Ezra Klein

The Last Men is an argument that begins by saying what we need is a hormonal theory of politics.

And the hormonal theory of politics is this, and this part is real.

There has been over the decades a measurable and sustained drop in testosterone in men across a number of countries, in sperm quality and count among men across a number of countries.

There's also, and this is a big topic of discussion on this side, and I think an actually important one that I wish the left would take more seriously.

There has been a stain drop in fertility rates across many, many different countries.

So relatively few liberal democracies are now at a replacement rate or above, if any of them are.

I think Israel is, although whether Israel's a liberal democracy is its own question.

So he sort of starts there and says, look, the core of masculinity, thymus or thymus, I don't know how you say the Greek word, is testosterone.

This thing that Francis Fukuyama is talking about in The End of History and The Last Man, this thing that Nietzsche is talking about is just testosterone and we are destroying testosterone.

And we're destroying it with endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are in all the things we buy, destroying it with bad diet, destroying it with chemicals in the water.

And it is creating, and is maybe a sort of actual effort to create, and this is where things begin to find you to cope it off the rails, a docile form of man who is suited for the long house of liberal democracy and

and not suited for the displays of dominance and hierarchy and the conquest and excellence that has driven civilization forward and defined man forever.

And then, as you say, it kind of ends with a stirring call to throw out your plastic cutting boards and filter your water.

But this is the argument, you know, that there's like a sort of some stuff I actually agree with on chemicals, some stuff I'm generally worried about and hormonal changes.

And then the sense that what's really happening here is the destruction of what it means to be a man and literally the vital fluids that make men manly.

That's the book.

And the person of Donald Trump in the 2024 election became a vehicle for this feeling.

This guy who stood up and pumped his fist covered in blood after an assassination attempt rather than cowering behind his Secret Service guards or a lectern or, you know, staying on the floor.

This guy who would say anything he wanted to say, no matter who it offended, who did not play by the rules of feminized society.

This man who kept driving forward through adversity, you know, lawsuits and electoral losses and made his own reality around him.