Mr. Right Has Some Ideas for American Men

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Last summer, Dylan Housman and John Loftus, both top editors at the Daily Caller, set out to add their voices to the growing chorus of conservatives anxious about the state of the American male. The two men—writing under the guise of a “masculinity consultant” dubbed Mr. Right—launched a free weekly newsletter (also called Mr. Right) that would address, as Housman put it, the “crisis about masculinity and how young men should conduct themselves in navigating society.”

Mr. Right is aimed at men struggling to find partners, lagging in higher education, or having a hard time entering the job market—and offers an array of edgy, if predictably right-leaning, solutions. In a preview issue designed to entice subscribers, the authors point to the example of Israel, and argue that America should impose a year or two of mandatory service between high school and college (which they refer to as “Hamas Comms Team Factories”). For most men, this would presumably entail military service, but for “the hippies” they suggest joining the Peace Corps. “That could solve a lot of problems we’re facing,” they write—not to mention that it would prove “useful in the event your country finds itself suddenly in a war.”

Housman, who is the Daily Caller’s editor in chief, told CJR he believes that American men are undergoing an “extended adolescence,” characterized by delayed traditional milestones of adulthood. “They’re not getting married and they’re not having kids as early as they used to,” he said. (Housman, who is twenty-seven, is in a long-term relationship.) He also believes that young men are not being served well by popular existing models of masculinity, including the controversial figure Andrew Tate, who’s made a name for himself by promoting a hyper-masculine, often misogynistic, worldview. (Housman calls that “problematic.”) These creators, Housman said, “take these young men that are feeling frustrated or having issues and send them on one path”; Mr. Right offers a path “that we think is better.”

In a recent newsletter, for instance, Mr. Right took aim at the culture of “optimization” that’s become popular among right-leaning workout influencers. “There is no perfect or optimized morning routine,” he wrote. “And trying to live the perfect, optimized life is not masculine.” In other columns online, which are published separately from the newsletter, Mr. Right suggested that real men should learn how to dance—like Donald Trump: “Men should have a few dance moves, fun ones but not overly flamboyant, that they can deploy at a moment’s notice.” Mr. Right has criticized the Colombian president for comparing cocaine to alcohol (“comparing some nasal snow to amber hooch is like comparing European football to American football”), and assailed a professional golfer for wearing sweats on the course (“Even if you are on a boys’ golf trip in Scottsdale, Arizona…you still show up to the links the next morning with at least a polo shirt”). The column also has some pointed advice for women: “Whipping out ‘Mommy Milkers’ online won’t help Trump win Pennsylvania,” read one headline; the newsletter about mandating a year of service suggested that women “could become domestic au pairs.” Housman says the newsletter has “tens of thousands” of readers, but declined to get into specifics.

Longtime readers of the Daily Caller will be familiar with the overall theme. Tucker Carlson, who founded the Caller with his business partner Neil Patel in 2010, before divesting in 2020 to focus on the show he had then on Fox News, frequently discusses the topic of masculinity; in 2022, he released a documentary called The End of Men, about a supposed decline in testosterone levels and fertility rates. Carlson’s prescription, like that of many of today’s manosphere influencers, involves its own pseudoscientific treatments, like “testicle tanning” with infrared light.

Housman describes himself as being intrigued by those so-called “bromeopathic” remedies (“taking cold showers, taking certain supplements, things like that”) but says he tries to steer the newsletter clear of offering that kind of advice. “I’m not a doctor, so I don’t have all the answers,” he said. “I think masculinity is more about your attitude and your approach to life and, you know, building family and things like that. I don’t think you can take some supplement to make you more masculine or something.”

There is one product in which Mr. Right and Carlson share an interest: nicotine. In 2023, during an appearance on Theo Von’s popular podcast, Carlson described the nicotine pouch brand Zyn as “a powerful work enhancer, and also a male enhancer, if you know what I mean.” Mr. Right, whose logo features a cigarette-smoking man with a thick mustache, has also celebrated Zyn as “the fuel that keeps American men running.” But Carlson broke from Zyn last year (“It’s not a brand for men,” he told the Wall Street Journal) and, with Patel, founded a competing pouch company, called Alp. Soon, Mr. Right praised Alp as “absolutely electric,” like “listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Wet Sand guitar solo for the first time.” The newsletter disclosed that Patel is the majority owner of the Daily Caller—but neglected to mention that he is also an owner of Alp. Be that as it may, Housman said, the newsletter’s endorsement is “the opposite of a conflict of interest,” since Mr. Right prefers cigarettes.

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