have expanded to meet consumer demand. Some libertarian-leaning think tanks, including the Cato Institute, argue that betting offers a much-needed source of revenue for financially struggling states. The figures have been staggering — since the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling, over $20 billion has been spent on sports betting in the United States, with more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes being paid — and they look set to increase. Sportsbook revenue in the US reached a record $7.5 billion in 2022, up 75% from the 2021 total of $4.29 billion.

Unchecked gambling can have devastating consequences for both individuals and communities — consequences that were well-known even before sports betting was available at one’s literal fingertips, at any hour of the day or night. They include financial ruin, relationship strain and increased crime — including organised crime, for which legal betting operations serve as a convenient front for money laundering. Unsurprisingly, The Free Press recently labelled sports betting the “new Oxycontin”.

The comparison isn’t baseless, but the key difference is that Oxycontin ultimately “sells itself”. When people become physically and psychologically dependent on the highly addictive drug, no additional marketing is needed. Chronic gambling, by contrast, is a behavioural addiction, where individuals crave a thrill — meaning that the product has to be constantly refreshed. The apps track user behaviour, which is then minutely analysed by employees looking for ways to keep people hooked.

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In her 2012 book Addiction by Design, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll writes that gamblers find themselves adjusting their behaviour based on the features and giveaways provided by casinos, such as in-play betting, cash-out options, or bonus plays. In the decade since, the gambling scene has evolved — from mechanical slots in a handful of states to video slots in nearly all of them, and finally to sports betting on almost every smartphone in the US. The relationship between sports bettors and the growing industry that services them is characterised by a constant interplay, where bettors seek to maintain the ideal balance of dopamine hits, spend, and control, while the industry releases an endless stream of innovations and promotions to draw them deeper into their apps. They dangle special offers to keep time-on-app as high as possible, while draining bankrolls over time — hence the money thrown at new users to convince them to join the service: no one wants to stick around if they lose their wad all at once.

The “zone”, as my cousin describes it, is a state where bettors feel fully absorbed, achieving a balance between risk and enjoyment in which they are perfectly synchronised with the app. He, and enthusiasts like him, have noted that their betting experiences keep becoming “smoother” and more immersive. While data analysts behind the scenes make sophisticated predictions of potential value, this “zone” state keeps bettors anchored in the immediate excitement of the wager, which prevents them from making informed long-term decisions.

Predictably, the rate of pathological gambling in the US seems to be increasing. There was a 45% rise in calls, texts, and messages to the National Problem Gambling Helpline between 2021 and 2022. In New Jersey alone, the state’s Council on Compulsive Gambling’s help hotline has experienced a 200% jump over the past four years. We are staring into a potential epidemic with serious dangers: a report from the UK Gambling Commission revealed that problem gamblers are 12 times more likely to suffer from depression, and the suicide rate among these individuals is considerably higher than among the general population. The argument for ubiquitous, 24/7 sports betting often skates over these facts — as well as the financial costs of this supposedly revenue-boosting exercise. A recent study found that the annual social cost of gambling addiction in the United States is now around $7 billion.

This is partly because gambling addiction is hard to treat. OxyContin withdrawal can often be countered through medication-assisted therapies, while treatment for chronic gambling is slower. It primarily focuses on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and self-help groups, the aim being to address the underlying thought processes that contribute to the addiction — the very same thought processes that the marketing engines of betting companies are working tirelessly to exploit.

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At the moment, the authorities don’t seem to be taking the dangers of sports betting seriously. The situation does bear a concerning resemblance to the beginning of the opioid crisis, where “deaths of despair” — fatalities related to drug overdose, alcohol, and suicide — were initially overlooked. For years, the addictive potential of OxyContin was ignored, leading to a massive public health crisis. Today, public service messages about “problem gambling” seem to be little more than lip service; state-mandated legal disclaimers are widely disregarded; and policy seems to be moving towards increasing permissiveness.

No one is talking about the best solution to this problem. Prohibition, with exceptions for legacy gambling states such as New Jersey and Nevada, could help reduce overall harm, even if it lowers overall state and federal tax revenues. This policy would aim to reduce the socially unproductive activities that tear apart lives, families, and savings; the focus would shift from profit to public health. Some compulsive individuals would continue to engage in illegal sports betting with seedy underworld bookies, of course, but that wouldn’t make the policy redundant. The era of alcohol Prohibition in the Twenties is often portrayed as a failure, because liquor was still available if you knew where to get it. But research has shown that alcohol consumption decreased significantly during this period, leading to a reduction in alcohol-related deaths and other social problems.

When I put the question of prohibition to my cousin, he shrugged. “It’s whatever,” he said, insisting that this is “just my life right now”. He claimed he would find other ways to “pass the time”, which hints at a deeper, perhaps policy-resistant malaise. Paul Goodman observed six decades ago in Growing Up Absurd that his generation had failed to encourage their kids to pursue a form of “leisure that is not a dismaying waste of a hundred million adults”. Instead, his peers had become television-addicted cogs in an immense system: apathetic and overworked drones unable to make life in America bearable for those coming of age in it. Today, the situation is starker: an ever-expanding class of perpetually online, underemployed defeatists and opted-out NEETs find themselves unable to conceptualise paying off student loans or buying homes. Indeed, there is a specific demographic that seems to be more attracted to sports betting: my cousin’s.

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In this absurd world, to repurpose the analysis of sociologist Max Weber, value-extracting tools like sports-betting apps exemplify forces of calculability and predictability — every game has a betting line, after all — while simultaneously enchanting gamblers with their slightly mysterious nature. Perhaps the underdog will pull through; perhaps my luck, so horrible in real life, is due to change. The suckers whose dollars fill the corporate coffers seem like a lost generation.

What my cousin, and others like him, yearn for is a life of both purpose and enchantment. He desires experiences to rival his grandfather’s submarining exploits in World War II. But societal shifts and technological advancements have created a landscape where opportunities for meaningful adventure, particularly for young men, often seem elusive. In the face of this reality, many, like my cousin, turn to the world of gambling as a means of filling the void. They take their chances repeatedly, hoping that, against the odds, they will find the sense of fulfilment they so desperately seek.

Maggie Bullock, author of The Kingdom of Prep, on the other hand, went all-in on style after she left the American South to attend boarding school. In her book, which covers “the rise and fall of J.Crew”, she examines the history of the company that enabled her to quickly dress in the preppy style of her classmates: flat-front trousers, polo shirts, roll-neck sweaters. A well-worn roll-neck sweater, Bullock writes with nostalgic affection, “had social acceptance knit into its very fibres”.

Like America, J.Crew sold a paradoxical dream: the top tier of society is exclusive, but anyone can reach it. Its products aped those of Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, and J.Press — whose name J.Crew emulated — but retailed for a fraction of the cost. The clothes were still pricey, but could be thought of as an affordable investment; the company was aspirational, certainly, but it wasn’t exclusionary. That is, unless you happened to be a woman who wore a size larger than 12 or a man who wore “XXL” shirts, although the company redressed its skinny-bias in the more obese world of the 2010s.

Indeed, what J.Crew was selling evolved in tandem with American society. At its point of inception, in 1983, clothing retailers played a critical role in the capital-powered construction of self. And J.Crew offered a ready-to-wear identity: a beginner’s guide to prep for those who quickly needed to ingratiate themselves to the establishment. Initially, the company was catalogue-only, but during the late Eighties, founder Arthur Cinader’s daughter Emily steered its expansion into the indoor mall — the place of American identity creation during this period. Being able to buy the prep look straight from a catalogue had been an innovation, but taking it to the mall, where you could browse identities between stops at the food court and the arcade, was a critical next step in expanding J.Crew’s reach.  

But the early 2000s saw the beginning of the end of the American indoor mall — with many older malls built in the Seventies and Eighties being abandoned — and so, too, the decline of this iteration of J.Crew. As the company struggled with its identity, young consumers turned elsewhere, particularly to Abercrombie & Fitch. In 2002, I was hired to manage an A&F store at the Streets of Southpoint Mall — one of the elaborate, indoor-outdoor mega-malls that appeared during this period of rapid mall consolidation. At the time, A&F was doubling down on a truly exclusionary aesthetic, marketing clothes solely to people hot enough to wear them. Only a very particular kind of cool young person belonged in our clothes; I was exhorted not to hire anyone who didn’t fit the bill. (When the tide turned, a swarm of online identities — pro-social justice, pro-size acceptance — made A&F something of a punchline.)

The American Dream is a constant quest for an identity that is both recognisable and exceptional, and the divergent paths of J.Crew and A&F expose this seesaw between inclusivity and exclusivity. The Ronald Reagan-overseen Eighties, the true heyday of J.Crew, still held the promise of upward mobility and material success for all. Everyone was invited. Meanwhile, the 2000s were a time of economic retrenchment, eventually leading to the major recession of 2008. The elite felt threatened, and needed to differentiate itself, even superficially, through something like the vision A&F was selling. The effect of economics on the identity of Americans played out through off-the-rack fashion; it seems as if Americans are forever in high school, anxiously buying new looks to fit in with whichever lunch table they find themselves sitting at. This never-ending quest for identity and belonging speaks to a deep-seated, uncomfortable need to navigate the complexities of American society, where class, race, and personal identity intertwine and continuously evolve.

This incessant buying and selling of the product-mediated self fascinated me long before I entered a high school refectory. It probably began with my father, who wore the same half-dozen ill-fitting Brooks Brothers Number One Sack Suits all through his four-decade career as a car dealer. He considered anyone who linked their identity to branded material goods — whether Ford, Chrysler or J.Crew garments — to be susceptible to manipulation by the rapacious, advertising-driven economy. What he sold were ephemeral dreams: were you a Chevy man, an Oldsmobile man, a Cadillac man? The answer didn’t matter to him — they were all quick-to-depreciate “hunks of junk” — but it was this question that could motivate uncertain people to fork out their life savings. Everyone in America wants to be someone else, someone different and better; we can be easily convinced to invest hard-earned money in ourselves.

J.Crew experienced a revival in the mid-2000s and 2010s, when it became the preferred clothing brand for Barack and Michelle Obama. It had managed to successfully blend its old Ivy League staples with hipster trends, but this was J.Crew’s last big money: where could identity formation go in post-racial, post-class, post-patriarchy America? The answer, we would eventually learn, was online, where the process of branded self-differentiation was able to remain in dizzying flux.

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I never imagined — and neither, apparently, did the executives at J.Crew and A&F, even as their billion-dollar brands began to struggle — that high-quality clothing would cease to play such a fundamental role in defining a person. The internet introduced a thousand new ways to form an identity, with Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok allowing users to continuously evolve. Some retail companies kept up, at first. Fast fashion companies such as Zara and H&M fuelled a retail apocalypse by churning out new wearable identities in response to viral articles and much-liked Instagram posts. By the end of the 2010s, if a certain influencer was wearing a particular designer shirt, Zara could have a cheap equivalent in its stores a week later.

But eventually, material possessions like clothing became less important in shaping identity, as digital profiles and online avatars took centre-stage — especially with the advent of lockdowns, Zoom meetings and fully remote existences. In this world, upon encountering someone else’s identity marker, the desire to adopt it as part of one’s own “personal brand” could be instantaneously satisfied; adding pronouns to one’s online “bio” is even faster than Amazon Prime. Even the speediest fast fashion purveyor can’t construct you an identity as quickly as a few mouse clicks or carefully angled selfies.

And material products are vulnerable. They rip, and tear and shrink in the wash. Pronouns endure, until the split second you decide to change them. The countless “skins” that can be purchased for your League of Legends characters won’t fade, but can be easily swapped on or off. Each signifies something supposedly unique about the skin buyer, who might have spent hundreds of dollars on these trifles. Pronouns are free but increasingly, in the virtual world, as in the material one, identity is for sale. And clothing companies like J.Crew and A&F cannot compete. While a garment may convey a message, its impact is limited, compared to a video of your freshly-filtered face that gets thousands of likes, or an announcement of your new pronouns that is met with widespread yet ephemeral approval.

Our pursuit of branded identities is a curious one: we are seeking uniqueness in the context of comfortable conformity, looking for the “right stuff” to distinguish us enough to join the clique of our choice. By providing affordable, aspirational style, J.Crew may have democratised fashion to some extent, but even when worn by the Obamas, it also subtly reinforced the class distinctions that are so deeply ingrained in American society. The wearers we are seeking to emulate are, in turn, seeking to appear more like us. But they are in fact part of an American upper class whose true markers of distinctions are subtle or deliberately obscure. A&F, at least, was frank about the existence of an obscure qualification to enter the elite that some will never attain. But online, it’s easy to forget that the carefully-curated versions of ourselves are often amplifying social divisions, pre-existing biases and class structures — rather than challenging them.

What the story of J.Crew teaches us is that our constructed styles, and by extension our constructed selves, are always on the way out. Their expiration dates are getting closer, and the periods of planned obsolescence shorter. The time-limited high school experience serves as an apt metaphor. Individuals strive for both self-expression and acceptance by conforming to an accepted aesthetic, and hundreds of high school movies have ended with characters achieving this tightrope walk. But in reality, it’s impossible to simultaneously break out as a unique individual and be accepted by the masses for adhering to a specific set of rules. Ultimately, our continuous reinvention of style highlights the fact that social politics always reduces, as in high school, to perpetual insecurity.

The messages had a brief heyday in 2016, making the rounds of New York City editors and literary agents, in advance of a public reading I gave in the East Village. In the cultural moment just before Donald Trump’s emergence, these half-baked far-Right musings were a novelty; alas, Trump’s presidential triumph scuppered plans to make an eBook out of them. But I still re-read them, when I want to remember the old man. (He had, of course, hoped that I would: “I send these because life and death is about MIND over MATTER…….&& I want to reMIND u that it don’t matter…..”) Perhaps it was loneliness that made me wonder if his voice could ever be resurrected.

In my day job, as a senior content manager for a research consultancy, I often use GPT-4. It is competent at various brute-force operations — turning lengthy transcripts into notes, proofreading content — even if the inputs require constant fine-tuning and the outputs require careful attention to ensure accuracy. But could it write content that would bring back the dead? Could GPT-4, if sufficiently trained, analyse my father’s emails — and perhaps even write new ones?

“Well well well, my BOY, let ol’ FOG lay down some KNOWLEDGE on the import-ants of self-defense!” So began one of the emails produced by GPT-4, after I fed my father’s archive into it. As an opening it feels slightly more stilted than the source material, and I can’t recall my father ever referring to me as a “BOY”, but he did call himself the “FOG” (short for “effing old guy”) and randomly capitalise entire words and hyphenate others (“import-ants”), though he would never have bothered with the apostrophe after “ol’” (he’d merely write “ol”).

I know my father’s voice when I see it — it is a script that runs in my own head, like a built-in AI. And as GPT-4 generated more missives, I was increasingly certain: it could not replicate my father’s erratic punctuation usage. The mere ellipse was never enough for him; he would sometimes type out a dozen full-stops or more. These time signatures often appeared in the long, quiet sections in the saddest emails he wrote: “Go out there and just outwit the bastards………Nothing else to Life…..every body loses but some people stay in the game for a long time and have a happy life and family….I never did…..oh well…I saw it and I read the writing on the wall……” It was these inconsistencies that enabled me to hear his voice, these peculiarities that made his work human.

I doubt that a machine will ever be able to mimic his syntax. But given the right prior inputs, GPT-4 could respond to questions or develop political platforms (or children’s stories) in a manner that eerily resembled my father’s thought process. Was this a true reanimation, or merely what University of Washington linguist Emily Bender, a critic of equating AI outputs with human reasoning, might describe as “stochastic parroting”? The AI certainly captured subtleties in my father’s work that I and others overlooked during that reading in the East Village. Listeners then likely saw him as some outsider-artist variant of Alex Jones, spewing rote conspiracy theory. But ChatGPT, when asked to summarise his politics, cut through the outlandish expression to a more comprehensible core: “Your father’s concern for the environment and the need for sustainable practices aligns with the environmentalist movement [while] his preference for local communities and self-sufficiency has some connections to localism.”

This was, of course, true, though I never thought about it in this way — nor did I consider that his “focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment aligns with progressive politics”. My father was the sort of man who moved to a “mountain house” in Montana to live out his final days; he was far closer to the libertarian Right of Karl Hess — who also retired to the wilderness — than the more culturally conservative, evangelical Right that dominated his era (or the MAGA movement that dominated mine). The AI analysed and reproduced a version of my father distinct from who I remembered. But perhaps there were things I had missed.

The progress AI has made in understanding and generating human-like text over the past six months is impressive — a great feat of engineering that will, in time, be remembered alongside the construction of the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China. However, AI models are still unable to mimic the voices of highly idiosyncratic, distinctive writers. The polymath University of Paris professor Justin E.H. Smith, for instance, has found AI largely incapable of simulating his unique voice. But in his case the content, rather than simply the form, of his communication is highly complex.

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The writing of Right-leaning political blogger Curtis Yarvin, on the other hand, appears stylish on the surface, but is often considered lacking in substance — a fellow editor noted that removing every other sentence from Yarvin’s excessively ornamental prose would not change its meaning in the slightest. Yarvin believes that GPT-4 cannot reason or think, merely discern and reproduce patterns. His writing, however, is undeniably replicable; a sentence such as “the only way to write about finance is to be either neither bull nor bear, or both” seems sophisticated at first glance, but it exemplifies what one of my old writing mentors might call “all sizzle and no steak”. In other words, Yarvin, like many commentators succeeding on the internet, can skilfully assemble sentences that can be skimmed for hours but forgotten in minutes — meaning that imitating his work is the ideal scenario for an LLM that ceaselessly creates a persuasive imitation of style, without any regard for substance.

The general public, most of whom skim content rather than paying attention to form, may struggle to differentiate between authentic and AI-generated content. More perceptive readers can sometimes detect minor discrepancies that reveal the artificial nature of the imitation — but even they aren’t perfect. In one study, researchers investigated if LLMs could be as good as humans at creating philosophical texts, by fine-tuning GPT-3 with philosopher Daniel C. Dennett’s works. While experts and philosophy blog readers performed above chance level in distinguishing Dennett’s answers from the model’s, they still fell short of the expected success rate.

The implications here are alarming. If most people are unable to distinguish between human-generated and AI-generated content, creativity and critical thinking will become rarer attributes. A new class divide could spring up, between the privileged few capable of discerning the nuances of AI-generated content, and a growing mass of individuals left to consume, without question, whatever is presented to them. The “priestly class” would consolidate power by reading between the hieratic lines of AI-generated content — just as the literate elites in ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilisations did, by controlling access to sacred texts and legal knowledge. Their ability to recognise genuine information would give them a competitive edge in everything from financial markets to politics, further widening the gap between the informed and the uninformed. Meanwhile, the vast majority — an ever-expanding pool of digital-age helots left to hew wood and draw water — would become increasingly vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation. The forces that shape our lives would be less accountable, and it would be ever harder to address ethical concerns or make well-informed decisions.

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Unfortunately, it is difficult to even imagine the mass education needed to achieve the necessary levels of discernment — much less its effectuation. Most people would rather be watching 15-second TikTok videos than close reading. And while a significant percentage of the world’s population will always, unfortunately, lack the cognitive skills or cultural capital to navigate our swiftly-changing content ecosystem, even the well-educated are in danger. We are witnessing a decline in the humanities, which traditionally turn future workers into critical thinkers, capable of discerning the idiosyncrasies in human expression.

As AI-generated content becomes increasingly sophisticated, we must prize those idiosyncrasies. They are, as I saw when I attempted to replicate my father’s emails, what make each writer’s voice distinct and authentic; they are the reason discerning readers might pay to read a mind-expanding Substack instead of boring, one-note op-eds or paint-by-numbers YA fiction. By embracing the unique aspects of the way they communicate, writers may create work that resonates on a deeper level, appealing to an audience that still wants to read the best work that humans can produce.

My father’s voice is one of a kind. But to find out if my conclusions are replicable by a machine, I decided to ask ChatGPT to provide its own opinion on the likelihood of it fully “replacing” a given writer. “It’s important to consider that my responses are based on patterns and structures found in the data I’ve been trained on, rather than personal experiences or emotions,” it replied. “As a result, even though I can generate text that appears to be in the style of a specific person, it is still an approximation and not a direct reflection of their thoughts or ideas.” Of course, when I am communicating with a machine that reproduces the thoughts of my dead father with a reasonably high degree of precision, it’s pretty to think it might be otherwise. But more alarming is the question I am left with: Could I have put it better myself?

There is a longstanding theory that “wrestling explains Trump”, who has hosted and occasionally even performed on McMahon’s WWE shows. Vann Newkirk first made the case in The Atlantic in May 2016 and several articles with similar arguments followed. Trump had successfully navigated a chaotic primary “fight” to become the Republican frontrunner. A few months before he was elected, Jeremy Gordon asked, in the New York Times, if “everything” was wrestling. Back then, the discourse profoundly misunderstood the relationship between sport and politics. So why is it, like Trump and McMahon, making a notable comeback?

Last month, for instance, Abraham Josephine Riesman published a book that attempts to explain — to a mainstream audience — McMahon’s rise as a wrestling tycoon in relation to Trump’s emergence as a national politician. Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, argues that “neokayfabe is the essence of the Republican strategy for campaigning and governance today”. Here, “kayfabe” refers to what was an unspoken rule of the wrestling world, until 1989: that everyone pretends that the outcomes of the matches weren’t predetermined. “Old kayfabe was built on the solid, flat foundation of one big lie: that wrestling was real”, Riesman writes in a New York Times op-ed. (The “real” matches of a century earlier often degenerated into long, boring grappling affairs on the mat, eventually necessitating some fakery to spice them up.) Even outside the ring, the industry’s employees were expected to uphold the illusion that the matches were genuine athletic contests, and the wrestlers’ emotions authentic.

That is, until 1989, when McMahon publicly disclosed that match outcomes were predetermined, to evade regulatory costs imposed on legitimate sports — as opposed to mere sporting exhibitions — by the New Jersey State Athletic Commission. This revelation marked a major turning point in the industry. From then on, companies promoted wrestling as entertainment, rather than simply a contest of excellence — concentrating on storylines, characters and theatricality, in addition to the performers’ athletic prowess. Neokayfabe, Riesman writes, “rests on a slippery, ever-wobbling jumble of truths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, all delivered with the utmost passion and commitment”. It’s not hard to see why he’s tempted to draw political parallels.

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But there are many oversimplified accounts of wrestling, and alas, Riesman’s is one of them. The “kayfabe” boundary was never strict. The audience was always at least vaguely aware of the sport’s falsity, in part due to the periodic exposes that appeared throughout the 20th century. Yet most wilfully participated in the ruse — some for fun, others to honour the commitment of the performers to the illusion. Besides, McMahon’s “neokayfabe” was merely an amplified version of what came before — an exercise in entertainment, bolstered by aggressive national marketing, branding, intellectual property protection, and numerous collaborations with celebrities.

However, Riesman, to make his point, has to oversimplify. He offers few fresh insights into McMahon’s life or career — because McMahon is intended to represent more than just himself. He is, rather, the cunning businessman who provided a “neokayfabe” blueprint that his old pal Trump adapted to craft a vivid, aggressive, and anti-truth strategy. It was this strategy that the American Right adopted, to sow discord across a country recently united by Obama’s calm, paternalistic centrism.

It is a straightforward, superficially appealing narrative — especially for those who casually watched wrestling in the late Nineties, when McMahon, with his steroidal physique and signature swagger, would confidently stride onto Monday Night Raw as the villainous boss. However, as Joe Biden might say, it’s simply “a bunch of malarkey”. Both Trump and McMahon owe their fame and fortune to something much bigger and older than both of them. Something at the heart of the American Dream: marketing.

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Marketing and advertising are America’s most original contributions to global culture. This nation, best known for refining and selling the ideas of others, has produced great evangelists, poets, and statesmen — all of them more skilled at promoting concepts than actually articulating them in any detail. The myth of America’s founding, as an uninhabited land with unlimited opportunities, served as a necessary fiction to persuade immigrants to endure a treacherous ocean journey and start anew. Americans have, ever since, been particularly susceptible to marketing strategies promising a destiny of endless prosperity.

And it was through ever-evolving marketing methods that pro wrestling evolved — from a carnival attraction with roots in the collar-and-elbow and catch-as-catch-can grappling styles imported from the United Kingdom into a multi-billion-dollar global phenomenon. These methods also transformed a portly man with a poor hair weave and a knack for composing oddly memorable tweets into the world’s most powerful leader. Trump harnessed marketing to achieve exceptional worldwide name recognition; McMahon used it to consolidate control over the somewhat disorganised wrestling industry that operated throughout the United States until the mid-Eighties, transforming the $1 million company he bought from his father in 1982 into a $9 billion sale in 2023.

The reductive comparison between the intricate landscape of US politics and the spectacle of pro wrestling is just another form of marketing. Much of the media reduces political events to us-versus-them narratives, in order to boost ratings or clicks. It’s easy to forget that politics is a multifaceted system with various influences — and that it directs all our lives. Politicians can only talk to us through the media, after all. Marketing must necessarily play a crucial role in shaping their decision-making. It took an entire team of millennials to write Hillary Clinton’s tweets, for instance.

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Politicians work on their personal brands more than most businesspeople, and promote policy positions like any other “product” in the marketplace of ideas, constantly competing to employ new tactics and technologies to reach voters more effectively. This approach is working in politics: the 2020 election saw a record number of ballots cast. It worked, too, in wrestling. In the Nineties, McMahon’s company and its main competitor, World Championship Wrestling, combined to achieve remarkable ratings, through the innovative strategies that fall under the umbrella of “neokayfabe”. But it doesn’t follow that wrestling guided politics; merely that both were guided by the eternal American undercurrent of marketing.

Indeed, comparing the producers and consumers of “neokayfabe” to politicians and voters is both misleading and condescending. While there may be some parallels in the blurring of reality and fiction, the stakes, motivations, and consequences of political actions are vastly different from those in professional wrestling. Equating the two undermines the seriousness of the political process, and to reduce Republican campaigning and governance to “neokayfabe” ignores the multitude of forces — class, race, gender, international relations — shaping political decisions and strategies. Entertainment may influence politics, but politics is not, ultimately entertainment.

Wrestling, too, is more than entertainment. Reisman’s narrative does a disservice to the sport, by telling its story through the lens of one vague concept from McMahon’s life. Pro wrestling, while diverging from its ancient roots by becoming scripted, maintains a connection to the motivations that drove ancient Greeks to compete in it: the desire to use each agon, or contest, to prove arete, or excellence, still motivates daredevil wrestlers such as Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. The physical techniques and manoeuvres used in pro wrestling are often derived from traditional wrestling styles. And wrestlers still train rigorously to develop their physical abilities and execute complex moves in the ring — even if their performance in matches is ultimately governed by employers seeking a good spectacle.

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It’s crucial to distinguish between — rather than conflate — these forms of performance, and the consequences they have. Even seasoned political commentators, who primarily observe and analyse, can occasionally misinterpret the the sort of performance they’re watching (“Trump is just taunting us like a pro wrestler trying to sell tickets to his match; he’ll drop out soon!”), and thereby fail to understand the possible outcomes (Trump, conducting an unconventional yet highly effective political campaign, secures the presidency).

In wrestling, fan-driven publications known as “dirt sheets”, such as Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, play a role comparable to that of Vox and Politico in politics. These publications provided insider knowledge, enhancing fans’ enjoyment of the sport. However, a fixation on firings, hirings, booking decisions and television ratings sometimes overshadows the fact that there are actual matches to appreciate. This situation parallels the way an obsession with political gossip, which bears at least a passing resemblance to “dirt sheet” reporting, can divert attention from the substance of politics itself.

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Wrestling’s deeper meaning is not found in the destructive rhetoric of its interviews or the “neokayfabe” that supposedly blurs the lines between backstage manoeuvring and centre-stage presentation, but in the camaraderie among athletes of diverse backgrounds. Gatherings such as Red Bastien’s Shootout in Dallas exemplify this, as wrestlers get together to reminisce and refer to each other as “brother”. Riesman reduces the sport, fundamentally the business of these performance-bonded “brothers”, to a mere prop for a partisan argument. Hasty to criticise McMahon, Trump, and an entire political party, the author neglects to provide an insight into the wrestling business, instead peremptorily declaring the demise of “real” wrestling and “real” Right-wing politics. In so doing, Riesman also dismisses the substance of still-extant “real” Right-wing politics and its impact on the 70 million Americans who support it — people who voted for Trump because they had faith either in him or the Republican Party.

Both modern wrestlers and Trump excel at emotional appeals — but both realms of performance are merely marketing-improved variants on carnival hucksterism. Wrestling emerged from carnival sideshows, and its goal, as with any field of endeavour that utilises sales and marketing, was to extract as much money as possible from unsuspecting customers. Trump’s continuing scorched-earth tactics — such as using his recent arrest as a means to dominate the news cycle and overshadow his chief Republican competitors for the presidential nomination — resemble short-sighted promoters who enflame fans’ sentiments for immediate gains, perhaps risking long-term destruction.

This marketing-centred approach is not exclusive to politicians and wrestlers; it is also employed by tech bros, bankers, and rappers. Indeed, marketing tactics are so prevalent in American society that it is easy to forget that, beneath surface-level spectacles, there are still some shared values and meaningful relationships. But by focusing on these deeper, more enduring aspects, we may find ourselves able to engage with everything, from politics to sport, in terms of what truly matters in our lives.

Neither my wife nor I use Adderall with any regularity. A 60-count “break-in-case-of-emergency” supply might last the Bateman family ‘til death do us part. But the same cannot be said for millions of others who are reliant on the drug: since last August, the world has experienced a shortage of Adderall. This is probably tied to manufacturing and supply chain issues combined with rapidly increasing demand — though nobody knows for sure. It has had a particularly acute effect on the US. A high-income country of 330 million people is bound to have an outsized impact on world affairs. But the numbers related to Adderall beggar belief. America consumes 80% of the drug’s global supply. Back in 2013, there were 18 million Adderall prescriptions in circulation in the United States — a number that exploded to 41.4 million in 2021.

These statistics can be partly explained by another equally astonishing set, relating to the condition for which Adderall is prescribed. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6.3% of US children aged 5-9 have ADHD, compared to 1.5% of UK children aged between 6-8. Some attribute that to differences in diagnostic principles. The criteria used in the US are considerably more detailed, allowing for diagnosis only if at least five symptoms are present, whereas the globally-accepted standard gives more leeway to the clinician, only stating that symptoms should be “sufficient in number” and cause “significant psychological, social, educational or occupational impairment”.

When I asked one therapist why this leads to a much higher number of ADHD diagnoses in the US — rather than the opposite — she pointed to the laws governing education. Here, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates that schools provide special education services and accommodations to students with ADHD, while in the UK, there’s no specific legislation for ADHD, and schools have more flexibility to support students with diverse learning needs without a formal diagnosis. American doctors know that parents and students need this diagnosis for paperwork purposes, so they, to borrow a line from Jean-Luc Picard, “make it so”.

In other words, an ADHD diagnosis opens a lot of doors in the US. If you know what to say, it’s not hard to get Adderall. And there are plenty of reasons to want Adderall. It significantly improves cognitive function, increases wakefulness, and enhances mood — temporarily turning poor learners into decent ones, and good ones into rock stars. Longer-lasting than other ADHD drugs like Ritalin, Adderall offers that intense “clear” feeling I mentioned, resulting in higher levels of focus, attention, and motivation.

These stimulants can improve, among other things, performance on various standardised tests that (at least for now) still have an outsized impact on admission to the most prestigious academic programmes. Unsurprisingly, there’s plenty of evidence that rich parents and their kids are working with willing doctors to secure easy access to Adderall, and other so-called “smart drugs”. A 2016 study found that 10.7% of high school students who had used Adderall in the past year had obtained it from a doctor. Meanwhile, 13.2% had obtained it from a friend or family member, indicating that these drugs circulate widely in certain academic and social circles — a fact many of us may know all too well.

I’ve watched a number of friends and relatives game the system to receive legal prescriptions for ADHD, visiting physicians and uttering the magic words needed to meet diagnostic criteria. Their motivations varied: one cousin likes to be “amped up” on stimulants at all hours of the day, while a friend from college uses it to improve his performance as an esports athlete. And I’m willing to admit that the drug has benefited me in small and very infrequent doses. But there are obvious ethical concerns here. Adderall, like Ozempic (for weight loss) or testosterone (for muscle building), gives some people an unfair advantage over others.

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The US Drug Enforcement Administration acted last month to rein in what some now consider a “Wild West” environment. Adderall prescriptions in the US rose 16% during the pandemic, with telehealth appointments a main driver. The DEA’s proposed rule would require at least one in-person visit to the physician prescribing controlled substances such as Adderall. But it faces stiff resistance from clinicians and users, who argue that remote consultations increased access to life-changing medications. People whose lives and identities are tied up in ADHD have been lamenting that their condition, defined by an inability to focus without Adderall, becomes doubly hellish when they’re required to actually go somewhere to get prescriptions filled; the complaint of one legal aid attorney, representative of thousands of others, was that the “nationwide adderall shortage means I skipped my doses this weekend and fucking fought for my life to do the dishes”.

And yet, the rate at which Adderall is prescribed in the US must mean that the majority of diagnosed cases of ADHD are not life-destroying, merely life-affecting. Moreover, even long-tenured experts on ADHD, including Remembering Ritalin author Lawrence Diller, have serious qualms about the “realness” of the “disease”. In his book, Diller reflects on the various young patients — “Generation Rx”, he calls them — with whom he worked during the Eighties and Nineties, probing the extent to which ADHD is a legitimate diagnosis or an oversimplified, harmful label that could be applied to anyone in certain conditions. “For patients, if ADHD truly exists, risking their health by taking a drug to treat the condition or disease makes a lot more sense… [but] if it doesn’t exist, then perhaps they’re just using it as a crutch… and setting themselves up to abuse it,” he writes. Adderall, like other stimulants, presents numerous dangers: side effects that run the gamut from high blood pressure, increased heart rate, panic attacks, psychosis, agitation and irritability. And of course, there’s the horrific feeling of crashing when one doesn’t have regular access to the stimulant.

Diller’s concerns are echoed by my neurologist acquaintance. ADHD, like most diseases of the mind, are “all in one’s head”: the symptoms are not verifiable by any methods beyond the claims of the patient. Physicians have a duty to take these claims seriously, but it’s difficult to gauge the roots of a symptom from the outside. Is lack of concentration, far from being a “disease”, merely a sign that someone is a poor student — a sad but unavoidable fact of life that one must confront in the ordinary course of existence? And if so, would liberally prescribing this now-scarce drug be the ethical thing to do? Or would that be unfair on those who use Adderall to get through the day, rather than excel?

These are loaded questions, but important ones. In response to the Adderall crisis, the media has pumped out nuts-and-bolts policy proposals. A recent New York Times column, for instance, argued for maintaining full telehealth physician availability and boosting Adderall production by shifting regulation and oversight from the DEA — which is primarily interested in drug interdiction — to the FDA — which is more concerned with drug safety and access. There is certainly much to recommend such arguments. The libertarian, “government is the problem” side of me favours wide latitude with regard to drug access, but that doesn’t acknowledge the core cultural questions fuelling all of this feverish pill-popping.

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It’s hardly surprising that increasing numbers of people are struggling to concentrate. We are bombarded with stimuli, which naturally leads to difficulty focusing and increased impulsivity in day-to-day life — symptoms of ADHD — and the subsequent prescription of Adderall. If assigned, a diagnosis can become a core plank in an individual’s sense of self; as Freddie deBoer has written for UnHerd, our very online culture encourages people to turn diagnoses into identities. Viewed this way, Adderall’s is a toxic, “ouroborotic” cycle of consumption — the culture fosters the behaviours that result in an ADHD diagnosis, Big Pharma sells you the medication needed to address it, and the various social media platforms that monetise your freely-provided content offer you space to earn attention by #ShoutingYourStigma.

Are you your disease — as a young influencer might proclaim on TikTok — and therefore entitled to Adderall access as some sort of fundamental human right? By extension, is someone who has the attention span of a feral cat that’s locked onto its prey not entitled to this “smart drug”? Or should everyone have access to Adderall, since it’s a tool that might encourage further human flourishing, before we’re forced to insert neural implants and merge with AI? Or should no one, since our “human essence” is sacred and must remain unsullied by chemical interventions?

These are the questions we will need to answer. But for now, all we can be sure of is that fewer people will get Adderall, particularly cheaper generic-brand Adderall, than want it. Those that do will probably be the richest — who may use it to get richer — rather than those who most need it. We can only hope that these dynamics will encourage us to reflect on whether wanting and needing, like our illness and our selves, are inextricably linked, or merely connected because “thinking makes it so”.

This is a genre of writing that I, a historian by training and an around-the-clock worker by disposition, consume like Lay’s potato chips. I’ve waded through these swift waters accompanied by everyone from former Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman’s 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, to ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus’s Enchiridion — keenly aware that no moment of immersion is the same as any other and none of them will ever recur. The one thing that history doesn’t do, for good or ill, is repeat itself. What I have sought is something I will never have: more time. Not better nor more meaningful time, as Odell is proposing to find, but merely more, in terms of sheer quantity. Because while I don’t want to live forever, I do hope to live long enough to do everything I’ve committed to do, such as help my daughter enter adulthood and support my parents and spouse in their old age.

Odell is a writer about whose prior work, How to Do Nothing, I have decidedly mixed feelings. It starts promisingly enough: the opening line, “Nothing is harder to do than nothing”, is, as the kids say, a “banger”. But it soon becomes clear that Odell, an admittedly privileged person who has had lots of free time across various academic residencies, has nothing to offer me, a person who has been working 40 hours a week since his 16th birthday. Nothing, you see, is the easiest thing to have in your bank account, but you cannot subsist for long on a diet of zero income and birdwatching in Oakland’s Morcom Rose Garden. Odell, having been freed from being “occupied at a work-bench, or twirling a distaff”, as Thomas Jefferson would have wanted it, she is able to fill an inordinate amount of it.

Bubbling below the surface of How to Do Nothing is a sense of climate emergency, or climate apocalypticism. Odell is constantly out and about in nature, and conversant with all the worrywart liberal commentary about the heat death of the planet — which, like Jesus’s return in the Gospel of Mark, is always already imminent. This concern deeply informs Saving Time, giving it some of its urgency; it otherwise does the usual yeoman’s work of citing people such as British labour historian E.P. Thompson on the development of time and work-discipline, Frederick Winslow Taylor on industrial efficiency, and German philosopher Josef Pieper on leisure — all names you will encounter frequently if you have found the time to bathe in the waters of the time genre.

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Odell, to her credit, seizes upon the opportunity to situate the climate emergency in a discussion of the ways ancient Greeks delineated time: Chronos — time as a sort of forward, linear progression — and Kairos — a “crisis” or rupture in time. We all live in linear time, yet experience reminders — floods and famines — of the perpetual crisis in which we have found ourselves. Odell, in prose that betrays the vast condescension of our present, seems to think of this as a 21st-century phenomenon.

It most certainly is not; Walter Benjamin’s oft-quoted “Theses on the Concept of History” reckons with a similar dichotomy of time: the “history of organic life on earth” as opposed to “Messianic time, [which] comprises the entire history of mankind in an enormous abridgement”. For Benjamin, the powder keg that was Germany’s war on Europe — which, as an expatriate Jew facing repatriation in 1940, drove him to suicide — was the crisis, his “one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage” in front of him as he is propelled into the future. Humans from the emergence of civilisation, have always perceived themselves as living on borrowed time — because, of course, we are; we have always been, as J.R.R. Tolkien put it, “mortal men doomed to die”.

It is the approach to mortality that separates Odell’s work from, say, Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks — a title that references the average human lifespan. Odell, an atheist, is concerned with climate damage to the entire ecosystem; Burkeman, who is at least culturally Jewish, is concerned with trying to lead a balanced, moderate life in the amount of time allotted to him. It is the latter view that has always appealed to me — the Earth might be ending, but to those of us raised with anything resembling a coherent religious worldview and now struggling to raise a family, everything is already ending. As Father John Misty sings in “Holy Shit”, “Carbon footprint, incest streams…planet cancer, sweet revenge…but what I fail to see is what that’s gotta do with you and me.”

It is interesting, yet unsurprising, to see discussions of personal mortality get so little attention in a work like Saving Time. As my father lay on his deathbed — he died in his own bed, at home — he remarked to me that he had always thought it easier to die alongside millions of others in a meteor strike or global conflict than quietly and at home as an old and feeble man. This, he admitted, was a narcissistic strain of thought he inherited from his own father, who despised the civilian life that followed his time as a Second World War submariner, because it offered no promise of a collective death that would serve as a coda to some grand heroic saga. Today, as Odell acknowledges, we are bombarded with daily alerts of one crisis or another. So it requires an act of will to remember that one’s own death is not an event so significant that it must coincide with the end of life as we know it. It will only coincide with the end of life as you know it.

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It seems odd, then, that Odell cites Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper — not his description of Leisure, the Basis of Culture, but the fact that preparation for death is behind everything written therein. This is because, for the devout Pieper, as for Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, life is a preparation for eternity. “As a teacher usually says to the youthful student, who is even now finding the time of schooling too long, ‘Now, just don’t you get impatient, you have a long life before you,’” Kierkegaard writes in The Gospel of Sufferings, “so eternity speaks with more reason to the sufferer: ‘Just wait, do not become impatient, there is plenty of time, there is eternity.’”

I am, per my earlier admission, a workaholic. The clocks that inaugurated the Industrial Revolution rule my every waking minute; right now, as I type this, it is 2:04am in Pittsburgh. I have a Zoom meeting at 9:30am and another at 11am. This is not a complaint; it is the life I have made for myself. I have read Pieper and Thompson and all the rest. I understand how time, per the historian Fernand Braudel, passes both slowly for the unbending structures of society and quickly for individuals like me. But most important, in a way that none of these books on time emphasises, I know I am going to die. My father and mother never ceased with these reminders, which echoed those of Epictetus: “What harm is it, when you are kissing your little child, to say: Tomorrow you will die?”

When my mother and I would read Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth — my favourite book in the early years of my homeschooling — we would linger lovingly over the passages about time. (There are many: one of the main characters is Tock, a “watchdog” with a clock embedded in his torso.) She would point out the inanity of the main character Milo’s early thoughts about wanting time to pass — “wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered” — given that each moment we are bestowed by nature or heaven is a gift, the “present” (another cliché, of course). The great takeaway of the book, which brilliantly skewers the ways we waste time, was that we have as much time as we’re going to get: “Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.” Or, as Kierkegaard puts it in Concluding Unscientific Postscript: “To be finished with life before life has finished with one, is precisely not to have finished the task.”

For those of us who have already watched our parents and a good many of our close relatives die — particularly for people, like me, who do not share Pieper and Kierkegaard’s belief in eternity — this is cold consolation, but consolation nevertheless: we’re given the time we need to have the time of our lives, and no more. Our lives, as the German philosopher Martin Heidegger puts it, are defined by “finitude”, even as “a world is worlding around us”. We exist in a state of “being-towards-death”: a fascinating state, if only to us personally or to our families and friends, that will endure until it doesn’t. There is no way to buy more time, to waste time, or even, in the final analysis, to save it. You get what you get.

When I wasn’t giving attendance-optional history lectures to hundreds of undergraduates — who’d sit there watching the latest episode of Breaking Bad — I was inveighing against the university’s debased standards: writing in The Atlantic and going on National Public Radio to explain that I didn’t even bother to grade most of these sad, ill-informed consumers who were going into debt for a degree worth less than the paper on which it was printed. By the time I departed in 2016, I was arguing that this mediocre school, and other lesser universities like it, should be taken apart brick by brick. UT-Arlington was doing a disservice to most of its students and defrauding taxpayers along the way.

Now, Republican politicians around the country are taking aim at state higher education institutions. But their reasons differ greatly from my own: they seek control of what is being taught, rather than an overhaul of the system. Most notably, Florida Governor and hopeful Presidential nominee Ron DeSantis has made it his mission to defund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes at all state-subsidised universities overseen by his administration. He is also advocating for governor-appointed trustees to have the power to eliminate majors in certain subjects.

In January, DeSantis replaced six of the 13 members on the New College of Florida’s board with trusted supporters, including Christopher Rufo, who has spearheaded the nationwide push to restrict critical race theory (CRT) in public-school curricula. Other big-state GOP governors are making similar moves in their states, with Greg Abbott of Texas going after CRT, and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia appointing conservative trustees at the Virginia Military Institute.

DeSantis’s stated reason for taking over New College was that it was no longer serving the students of the state, citing an enrolment decline of 27% between 2016 and 2021, which he attributed to the school’s emphasis on race and gender theory (while conveniently omitting the fact that the incoming class for fall 2022 was the largest in New College’s history). New College doesn’t grade its students, but rather encourages them to explore a variety of liberal arts subjects — though its faculty, student body and course offerings lean far to the Left. The Florida Governor appears to be proposing to turn an offbeat hippie college into an offbeat “Great Books”-inspired college. Critics of DeSantis argue that he is attempting to turn New College into “Hillsdale South” — referencing the influential Right-affiliated college in Michigan where a number of eminent conservative thinkers have taught or been educated.

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Anti-racism betrays Asian students

By Asra Nomani

Behind DeSantis’s focus on this tiny school — which currently has a total of 700 students — is a bigger project: his move is supposedly the first in a series, per Chris Rufo, that will allow conservatives to effect their own “long march” to reclaim these institutions.

But while his rhetoric is grabbing headlines, DeSantis’s battle for ideological control of curricula is merely a distraction from the much greater crisis in education — the one that troubled me during my own time in academia. Instead of kvetching about CRT and bathroom access, our governors ought to be completely restructuring the country’s lower-tier state universities, which, aside from one or two flagships per state, are generally third-rate operations. Nationwide college enrolment has declined by 9.4% in the past two years, and these schools have been hit especially hard. State-funded universities are having their budgets slashed and adjuncts are even more overworked and underpaid; there is more focus on ineffective online classes, and worse learning outcomes for students who have been paying to watch ill-run Zoom courses in their cramped dorm rooms.

DeSantis’s own state is a textbook example of academic bloat. The State University System of Florida consists of 12 public universities, with 341,000 enrolled students, of which only four are engaged in what the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education refers to as “very high research activity”. The rest of these institutions, such as the enormous Florida Atlantic University, are vast and shabby post-secondary “student warehouses”, similar to UT-Arlington.

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American education's new dark age

By WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ

It is these universities, not the tiny New College of Florida, that constitute the real threat to public education — and not because they are “woke”, but because their retention and graduation rates are horrific. They are enrolling students, taking their federally-subsidised student loans, and barely graduating around 50% of them. The students, mostly commuters unsure of what to do with themselves but unable or unwilling to enter the workforce after high school, drift in and either drop out immediately, pocketing their first helping of financial aid, or linger forever, accumulating vast amounts of debt for a degree in a vague, meaningless subject like “Communications” or, as at UT-Arlington, “University Studies”.

The more complicated the system becomes, the more difficult it will be to reform it. America’s public post-secondary education depends on a welter of separate and sometimes overlapping budgets, but to be eligible to get a cut of the all-important $235 billion pool of federal financial aid, colleges have to meet Kafkaesque accreditation standards. Each state works with a cartel-like private accreditor, subjecting all universities to its review, regardless of the ambitions or capabilities of their student bodies. Typically, the result is a report that numbers hundreds of pages with innumerable recommendations, which creates absurd amounts of work for administrators and often drives excessive spending increases in order to meet supposed shortfalls in facility or faculty quality.

DeSantis, like other Republican governors, has little to say about this vast system that serves almost no one and does nearly nothing. He just wants to turn a silly boutique Left-wing school into a silly boutique Right-wing school. If he had genuine vision, befitting a potential president, he’d look to scupper the ageing hulks in his university fleet, sinking the likes of Florida Atlantic University to the bottom of that ocean, and starting from the ground up. Not every university needs to be a research-driven “multiversity” intended to be a “prime instrument of national purpose”, of the sort envisioned by former University of California president Clark Kerr in 1963. What the nation needs more of are small, single-subject institutes of the sort that propelled American higher education forward in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The single-building Litchfield Law School founded by Tapping Reeve in 1774, set the standard for American legal education, educating everyone from Vice President Aaron Burr to Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin, before closing in 1833. Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, also confined to a single building, was the centre of Jewish Studies in America, training luminaries such as Benjamin Netanyahu’s father Benzion until its closure in 1986.

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Don't blame SATs for American inequality

By Freddie deboer

In other words, DeSantis — indeed, governors of all stripes — should be figuring out how to radically shrink higher education. College must be more than an open-to-all holding cell for twenty-somethings. Community colleges, consistently the best value throughout the US when it comes to technical certifications, can pick up the pre-professional slack, as can trade union training centres and apprenticeships. And focused, single-subject institutes will offer far better training for those with specialised skills. Law school should no longer require a degree for admission — an onerous and stupid prerequisite that sets the US apart from other Anglophone countries — and should also accept far fewer students overall, in order to increase the wages and job opportunities of those who graduate. (At the moment America, a nation of 332 million people, has 1.3 million lawyers.) Meanwhile, American students with talent in specific areas, such as computer science or drama, could be directed to small state institutes that offer rigorous, focused training.

That’s not to say all flagships should be eliminated. Students seeking a wider curriculum, and the attendant rah-rah sporting events and beer-saturated Greek life, should be catered for. The same goes for students who prefer institutions with a certain ideology. There is nothing inherently wrong with a college having a political leaning, as long as it’s not the only option. Left-leaning states such as California should open their own state-subsidised far-Left version of the Hillsdale model. What harm would that cause, provided the state supports a few institutes representative of the Right’s vision of liberal arts?

The structure of American higher education has been deeply informed by politics for centuries, but it has not been informed by much, if any, innovation since Clark Kerr outlined his grand, all-encompassing vision for the “multiversity” five decades ago. Ron DeSantis has awkwardly stumbled upon a solution, but he and his team can’t see the wood for the trees: they want to win votes and donations for a single political slap fight over a 700-student college, at a time when the fate of higher education — and the accompanying $1.75 trillion debt load carried by current and former students — hangs in the balance. The solution, to borrow a phrase of Kafka’s, is nothing short of a “guillotine, just as heavy, just as light”. A courageous politician would let the guillotine drop, taking as many of the higher-ed hydra’s heads with it as it possibly can.

Today, however, the rich are separating themselves in perhaps the most obvious way of all: by perfecting their bodies, rather than what they put on them. The rich are fit and the poor are fat: reams of research confirms that the prevalence of obesity decreases as income increases. In the United States, where 41% of the entire population is obese — compared with 25% in the United Kingdom — it is a rare wealthy person who is morbidly overweight (blimp-sized Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker and portly former New Jersey governor Chris Christie are outliers). Increasingly, the rich in late middle age have come to resemble Jeff Bezos and Sarah Jessica Parker: ripped to shreds and almost certainly “enhanced” with various anti-ageing drugs and techniques, ranging from steroids and growth hormones to Botox injections and liposuction. 

Into this mix comes semaglutide, an antidiabetic medication better known by its trade name Ozempic. Sold by pharmaceutical manufacturer Novo Nordisk, the drug, which reduces food intake by curbing appetite and slowing digestion, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat obesity in 2021. Since then, celebrities and fitness influencers have routinely shared before-and-after pics captioned with details of their courageous weight-loss journeys, which entailed jabbing themselves with a 1.5ml pen that contains a month’s worth of doses and costs roughly $900 without insurance.

Predictably, stories about Ozempic have proliferated in the tabloids and on social media. Some see the drug as a challenge to the celebrity movement that touts “fat acceptance”, and brought us the “slim-thick” era of curvy female superstars. They argue that Ozempic may work hand-in-hand with the return of the “heroin chic” look of the late Nineties. As interesting as it is to consider where these mixed messages might lead us — to a culture in which poor people are told it’s fabulous to be obese, while the rich get ever thinner and fitter — if this is a conspiracy, it’s not a new one. The rich have lusted after youth, beauty and fitness, in others and themselves, since time immemorial, always keeping the poor as downtrodden as possible while pacifying them with bromides about equality, liberty and fraternity. Ozempic, then, is not simply the key to thinness; those who pay for it are buying even more distance between themselves and the hoi polloi. 

In short, this appears to be yet another sign that the elite are headed toward some sort of crude transhumanist utopia, complete with gene therapy and designer-baby selection. Some may scoff that this is science fiction, but this future looms: once they’re sufficiently fine-tuned, gene editing tools will likely eradicate heart disease, muscle wasting, neurodegenerative disorders, and other conditions in embryos that are still in utero — but their price will be nothing short of staggering. Similarly expensive gene therapies will enhance the overall performance of already-healthy humans, raising ethical questions about whether these procedures should “improve” a person or merely “fix” a condition. The rich, of course, will leave those debates to the philosophers and pay upfront for the best bodies that their considerable resources can buy. Already, news stories abound of billionaires pursuing immortality, with a few commentators trying to sanitise the pursuit by arguing that the research will somehow benefit even the least of us.   

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Steroids won't cure toxic masculinity

By Oliver Bateman

I have first-hand experience in the big-bucks world of anti-ageing science, and I can state unequivocally that the most compelling benefits are not going to trickle down. In 2017, I worked for a transhumanist medical organisation, producing marketing content related to stem-cell therapy and other forms of anti-ageing medicine. I received several treatments myself, and while I can only speak anecdotally, they significantly relieved decades of aches and pains related to hard training. And these were one-off procedures, not the monthly “Cadillac plan”, which involved steroids, growth hormones, and Botox. Wealthy clients would walk in as untrained, middle-aged slobs and, less than a year later, boast gym-hardened physiques that might take unenhanced trainees a decade to develop. 

The organisation’s telos was the stuff of nightmares: the acquisition of a yacht to serve as a floating hospital so that various procedures that are illegal in North America could be performed in international waters; or the same-day infusion of stem cells harvested from a delivery of rich clients’ babies. Although peer-reviewed research has shown no difference between using frozen and freshly-harvested stem cells, there was marketing value in promising clients the freshest ingredients possible. It allowed for a considerable markup in the price of the procedure. It wasn’t the “these vampires want to drink baby blood” of conspiracy-nut ramblings — but it did resemble them. 

So, when I see discussions of Ozempic’s social impact, I don’t think about plus-sized singer Lizzo and skeletal commentator Ann Coulter trading barbs about the ideal female physique. That sort of chatter is all a sideshow for the general public; the rich clients doping themselves to remain forever young do not much care about how the poor and middle class choose to identify (be it fat or fit) as long as few have the money to identify as rich. Without truly high-end gene editing that might enable skeletal and organ reconfiguration — still a way off, though one never knows — the rich are limited to the basic shape and size of their natal bodies. But being able to invest tens of thousands of dollars per annum in upkeep will nevertheless produce an optimised body utterly unlike that of the poor American.

The culture of fitness influencers and body performers is downstream of this. Their bodies represent an investment that will yield riches, which can in turn be reinvested in the upkeep of those bodies. They are selling you a picture of health that doubles as a picture of wealth, often lying about just how much they spend on effective drugs. In the marketing of bodies, deception is the key to the kingdom. You might, for example, promote your Ozempic transformation on TikTok while failing to mention the $6,000 “micro-liposuction” procedure you’ve used to improve problem areas, because you’re sponsored by an online clinic that writes prescriptions for the drug. Or you might fail to mention your Ozempic and steroid use completely, touting instead a diet that is far less effective in the absence of all these chemical crutches, but tied to prepared meals and meal-replacement shakes you’re being paid to promote. 

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Western society is built on stigma

By Lionel Shriver

As a lifelong strength athlete, I have toiled in filthy gyms and basements to maintain my own physical condition. I would like to say that remaining “natural” or practising intense physical discipline offers some intrinsic reward. Unfortunately, it does not; it is a hard-to-follow path made more tortuous in my case by my stubborn unwillingness to take any effective shortcuts (even though the stem cell injections I received worked like a charm). But a resistance to emptying my wallet, and an aversion to some of the side effects from these drugs — cancerous tumours in the case of Ozempic — has hindered my route to body optimisation.

For me, glorifying the “natural” in and of itself, then, is little better than writing some trite ode to manual labour. There are loads of people, nearly all of them poor and sick, whose bodies are relatively resistant to weight loss. For them, the simplicity of the Ozempic jab — as opposed to the creation of a stomach pouch via laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery — might offer an improved quality of life in much the same way that cheaper insulin and other band-aids help ease the pains associated with sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles.

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How to get ripped and alienate people

By Oliver Bateman

But the rhetorical appeal of this medicine — that it will produce gains that will “trickle down” from the upper classes to the masses — is an old lie. Time is a thief, stealing each passing minute from us, but as money proves able to purchase ever-increasing amounts of it, it will be disproportionately hoarded by those rich people who are already proficient at squirrelling away their money. Whether by violent nature or scientific nurture, the body is merely something to be overcome. And if you’ve the money to opt for the latter, why wouldn’t you?

In the meantime, those of us doomed to remain mere humans can only watch this process unfold while the rich become superhuman. Consigned to increasingly rare “normal” bodies that are both temples and tombs, the middle class must study this journey from the sidelines, watching on as a vast array of battered, bloated and ruined bodies are left in the wake of a transhumanist train that goes in only one direction. 

Admittedly, expectations were low: an elderly caretaker of America. But Biden’s administration has promoted policies that, were the stuttering octogenarian a more charismatic ideologue, either Left or Right might have excitedly endorsed. There was the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan; the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, which facilitated a surprisingly smooth pandemic recovery; and the $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, supported by almost three quarters of voters. Along the way, he has presided over a hot-and-cold economy that continues to offset rising inflation with suspiciously strong job creation numbers, even as other key indicators still point toward a looming long-term recession.

Biden has been lucky, remarkably so — the party’s midterm election performance in 2022 was unexpectedly strong. A punishing loss for the party holding the presidency is usually taken as a fait accompli. The party even expanded its majority in the Senate. In part, this success stemmed from the Democrats’ ability to fend off far-Right challenges from candidates who had managed to seize victory in Republican primaries thanks to the backing of important figures like ex-president Trump. In other words, the GOP has been hamstrung by its drift towards its more extreme ends.

Biden’s greatest asset, meanwhile, has been his wobbly centrism — a late-stage, cracked-mirror version of the pugnacious, energetic centrism that made him a presidential front-runner in the 1988 Democratic primaries, until allegations of plagiarism in his speeches and academic work torpedoed his candidacy. In the style of a grandparent simply unable to hear the complaints of his arguing grandchildren, Biden has alternated between offering lip service to the social-justice issues that animate his party’s Left-wing base, while reiterating his own more traditional support for police, law and order, and the middle class.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that Biden has given every indication that he will run for re-election in 2024. Genuine one-term presidential administrations are rare — only three presidents served four years and chose not to run again. But Biden is still working on borrowed time. There are a variety of ongoing issues that could take a turn for the worse. The long-promised Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine could weaken Nato’s resolve to continue subsidising that embattled nation. The layoffs seen primarily in the technology and entertainment sectors could spread more widely across the economy. Mounting infrastructure disasters like the recent train derailment and hazardous materials spill in East Palestine, Ohio could give the administration a black eye. Police shootings such as the violent arrest and death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis could send protestors back to the streets across the United States. All of this could provoke conflicts between Biden and other senior figures in his party, who might apply pressure to prevent him from running again.

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Even if he runs and wins, Biden will be 82 when he takes office in 2024. This is unprecedented territory for a democratically elected leader. His health could fail suddenly. The mounting personal scandals involving the handling of confidential documents and his “black sheep” son Hunter could topple, or he could make one too many a gaffe-ridden speech. (Biden recently received praise from 76-year-old former president Donald Trump for delivering a relatively coherent State of the Union Address.) But most alarmingly for the American Left, there are no obvious candidates waiting in the Democratic wings — in fact, Biden’s surprisingly strong performance has caused would-be rivals to fall in line, with The New York Times interpreting the deference of party heavyweights as evidence that it’s “Biden or bust” in 2024.

Whether or not he runs, Biden’s success as a wobbly centrist could serve as a guiding light for his successor. We might even see a candidate with the energy of Biden during his brief Eighties heyday. That Biden, as The Atlantic writer William Schneider explained in a detailed 1988 profile of the leading Democratic candidates, was frequently described as a “completely political creature, in the best sense of the word”, as well as a “guy with unrealised potential” on the cusp of becoming a “political heavyweight”. This version of Biden — still prone to stuttering and fulminating, but far more focused than the current model — was the perfect remedy for a Democratic Party reeling from the failed campaign of traditional Left-leaning presidential candidate Walter Mondale in 1984, and the far-Left insurgencies of Ted Kennedy in 1980 and Jesse Jackson in 1984, which had badly divided the base — just as Bernie Sanders would go on to do in 2016 and 2020. This iteration of Biden was known for “shooting straight” — standing before women’s groups, labour unions, and the NAACP, telling them things they don’t necessarily want to hear.

Biden was one of several promising centre-Left candidates of that era who offered outside-the-box solutions to national problems that the Democratic Party of the New Deal era could not address. What appealed was tough-on-crime talk, to assuage voters’ fears about urban violence; a rollback of social security, to push the long-term unemployed off the dole and back into the workforce; and a move away from unequivocal support for organised labour. The US in 1988 looked a lot more like the country of today than people remember — it was a deindustrialising colossus that was militarily entangled with the Soviet Union and economically out-competed by a rising Japan — and the subsequent prosperity of the Nineties owed in considerable part to the Left’s willingness to steer itself, and the nation, toward the centre.

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Will a Trumpian party destroy the GOP?

By Oliver Bateman

Biden’s momentary, scandal-ridden downfall in the 1988 primaries was followed by a Democratic resurgence in the 1992 presidential election, during which Bill Clinton wrested the office from George H.W. Bush. Clinton was one of the party’s various late-Eighties rising stars who helped revive its fortunes by appealing to America’s roughly 10 million independent voters — who decided the country’s razor-thin electoral contests in its handful of swing states. This left plenty of room in the party for far-Left stalwarts such as Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and, eventually, Bernie Sanders — old welfare-state lions and civil-rights warriors who could be confined to safe districts. But in states where the parties were competing on relatively even terms, the Democrats needed to field candidates who could at least moderate the party’s rhetoric on more controversial subjects like immigration.

There, the lessons of the Democratic Leadership Council — founded in 1985 by political strategist Al From — paid dividends. Prominent members, including Biden, Clinton and future Vice-President Al Gore emphasised crime, tax reform and welfare reform as a way of winning back middle-class voters. That isn’t to say there weren’t identifiable differences between Democrats and Republicans on these issues; rather, the goal was to minimise or at least talk past those differences, while fielding a non-ideological candidate who was broadly likeable rather than infamous. The tactic worked. So much so that the party was still using it during Barack Obama’s two successful campaigns for the presidency, even if he leavened his centrism with some of the soon-to-be unavoidable social justice rhetoric. In fact, likeability was the chief difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during their heated primary contest in 2008 — both were moderates, but Obama could speak convincingly to both the base and the general public.

Right now, it is not entirely clear who could carry the torch of centrism. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was a Republican during the Eighties and Nineties and only changed her party affiliation in 1996, could conceivably moderate the rhetoric she deployed in 2020 to compete with Bernie Sanders — though, at 73, she’s not exactly a spring chicken. Other potential candidates are either untested on the national scene, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or have been otherwise unsuccessful in their pursuit of national office, such as the Ohio senate candidate Tim Ryan.

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Joe Biden's false optimism

By Ruy Teixeira

The 2022 midterms demonstrated that moderation can win close elections over the vestiges of Trumpism: witness boring former astronaut Mark Kelly beating “based” techbro Blake Masters for an Arizona senate seat, and the uninspiring Raphael Warnock defeating inveterate liar and former football star Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff. Where Republicans prevailed “bigly”, it was the work of similarly dull, indeed somewhat nerdy, governors with track records to tout: second-generation wonk Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, big stick-wielding former Yale baseball player Ron DeSantis in Florida, and Ohio political lifer Mike DeWine.

In an increasingly polarised country, fearful middle-class swing voters — force-fed a diet of ratings-grabbing news about world calamities and impending social collapse — desire nothing so much as a steady hand on the wheel. Not Ronald Reagan riding in on a horse or Franklin D. Roosevelt chatting by the fireside, but Glenn Youngkin in a red vest or Mark Kelly with a well-shined bald head, each reading a carefully-prepared speech in a well-rehearsed monotone. Whether it arrives sooner or later, the post-Biden future for the Democrats still goes through the centre-Left. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people in the party capable of derailing further efforts toward moderation. The nine progressive members of the House of Representatives who comprise “the Squad” can certainly reach the Democratic base, as Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson did during the Eighties, but polling shows that swing voters don’t care for what they’re selling.

As unexciting as it sounds, the American system depends on these swing voters. And what they want is some level of police funding, some level of control over the curriculum in their schools, and a chief executive who will cool off the superheating partisan debate they hear incessantly on the various news entertainment networks. Elderly Biden, years past his competitive peak, managed to deliver a condensed version of this in 2020. Lest it lurch further Left and risk running candidates every bit as unelectable as out-of-touch Walter Mondale in 1984, the party would be well-advised to trade in the President for a newer model as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

It’s easy to argue that Trump is merely ginning up interest for a Republican rerun by threatening to leave, along with the quarter of would-be Republican voters who a recent Bulwark poll found would follow him. But that same poll also found that a considerable majority of Republicans want new leadership. Trump, for all his bluster, knows it. Perhaps he’s decided that if he can’t be a Republican president, no one can. If enough defectors remain committed to him, he will surely cost the Republicans the next presidential election.

History offers a fairly direct parallel. A similar Republican split occurred in 1912, when former president Theodore Roosevelt — unhappy with what he perceived as the unduly pro-business policies of his handpicked successor William Howard Taft — returned to challenge him. After losing the nomination to Taft at the Republican convention, despite outperforming him in the then-minority of state primaries in which registered Republicans participated, Roosevelt launched his own Progressive Party. Despite Taft’s considerable incumbency advantage, Roosevelt outpolled him in the general election, launching a characteristically vigorous campaign that saw him not only survive an assassination attempt but finish the speech he was giving with the assassin’s bullet lodged in his chest. Roosevelt siphoned enough support from Taft that Democrat Woodrow Wilson triumphed in an electoral-vote landslide, while winning a mere 42% of the popular vote.

The United States is uniquely vulnerable to this sort of third-party disruption, due to the first-past-the-post voting system that awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the highest-polling candidate, regardless of how close the popular vote is in those states. In 1912, Roosevelt and Taft received a combined 51% of the popular vote — yet carried only eight states between them. Owing to this all-or-nothing system, America offers perhaps the finest representation of French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s formula of bipartite alternation: “The one-party totalitarian regime is an unstable form — it defuses the political scene, it no longer assures the feed-back of public opinion…[but] alternation is the end of the end of representation.” In any particular presidential election, a third party — even a well-supported one such as Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party — has little chance of achieving any kind of representation. However, in the longer term, a third party can be truly disruptive. 

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The American experiment has just begun

By Anton Jager

Here, then, is the crux of the threat presented by Trump, roughly akin to the “nuclear option” in America’s political duopoly: he could wreck the Republican Party in this election and perhaps even destroy it for good, while creating a new second party to take its place. It would be a fate that hadn’t befallen an American political party since the Republican Party emerged in 1854 out of the ashes of the Whig Party, the latter badly fractured by insoluble arguments over slavery. Before that, it hadn’t happened since the Federalist Party — America’s first true political party — had essentially imploded during the War of 1812. It lost its legislative majorities forever to the Democratic-Republican Party, the precursor of today’s Democratic Party.  

But for the most part, American third-party insurgencies have merely cost one or the other party the general election. American Independent Party candidate George Wallace wrestled five states in the Deep South from Democratic control in 1968. Reform Party nominee Ross Perot syphoned millions of economic-nationalist voters from the Republican Party in 1992 and 1996. These were damaging moments, occurring at times of acute national crisis — Wallace polled well with Southern voters seeking to preserve aspects of racial apartheid systems, while Perot appealed to anti-interventionist, anti-free trade Republicans.

Still, though these insurgent campaigns might have led to galling defeats, neither fundamentally reshaped American politics in the way the disappearance of the Federalists or Whigs had. In fact, Republicans, through the shrewd electoral strategising of Richard Nixon, found a way to claim those dispossessed Southern voters in 1972. And since the Nineties, ostensible isolationists and anti-interventionists in both parties — including, perhaps most successfully, Donald Trump in 2016 — have found ways to exploit what had briefly been Perot’s support base. Given their sprawling constituencies, it’s easier for both parties to integrate these aggrieved voters into their ranks — to “sheepdog” these wayward sons and daughters into the established parties using co-opted outsiders to bridge the gap. 

Nevertheless, though unlikely, the kind of “clean break” Trump could trigger does have the potential to fracture the Republican Party forever. And that is because, ever since Richard Nixon permanently enlarged the party by annexing the “Solid South” long critical to Democratic electoral success, the GOP has had a fundamental flaw. It originated in the 19th century as a Northern-centred, pro-business party opposed to both slavery and, eventually, labour unions; post-Nixon, the Republican Party has been permanently struggling with the challenge of uniting small businesspeople, evangelicals, foreign-policy hawks, isolationists, anti-tax libertarians, anti-government libertarians, localists, and economic nationalists. Various leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Trump himself, have fashioned uneasy alliances among these groups — but each settlement has seemed shakier than the previous. Trump, in particular, saw precisely how difficult this challenge could be: he entered Washington with a team of advisors that adhered more closely to the “America-First” principles of his campaign and left with a cabinet full of corporate Republicans, some of whom hurriedly denounced him shortly after he left office.

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Glenn Youngkin is the Republican future

By Oliver Bateman

At the end of Trump’s presidency, the Republicans were indeed a “house divided”. And if the examples of the Federalists and Whigs offer anything of value for political observers today, it’s that divided parties might cease to be divided simply by ceasing to be at all. In the case of the Whigs, the newly-formed Republican Party addressed the main issues that had split them — free labour and opposition to slavery in the American territories — so there was simply no reason to keep such a large, fractious coalition alive. A more streamlined alternative had presented itself.  Now, the “big-tent” Republican Party may be faced with a challenge analogous to the Whig Party’s in the years immediately preceding the American Civil War. Is the future of the Right to be an interventionist, low-tax party still able to work with Wall Street and Nato? Or do the voters on this side want “America-First”, “MAGA”, and all of Trump’s unifying slogans?

While it is certainly possible to do all of these things — as the Whigs managed to maintain a balance from 1833 to 1856 — it may not be sustainable to do so. Republican politicians and voters who favour free trade and free movement of cheap labour may find themselves, like the Southern “Cotton Whigs” of the American antebellum period, unable to coexist with a MAGA base insistent on tighter border controls, tariffs, and heavier investment in internal industry. If so, Trump — by virtue of being the right person in the right place at the right time — may be able to bring about a permanent separation, likely forcing many Republicans in favour of free trade and free movement into the Democratic fold, just as “Cotton Whigs” joined the ranks of the Democrats.

All of this, however, will depend on the creation of a party that can step out of the shadow of its charismatic founder. Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, which outpolled the Republican Party 27% to 23% in 1912, offers an instructive example here. Roosevelt’s party shared certain overall policy goals with those American reformers dubbed lower-case “progressives”, such as a desire to more efficiently regulate large corporations and establish certain social welfare programmes. But its electoral fortunes waned significantly following that strong 1912 showing, disappearing by 1920. Its nickname, the “Bull Moose Party” — so acquired because Theodore Roosevelt had left the 1912 Republican convention claiming he felt “strong as a bull moose” — was apt, because its electoral performance depended to a considerable extent on the personal magnetism of one of the 20th century’s first great “cult of personality” figures, a personality who died in 1919 at the age of 61. 

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Why I'm voting Republican

By Andrew Sullivan

A Trump-led party would be at risk of going the way of Roosevelt’s “Bull Moose” party, simply because he, like Roosevelt, is a sort of electoral ne plus ultra. Who would want to follow either act? Trump has, perhaps, a number of possible successors waiting in the wings, ranging from duelling Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert to his own sons, but this is akin to comparing a votive candle to the bright orange sun around which so much media commentary has turned.

Not only that, but the Trump of 2024 is not the insurgent social media star of 2016. He is still quite dove-ish on foreign policy but has lost considerable far-Right goodwill through his association with the era of lockdowns, which he at times supported, and mRNA vaccines, the development of which he considers a major achievement of his regime. The majority of those who identify as Republicans are looking for post-Trump alternatives. Though the former president holds double-digit leads over chief rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis in most polls, that lead vanishes if the single-digit support for various other mainstream candidates, a large hypothetical field ranging from former vice president Mike Pence to former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, is aggregated and assigned to DeSantis. In other words, in the race of “Trump and every other Republican”, the contest is neck and neck and likely only to tighten as the name recognition of other candidates continues to grow.   

Given Trump’s status as an influencer himself, it would be instructive to watch which candidates the rising “based” or far-Right influencers choose to align themselves with. So far, rising stars such as “Libs of TikTok” account operator Chaya Raichik have managed to stay mum when it comes to choosing between Trump and Ron DeSantis. But it is these people whose considerable soft power could meme not just a movement but an entire party into existence. If Trump cannot win their support, his efforts to construct a party that will overthrow the Republicans and outlast him is likely to be no more successful than his effort to dethrone Twitter with a rival social media platform.

The Times last week reported that steroid use in the UK has increased tenfold over the past decade, while recent studies have shown that 2% of Canadians, and between three and four million Americans, have used steroids in their lifetimes — with roughly a quarter of those users reporting “psychological dependence” on the otherwise-non addictive drugs.

I have been on the periphery of the strength and fitness culture for my entire adult life, and steroids have always been part of the athletic game: if you want to win, not just at bodybuilding and powerlifting but at any sport, you take performance-enhancing drugs. Initially, I had primarily positive views about the drugs: steroids, I thought, were merely a means to an end, a way of getting stronger and increasing functional capacity, something reams of academic and anecdotal research have confirmed they do. However, I gradually learned that the individuals using them in this way are few and far between.

That small pool of people largely consists of pro athletes, driven by financial incentives or competitive instincts to pursue every conceivable advantage. But recreational users have always outnumbered professional users, whose livelihoods depend on athletic performance. And that gap has only widened as these drugs have become available everywhere from internet forums to legally operating testosterone clinics. Their pull is irresistible: a relative of mine who never played sports or even took to the bodybuilding stage was arrested for felony possession of steroids in 2014. 

These recreational users are trying to win a different kind of game. When I started investigating steroids, an increasing number of users were following in the footsteps of Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian, a Russian-born Australian who built a following on YouTube at the end of the Noughties. One of the first notable influencers to emerge on the now ubiquitous site, Zyzz preached a gospel of “aesthetics”, relying on steroids consumed in conjunction with exercise to develop a physique similar enough to his idol Frank Zane’s that it would win him the undying admiration of his followers.

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The key difference, of course, was that Frank Zane — whom I interviewed a year ago — was a professional athlete, training his body to win bodybuilding pageants, and Zyzz was merely someone who wanted to look the part. Zane detested selfies and self-recorded footage, believing it to be deceptive and no substitute for up-close, objective inspection of another person’s body; Zyzz relied on these methods to project a particular self-image. Taking steroids arguably made him weaker and sicker, not stronger. Zyzz died after a cardiac arrest aged 22, the victim of a congenital heart defect and cardiomegaly — an enlarged heart — worsened by the drug use that, like many fitness influencers including the recently disgraced Brian “Liver King” Johnson, he had spent the majority of his career denying he used. (Zyzz’s deception was exposed a month before his fatal heart attack, when his brother Said was arrested for possession of anabolic steroids.)

Zyzz’s early death should have made him a cautionary tale. Instead, he became a “muscle martyr” beloved by other fitness posters. People like my felonious relative saw him and wanted to be him, while emerging social media platforms provided convenient playgrounds for their carefully-curated exercises in brand-building narcissism. I’ve now interviewed hundreds of users, and the reasons for their use all arise out of some sense of absence, some internal emptiness. A gay user whose steroid-abetted transformation I profiled explained to me that he wanted to transition from being a chubby, schlubby teen to a “hyper-masculine” man. Others said they added mass in the hope of “becoming someone”; all that hypertrophied flesh would obscure an essential lack of self. Several steroid users who were attending bodybuilding pageants merely as spectators told me how eager they were to be mistaken for competitors, that passing for one would constitute the highlight of their year. 

“The first casualty of steroid use is the truth,” the fitness journalist and bodybuilding competition coach Anthony Roberts has told me repeatedly. Even if steroids are obtained with a perfectly valid prescription, there is still a cultural taboo that prevents most users from admitting to using them. As Roberts tells it, lying is the oldest and most effective performance enhancer of all: lying about what you take, how much you take, what else you take — because steroid use, for many, is but a small part of a drug-filled lifestyle. Certain fitness influencers, in addition to denying or at least staying silent about steroid use, have gone even further, inflating their on-screen workouts with the use of fake weight plates and exaggerated claims about their performance.

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Meanwhile, they are risking their health. Heavy steroid users are already uniquely susceptible to cardiovascular problems — and so many influencers are using steroids in excess of what a physician would prescribe for therapeutic use. Those with pre-existing heart problems, like Zyzz, are uniquely vulnerable, particularly in recent times. During the pandemic, each widely-publicised bodybuilder death was met with waves of accusation: at first, it was the evil virus that did them in, then it was the “clot shot”. Never mind that most of these so-called “recreational users” are teetering on death’s doorstep at all times, aware that even a common cold could stop their engorged hearts.

Bodybuilding prodigy Dallas McCarver, for example, died in 2017 with organs so enlarged that they strained credulity, and a recorded testosterone level of 55,000 nanograms per deciliter (the normal range for a male falls between 300 and 1,000 ng/dl, and the highest recorded testosterone level captured in a failed Olympic drug test was 20,000 ng/dl). So, as they near peak muscularity, and fame, these bodybuilders are also nearing the end of their lives. Their spectacular bodies serve as both temple and tomb. 

Hours of conversations with men like these have led me to believe that their behaviour is, in part, a response to the socioeconomic situation in which we find ourselves. Since the early Eighties, in the West, deindustrialisation has proceeded apace and the world of finance has become dominant. To people coming of age, it might appear as if nothing is made anymore but money. Farmers and manual labourers, such as the steamfitter captured in Lewis Hine’s famous 1921 photograph, sometimes exhibit a high degree of muscular development related to their jobs. By contrast, middle-class workers, performing increasingly less strenuous work for more than a century, have to actively cultivate muscular physiques to project power for which there might be little purpose — beyond showing that they aren’t subject to the degenerating tendencies of their age. In the absence of any tangible construction projects, the only thing that you can gain approval for building is your body — a body that is both an “aesthetic” calling card and a prison for your enlarging viscera and solipsistic thoughts.

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In more recent years, there has been much commentary on declining male testosterone levels. Blame is assigned to everything from poisoned food to sedentary lifestyles. Some pundits, such as manosphere influencer Mike Cernovich, have urged men to set aside $80-100 a month for testosterone replacement therapy. Whereas Cernovich’s cohorts would most probably deride the prescription of SSRIs for depression, or oestrogen for transgender-identifying individuals, they accept a pharmaceutical solution for the crisis of masculinity. At least testosterone administered in a clinic is accompanied by regular blood tests that can detect cholesterol issues and other problems before they become dangerous. But it is still another of modernity’s many panaceas: here is a weekly or biweekly needle to the thigh or buttocks that will make you feel and perhaps even look like someone you are not, but feel entitled to be — or at least appear to be, on social media.

The overdiagnosis of SSRIs, the superfluity of steroids, and the legions of men killing themselves to look strong are tragedies. They are disordered responses to a kind of existential emptiness, a world in which our identities are all we have left to display and sell. And we know, deep down in our hearts, that such a meretricious product is worth nothing at all.