'Alpha Energy' Is Not What You Think It Is

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, with his mountainous biceps and Superman chest and what brainrotted zoomers might call his gigachad jawline, is widely misunderstood as a relentless, unapologetic asshole – the emobodiment of all things alpha male. 

Campbell yells himself hoarse and sweats through his shirt within eight minutes of a game’s kickoff and clenches that gigachad jaw in ways that make one wonder how his molars don’t crack into ten thousand pieces every Sunday afternoon. He stares holes through referees. He introduced himself to the NFL world in 2021 by working himself into a sweaty frenzy during a press conference and telling reporters that his players would bite off the kneecaps of opponents, whatever it took to secure a win for the (until then) eternally down-and-out Lions. 

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So I get why Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan would invoke Campbell in her call for Democratic elected officials to embrace “alpha energy” in countering the authoritarian Trump regime. 

From Politico: 

In the first of a series of speeches about the Democratic Party’s path out of the wilderness, the Michigan senator said she will span everything from strategy to tactics and tone, acknowledging public perception of the party as “weak and woke” needs to change. She is urging Democrats to “fucking retake the flag” with appeals to voters’ sense of patriotism, to adopt “the goddamn alpha energy” of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell and to embrace an “airing out” of potential 2028 presidential candidates in a broadly contested primary. Slotkin’s description of the speech as a “war plan” came in a recorded dry-run of the remarks viewed by POLITICO. In an interview, she hedged on whether she would continue to call it that, saying “it’s a military-style operational plan. I don’t understand how to rally us into a coherent approach if we aren’t on the same page on where we’re going.”

Slotkin, a first-term senator and former CIA analyst who gave a thoroughly uninspiring State of the Union rebuttal back in February, is half right. Maybe one-third right. OK, maybe like 22 percent right. Bad Faith Times interns are looking strongly into the calculations. 

Forget for a moment that Slotkin’s coarse language is so contrived and focus-group tested as to be painful to hear – “Elissa, men age 21-30 say we need more fucks” – and hear what she’s actually saying here: Being “woke,” holding progressive views about the basic rights of marginalized groups being attacked by the federal government, is “weak,” and the only alternative to this weakness is to embrace the so-called alpha behavior that defines the most obscene and hateful politicians and online influencers. 

Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Lex Fridman: All of these guys consider themselves to be alpha males as a way to excuse their hideous behavior and tell immature men they too can be deeply irresponsible, hate-filled, society-destroying monsters if they do it in the name of alpha energy. Weak, self loathing, and plagued by soul-devouring insecurity, these men have turned “alpha male” into a catchall term for behaving like a child, being proudly ignorant, and safeguarding the hierarchy of power that they feel is threatened by women going to college and wearing pants. 

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Slotkin saying Democrats need to adopt this vicious, backward mindset is wrong for two reasons: It only validates the alpha bros’ view of politics and the world, and it does not mesh with liberal politics in any way. It runs counter to progressivism. What folks think of the alpha mindset should be the enemy of the left, a toxic personality trait that should be sidelined, far from the political and cultural mainstream, where it has radicalized an entire generation of young guys with phone addiction. 

I don’t particularly like Slotkin’s politics or demeanor, if you couldn’t tell. She appears to be a continuation of failed milquetoast Democratic Party strategy that had no chance to fend off the fascist threat, and whose primary plan was to never lose another presidential election and simply manage the erosion of the American empire with the most technocratic and bloodless policies imaginable. 

Slotkin says she can’t embrace the politics of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, one of the few elected Dems who understands we are now in a system of competitive authoritarianism, because Michigan is a “purple” state. A state like Michigan is only considered purple because focus group-centric politicians like Slotkin pretend centrism – whatever that means to you – is the only way to get elected. AOC’s unabashed populism, Slotkin should know, works anywhere and everywhere, even in the reddest, most Trump-worshipping counties in America. Slotkin chooses not to see this; it is too inconvenient for her brand of politics. Michigan is a purple state only because Democrats like Slotkin want it to be. 

Dan Campbell is not “alpha” in the sense that women-hating leaders of the fascist-creation machine known as the Manosphere are “alpha.” Campbell, by all accounts, has created a nurturing environment for Lions players and coaches over his four seasons as Detroit’s head coach. He deeply cares for his guys, shedding postgame tears after they suffer catastrophic injuries on the gridiron and supporting his staff with such attention and dedication that highly sought-after assistant coaches have remained under Campbell’s wing years after they could have landed a prestigious head coaching gig. 

Campbell is a caretaker. His is a positive masculinity. He exudes love and fierce commitment to everyone in the Lions organization. In this way Campbell is indeed alpha, but not in the way Andrew Tate means it when he says women were made by god to make him a sandwich. Campbell is actually alpha, the way dogs and wolves become the alphas of their groups. Researchers have written extensively about the caretaking of the alpha male or female in nature, emphasizing for anyone who will listen that “being alpha is not synonymous with being highly aggressive, domineering, or violent.”

Dogs and wolves, according to folks who dedicate their lives studying these things, become leaders not by maiming and killing and dominating, but by urging cooperation and being a good example to other adults in the pack. Campbell has done just that in Detroit, and his actual alpha approach has turned a flaming-heap-of-tires franchise into one of the best in pro sports. 

“I truly believe he cares about my well-being, cares about my family’s well-being,” Ben Johnson, a former Campbell assistant who recently took the head coaching job for the Bears, told The Ringer in 2021. “He makes it to where you come into work every day and there’s no fear; it’s all love. And as a coach working for him, man, I don’t want to disappoint him. That would crush me. If I knew that I disappointed him … he wouldn’t have to yell. He wouldn’t have to say anything. Just knowing that I let him down would do it.” 

It’s all love. He cares about my well being. He cares for my family. This does not sound like Elon Musk or Joe Rogan or others who have claimed the alpha mantle as a means of being the biggest possible asshole? Does this sound like the domineering ethos of the worst men humanity has to offer?

Campbell is indeed an alpha worth emulating, but not in the way Slotkin meant it.

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.