The Mark Levin Question: Does He Really Have a Micropenis — Or Just Act Like It?

 


Political media occasionally produces disputes of great intellectual consequence.

The latest involves Megyn Kelly’s insistence that conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin possesses what medical literature refers to as a micropenis.

This is, on its face, an extremely serious allegation. It also presents an obvious methodological problem. The only way to confirm such a claim would involve circumstances so deeply troubling that they would likely require both law enforcement and several very uncomfortable depositions.

Absent such evidence (thankfully), responsible observers must rely on circumstantial indicators. Fortunately, modern political broadcasting offers a rich data set.

For decades, talk radio has functioned as a competitive arena for displays of rhetorical masculinity. Hosts regularly establish dominance through cocksure certainty, volume, and overreliance of portraying opponents not merely as wrong but as corrupt, idiotic, or actively plotting the collapse of the republic.

In this ecosystem, Levin has long distinguished himself as a particularly energetic specimen.

A disclosure is warranted. Both Megyn Kelly and Mark Levin have attacked me, for reasons that remain as mysterious as the allegation at hand. Kelly’s criticism, whatever its merits, was at least coherent. Levin’s was delivered at a volume suggesting the Republic itself was endangered by a media columnist, which in retrospect may support Kelly’s thesis more than anything else she has offered. Oh, Levin also was clearly bothered by being left out of past Mediaite Most Influential Lists, which is…a tell.

Researchers examining the Levin Question™ might begin with the Decibel Dominance Index, a simple measure of how quickly a broadcast escalates from commentary to shouting. Levin scores extremely high by industry standards, often moving from analysis to audible fury in under three minutes.

Next comes the Insult Density Metric, tracking how frequently political adversaries are described as idiots, crackpots, traitors, or some variation of intellectual vermin. Again, Levin performs well above the field, often tracking in the 95th percentile.

Finally there is the Republic-in-Peril Threshold, measuring how quickly a routine policy disagreement becomes evidence that civilization itself is on the brink of collapse. Levin frequently reaches this threshold before the first commercial break. On occasion he appears to reach it during the commercial break, simply from thinking about what he just said.

None of this proves anything about anatomy, of course. Political broadcasting rewards emotional escalation. The louder the outrage, the stronger the audience response. Many successful hosts adopt a similar posture.

But most of them are not also calling women harlots on Sunday morning and signing off with “Shalom.”

Levin’s defenders will say this is simply the nature of talk radio. Outrage is the format’s native language and he is merely a fluent speaker. This is generous. It is also, given the weekend’s events, increasingly difficult to sustain.

The shouting. The insults. The relentless insistence that critics are idiots, traitors, or existential threats to the Republic. His bizarre refusal to look at the camera during his Fox News rants on Life, Liberty and Levin. And now, when a woman fires back in kind, the immediate retreat into gendered biblical shaming. It is a remarkable amount of performance for a man who is very angry about a lot of things, not least of which is which performative political influencers are getting more attention than he is.

No responsible observer can say anything definitive about Mark Levin’s physical endowment without evidence that no civilized person should ever seek.

But insecurity has many expressions. A man so preoccupied with performing dominance — the shouting, the insults, the theatrical fury, the obsessive need to be recognized as the most consequential voice in the room — is, by the available clinical literature, exhibiting behavior consistent with profound anxiety about exactly the thing Megyn Kelly has alleged. And the man who responds to “micropenis” with “harlot” is not, it must be said, projecting confidence.

——

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!

Tags:

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.