When Did Barbells and Political Hacks Become Sacred?

At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, President Trump posted a home video announcing that he was declaring war on Iran. Many Americans were shocked at the news in part because the Constitution requires congressional approval for taking the nation to war. In the weeks before the attack, the Pentagon press office helped distract public attention by promoting exercise videos.

In his State of the Union speech last week, President Trump proclaimed: “Our military is stacked!” Exhibit A for “stacked” is a new video showing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reportedly bench-pressing 315 pounds. Hegseth is the type of lifter who keeps grunting long after he finishes a lift.

That video helped spur the New York Times to tout the Trump “administration’s very manly week.” A popular Twitter/X account named the Conservative Alternative hailed Hegseth’s lift: “These are the moments that define masculinity, and they are what made Western civilization great.” The bench press video spurred a CNN headline: “This is Trump 2.0, bro. What do you bench?”

I was puzzled by the hoopla because I didn’t think Hegseth’s bench press merited a victory lap. Glenn Jacobs—the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee—has benched 520. Okay, he is the famous wrestler known as Kane, but still—520 is 520. Will Grigg—one of my favorite libertarian writers—posted a video on Facebook of himself doing bench reps with 400+ pounds shortly before his untimely death in 2017 at age 54.

I quipped on Facebook: “I bench-pressed that much when I was in high school. Guys past the age of 30 who fixate on their bench press totals tend to avoid mental heavy lifting.”

Hell hath no fury like hypersensitive weightlifters. A thousand angry comments surged onto my Facebook page. Zealots proclaimed that I was a “bolshevik,” “douchebag,” “fucking moron,” “crybaby leftist,” “soyjak,” “old cnt,” “just being a hater,” “fuckin clown,” plus I suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Everything I say is “filtered through the lens [sic] of my upper class liberal politics” because I “foundered into leftism.”

I hadn’t sparked such a torrent of online outrage since I cast doubts on the sainthood of John Brown. A thunderous chorus proclaimed that I’d never been in the same bench press league as Hegseth. “Show us a video or it didn’t happen!” was the consensus.

Back in the 1970s, when I was in high school, people didn’t make movies of themselves lifting weights. But I did write in Public Policy Hooligan, my 2012 memoir, about how weightlifting transformed my early teenage years.

I started lifting when I was 14 and was soon purchasing 25-pound and 75-pound steel plates to supplement my plastic coated concrete weights. With dogged workouts, my strength initially seemed to double every few months. I inherited some of my brawn from my steelworker grandfather whose favorite saying was that “a man can’t have hair and brains both.”

Lifting helped me be a top finisher for my age class in the Virginia Championship Canoe Races for several years. In early 1972, I finished first in the Virginia Junior Olympics in the 181 pound category for 14-15 year olds in an Olympic weightlifting contest (consisting of three lifts—Standing Press, Snatch, and Clean and Jerk). In May 1972, I competed in a six-state Clean and Jerk lifting contest near Culpeper, Virgina. I’d shed a dozen pounds and competed in the 165 pound class, coming in second after I failed to lock up 190 pounds above my head three times in a row. (The Official Virginia Strength and Power Hall of Fame cites that 1972 Culpeper contest as a memorable event. I don’t have any photos or reports from that contest; if anybody knows of an online link, please let me know).

After that contest, I shifted my sports zeal to throwing discus, which I thought was my best chance to snare a scholarship to college. (Didn’t happen). After my family moved to southwest Virginia, I became good friends with Blacksburg High School classmate Doug Bell, one of Virginia’s top shotputters. He and I dueled with the discus all season long. At the state championship track meet the following May, he finished 6th and I came in 8th. A few weeks later, I finished second in discus at the state Junior Olympics championship.

Towards the end of the school year, Doug and I had a bench press showdown. I was two years older and 30 pounds heavier than when I competed in that Culpeper contest. Neither Doug nor I paused as we hoisted 290 pounds and then 300 and then 310. Doug nailed 320; I got it most of the way but fell a few inches short of locking my elbows. Flipside, Doug couldn’t quite match my @ 500-pound deadlift. (I wrote about that bench press duel last year in my R.I.P. blog post after Doug died).

Even before the disappointing end of my final track season, my zeal for athletic competition was fading. Virginia Tech had a glorious library with open stacks, allowing me to effortlessly migrate from one topic to another and revive my love of reading that government school drudgery had blighted. That library was where I discovered libertarianism, including Murray Rothbard’s monthly column in Reason magazine. I also stumbled upon The Freeman, where I sold my first article three years later.

I was soon spending more time in the library than in the gym and it’s been downhill ever since. I still lift and sometimes I even show up at a track meet. I’ve thrown discus a few times in the Geezer Games—the Maryland Senior Olympics—and came in first statewide once. But like those bench press totals, that doesn’t mean snuff.

Except when politicians and the pro-government media exploit meaningless numbers to validate officialdom and sanctify demands for new power and spending. Hegseth is clamoring for a $500 billion Pentagon spending boost—even though his appointees have no idea how the additional money could be spent. But, just like that 315 bench press, Hegseth says the $500 billion would send “a message to the world.” Will that message make people forget that the Pentagon has failed every financial audit since 2018? And will that $500 billion help Trump break Biden’s records for reckless deficit spending and subverting America’s financial future?

To valorize political hacks, the media defines down athletic triumphs. Gen. David Petraeus endlessly boasted that he could run a six-minute mile. But he moved even faster chasing skirts and betraying national secrets. Petraeus could never have competed with Mises Institute editor Bill Anderson—one of the top mile runners in the nation when he was on the NCAA championship University of Tennessee track team. Hegseth can savor soldiers’ applause in the gym but Glenn Jacobs could toss Hegseth into the peanut gallery without breaking a sweat.

The bench press hoopla distracts from a far greater peril from Washington. Last year, Hegseth compelled all Pentagon correspondents to sign pledges not to disclose anything about the US military that the government did not approve. Scores of media outlets refused to self-censor in perpetuity, and the New York Times is suing to overturn the policy. But a court ruling won’t retroactively protect Americans from political and military lies that Trump, Hegseth, and other officials are using to drag the nation into another disastrous conflict. Secrecy creates a vacuum quickly filled by political lies and government abuses.

By the way, will Hegseth succeed in permanently suppressing the video of the second strike he approved to kill the survivors of a US military attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean? And that wouldn’t be a war crime because he benched 315, right?

Getting and staying strong is a virtue at any age. But putting any political appointee on a pedestal for their pull-ups, push-ups, or bench press encourages people to bow down to guys whose brawn might far exceed their brains. Besides, obsessively focusing on weight lifting numbers can induce delusions of being surrounded by Bolsheviks and “soyjaks.”