How to Radicalize a Generation of Young Men

As a Dixian, and more specifically an Alabamian, it is in my blood to prefer college football to the NFL. Still, I do appreciate, and consider myself lucky, that I was able to enjoy the entirety of Tom Brady’s career. I can remember his first Super Bowl victory clearly – he was a slow quarterback who had gotten a ton of lucky breaks, but that luck was about to run out. As the narrative went, the Patriots should not have even been there, it should have been the Oakland Raiders, if not for, as the late, great Rush Limbaugh put it, “a silly interpretation of a bogus rule.” Brady and company were expected to be a mere footnote on Kurt Warner and the St. Louis Rams’ “The Greatest Show on Turf” journey as they cemented their legacy as one of the greatest teams ever assembled. But, Brady proved everyone wrong that year, and as hard as it may be to believe now, it actually took several years for Brady to be recognized as one of the greatest to ever play the game. No player will ever be as good and for as long as Brady.

I bring all this up because his life and the details of his divorce shed light into why an entire generation of young men are so jaded in their interactions with women and have no interest in marriage. You see, his wife of 13 years, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen, had an affair with her jiu-jitsu instructor, thus ending their marriage. That she did that is terrible enough in and of itself, but what is even more troubling is her rationale – Tom Brady was not spending enough time with her, instead focusing on football. But all of this should have been expected and part of being married to an all-time great. His drive to succeed is legendary, and as such, he keeps on going long after most men would have quit. Say what you will, but this drive is what separates the very good from the illustrious. The history of the NFL is littered with draft busts who had the talent for greatness, but not the drive. Bündchen’s affair revels just how little loyalty she has, and she really expected to be able to marry someone like Brady but have him home all the time. If you want to marry a rich man, you have to deal with a busy man – the “playboy billionaire” is for the realm of fiction, not reality. And yet, a full-grown adult woman could not comprehend this. After many hours of painstaking research, I have come to the conclusion that she is the worst person of German blood to ever live in South America.

But what is most maddening of all is how the media has handled this – the coverage has been largely, and unsurprisingly, sympathetic towards her, acting as if she had a valid point. Gisele Bündchen thought she could have it all, and not have any of the drawbacks that comes with someone like Brady. It’s an incredibly immature attitude, one that is common in young people, but one they also grow out of. And, the Brady divorce is more proof that any discussion of the “patriarchy” is nothing more than a feminist delusion.  

This event and the media’s coverage of it is yet another example of why so many young men have no interest in marriage. I dislike the nihilism and hatred of women in the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) movement, but to act like it came out of the blue and not a result of a system badly stacked against men is simply intellectual dishonesty. For good reason many young men will look at this story and think: “What’s the point? You can be the greatest of all time and your wife will still say it’s not enough and cheat on you. If she does, it will still be all your fault in the eyes of the media. What chance do I have?” And this cannot be dismissed, had Tom Brady had an affair with a 20-something, the media would have erupted. We would be talking about the “agism” women face for the next few weeks and he likely would have lost multiple endorsement deals. Yes, had he violated his wedding vows, there should be consequences for his actions. But, in the America of 2024, those consequences only go one way.

This is not to say that many men could do a whole lot better. I’ve had many conservative women tell me how hard it is to find a stable man who wants a family and is not addicted to either pornography, weed, or video games (if not all three). But I do think this is a consequence of a society that told several generations of men that they could be discarded and said that they were stupid and only could stand in the way of the greatness of girls. This could only go on for so long before serious societal consequences emerged. Yes, women have the right to be distraught how many men only consider them as sex objects rather than as a wife and potential mother, and we should never forget that many women are, in essence, collateral damage in this societal shift. But these “men” are the result of a society that gave them nothing in marriage, so they opted out.

What happened to Tom Brady will only further push men away. The only way to solve this is by forging a society when men once again have a place and are not considered disposable.

Harmonica