{"id":32264,"date":"2026-07-25T11:18:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=32264"},"modified":"2026-07-25T11:18:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:18:35","slug":"pete-hegseths-crisis-of-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=32264","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth\u2019s Crisis of Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-intercept-editors-note\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-intercept-editors-note__content\">\n<p><span class=\"has-underline\">On Wednesday at<\/span> 11:07 p.m. ET, the president went on Truth Social to share an important piece of information with Americans. It wasn\u2019t an update on the sinking U.S. economy, the failing forever war with Iran, a remembrance of the Americans recently killed in that conflict, rising gasoline prices, the more than 800 lawsuits against his administration, a cyclosporiasis outbreak, surging cases of measles, the problems with his Qatari-gifted <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/07\/15\/jay-clayton-confirmation-hearing-journalist-subpoenas\/\">Air Force One<\/a>, or comment on any of the swirling crises that typify the day-to-day of Donald Trump\u2019s America.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it was a re-tread of an Instagram post with a clip from an appearance of UFC CEO Dana White \u2014 who brought bloodsport to the White House lawn in June \u2014 on \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show.\u201d It wasn\u2019t, however, a clip from this week or this month or even about last month\u2019s UFC Freedom 250\u00a0event. In fact, it wasn\u2019t even from this year.<\/p>\n<p>The headline on the post tells the story: \u201cHOLY CRAP: Dana White says it best: TRUMP is the \u2018ultimate American badass of all time.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>White did actually say that \u2014 but he said it back in July 2024. This desperation for two-year-old adulation would be funny if it wasn\u2019t so sad. But the so-called leader of the free world isn\u2019t the only one obsessed with being seen as an American badass. Trump\u2019s Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, is on a mission to make America\u2019s fighting men (and women) more macho by any means necessary. Unsurprisingly, it\u2019s fast becoming a problem for all Americans.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2013 Nick Turse, editor of TomDispatch<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- BLOCK(tipline)[0](%7B%22componentName%22%3A%22TIPLINE%22%2C%22entityType%22%3A%22SHORTCODE%22%2C%22optional%22%3Atrue%7D)(%7B%7D) --><!-- CONTENT(tipline)[0] --><\/p>\n<p class=\"tipline-shortcode\">If you haven\u2019t yet, <a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/signup\/tom_dispatch_signup\/\">sign up to receive TomDispatch in your inbox here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- END-CONTENT(tipline)[0] --><!-- END-BLOCK(tipline)[0] -->\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<h2 id=\"h-the-low-t-issue\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Low-T Issue<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth has a problem with low testosterone. It\u2019s left him suffering from what you might call an acute crisis of masculinity. And I\u2019m pretty sure that he caught it from Teddy Roosevelt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bear with me. I\u2019ll explain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last week, the Trump administration\u2019s preening, strutting, wanna-be he-man announced a new mandatory annual screening for troops age 30 and older, including women, for testosterone deficiency. Troops under 30 can volunteer to be screened, and anyone with low hormone levels will have the option to receive\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/25\/well\/live\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-testosterone-therapy.html\">testosterone replacement therapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s about restoring and optimizing your natural capability,\u201d said Hegseth, by ensuring \u201cyou have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight\u201d on the \u201cbrutal and unrelenting\u201d modern battlefield. <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/09\/30\/trump-hegseth-generals-admirals-military-meeting\/\">Like all<\/a> Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/04\/15\/pete-hegseth-pentagon-civilian-casualties-harm\/\">initiatives<\/a>, he linked it to \u201clethality\u201d \u2014 now the animating feature of his life. He called topping off troops\u2019 testosterone levels a \u201csacred duty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyone who has observed Hegseth for more than 15 seconds in the last 15 years could tell you the man is riddled with deep insecurities. His quest to fully transition the Defense Department to what he calls \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aWjitRt7vOc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The High-T Department of War<\/a>\u201d is just the latest manifestation of nagging anxieties about himself and the wheel-spinning, never-winning military he leads.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Poor Pete\u2019s woes have been piling up since he headed off to college at Princeton, if not before. Hegseth acts like he was drafted against his will by the Ivy League and escaped it by joining the Army National Guard as an infantry officer in 2003. He fondly recalls guarding \u201cIslamic assholes\u201d at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, Cuba, alongside \u201chard-working, God-fearing, America-loving middle-class men\u201d whom he contrasts with \u201cmillionaires at Princeton,\u201d a school <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/5892744-defense-secretary-west-point-address\/\">he derides<\/a> whenever <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/military-college-scholarship-hegseth-ivy-league-028db57ade1c909fb40d4dff60c16743\">he can<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stuffed in Hegseth\u2019s Army-issue green duffle bag when he arrived at Gitmo was a sheet of plain white copy paper inside a black plastic frame with a quote from his hero, former President Teddy Roosevelt. This long love affair with TR has continued over the decades. Pete wrote a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/In-the-Arena\/Pete-Hegseth\/9781476749358\">ridiculous<\/a> 2016 book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/inarenagoodcitiz0000hegs\/page\/n11\/mode\/2up?q=frame\">In the Arena<\/a>,\u201d based on the \u201ctimeless truths of Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s iconic \u2018Man in the Arena\u2019 speech\u201d from 1910. And he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Transcripts\/Transcript\/Article\/4380992\/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-hosted-enhanced-honor-cordon-and-bilateral-meetin\/\">still references<\/a> that speech to this day and routinely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Speeches\/Speech\/Article\/4424673\/remarks-by-secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-at-the-americas-counter-cartel-confere\/\">works Teddy<\/a> into <a href=\"https:\/\/pa.usembassy.gov\/remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-at-the-pier-dedication-at-vasco-nunez-de-balboa-naval-base\/\">his public<\/a> remarks whenever he can. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last year, Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/11\/25\/nx-s1-5615164\/pentagon-scouting-hegseth-cut-ties\">wanted the Pentagon to cut ties<\/a> with the Boy Scouts of America because, he believed, \u201cthe organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt\u201d had strayed from their mission to \u201ccultivate masculine values.\u201d (He later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4417012\/hegseth-says-scouting-america-support-to-continue-upon-orgs-commitment-to-drop\/\">bullied the Scouts<\/a> into submission.) And just last month, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4513916\/us-prepared-for-anything-hegseth-tells-troops-at-guantanamo-bay\/\">talked up TR<\/a> to U.S. troops in Cuba \u2014 where Roosevelt fought during the Spanish-American War \u2014 using his hero as proof of America\u2019s right to intervene \u201cin the affairs of Latin American nations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- END-BLOCK(cta)[0] --><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No one more exemplified the anxieties of privileged men of his time than Teddy Roosevelt, who grew up in the swirl of post-Civil War America in which urbanization, industrialization, a new emphasis on \u201cbrainwork,\u201d and new technologies\u00a0led to a crippling novel condition dubbed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJM186904290801301\">neurasthenia<\/a>: nervous exhaustion, or a deficiency of \u201cnerve-force.\u201d This affliction was \u201cmodern and originally American,\u201d according to the then-most influential expert on the now-archaic medical diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rich, white Anglo-Saxon men like Teddy professed complete cultural, racial, and sexual superiority but grew extremely anxious it was being stolen from them. (Yes, you guessed it: Immigrants, radicals, and independent, unduly educated, or otherwise unruly \u201cnew\u201d women were prime culprits.) Men were fast becoming feeble and feminized; only through manly endeavors like weightlifting, hiking, hunting, sports, horseback riding, and excursions into the wild could they counteract the debilitating effects of over-civilization. Roosevelt, for example, transformed himself from a frail, sickly weakling who was called a \u201csissy\u201d by peers and \u201cJane-Dandy\u201d by the press into a man\u2019s man via boxing, shooting, wrestling, and travel out West, where he reinvented himself as a cowboy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The scholar Yeonsik Jung <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC10556408\/\">summed up<\/a> the neurasthenic age nicely, writing: \u201cChanneled through the medical knowledge of neurology, it made American men\u2019s racial, sexual, and spatial anxieties function to act out their racist, misogynist, nativist, and imperialist impulses which legitimized exclusionary political techniques toward the racial and sexual others such as the U.S. imperial expansion in the 1890s and 1900s.\u201d These white American men had to win back, as another scholar put it, \u201cthe potency of their violent masculinity\u2014their ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC10556408\/#b27-kjmh-30-2-393\">out-savage the savage<\/a>\u201d on the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/11\/28\/army-native-american-heritage-month\/\">American frontier<\/a> before turning overseas to places like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historyisaweapon.com\/defcon1\/zinnempire12.html\">Philippines<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/01\/22\/deconstructed-haiti-smedley-butler-marine-book\/\">Haiti<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2024\/01\/30\/icj-gaza-ruling-nicaragua\/\">Nicaragua<\/a>. Roosevelt\u2019s own expansionist imperialism and his campaign against \u201crace suicide\u201d were firmly rooted in this toxic ferment. When the United States initially failed to annex Hawaii after a group of missionaries and pineapple plantation interests took over and set up their own government in the 1890s, for example, Roosevelt called the reluctance \u201ca crime against white civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The framed quote Hegseth stuffed into that Gitmo duffle, which he also took to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/collections\/the-911-wars\/\">forever wars in Afghanistan and Iraq<\/a>, are lines from \u201cThe Man in the Arena\u201d speech:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Am I striving valiantly?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is my face marred by dust and sweat and blood? Am I spending myself in a worthy cause?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Am I daring greatly?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Am I in the arena?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSpending myself\u201d is an intriguing phrase here that\u2019s key to my diagnosis of Hegseth. I\u2019m not a medical doctor, but long ago I studied the intersection of medicine and masculinity in the late 19th and early 20th century en route to my Ph.D. A great panic of the era surrounded what historians came to call the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/3180106\">spermatic economy<\/a>,\u201d the belief that a man\u2019s semen was a finite reserve of vital energy \u2014 like money in a bank account \u2014 and \u201cspending\u201d this essential life force through masturbation or excessive sex would leave him depleted, leading to nervous exhaustion\u2019s below-the-waist variant: <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/b20442518\">sexual neurasthenia<\/a>. (President Donald Trump, who espouses pseudoscientific claptrap about <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/05\/22\/trump-hails-good-bloodlines-henry-ford-whose-anti-semitism-inspired-hitler\/\">good and bad<\/a> \u201cgenes\u201d also reportedly believes humans are closed-loop systems that, like a battery, have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/02\/08\/politics\/donald-trump-exercise-health-physical\">finite amount of energy<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such fin de si\u00e8cle fears of debilitation led to \u201crejuvenation\u201d cures like French physiologist Charles-\u00c9douard Brown-S\u00e9quard injecting himself and others with crushed guinea pig testicles \u2014 launching the field of \u201corganotherapy\u201d \u2014 and Austrian physiologist Eugen Steinach\u2019s surgical procedure, a partial vasectomy to restore vigor which found favor with patients from psychoanalysis founder and noted head case Sigmund Freud to William Butler Yeats, the Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet. (\u201cAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?\u201d)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hegseth is heir to this utter nuttery \u2014 obsessed as it was with limits on semen spending and banking one\u2019s virility. His hysteria over the military becoming \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pete-hegseth-background-defense-secretary-confirmation-hearing-e160e10c86385a8beff110d9190fb34e\">effeminate<\/a>\u201d has led him to conclude that those who wish to \u201cmaster the profession of arms\u201d must have their testosterone tanks topped off. And he claims, <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/5976381-hegseth-military-testosterone-screening-questions\/\">without evidence<\/a>, that pumping troops full of this hormone \u2014 which people of every sex and gender produce \u2014 will improve \u201ccombat readiness.\u201d Hegseth also thinks his new policy will make troops \u201cstrong, resilient and capable.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But while testosterone is tied to muscle mass, it\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fphys.2025.1512268\">isn\u2019t linked with actual strength<\/a>. A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC6711889\/\">2019 study<\/a> found that men who received injected testosterone while engaged in intense exercise and a restricted diet \u2014 meant to mimic \u201cstrenuous military operations\u201d \u2014 did not see gains in strength or endurance; a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC9359646\/\">2022 follow-up<\/a> also found no increase in physical performance.\u00a0Moreover, supplementing testosterone actually signals the body to shut down its own natural production, which can\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/07\/24\/hegseth-testosterone-hormone-therapy-veterans-affairs\/\">shrink the testicles and reduce one\u2019s sperm count<\/a>. (Paging Dr. Steinach!)<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hegseth appears to believe more is better, advocating for a \u201chigh T\u201d fighting force. But high levels of testosterone \u2014 which is currently classified as a controlled substance with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raps.org\/resource\/fda-adopts-new-warning-on-abuse-and-dependence-to.html\">potential for abuse<\/a> \u2014 can lead to\u00a0acne, balding,\u00a0breast tissue\u00a0growth, impaired ability of the heart to pump blood, infertility, erectile dysfunction,\u00a0and increased risk of death. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, it\u2019s hard to say what\u2019s normal if you\u2019re testing millions of healthy people. Testosterone levels can change depending on when a patient is tested, whether they have recently eaten, exercised heavily, or are sick, among other factors,\u00a0Dr. Alvin Matsumoto, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/07\/24\/hegseth-testosterone-hormone-therapy-veterans-affairs\/\">recently told<\/a> The Intercept. For example, in about a third of men whose testosterone initially tests low, a second test produces a normal result. Tests also have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC3955326\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">high inter-lab variability<\/a>. On that front, doctors usually assess\u00a0testosterone levels only when symptoms of low T appear, and <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/17698901\/\">less than 6 percent of men<\/a> between 30 and 79 actually have a deficiency.<\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-embed flex-col items-center print:hidden\" id=\"third-party--article-mid\" data-module=\"InlineNewsletter\" data-module-source=\"web_intercept_20241230_Inline_Signup_Replacement\">\n<div class=\"-mx-5 sm:-mx-10 p-5 sm:px-10 xl:-ml-5 lg:mr-0 xl:px-5 bg-accentLight hidden\" data-name=\"subscribed\">\n<h2 class=\"font-sans font-light uppercase text-[30px] leading-8 text-white tracking-[0.01em] mb-0\">\n      We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. 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In his 2024 book,\u00a0\u201cThe War on Warriors,\u201d he bemoaned a plot to manufacture \u201csoft men, and a weak military.\u201d He describes an effort to make the armed forces \u201cfatter,\u201d \u201cslower,\u201d and \u201ceffeminate\u201d by those \u201cobsessed\u201d with \u201cneutering our military,\u201d and delves into the dangers posed by \u201cPentagon pussies.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After 18 months of crackpot policies and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/09\/30\/trump-hegseth-generals-admirals-military-meeting\/\">puerile posturing<\/a> at the helm of the War Department, Hegseth\u2019s hysteria has only grown. Like Roosevelt, Hegseth is forever struggling to display his manhood through physical exertion \u2014 posting <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DOWResponse\/status\/2065193943273218323\">videos<\/a> of himself engaging in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/2026\/09\/pete-hegseth-workout-videos-fitness\/687955\/\">humiliating <\/a>fitness challenges. Similarly, he\u2019s been propping up America\u2019s long-sagging martial prowess by beating up on the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/04\/23\/costs-war-latin-america-boat-strikes-venezuela\/\">Venezuela<\/a>, attacking <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/03\/11\/iran-school-missile-investigation\/\">elementary school kids<\/a> in Iran, blowing up <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/12\/23\/boat-strikes-venezuela-hegseth-bradley-legal\/\">unarmed<\/a> boats <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/01\/27\/boat-strike-victims-lawsuit\/\">packed<\/a> with <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/06\/10\/trump-boat-strikes-human-trafficking-victims\/\">civilians<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea, and threatening tiny <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RT_com\/status\/2064728498040602927\">Cuba<\/a>, where his hero Teddy won fame for a Spanish-American War charge up San Juan Hill.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-ft-photo is-style-default alignright\">\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSpeak softly and carry a big stick\u201d was Roosevelt\u2019s foreign policy prescription. But from the war against the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2025\/05\/02\/trump-yemen-war-us-casualties-death-toll\/\">Houthis<\/a> last year to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/06\/11\/trump-iran-war-claims-failures\/\">war on Iran<\/a> today, Hegseth has found that his stick just <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2026\/06\/15\/trump-us-iran-war\/\">doesn\u2019t measure up<\/a>. The resulting insecurity has led the emasculated War secretary to fire women and Black men from top leadership positions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/14\/us\/hegseth-blocks-navy-promotions.html\">block<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/03\/pete-hegseth-navy-promotion-list\">promotion<\/a>\u00a0of women military officers, banish <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/02\/11\/nx-s1-5636641\/the-pentagon-is-removing-thousands-of-transgender-troops-under-hegseths-anti-dei-push\">transgender<\/a> service members, and denounce \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/4319081\/unfit-undertrained-troops-no-longer-tolerated\/\">fat generals and admirals<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and \u201cfemales\u201d whom he believes \u201ccan\u2019t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.\u201d He has now added low-T troops to the list of scapegoats for his department\u2019s underperformance, instead of examining his failings as a leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hegseth believes you can measure manhood by testing testosterone, the same way he believes you can kill your way to victory on the battlefield. It\u2019s part of a m\u00e9lange of flaccid fallacies and fantasies that seem to dominate the worldview of a man who paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/24\/us\/politics\/hegseth-payment.html\">raping her<\/a>, whose former sister-in-law\u00a0accused him of \u201cabusive\u201d behavior\u00a0toward his second wife, and whose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/29\/us\/politics\/hegseth-email-text.html\">own mother once called out<\/a> the fact that he \u201cbelittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.\u201d\u00a0And as America\u2019s wars go south, Hegseth has become ever more <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mmpadellan\/status\/2040213894451355957\">unhinged<\/a> and his <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/atrupar\/status\/2079690127048098234\">public tantrums<\/a> more pronounced. \u201cYou have Trump derangement syndrome!\u201d he snapped at Michigan Sen. Gary Peters this week, after failing to admit earlier claims about victory in the Iran war were premature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hegseth is exactly where he wants to be \u2014 \u201cin the arena\u201d \u2014 even though it\u2019s abundantly clear his crisis of masculinity is becoming a catastrophe for his department, the rest of America, and great swaths of the globe, from the Caribbean to Iran. All the testosterone in the world isn\u2019t going to win America\u2019s wars, achieve Hegseth\u2019s dream of turning \u201csoft men\u201d hard, or transform \u201cPentagon pussies\u201d into something more in line with his fantasies, much less cure the crushing insecurities swirling in the brain of America\u2019s fragile war secretary and the deep deficiency that has long plagued him.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Pete #Hegseths #Crisis #Masculinity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday at 11:07 p.m. ET,&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}