Our society has left young American men behind – villainizing them as toxic and openly discriminating against them – even as countless numbers strive to do the right thing. Increasingly, they face dwindling job opportunities, struggle to start families, and endure a culture that often seems to stigmatize traditional masculinity.
Politically, President Trump has built a coalition that has appealed to these disaffected young men, arguing that the system is rigged against them and that the "forgotten man" has been sacrificed to satisfy the interests of a globalist elite.
The blame for this is often pointed at a shift in our national institutions. Education, particularly higher education, has adopted political and cultural sensibilities that eschew traditional masculine traits like strength. Hollywood, too, has largely replaced iconic alpha-male roles with characters that young men say feel inauthentic to them today. In agrarian and even early industrial eras, men’s superior strength and stamina meant they could always put food on the table, but the “soft social” skills of the office have become the primary currency in a post- industrial age.
Moving past politics, though, there is a deeper, more biological force driving their decline—and it is hidden within their very own bodies.
There’s a reason that most men have low energy and, despite wanting to do everything the right way, still feel stuck and left behind: the havoc that toxic chemicals leaching off every day plastic products have unleashed on their bodies. The sperm counts of men have dropped more than 50 percent since 1973, and testosterone is declining in men of every age, including boys who haven't even finished high school.
The numbers should have triggered a national emergency, but instead, the truth has been suppressed for decades. Many American men are paying the cost, essentially being the victims of a forced chemical castration. Microplastics, which come from plastic packaging, containers, and synthetic materials common in our daily lives, have been found in human testicles, sperm samples, and even in the placentas of newborns. Scientists refer to them as endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with the body's hormone system and lower testosterone production.
Big Chemical, its lobbyists, and industry-financed scientists have sought to dismiss these concerns as "alarmist pseudoscience" or a natural byproduct of modern life. But this is not just a theory. It is supported by peer-reviewed research, confirmed by several studies, and published in major journals. The real question is not whether this is happening, but why it took so long for the people in power to pay attention.
The answer lies with the industry’s efforts to gain regulatory capture. It’s no coincidence that the collapse of men’s health aligns with the rise of the plastic industry and its influence in Washington. The industry routinely funds favorable research it cites while cultivating chummy relationships inside federal regulatory agencies. Two industry lobbyists even hold senior positions within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency that oversees chemical safety, in yet another one of Washington’s versions of the fox guarding the henhouse.
Here is what no one wants to admit: these issues are not independent of each other. For years, the dire issues that men have faced have been framed by society as a cultural problem. That men got too “soft,” or that screen addiction sapped away their ambition. While this may be partly true, the more serious variable is not getting a deep enough look. The depletion of testosterone. The hormone does not simply control a man’s sex drive or muscle mass. It also governs motivation, resilience, and the ingrained will to compete.
A lifetime of exposure to microplastics doesn’t just affect fertility; it also kills their ambition, quietly eroding their motivation to pursue a meaningful life or raise a family.
If we want to make American men healthy again, we need to take immediate action by reforming chemical safety laws and conducting a thorough investigation of the plastic industry lobby.
American men aren’t lazy and unmotivated. They’ve been poisoned by microplastics and then abandoned by the very institutions that were supposed to protect them. If we fix the system, then these men will hopefully be able to fix themselves. But they won’t be able to do it while we keep feeding them poison.