leo burghaus

Jordan,

I’m disappointed. You have failed us. You did so much for us, only to leave us stranded on the shore. This time, however, we had seen what the promised land could look like—only for our prophet to abandon us at the gates.

I’ll admit, we were caught in a dream. It was a dream that promised a public figure young men could look up to. You stepped up when we needed it most, when we felt deprived of guidance. Yes, we have our elite athletes, our actors, and our musicians. But these figures, exceptional as they are, offer experiences limited to certain areas of life.

You were different. You were a family man, out of the spotlight, with struggles we could relate to and a deep understanding of our experiences. You gained fame by doing something realistic for us to emulate: speaking up. We might agree or disagree with what you stood for, but it didn’t matter. We finally had someone to identify with—a man who did what he believed was right, even when it brought him and his family nothing but headaches. And you had a message that resonated.

Jordan, you were the one who told us what society refused to: that life is hard, and the only way to bear it is with responsibility. That if we don’t want to be miserable, we must make it our mission to be good men. To stop lying to ourselves. To put our lives in order. To stop comparing ourselves to others and instead compare ourselves to who we were yesterday. To think carefully about who we spend time with, and what we spend time on.

You helped so many of us. You made us better men.

I remember how fulfilled you seemed by it all. How proud you were of the young men who came to you with thousands of stories about how you helped them climb out of terrible situations.

Where did that go, Jordan?

Society never understood you. They opposed you; they called you dangerous. But that didn’t matter to us. Their resistance only made you greater in our eyes. It gave us a common enemy, something to push back against. Our rebellion wasn’t violent—it was a declaration. We would stand tall with our shoulders back, become good men, and draw a line in the sand. We would refuse to do what we believed was wrong.

Some didn’t like that. You made enemies. And they came for you at the worst times—when your wife was battling cancer, when you were struggling with withdrawal syndrome, and when your daughter was fighting her immune diseases. It was cruel and more than anyone should have to endure. It was inhuman to scrutinize a man who was facing death with the people he loved most.

Nobody deserves that.

But what happened, Jordan?

I will never be able to understand the suffering you went through. But aren’t we supposed to emerge stronger from such trials? Aren’t we meant to become better men after enduring them?

So why did you start insulting people for being on the cover of a sports magazine? Why did you sign a major contract with The Daily Wire? Why did you stop seeking common ground and start making enemies? Why did you start playing petty games on Twitter?

It seems the rules you gave us stopped applying to you—you left them behind. Maybe it was the human thing to do after enduring so much. Maybe trying to monetize all the injustice you faced was the rational choice. Maybe, in your position, we would have done the same.

But, Jordan, I feel you failed us. Your work will always influence me and so many others, but you lost us. Worse, you lost the next generation, leaving them to be swayed by figures like Andrew Tate.

I know, Jordan. I know I’ll never fully understand what happened. I know it was our mistake to hold you to impossibly high standards. I know I can’t blame our lack of influential male role models entirely on you.

But Jordan, please, understand this: you were on the path to becoming one of the most influential thinkers of our time. And now, you’ve become a polarizing figure playing the very game we all hate.

I’m sorry, Jordan.

I’m disappointed.