High T, Low Life
Life During Trumptime 7/13/26 - 7/19/26
It was a bad week for men’s insecurities. America’s Secretary of War announced a new testosterone screening program, the Blue Angels shook the beaches of Florida, and Andrew Tate went to jail. We are beset on all sides by men conducting a hyper-masculine performance, guys obsessed with the aesthetic of war and conflict for its own sake.
As long as I’ve been alive — more than 40 years now — someone has been complaining about the state of American masculinity. The boys, we’ve long been told, are not all right. Cataloging all the different complaints, reactions, and counter-reactions to men’s discomfort with the world and their place in it would fill a book.
More than a decade ago I spoke with author Sebastian Junger about this in a piece that sought to explain why young men seem to love war. Gamergate was raging then. The Afghan War seemed like it would last forever and the manosphere was just getting off the ground. Confused dudes who needed to prove something to themselves, and the world, seemed like they were becoming a problem.
Some boys pursued an aesthetic path towards masculinity. When looksmaxxers like Clavicular smash their face with a hammer they’re attempting to shape their own childish faces into the adult men of their imagination. Pete Hegseth is obsessed with this performance of masculinity and is conducting America’s war in Iran with that purpose in mind. That’s why this administration changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War, why Hegseth calls the troops warfighters, and why he’s ordered testosterone screenings. It’s why he works out with the troops on camera. It’s why CENTCOM publishes daily videos of the destruction of Iranian targets and why SOUTHCOM shares video after video of fishing vessels exploding.
But you can’t always fake it till you make it.
7/13/26
Iran and the United States spent Sunday evening and Monday morning shooting missiles at each other. The IRGC said it hit targets in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. CENTCOM said it struck dozens of targets across Iran.
Trump announced that the US military would reinstate its blockade of Iran and start charging a 20% toll on the cargo of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
ICE shot and killed Colombian immigrant Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. The ICE agents were not wearing body cameras.
7/14/26
Trump backed off his promise to extort a 20% fee from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States. Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future. As everyone is aware, we have the largest Dollar Investment into the United States, of any Country in History, but these new Investments will make that Number even larger, and we will see Factories, Plants, and Equipment pour into the United States at Historic levels, which will create additional millions of High Paying AMERICAN Jobs! America is WINNING again, winning like never before. The days of Iran killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 52,000 protestors, are OVER and, most importantly, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, announced that ICE would no longer conduct traffic stops. “It’s not a policy change, it’s a temporary pause [...] this is going to be a short-term review to make sure ICE agents are safe and doing the right thing,” Homan told Fox News. The not-policy change comes after ICE killed two men six days apart during traffic stops in Maine and Texas.
In a press conference, Homan blamed Democrats for the lack of body cameras. “When the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security, I was up on the hill as part of the negotiating team to reopen the government and they wanted body cameras,” Homan said. “There’s $120 million in the budget they were holding up to buy those body cameras.”
7/15/26
Hegseth announced that the DoW would begin annually screening soldier’s testosterone levels once they reach the age of 30. “Those under 30 can voluntarily choose to get the test as well,” Hegseth said in a video announcing the new program. “If treatment is recommended it’s entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy. This initiative, it’s not about artificial enhancement, it’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.”
CBS reported that the Pentagon proposed new secrecy powers that would allow it to exempt unclassified records from Freedom of Information Act requests.
The legislative proposal seeks to create a new section of federal law allowing the defense secretary to exempt certain “controlled unclassified information,” or CUI, from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act if the U.S. military determines the records concern national defense vulnerabilities and concludes that the harm from disclosure outweighs the public interest.
Politico published an investigation into the Freedom Fuel gas stations which uncovered a scheme involving a Republican donor with a history of fighting the federal government in court over his business practices.
A federal judge entered judgment in February in favor of a fuel distributor that alleged in a civil lawsuit that Kazmi’s company had taken roughly $667,000 worth of fuel over 10 days in August 2021 without fully paying for it. Kazmi denied the allegations, but the court entered a default judgment after what the judge described as the defendants and their lawyers’ “serial flouting of Court orders and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure” during the case.
In a separate federal case, a judge ruled in January that Kazmi’s company had failed to pay more than $700,000 in rent at 17 stations it operated in Florida and that the franchisor lawfully terminated franchise agreements. Kazmi argued that his company had been unable to pay the rent because the franchisor withheld credit-card proceeds during a contract dispute.
The US Navy’s Blue Angels conducted a demonstration above a beach in Pensacola, Florida as part of a “Breakfast with the Blues” event. One jet flew low to the beach during a pass, knocking hats from heads.
7/16/26
Anxiety gripped some political junkies earlier in the week when reporters in DC hinted that Trump would make a big speech on network TV Thursday night. The topic, they said, would be election interference. Trump promised it would be big and shocking.
It was a dud. As I’ve said before in this newsletter, we tend to listen to the president in soundbites and it pays to, on occasion, listen to a full speech. This one is only 25 minutes and I encourage people to take it in. He doesn’t make a convincing case.
After the speech, the White House released a tranche of documents it claimed supported Trump’s claims of election interference. It didn’t. In some cases, the documents hurt Trump’s case.
Days later, the debate around Trump’s speech was not whether or not America’s elections were under threat from foreign influence, but rather if the networks should have carried it at all. NBC, ABC and CNN decided not to and Trump threatened to revoke their broadcast licenses. Networks aren’t under any obligation to air a political figure’s speech. In 2024, many of them declined to show a Biden speech about threats to American democracy.
The commander of the Blue Angels said that yesterday’s low pass over a beach in Florida was dangerous. “The pilot found himself, unfortunately, in a situation that we would deem unsafe over the beach. We never intend to fly over the crowd that low, and we’ll heavily debrief it to ensure that, one, we continue on with safe flight demonstrations, and that we learn from those different things that happen,” Navy Capt. Adam Bryan told reporters.
The White House, Hegseth, and others posted jokes about the incident on X.
7/17/26
A series of wildfires in Canada plunged air quality in broad swathes of the northern United States. Air quality plunged and millions of people stayed indoors rather than risk wading through the choking smoke.
7/18/26
CENTCOM confirmed that two more US servicemembers died in Jordan as part of America’s war against Iran.
7/19/26
US Marshalls arrested manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate in Miami, Florida. The pair are facing criminal sexual charges in both Romania and the United Kingdom. Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service is attempting to extradite the brothers and charged Andrew with seven counts of rape, three counts of human trafficking, three counts of assault, and “19 additional charges for offences relating to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”