What RFK Jr. Doing Shirtless Pushups Says About the 2024 Election
Do topless “tough guys” really make for better leaders?
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Twitter was abuzz on Sunday after video and photos of a shirtless Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doing pushups and incline bench-presses outside Venice Beach’s Gold’s Gym started popping up in social media timelines. The caption on the pushup video shared by RFK Jr., read: “Getting in shape for my debates with President Biden!”
Reactions ranged from accusations of steroid use (there’s no evidence of that, but it would be plenty ironic if true, considering his anti-vaxx stance), to fans gushing that he’s the most “jacked presidential candidate” in history, to critics mocking how little he can lift. Others suggested that the obsession with Kennedy’s alpha male status was evidence of “crypto homoeroticism” on the right (see the many photoshopped pics of a muscular Donald Trump). . ."
Super Buff RFK JR Posts WORKOUT Vid; Dares Biden To Debate Him: Rising 9,130 views Premiered 78 minutes ago #Biden #2024
From RFK Jr.’s Shirtless Workout to Elon’s Cage Match: It’s Been a Big Week for the Man Boys Spoiling for a Fight
- In antiquity, they wrestled it out.
- In the Middle Ages, there was the joust.
- In the Industrial Age, we had our pistol duels.
- Times being remarkably online as they are now, men are challenging each other to debates. Occasionally, when, say, a Paul brother is involved, these debates still occur with fists in front of an audience, but by and large, “debate me” has become the “shall we settle this outside” of our times.
- It’s nice that modern men get to participate in a grand Western tradition, though also a little sad that we are in the umpteenth century of men toiling under the impression that shouting for a big, public fight is good instead of strange and small. Let’s look at some recent trends in the space of dudes challenging dudes.
- Why? Well, he’d like to be the next Democratic president of these United States. Why would Mr. Kennedy operate under the impression that doing push-ups with his nips out will help his chances of becoming president of these United States? As we learned from the last long-shot failson to make it into the White House, it probably doesn’t hurt to put the pec in spectacle. (For the record, said previous long-shot failson has seriously divergent views on the relative benefits of physical activity.)
Speaking of spectacle, Elon Musk recently started starting something too. The owner of Tesla and Twitter last week responded to some guy’s post about Meta reportedly creating a Twitter-like product under its banner, with another commenter suggesting a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO.
“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk said. Sometimes he makes his little jokes and his reply guys say, “Yay,” and everyone else whose desk it crosses says, “It’s weird he didn’t get all this silly energy out at grade seven, but here we are I suppose.”
- This could have been just another day of Musk saying stuff on the internet, but then Zuck replied by posting on Instagram, which is owned by Meta, “send me location.” A spokesperson for Meta told The Verge, “The story speaks for itself,” meaning it is not just two guys shitposting at each other. Unless you believe it is. Some real, clear messaging from the owners of two of the largest messaging platforms in human existence.
The thing is, this makes a lot of sense—though maybe not in a way Elon or Zuck would like. If you, by hook or more likely by crook, reach an income that is a certain percentage of your lowest paid employee’s income, you should be automatically entered into a Hunger Games-style cage match for the benefit of everyone else’s entertainment. Listen, the fight can be on a yacht, if you like. It can be in Las Vegas, as this one is supposedly going to be. (Musk replied to Zuck’s call for a location with “Vegas Octagon.”) But you should have to commit your life to fighting other mega-elites with your fists.
Musk’s mother, Maye Musk, disagrees with the wisdom of a fight in general. She insisted in a tweet that the “fight is canceled,” and later tried to appeal to her son’s self-perception as a guy who is funny by suggesting, “A verbal fight only. Three questions each. The funniest answers win. Who agrees?”
Not
me! I don’t agree, Ma Musk. Three questions isn’t going to do it. They
must fight to the death. On this there can be no debate."
.jfif)
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