In a society that loves to “blur the line” between man and woman, the result can be a strenuous casting process that might almost postpone production.
Take FX’s &#8220;Love Story.&#8221;
In the new show, viewers embark on the romantic yet tragic story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, America&#8217;s most beloved couple in the 1990s. Ever known for their iconic fashion and good looks, choosing the right actors was indeed going to be a high task at hand.
Executive producers Brad Simpson and Nina Jacobson shared with <a href="https://people.com/how-love-story-cast-newcomer-paul-anthony-kelly-exclusive-11906585#:~:text=NEED%20TO%20KNOW,agreed%20there%20was%20something%20special.">People</a> that selecting Sarah Pidgeon to play Bessette was a swift and easy choice: she “jumped out and stole the role” and immediately “won our hearts.”
But the same could not be said for Kennedy.
“We were three weeks away from shooting and we still [had] not cast him,&#8221; Simpson said. &#8220;We&#8217;d seen every male actor between the age of 25 and 38.”
“We were about to shut down production and pause because we couldn&#8217;t find him,” he added.
The show’s creator, Connor Hines, admitted he even sought out people on the street and at the gym to come read for the role. 
But the problem wasn’t that they didn’t like their interviewees, Simpson said. There was something else missing.
“Part of it was just that sort of &#8217;80s, old school masculinity — a man with hair on his chest, sort of Richard Gere, Tom Selleck — the classic chiseled looks,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not making those guys anymore, for some reason, and he really needed to have that.&#8221;
In a GQ <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/how-love-storys-paul-anthony-kelly-became-jfk-jr">article</a>, Simpson elaborated further: &#8220;It’s these men with broad shoulders and they are in shape, but they’re in shape because they’ve been throwing a football around, not because they’ve been working on every muscle in their body for a Marvel movie.&#8221;
&#8220;We live in a world of electrolysis men, and it was a real challenge to find that sort of guy — a guy that women and gay men are attracted to, but also guys want to hang out and have a beer with.&#8221;
Something needs to be said if even Hollywood starts admitting there&#8217;s a masculinity problem.
The producers retraced their steps and considered the self-tapes they had already received, pulling out 13 new guys to come in and read. To their luck, Paul Anthony Kelly was among that group.
&#8220;You&#8217;re crazy if you don&#8217;t cast him,&#8221; Simpson recalled a makeup artist saying as she walked past.
Beyond his similar look to JFK Jr. — tall height, handsome, and yes, even chest hair — Simpson said Kelly had an &#8220;ease and charm&#8221; about him that was immediate. After a chemistry read with Pidgeon, there was no doubt the producers had found their Kennedy.
Now, Kelly is marking his first major debut and <a href="https://www.insidehook.com/style/actor-paul-anthony-kelly-oscars-best-dressed">becoming</a> his own American heartthrob.

FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” Red Carpet Premiere

The Difficult Task Of Casting JFK Jr. For ‘Love Story’ In The 21st Century

Entertainment

Hulu

John F. Kennedy Jr.

Masculinity

U.S.

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
My wife and I don’t watch porn, and certainly not together, but it sure felt like we were when we sat down to watch &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms23FeJWvKU">Inside the Manosphere</a>,&#8221; a documentary on Netflix that currently sits in the top-10 on the platform.
Over the course of 90 minutes, award-winning documentarian Louis Theroux immerses himself in the “alpha-male subculture” that is attracting millions of young males to an abnormal way of life. But we’ve seen this act before, and I emphasize “act.”
The manosphere is a derivative of pornography. It promotes unnatural and unattainable standards. It is a performance consumed through a screen, not lived. It destroys real intimacy and relationships. It creates no societal value — only profits for the participants. And it exploits both men and women. The manosphere isn’t masculinity just like porn isn’t sex. 
For example, in the documentary, influencer Myron Gaines asks women on his podcast to use a calculator to design their ideal man. The tool only allows for a few inputs: income, height, ethnicity, etc. This is akin to how one custom-tailors a sex scene on a website’s search bar. This is not how relationships work in real life. 
Like the stars of this show, the formula lacks any whiff of morality. The measures of success are money, clout, and fame. And these come at the expense of the consumers who pay to watch these men live their lives rather than go on living theirs. Nowhere is character or responsibility emphasized. In fact, responsibility gets kicked to the curb. The only man featured who is a father, Justin Waller, proudly points out he doesn’t do “baths and diapers.” These aren’t the ingredients of a fulfilled life; they’re markers of attention. 
While these men promote a life philosophy, their actual theory is a contradiction, and the contradictions run rampant. Harrison Sullivan, aka HSTikkyTokky, owns an OnlyFans management account but claims he would disown his hypothetical daughter if she were on the platform. (This came shortly after he introduced a scantily clad woman on his couch as his “dishwasher.”) Or take the many quotes about the uselessness of women, while their entire business model depends on women. But they know this. As Sullivan says, “I’m just a salesman.” They are monetizing the attention economy. 
These men perform for cameras during almost every waking minute of their lives. It is awkward when the Netflix cameras catch the random hanger-on hiding in the corner, recording every moment on a phone. There are even moments when the influencers aren’t sure whether they are supposed to address the cameras. And perhaps the saddest part of the film is when Sullivan goes to reunite with his father after years of estrangement. To no surprise, he livestreamed it to his audience. These men live in an algorithm prison.
But the act gets revealed many times throughout. In the midst of Gaines introducing his girlfriend to the camera, she emphasizes that “Myron is somebody in front of the cameras, but behind them is somebody else with me.” She is then pressed about his wishes to pursue one-way monogamy, which it is clear she doesn’t endorse. Gaines then backtracks, but Theroux quickly calls his bluff, at which point Gaines abruptly kicks his girlfriend out of the interview and barks at her to “clean up the room” in an attempt to regain his assertiveness.
Throughout the entire exchange, the same man who is shown saying “I’m a dictator” and that he will dictate when a woman has sex with him is visibly uncomfortable as he awkwardly laughs, fights with his dog, and touches his nose multiple times. Nonverbal cues sometimes say more than words; an article from Psychology Today<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/202306/sniffing-out-deception"> claims</a> “rubbing the nose is a behavior that may be observed in individuals who are deceptive” and can be a “subconscious attempt to relieve anxiety associated with dishonesty.” 
Only a few sentences apart, Waller tells Theroux that he has two daughters and that their mother participates in threesomes with him and his girlfriends, but she is not allowed to see other men. Throughout the exchange, he laughs uncomfortably, breaks eye contact, and gives defensive answers to questions he isn’t asked. The body language of these men reveals what the rhetoric hides. They don’t have identities; they have personas. 
Perhaps, though, the most unfortunate aspect of the story is not the actors but the audience they grift off. Like porn, these men are exploiting lonely boys. A <a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/24/10/what-causing-our-epidemic-loneliness-and-how-can-we-fix-it">Harvard study</a> found that 24% of 18- to 29-year-olds are lonely. Furthermore, 73% of those surveyed said technology was to blame. This data provides the demand for the manosphere’s supply. These men are monetizing loneliness. 
They boast of “escaping the matrix” of society: things like a 9-5 job or being held down by one woman and a family. But they aren’t helping men escape the matrix; they are building a worse one. 
While the manosphere is heavy on performance, it is light on meaning. It emphasizes the quantity of followers over the quality of relationships. But what is widely known from the famous <a href="https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/">Harvard Study on Adult Development</a>, conducted over 85 years, is that the quality of relationships matters more than the number of your friends; individuals with strong social bonds live longer, have stronger immune systems, and have lower rates of anxiety and depression; and relationship satisfaction at age 50 is a better predictor of physical health at age 80 than cholesterol levels. 
The manosphere comparison to porn becomes impossible to ignore. In researching the pornography-loneliness partnership, <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-pornography-use-increasing-loneliness-particularly-for-young-people#:~:text=Pornography%20use%20that%20is%20regular,(or%20other%20troubling%20emotions).">the Institute for Family Studies states</a>, “The further the person entrenches this experiential pathway, the more elusive real relationship fulfillment could become.” Psychology Today<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202109/the-link-between-pornography-and-loneliness#:~:text=Viewed%20in%20this%20fashion%2C%20they,reduced%2C%20as%20healthy%20relationships%20thrive."> describes</a> a self-perpetuating cycle, noting that “using explicit material as a temporary fix likely fails to address the root cause of loneliness &#8230; potentially making it a maladaptive method of coping and creating potential entrapment in a destructive cycle of pornography and loneliness.” 
This is the real matrix. 
The manosphere isn’t about a few bad actors. It’s about us. Harrison, Gaines, Waller, and others exist because young men are confusing attention with value and performance with purpose. We like, share, and subscribe. Where porn inhibits intimacy, the manosphere traps us in a life of loneliness. And both consume our souls in the process. 
At the end of the documentary, it is revealed that Harrison has been arrested and that Gaines’ girlfriend has broken up with him. It appears these men are also resigned to a life of loneliness.
***
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast, We The People with Gates Garcia. Follow him on X and Instagram <a href="https://x.com/GatesGarciaFL">@GatesGarciaFL</a>.

It’s Drawing Tons Of Young Men — But The Reality Doesn’t Match The Pitch

Upstream

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Chuck Norris has died, and if I’m being honest, I thought death would die first. For my generation, Norris wasn’t just a man; he was a legend. The memes will live forever.
“Chuck Norris doesn’t dial the wrong number. You answered the wrong phone.”
“Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife. With butter.”
And my personal favorite, “How many push-ups can Chuck Norris perform? All of them.”
Our laughter was revealing, though. Beneath the humor was truth. Chuck Norris was the archetype for the version of masculinity society is letting fade away. The man was strong, competent, and in control. Norris wasn’t just cast in masculine roles; he was the living embodiment of masculinity.
It seems hard to imagine a time when men didn’t <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/america-tried-to-fix-men-for-two-decades-heres-what-it-got-instead">apologize for being masculine</a>. When I was enjoying my snacks on the couch to &#8220;Walker, Texas Ranger,&#8221; masculinity flooded the airwaves. Men exuded a quiet strength. Strength was functional and moral. Now it has become aesthetic and performative.
Young men today are looking for masculinity in internet search bars. But they’d be better off watching some reruns of Norris&#8217; show or learning about the life he built off the screen. Today’s version of masculinity is generated by an algorithm. Norris’ was lived. Rather than grifting off impressionable young boys or selling them the next course on the “alpha framework,” he was living an example others could pattern — for free.
What made him exceptional wasn’t talent. It was discipline. Norris was a six-time World Professional Middleweight Karate champion and held black belts in five different disciplines, including judo and jiujitsu. Perhaps martial arts are the perfect analogy for his life: order, repetition, and mastery.
Discipline builds confidence, and confidence builds leadership. But the modern approach to manhood is the inverse: life hacks, shortcuts, and a culture of optimization. Norris modeled actual work instead of simulated progress. 
He also embodied strength without anger. Today’s version of masculinity is rooted in grievance, resentment, victimization, and chaos. Men are constantly looking for who has wronged them and seeking vengeance. 
Norris grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father who killed a woman in a drunk driving accident and was sentenced to a work camp. His brother died in Vietnam when Norris was only 30. But rather than let those tragedies consume him, he demonstrated control, restraint, and stability. He couldn’t have a victim mentality because he refused to see himself as one.
Norris was a hero, a masculine role model for boys like me growing up. But we’ve replaced role models with influencers. While Norris earned respect through his actions, today’s influencers rent authority through followers. Men used to want to be strong. Now they just want to look strong.
Perhaps the meme craze around Norris’ life tells us the most. Real masculinity doesn’t have to announce itself; it gets recognized by others. The only person who didn’t promote Chuck Norris was Norris himself. Of course, he <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DVtiSHbETbX/?hl=en">leaned into</a> the memes, but didn&#8217;t start them. Today’s influencers promote themselves and no one else, but when you’re doing things right, you don’t need to say so. It’s the difference between a protector and a projector.
While modern masculinity consumes life, Norris built one. He was known for his deep commitment to family, having five children and 13 grandchildren. While he was recognized more for his martial arts accomplishments, he won multiple acting awards and received multiple honors, including Honorary Texas Ranger, Honorary Texan, and Honorary Marine. These are the outcomes of a man who spent more time training instead of scrolling, more time building instead of reacting, and more time creating instead of commenting. 
Norris was also courageous. In a Hollywood industry that often turns its back on faith and demands conformity to progressive ideologies, Norris was both an unapologetic patriot and a vocal conservative, and he was never shy about his religious convictions. He even published a book titled &#8220;Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America,&#8221; which critiqued the loss of moral direction in the United States. He was also an Air Force veteran serving as an air policeman in South Korea, long before he was a Texas Ranger. 
Now, after his passing, we can make a final observation of his life that is becoming rarer for famous men in our culture. Chuck Norris’ public image matched his private life, a long and noble one. So many men use their public image to hide their private flaws. But for Norris, outward service was a reflection of his inward stability.
The timing for me is eerie. I just enrolled my two boys in jiujitsu for the first time. As they learn the same disciplines that shaped Chuck Norris, I will use the intersection of these two events to teach them about the man, the myth, the legend. I hope what they find isn’t just nostalgia, but a standard.
As Norris travels to meet his maker, perhaps one more meme is appropriate: “Chuck Norris doesn’t need a GPS. He decides where he is.” For now, let us decide to keep his example here, where it’s needed most.
***
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast, We The People with Gates Garcia. Follow him on X and Instagram <a href="https://x.com/GatesGarciaFL">@GatesGarciaFL</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Chuck Norris Works Out

Chuck Norris Didn’t Just Play Tough. He Lived It, And Today’s Culture Can’t Match It

Obituaries

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
America spent two decades trying to “fix” masculinity. It nearly broke the country — and the guys who complained the loudest about it turned out to be the ones with the least ability to fix it. America needs manly men — not men who are afraid of their masculinity, and not men who only talk about it.
Let me back up. In 2000, Christina Hoff Sommers published &#8220;The War Against Boys,&#8221; documenting how American schools had begun treating normal male behavior as something to be diagnosed and medicated. A seven-year-old was suspended for pointing a pencil like a gun at his friend. A boy in California was punished for running during recess and nearly suspended for jumping over a bench. Schools banned tag and dodgeball. Boys were five times more likely to be expelled from preschool than girls and accounted for 70% of suspensions — not for anything dangerous, but for roughhousing, defiance, and being loud. Instead of addressing the gap, institutions doubled down, remaking classrooms around female learning styles. They criminalized the “bad guy” play that men have channeled into building civilizations since the dawn of time. Almost nobody listened to Sommers, or they mocked her. For over a decade, the project to dismantle masculinity stayed contained in academia, slowly working its way through education policy like a parasite.
Then it broke containment. By 2015, the national psychedelic trip we now refer to as &#8220;wokeism&#8221; was reaching its crescendo, and men — specifically straight, traditional men — were its favorite target. &#8220;Toxic masculinity&#8221; migrated from academic journals to Thanksgiving dinner. &#8220;Men are trash&#8221; became something people said at brunch without flinching. &#8220;Mansplaining&#8221; entered the lexicon. Gillette released an ad lecturing its own customers about the sins of manhood. No razors, just shame. Hollywood gender-swapped &#8220;Ghostbusters&#8221; and sidelined Luke Skywalker for a new female lead. In 2019, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines pathologizing &#8220;traditional masculinity&#8221; as harmful. The message from every direction was the same: Manhood was broken, and women would fix it.
I had a front row seat as a columnist for Playboy, the most famous men&#8217;s magazine in the world, from 2015 to 2017 — the exact moment it stopped knowing how to talk to men. The organization was paralyzed by fear and overrun with young liberal women and gay men, which rendered it incapable of meeting the moment. Everything about the brand signaled apology. Playboy should have held the line. It was a wide-open lane. Instead, it followed every other men&#8217;s magazine in the same direction: less for the man&#8217;s man, more for the gay man and queer woman. Had it doubled down on unapologetically speaking to red-blooded American men, it could have led a renaissance. Instead, it chose surrender.
And in the space created when the culture forced men to be small, scummy opportunists filled the void. We got the Tates. The Sneakos. Parodies of men. Guys who are what a teenager thinks masculinity looks like when he doesn&#8217;t have a good father: flashy Rolexes, rented Lamborghinis, and endless talk. Talk, talk, talk. The guys who screamed loudest about the feminization of America were engaged in an inherently feminine activity. They were podcasting. They were sitting behind desks and running their mouths. And when you put men in a space that&#8217;s fundamentally about talking, their conflict becomes female-coded: reputational attacks, betrayal narratives, emotional manipulation, hissy fits. In real life, male interaction is moderated by the threat of getting punched in the face. Online, that&#8217;s gone. So the most effective tactics are the ones women use. These guys didn&#8217;t fight the feminization of culture. They became it.
I feel privileged to have known men who stormed the beaches at Normandy, who fought in the South Pacific, who came home and never spoke of it. Real men don&#8217;t whine about sacrifice. They make it. And I feel sorry for younger generations who haven&#8217;t known men like that — men who felt proud to serve, who understood trade-offs, who didn&#8217;t see the world in black and white. Young men are desperate for identity, and if you don&#8217;t give them Captain America, Ted Williams, and George Washington, they&#8217;ll find Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate. Jordan Peterson identified this collapse in meaning early; it makes young men terrifyingly easy to radicalize.
And now these same guys — the ones who spent years raging about how pussified America is, the longhouse, the feminization of men, soy boys, turning the frogs gay — are now having hissy fits because America is actually being masculine. Militarily masculine. The real deal. And they&#8217;re whining about how they feel betrayed. &#8220;We&#8217;re not dying for Israel.&#8221; You&#8217;re not dying for anyone, buddy! You&#8217;re not dying for America. You&#8217;re not dying for anything except your subscriber count. You spent years cosplaying as warriors, and the moment actual sacrifice entered the conversation, you folded like every other fraud who has ever confused talking with doing.
Compare the Biden-era Army recruitment ad, an animated spot about a soldier raised by two moms marching in a pride parade, with what&#8217;s coming out of the Pentagon now. A Special Forces trainer deadlifting 500 pounds: &#8220;Stronger people are harder to kill.&#8221; Soldiers on a firing range: &#8220;We train until we can&#8217;t get it wrong.&#8221; Enlistment is at a 15-year <a href="https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4365687/fy25-sees-best-recruiting-numbers-in-15-years/">high</a>. When you stop apologizing for what the military is and start showing men what it demands, they show up. That&#8217;s what real masculinity looks like when it&#8217;s not being run through the filter of “how is this going to make Karen feel?”
The culture is shifting everywhere, thanks in part to comedian Joe Rogan, who held the line and built a parallel comedy establishment that is unapologetically masculine, irreverent, and enormous. Bud Light — the brand that nearly destroyed itself partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney — signed as its new spokesperson Shane Gillis, a comedian who&#8217;d been dropped from SNL only to return as a host. And on February 22 — 46 years to the day from America’s “Miracle on Ice” — the U.S. men&#8217;s hockey team beat Canada in overtime for our first Olympic gold since 1980. Those players stood at the State of the Union, grinning from ear to ear, and got a standing ovation. My nephews are obsessed with them. They see those radiant smiles and that pride in America, and they want to emulate it. 
In his post-game interview, hockey star <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gold-lost-teeth-and-a-true-grit-american-moment-from-jack-hughes">Jack Hughes</a> said, “This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. It&#8217;s unbelievable. The U.S. hockey brotherhood is so strong and we had so much support from ex players, and I&#8217;m so proud to be American today. So proud.” That&#8217;s not some guy ranting into a webcam about alpha males; it’s the real thing, and young men can feel the difference.
The 2024 election was, in many ways, a referendum on all of this. The entire post-election media analysis centered on one question: How did Democrats lose young men? The answer was simple. They&#8217;d spent a decade telling young men they were the problem, and eventually, young men believed them and voted accordingly.
Saving this country is going to require things that make some people uncomfortable. It is going to require men who are willing to be strong without apology, to serve without being asked, and to lead without waiting for permission. For 20 years, we told men to sit down. The men who are standing back up — not the talkers, not the grifters, but the ones who actually build and serve and sacrifice — are the ones who will matter.
But I&#8217;m not going to speak for men. Instead, I&#8217;ll let Sergeant Dan Hollaway, 82nd Airborne Infantry, share his thoughts on the resurgence of American masculinity.
“Masculinity is not a social accessory,” he told me. “It is the backbone of every civilization that has ever endured. Masculinity began as an unspoken contract with reality: I will go where it is dangerous so others don’t have to. If certain burdens are not carried, then people die. This is the natural law of masculinity, and it has never changed. For a generation, America’s masculinity was mocked, undermined, and treated as something dangerous or obsolete — and many men simply withdrew. But that retreat is ending, and as men return to strength, discipline, and responsibility, the benefits are already becoming visible. American pride is on the rise, and we have the unique opportunity to save the greatest country in the history of the world by simply being men.”
***
Bridget Phetasy is a writer and comedian. She’s the host of the show Dumpster Fire and podcast Walk-Ins Welcome. Find more of her writing on her Substack Beyond Parody at <a href="https://phetasy.com/">phetasy.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

GettyImages-2218584648

America Tried To ‘Fix’ Men For Two Decades. Here’s What It Got Instead.

Gender

When the Justice Department released the latest batch of Epstein <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-releases-millions-more-epstein-files" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documents</a>, I didn’t read them like a political junkie or a conspiracy sleuth. I read them like a father.
While commentators argue over names and timelines, my kids are learning something far more important: what America rewards in men, what it excuses, and what it quietly tolerates when power is involved. The lesson is ugly.
Strip away the sensationalism, and one reality stands out: This was a scandal almost entirely driven by men. These men were powerful, successful, and even married. They had children, platforms, influence, and every reason to know better.
What the Epstein documents really expose isn’t just corruption or crime. They expose a collapse in male self-government, and that collapse doesn’t stay contained at the top. It trickles down.
I have sons. I coach youth sports. I sit in dugouts tying cleats and listening to boys talk before they’ve learned how to filter themselves. And I can tell you this: Young men are desperate for clarity. They are constantly scanning the world for cues about what manhood actually means. What they’re being shown right now is poison.
They see men at the highest levels of society who preach intelligence, leadership, and sophistication while privately living like entitled boys. These men treat marriage as ornamental, fidelity as optional, and women as consumables. To them, accountability is something for lesser people.
If you want to know why so many young men are cynical about commitment, look no further. The message couldn’t be clearer: Success buys indulgence, power bends rules, and discipline is for men without leverage. That’s not masculinity. That’s moral anarchy.
Real masculinity has always been rooted in restraint, in self-command, and in the ability to say “no” when saying “yes” would be easy, pleasurable, and unlikely to bring consequences. Every culture that survived understood this. Boys became men not by indulging appetite, but by mastering it. Strength wasn’t measured by conquest, but by responsibility. Authority was paired with obligation.
Somewhere along the way, we replaced that vision with something hollow. Today, male excess is explained rather than condemned. Cheating is framed as temptation instead of betrayal. Sexual misconduct is “complicated.” Men who fail morally are treated as tragic figures rather than accountable ones.
When those men are powerful enough, the system rushes in to cushion the fall. The Epstein documents confirm what parents already fear: Elite men are often insulated from the standards they publicly demand from everyone else.
And kids notice. They don’t think in terms of legal nuance or sealed records. They think in terms of patterns: who gets punished, who gets protected, who gets forgiven, and who gets erased. The pattern they’re seeing is corrosive.
Ideas are no longer coming from parents. They are coming from culture, and culture is being shaped in part by exactly the kinds of men exposed in these documents. This is how a crisis of masculinity forms — not overnight, but drip by drip. Boys are taught that desire is destiny and discipline is repression. Men in positions of authority model indulgence instead of honor. Consequences disappear for the powerful and multiply for the ordinary. Then we act shocked when young men delay marriage, distrust institutions, and treat adulthood like a suggestion instead of a calling.
The Epstein documents don’t just reveal wrongdoing. They reveal what happens when men stop seeing themselves as stewards — of their families, their influence, and their responsibilities — and start seeing themselves as entitled consumers. That’s not liberation. It’s decay.
As a father, I don’t want my sons growing up believing masculinity is defined by appetite. I want them to know that real strength is the ability to govern yourself when no one is watching. Leadership without accountability is corruption, power without virtue is dangerous, and no amount of success excuses dishonor.
The Epstein documents make it painfully clear that when men fail to hold themselves to high standards, the damage spreads far beyond their own lives. Families fracture, trust erodes, cynicism grows, and the next generation learns the wrong lesson. This isn’t about moral grandstanding or pretending men are perfect. It’s about refusing to normalize male collapse.
If we want better men tomorrow, we need to tell the truth today. We need to stop excusing behavior simply because it’s common among elites. We need to stop confusing sophistication with virtue and access with worth.
The Epstein documents don’t just raise the question of who was involved. They ask who we’re becoming and whether we’re finally willing to teach our sons that manhood isn’t about what you can get away with, but what you choose not to do.
If we fail at that, then the next scandal won’t be a surprise. It will be the inheritance we handed them.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Patrick McMullan Archives

The Epstein Documents Teach Our Sons A Distorted Lesson About Men. It’s On Us To Reject It.

Boys

Epstein Files

Fathers

Jeffrey Epstein

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in June, Gates Garcia offers a reminder that true masculinity is not toxic.
* * *
The Left’s successful rebranding of masculinity as “toxic” didn’t just rewrite a dictionary entry — it rewired the cultural DNA that once produced great men.
In 2018, the American Psychological Association updated its Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men, effectively declaring stoicism, risk-taking, and competitiveness — the building blocks of masculine virtue — “<a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf">psychologically harmful</a>.”  
Within months, Gillette aired its infamous &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaY2Kb_PKI">We Believe</a>&#8220; commercial, scolding ordinary dads at backyard barbecues while implying every son harbored a bully within. Seemingly overnight, &#8220;toxic&#8221; became the default adjective attached to manhood.
But this cultural ambush was decades in the making. It has its roots in second-wave feminism, which in the 1960s began reframing male strength as patriarchal oppression. By the ’80s and ’90s, freshly-minted gender studies departments were churning out theses that branded healthy male assertiveness “hegemonic.”
On television, the upstanding patriarch of “Father Knows Best” gave way to the beer-bellied, weak-willed Al Bundy. When clickbait culture arrived in the 2000s, every societal ill — from climate change to mass shootings — found a convenient culprit in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/17/gun-violence-masculinity-216321/">traditional masculinity</a>.”
C.S. Lewis foresaw the danger. “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” he warned in The Abolition of Man — adding the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/113211-we-make-men-without-chests-and-expect-from-them-virtue?utm_source=chatgpt.com">punchline</a> our era can’t escape: “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
The cultural costs are no laughing matter. Today, 17.6 million American children — nearly one in four — <a href="https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic">grow up without a father in the home</a>. Their odds of suffering are grim: Barack Obama, citing Census data in 2008, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094?">noted</a> that such children are “five times more likely to live in poverty… nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
If only he did something about it. 
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25">Christmas Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Almost 60 years earlier, Daniel Patrick Moynihan <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moynihan%27s%20The%20Negro%20Family.pdf">sounded the same alarm</a>, saying, “the deterioration of the fabric of &#8230; society is the deterioration of the &#8230; family.” At the time, he was dismissed as an alarmist. The empty chairs around dinner tables prove him prophetic.
Classrooms reveal the next domino. The same ideology that pathologized masculine energy has left boys academically stranded. On the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2022">2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress</a>, 8th-grade girls outread boys by nine scale points, continuing an unbroken gender gap that dates to 1992. Overall scores for both sexes hit the lowest level on record. 
College quads tell the same tale. Men have fallen to just <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/12/18/fewer-young-men-are-in-college-especially-at-4-year-schools/">44% of American undergraduates</a>, a gap that’s widened every year since 2011. UNESCO, surveying 140 countries, now calls boys’ lagging literacy a “<a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/leave-no-child-behind-global-report-boys-disengagement-education">growing global crisis</a>.” Christina Hoff Sommers <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9334744-boys-today-bear-the-burden-of-several-powerful-cultural-trends">captures the cultural headwind:</a> a school climate that “valorizes feelings and denigrates competition and risk…views masculinity as predatory. Natural male exuberance is no longer tolerated.” 
Why did “toxic masculinity” stick? Because it performed a linguistic jujitsu: attach a moral defect to the identity you want to erase, then offer “liberation” through re-education. Courage degenerates into “aggression,” leadership into “oppression,” fatherhood into “patriarchal privilege.” The outcome is predictable: abolish the virtues that civilize male strength, then lament the violence or apathy that follows.
Yet the data refuse to cooperate with the narrative. Children with involved fathers are <a href="https://www.lakeconews.com/news/community/commentary/56433-delcol-happy-father-s-day">40% less likely to repeat a grade</a>, more likely to earn As, and far less prone to behavioral problems. Even the <a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf">APA guidelines</a> — often cited as proof of masculinity’s hazards — concede that male risk-taking can be “harnessed for good” when directed toward service and innovation.
Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Science-of-Resilience2.pdf">summarizes</a> decades of research showing that self-regulation and disciplined resilience — traits once labeled stoic — buffer children from stress and reduce lifetime mental-health risk. In other words, the same virtues our culture now brands “toxic” are the ones empirical science says we need.
Trust the science.
Conservatives bear some blame for this inversion. While we tallied marginal-tax victories, Hollywood and higher ed rewrote the story of manhood. Institutions we once guided — churches, Scouts, civic clubs — sat vacant as HR departments filled the void. The cockpit was empty. The Left merely climbed in and took control.
We didn’t arrive here by accident. The cultural collapse around masculinity wasn’t inevitable — it was permitted. While conservatives focused on policy wins and economic metrics, the Left waged a full-spectrum cultural campaign that redefined manhood itself. They infiltrated the classroom, the newsroom, and the writers&#8217; room. They turned moral virtue into pathology and repackaged fatherhood as oppression. And we let them. Not out of malice, but out of misplaced trust — that truth would prevail unaided, that tradition could defend itself, that boys would become men by default.
Now, we stand in the wreckage of that assumption. A generation of boys has been raised to doubt their instincts, to apologize for their strength, and to see their fathers as liabilities rather than legacies. This is not just a political failure — it’s a civilizational one. But it also means the stakes are finally clear. If the conservative movement wants to conserve anything worth passing down, it must begin with this: the restoration of masculine virtue. Not nostalgia. Not anger. But clarity. The recognition that the war on manhood is really a war on order, on protection, on the nuclear family.
We’re not at the end of this story — we’re at the hinge. The institutions may be hollow, the narratives poisoned, but the hunger for truth remains. And in that hunger lies our moment. Not to manage decline, but to name it. Not to tinker around the edges, but to tell the truth loudly enough that our sons can hear it. Before we rebuild, we must remember who we are — and what we allowed to be stolen in the dark.
Masculinity is not toxic — it’s virtuous. When we reclaim that distinction, we invite our sons to stand tall instead of apologizing for existing — and we give civilization the allies it deserves.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast &#8220;We The People.&#8221; Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

New cowboy (1)

Best Of 2025: How The Left Hijacked Masculinity — And Why That’s Bad For Society

How The Left Hijacked Masculinity — And Why That’s Bad For Society

fatherhood

Feminism

Leftism

Toxic

For an episode that aired on Sunday evening, UFC President Dana White told CBS&#8217;s &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; that in his mind, there was no such thing as being &#8220;too masculine.&#8221;
White, who spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016 and 2024 and supported President Donald Trump through three campaigns, spoke with correspondent Jon Wertheim about the concept of &#8220;toxic masculinity&#8221; and whether or not the culture was shifting around that idea.
Wertheim began by quoting a term he said White had used in the past, saying that he&#8217;d decried the &#8220;wussification of America&#8221; — and White suggested that the word he&#8217;d used had actually begun with a different letter, but that he understood why that might be censored for broadcast television.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨NEW: Dana White tells &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; there&#8217;s *NO SUCH THING* as being &#8220;TOO MASCULINE&#8221;🤣
&#8220;How can somebody be too masculine? Is that a possibility? Can you be too masculine?&#8221;
&#8220;No! The answer is h*ll no!&#8221;<a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailyCaller</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZheAKOIBDW">pic.twitter.com/ZheAKOIBDW</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1972617926697001125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
White went on to say that the reason the UFC was so successful — and growing — was that they knew their audience and were &#8220;unapologetically masculine.&#8221;
&#8220;Can this bubble over to too much?&#8221; Wertheim asked. &#8220;When you hear toxic masculinity, what do you–&#8221;
&#8220;Haha what’s that mean?&#8221; White laughed as he interrupted Wertheim.
&#8220;You tell me,&#8221; Wertheim challenged.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=fall40&amp;utm_content=fallsale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial">Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout</a>
&#8220;You just said it,&#8221; White pushed back. &#8220;What’s the definition of ‘toxic’? … How can somebody be too masculine? Can you be too masculine?&#8221;
&#8220;You tell me,&#8221; Wertheim repeated. &#8220;Do you think so?&#8221;
&#8220;No. The answer is hell no,&#8221; White declared.
The UFC is expected to hold an event at the White House in 2026 as part of America&#8217;s 250th birthday festivities — an event that both Trump and White have independently confirmed.
&#8220;We’re literally going to take over Washington, D.C., that week. We’re going to do the weigh-ins there. We’re going to have the weigh-in events. And we’ll have fan events all week. We’re going to do our expo there and just a total Washington, D.C., takeover,&#8221; White said of the planned event.

UFC 290: Whittaker v Du Plessis

‘Hell No!’: UFC Prez Tells ’60 Minutes’ There’s No Such Thing As Being ‘Too Masculine’

Culture

Dana White

General

Politics

Sports

Taylor Swift is officially off the market, and it’s no coincidence that America’s most beloved pop star didn’t say yes to another brooding actor, a melodramatic musician, or even some tortured poet. She ended up engaged to 6-foot-5, 250-pound Travis Kelce, a Super Bowl champ with a well-groomed mustache and a macho swagger. 
In other words, after years of dating men typically referred to as artsy “soy boys,” Swift said yes to the quintessential jock.
Swift may be an unapologetic lib, and Kelce may have shilled for Pfizer during the COVID pandemic, but this celebrity pairing actually bodes well for conservatives. Someone with her massive cultural influence over women is bound to start trends, and thanks to this latest development, old-school proposals and traditional marriage might be officially back in style. It’s only a matter of time before wedding-themed earworms start taking over the airwaves. 
Photos of the staged proposal were straight out of Swift&#8217;s wildest dreams. Kelce got down on one knee in a sun-dappled garden. The pop star is wearing a sundress and a soft smile. Swift posted a photo of the ring alongside the caption, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.” 
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/DN02niAXMM-/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DN02niAXMM-/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
For this particular Hollywood love story, there was no girl bossing, no modern twists, no glorification of living in sin forever. This viral moment had everyone swooning because it was – gasp! – traditional. That makes it a cultural win for conservatives, even if the main characters are leftists through and through.
And there’s something very significant about the man Swift chose to spend forever with. This wasn’t a petulant man-child or anti-hero with a guitar and endless pathos. This is a bruising, six-foot-five athlete who knows how to win and isn’t afraid to go after what he wants.
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" data-sk="tooltip_parent">End of Summer Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Kelce took the lead from the very outset of their relationship. In 2023, during Swift’s Kansas City tour stop, he confessed on his “New Heights” podcast that he tried to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it. When she didn’t get it, he joked about being “butt-hurt.”
Swift later said she thought his attempt was “metal as hell.” The nation’s biggest pop star admitted that confidence and directness are attractive. In an age when men are told to be sensitive, to cry, to ask permission before winking at a woman or sending a DM, Kelce came in strong with a solid attempt without any creepy overture. That’s the difference between being a man who leads and a boy who cries about not getting his way.
In so many ways, this isn’t just another celebrity love story. It’s a reminder of something our culture has tried to forget: women are biologically wired to be drawn to strength, confidence, and dominance. For centuries, and across cultures, overtly masculine traits like physical strength and the ability to protect and provide have been considered signs of a good partnership for women. These days, it&#8217;s written off as dated, old-fashioned, or, worse, &#8220;toxic.&#8221; But Swift’s decision to commit to Kelce speaks to the truth of women’s attraction to certain types of men on a deeper level.
Women are naturally drawn to a strong jawline, a muscular build, and height as cues of sound genetic fitness. This hasn’t changed for much of human history, despite so many current attempts to downplay it. 
It’s easy to see the difference when comparing her romance with Kelce to Swift’s ex-lovers. The “Shake It Off” singer has famously dated a lineup of artsy men, including indie actors and sensitive musicians who made more appearances in her lyrics than they did in the spotlight. This may have been a boon for fans craving the next great breakup song, but it wasn’t ideal for Swift herself. 
Joe Jonas. Jake Gyllenhaal. Lucas Till. John Mayer. Harry Styles. Joe Alwyn. Swift’s list of exes sounds like a who’s who list in the tortured soul competition she knows all too well. 
Kelce also doesn&#8217;t appear threatened by Swift’s fame or popularity. As a professional athlete, he&#8217;s accustomed to playing for tens of thousands of fans on any given Sunday. And even if Swift is on a different level in terms of fame and notoriety, so far, he hasn’t appeared fazed by the newfound attention. The NFL star seems smitten, just like the rest of her fans. 
Underneath all the glitz and glamour, this story is simple. Taylor Swift, the most successful female artist of her generation, chose strength. She chose a man who could protect, provide, and lead. She chose someone who isn’t afraid of pressure. 
That’s not an accident. It’s not a coincidence. It’s biology at work. Real men, whether they’re referred to as jocks, providers, or alphas, are usually winners because they&#8217;re wired for it. Feminists can whine about &#8220;toxic masculinity,&#8221; but human nature is what it is. Women like Swift, at their core, seek strength that complements their own. As she sings in &#8220;So High School,&#8221; a song inspired by Kelce, &#8220;You know how to ball, I know Aristotle.&#8221; 
It&#8217;s poetic. After so many artsy flings with overly sensitive men, she&#8217;s going home with the jock. Ladies, take note: nature always wins.

Kelce and Swift

No More Tortured Poets: Taylor Swift Picked The Quintessential Jock

No More Tortured Poets: Taylor Swift Picked The Gym Teacher

Kansas City Chiefs

Marriage

romance

swifties

Taylor Swift

Travis Kelce

On June 15, masculinity planted its flag in the public square and dared the culture to yank it out.
Father’s Day 2025 wasn’t a Hallmark pit stop. It was the inflection point of my <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/gates-garcia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two recent Daily Wire op-eds</a> — on the hijacking of manhood and its collateral damage — we’re racing toward.
This piece is the capstone. The frontier has been claimed. The real work begins now.
<a href="https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/father-s-day-spending-to-reach-record-24-billion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Consumers shelled out a record $24 billion</a> honoring dad, the most the National Retail Federation has ever logged. Boys needed reassurance. Fathers needed reassurance. Families needed reassurance. And they finally got some.
The White House echoed the mood. In his Father’s Day proclamation, President Donald Trump praised dads as “custodians of our strength…protectors of our security and safety,” tying fatherhood to tough-on-crime, border-security, and anti-gender-ideology policies.
A year earlier, President Joe Biden had joked in Scranton that he wanted to “smack” the “macho guys” who backed Trump — an encore to his 2018 boast about taking Trump “behind the gym.” One Oval Office mocked male toughness; the other affirmed it. The times they are a-changin’.
The weekend also delivered a storybook moment on the 18th green at Oakmont. J.J. Spaun made a bleary-eyed 3:00 a.m. CVS run when his toddler began vomiting, then birdied four of his final nine holes to win the U.S. Open on Father’s Day — trophy in one hand, daughters in the other. Paternal duty and professional excellence aren’t rivals; they’re complementary capabilities.
Corporate America is relearning the same lesson. Dove Men+Care’s new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYTK2db2uzA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Care Makes a Dad </a>ads showcase hands-on fathers instead of worn-in La-Z-Boys. Bud Light is still bleeding from its 2023 misfire — sales linger about 30% lower, and brand equity has vaporized by the tens of billions. Mock men and you lose money. Honor them, and the cash register rings.
Entrepreneurs have noticed. NBA forward Jonathan Isaac’s faith-first label UNITUS can’t keep inventory in stock, and it has company. Men’s-grooming upstart Duke Cannon, which markets “big-ass bricks of soap” with unapologetically rugged copy, logged a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaleighmoore/2022/12/14/duke-cannon-is-reshaping-marketing-messaging-in-the-mens-grooming-category-heres-how/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">70% year-over-year jump</a> in facial-care sales at Target, while Black Rifle Coffee Company — founded by Special Forces veterans and pitched as java “for America’s heroes” — is projecting <a href="https://www.just-drinks.com/news/black-rifle-coffee-sets-out-three-year-growth-aspirations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">double-digit EBITDA growth</a> over the next three years on revenue already north of $100 million.
Capitol Hill is chasing the cultural tailwind. Republican Reps. Byron Donalds (FL) and Burgess Owens (UT) introduced <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/487" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a bill</a> declaring fatherhood “essential to the development of all children” and calling for mentorship, re-entry help, and tax policies that keep dads in the home. Former NFL safety Jack Brewer launched a <a href="https://www.cbs42.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/821303856/the-jack-brewer-foundation-celebrates-grand-opening-of-jbfs-national-fatherhood-center-in-washington-d-c/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Fatherhood Center</a> to lobby for the bill.
Hard numbers justify the urgency. About <a href="https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17.6 million children still lack a resident dad</a> — too many — but for the first time in a generation, that figure is inching downward, with <a href="https://www.fatherhood.org/championing-fatherhood/press-release-children-living-with-a-father-in-the-home-reaches-34-year-high" target="_blank" rel="noopener">75% of American kids now living with a father.</a> Prime-age male labor-force participation sits at <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">67.8</a>%, well above its pandemic nadir yet a full generation below post-war norms.
Even the Federal Reserve lists the shortfall as a macro-economic drag. In classrooms, 8th grade boys trail girls by <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220NY8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eight points </a>in reading, a gap that drags on lifetime earnings.
Yet the renaissance has begun. High school shop class <a href="https://fortune.com/2024/04/04/gen-z-choosing-trade-schools-college-welders-carpenters-six-figure-job/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enrollment is rising</a> as districts finance welding bays and construction labs. <a href="https://promisekeepers.org/wakeupcall/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Promise Keepers’</a> stadium events are back. NFL legend Jason Kelce hit Cannes Lions in a “Bluey suit” just to thrill his four daughters. Alexis de Tocqueville would nod knowingly — he wrote in 1835 that American fathers ruled not through fear but through “the affection and experience of age.”
Cultural commentators are rediscovering frontier wisdom. John Wayne reminded us, “You have to be a man before you can be a gentleman,” while Theodore Roosevelt insisted the nation must cultivate “the iron qualities that go with true manhood.” We spend endless airtime debating how to raise great men. Father’s Day 2025 finally laid the foundation by teaching boys what it means to be a man at all.
It also marked a defiant rebuke to the ideology that has long tried to erase the family altogether. Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” lists “abolition of the family” among its necessary steps toward collectivism, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors once boasted, “We are trained Marxists.”
Marxism dissolves individual loyalties — faith, family, even biological sex — so only the collective remains. Father’s Day 2025, with its record spending, viral dad-stories, and presidential blessing, was a nationwide celebration in Marxism’s face, a reminder that liberty begins with individuals anchored in families, not citizens melted into a hive.
The stakes are concrete. Cities that nurture father engagement post <a href="https://publichealth.uic.edu/news-stories/new-study-finds-mentorship-lowers-rates-of-youth-crime-and-delinquency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">double-digit drops in juvenile crime</a>; every percentage-point rise in male labor-force participation adds billions to GDP. The formula is simple: slash fatherlessness and flood the workforce with men who show up. Close the classroom reading gap, and everything else falls into place.
Critics say re-centering men marginalizes women, but a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/20/fathers-have-unique-effect-on-childrens-educational-outcomes-study-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2023 University of Leeds study</a> found that when dads spend as little as 10 minutes a day reading or playing with their kids, daughters register a measurable jump in early test scores. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/12/2015-12-17_parenting-in-america_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pew analysis</a> shows families that keep dad in the home slash mom-and-child poverty rates by more than two-to-one.
Momentum matters, but so does personal action. Now it’s our turn. Mentor a boy for an hour each week; shop brands that honor fathers; prod your school board to revive shop class; stretch Father’s Day into a civic festival so virtue becomes visible.
Historian Arnold Toynbee said civilizations rise when they successfully respond to great challenges. America’s challenge is fatherlessness. The answer is taking shape. Manhood isn’t baggage, it’s jet fuel for a free nation — raw strength harnessed by honor, propelling liberty farther than any bureaucrat’s decree ever will.
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast We The People. Follow him on IG and X @GatesGarciaFL
<div>
<div id="post-body-text">
<div class="e1ecxnzw0 css-fgibv1">
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
</div>
</div>
</div>

2025 U.S. OPEN – Final Round

From Punchline To Frontline: Father’s Day 2025 Turned Manhood Into A Movement

Bud Light

Donald Trump

President Donald Trump on Friday issued an unapologetic, pro-masculinity Father&#8217;s Day proclamation, honoring fathers and father figures across the nation for their strength and leadership.
The tone of the proclamation runs counter to left-wing messaging that masculinity is often &#8220;toxic,&#8221; and the differences between the sexes are merely an unhealthy social construct.
&#8220;America&#8217;s fathers are the custodians of our strength, the leaders of our families, and the protectors of our security and safety,&#8221; it <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/fathers-day-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reads</a>. &#8220;This Father&#8217;s Day, my Administration pays tribute to every father whose fierce love, heroic devotion, and inspiring example are molding the next generation.&#8221;
&#8220;Whether by birth, adoption, or father figures, America&#8217;s dads help shape the character and future of our Nation,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;Through their example, they instill strength, integrity, and perseverance in their children. They rise early, work late, make sacrifices, and remain steadfast in their love and commitment to their families.&#8221;
The president added that fathers &#8220;lead through action, speak with purpose, and impart wisdom honed by experience.&#8221;
&#8220;From their children&#8217;s earliest days as infants through their journey into adulthood, fathers leave a lasting influence that reaches far beyond the walls of their homes,&#8221; the proclamation said. &#8220;The presence of a father also serves to plant the seeds of virtue and instill American values in their children. For many, dads are the first to teach the value of hard work, love of country, and the importance of living with conviction. With every generation, these lessons are carried forth.&#8221;
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>
Trump said his administration will continue to stand with fathers and families to shield children from &#8220;the toxic lies of gender ideology&#8221; and keep &#8220;our neighborhoods safe by backing our law enforcement, crushing violent crime, and ensuring our southern border remains sealed and secure.&#8221;
&#8220;Together, we are building a Nation where fathers can lead with strength, protect their families, and pass on the timeless values that make America great,&#8221; he wrote.
&#8220;Today, we celebrate the invaluable role our fathers play in shaping our families, guiding our communities, and strengthening our country &#8212; and we offer our unending thanks for their leadership, selflessness, and inspiration,&#8221; Trump closed.
In recent years, Democrats have routinely refused to recognize the differences between the genders, both biological and social. For example, numerous prominent Democrats have referred to pregnant women and mothers as &#8220;<a href="https://nypost.com/2021/05/08/missouri-congresswoman-under-fire-for-calling-women-birthing-people/">birthing people</a>&#8221; or women as &#8220;<a href="https://www.them.us/story/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-slams-newspaper-mocking-trans-inclusive-language">menstruating people</a>.&#8221; There has also been much discourse diminishing traditionally masculine qualities as &#8220;<a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/aocs-frustration-with-the-toxic-masculinity-of-bernie-bros-revealed-in-new-book/">toxic</a>,&#8221; specifically as it pertains to white males.

US-VOTE-TRUMP

WE’RE BACK: Trump Issues Unapologetic, Pro-Masculinity Father’s Day Proclamation

Executive

Holiday

For the past week, Americans have been glued to an ongoing social media exchange between Olympic legend Simone Biles and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines.
The confrontation began when Gaines shared a photo of a Minnesota high school girls&#8217; softball championship team whose star player was reportedly a boy, prompting Biles to attack Gaines on social media, calling her &#8220;truly sick&#8221; and a &#8220;sore loser&#8221; who was campaigning against transgender athletes simply because she had lost a race.
Gaines fired back, “If Simone’s inclusive dream came true, she would have zero Olympic medals and no one would even know who she is.”
The thread rocketed across timelines, not only because it was fiery, but because it issued a referendum on manhood. It asked every male coach, father, and teammate: Are you strong enough to sit this one out so women can compete, or will you weaponize your strength to win medals never meant for you?
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-left-hijacked-masculinity-and-why-thats-bad-for-society?author=Gates+Garcia&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=How+The+Left+Hijacked+Masculinity+%E2%80%94+And+Why+That%E2%80%99s+Bad+For+Society" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent piece</a> for The Daily Wire, I wrote about the left’s slow, hostile co-opting of the word “masculinity.” But it’s not enough to identify what went wrong. In order to help save American men — and American society — we need to ask ourselves: what should men get right?
The Biles-Gaines saga gives us an opportunity to answer that question.
Riley Gaines has fought valiantly to keep men out of women’s sports, as have many other brave female athletes. But this saga should cause all American men to ask themselves: Where were the men in this situation? Where were the fathers telling their sons, “However you identify, you may not line up in the girls’ starting blocks,” or telling their daughters, “If anyone tries to silence your voice, Dad’s voice will echo louder”?
Perhaps the men were on the sidelines because for years, feminists and the left have told them that being aggressive in defense of what was right was “toxic.” Maybe they were worried that speaking out would make them seem dangerous — one of the worst things they can do.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a man. True masculinity is a form of strength that heals instead of harms — dangerous on purpose, but disciplined by love.
Healthy masculinity begins with a posture, not a press release — a posture that leans into risk so others can rest easy. Walk into any volunteer fire station at 3:00 a.m. and you’ll find fathers who left warm beds to chase a propane smell no one else noticed, just in case. They aren’t reckless —  they’re responsible. They understand what G.K. Chesterton meant when he <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/94304-the-true-soldier-fights-not-because-he-hates-what-is" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
Translation: Real manhood is the antidote to cultural decay, not its cause. Or, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/crain-and-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crain &amp; Co. </a>co-host David Cone said recently on my podcast, <a href="https://wethepeoplemedia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We The People</a>, “Toxic masculinity is a contradiction of terms. You can’t have the modifier of a word be the antithesis of the word.”
True masculinity can never be toxic, because it’s covenantal: it binds itself to duties no government can assign and no ideology can erase. Scripture sketches the outline — husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church — and history fills in the colors, from St. Joseph guiding Mary into exile to Sgt. William Carney grabbing the colors at Fort Wagner and refusing to let them fall. Chesterton called it “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chesterton-Romance-Orthodoxy-Making-1874-1908/dp/0199582017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Romance of Orthodoxy</a>” — the adventure of guarding what is good. That romance includes a listening ear. As psychologist Jordan Peterson notes, “a harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”
So, how do we ensure that men understand and inhabit this balance? We start at home.
A 2024 <a href="https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-024-02182-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meta-analysis in BMC Psychology</a> found that children with engaged fathers show higher emotional resilience and academic grit. Yet engagement means more than hugs. It means clearly explaining to children the difference between right and wrong, and raising them to do what’s right. And of course, it means boldly, unapologetically modeling what choosing the right looks like.
When dads speak with that mix of empathy and iron, cultural confusion suddenly looks more like noise than destiny.
Sons who see their dads get up to feed a baby brother or sister so mom can sleep will grow up to be teenagers who step between a bully and a fellow classmate, and then men who shovel their widowed neighbor’s driveway without boasting about it on Instagram. Or perhaps even men who fight to protect women&#8217;s sports.
Nothing can replace fathers, but they’re not the only ones who can inculcate real masculinity in young men. A high school athletic director can set policy that preserves female divisions without waiting on Congress. A pastor can preach Ephesians 5 (“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church…) and then host a father-daughter self-defense night in the fellowship hall. Each act is a brick in a wall that tells our daughters, you’re safe here.
Notice what’s missing from that blueprint: self-flagellation. True masculinity doesn’t apologize for being strong; it apologizes for being selfish. It’s the difference between a freight train hauling relief supplies through the night and one that plows through a residential crossing because the engineer craves a thrill. Conservatives should celebrate the power while condemning the derailment. The Centre for Male Psychology calls this “<a href="https://www.centreformalepsychology.com/male-psychology-magazine-listings/the-provider-role-indicates-that-masculinity-is-prosocial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pro-social masculinity</a>,” but your grandpa called it being a gentleman.
The same culture that coined “toxic masculinity” is starving for the genuine article. Simone Biles has earned her medals, and Riley Gaines has earned her scars. Now the question is, will American men earn back their reputation as protectors?
If they do — if we do — the next generation of daughters won’t need to tweet for fairness. They’ll be too busy celebrating it on a podium their fathers kept level.
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast &#8220;We The People.&#8221; Follow him on IG and X @GatesGarciaFL
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Simone Biles, Riley Gaines

What The Riley Gaines-Simone Biles Skirmish Reveals About The Crisis Of Masculinity

Crain and Company

Riley Gaines

Simone Biles

Women Sports

“Gladiator II” actor Paul Mescal said Hollywood is changing its approach to leading males. 
The 29-year-old Irish star made the remarks while promoting his new gay romantic drama, “History of Sound,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. 
“It’s ever shifting,” he said during a press conference for the film, per <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/festivals/paul-mescal-masculinity-brokeback-mountain-cannes-1236406568/">Variety</a>. “I think maybe in cinema we’re moving away from the traditional, alpha, leading male characters. I don’t think the film is defining or attempting to redefine masculinity, I think it is being very subjective to the relationship between [the movie’s characters] Lionel and David.”
This was similar to comments he made last year about the state of masculinity in modern society.
&#8220;There&#8217;s a sort of crisis in masculinity I think at the moment and what it means to be a man,” Mescal <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/andrew-scott-and-paul-mescal-on-toxic-masculinity-the-most-macho-man-will-be-the-first-to-break-13054759">told</a> Sky News at the time. “We have all these things within us, there&#8217;s no one way of being, there just isn&#8217;t, and sometimes the people who are the most outwardly macho in some ways, are the people who aren&#8217;t going to be there for you emotionally.”
Mescal also bristled at the comparisons being made between “History of Sound” and the popular gay romance “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), which starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. 
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Memorial Day Sale – Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
“I personally don’t see the parallels at all with ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ other than we spent a little time in a tent,” he said. “[‘Brokeback’] is a beautiful film but it is dealing with the idea of repression … I find those comparisons relatively lazy and frustrating, but for the most part I think the relationship I have to the film is born out of the fact that it’s a celebration between these men’s love and not the repression of their sexuality.”
Per the movie’s description, “History of Sound” is about “two young men &#8212; Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O&#8217;Connor) &#8212; in the shadows of WWI who are determined to record the lives, voices and music of their American countrymen. As they begin to log the events, the two fall in love.”
Previously, Mescal defended himself against being cast as a gay man in films despite being heterosexual in real life. 
“It depends [on] who’s in charge of telling the story,” the actor <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/article/paul-mescal-im-not-just-the-token-irish-hunk-jrhcs688f?region=global">told</a> The Sunday Times while discussing another project, “All of Us Strangers.”
“The issue is that there have been so many queer performances in cinema that have been offensive, but that’s because the filmmakers and the actors have been careless,” he added.

Paul Mescal

‘Gladiator II’ Actor Says Hollywood Is ‘Moving Away’ From ‘Alpha’ Male Roles

'Gladiator II' Actor Claims Hollywood Is 'Moving Away' From 'Alpha' Male Roles

Celebrities

Hollywood

World

Menu