New York Times best-selling author Ryan Holiday, the most vocal modern advocate of stoicism, is being lambasted on social media for going against what he preaches by losing his cool over President Trump’s daughter Ivanka publicly promoting Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ stoic philosophy book collection “Meditations.”
Instead of celebrating his belief system being promoted by the president’s daughter, Holiday claimed Ivanka “is not living or acting in accordance with it in any way,” and complained that she hasn’t had “an intervention” with her father, “whose life would be dyed with his horrible, negative, mean bullying thoughts all the time.”
However, as noted by journalist Michael Shellenberger, “what Holiday demands of Ivanka contradicts the stoic philosophy he claims to teach. ‘A man must know many things first,’ wrote Marcus Aurelius in Book 11, ‘before he be able truly and judiciously to judge of another man’s action.’ And yet Holiday does not entertain the possibility that Ivanka has thought carefully about her relationship to her father, that she has considered and rejected the path of public denunciation, or that her loyalty might itself reflect a moral commitment. Instead, he assumes that her silence about her father proves her unethical.”
Throughout the video, “The Daily Stoic” author attacked Ivanka over her father’s actions, which also violates a core tenant of the philosophical system.
Shellenberger explained, “Donald Trump’s tweets, his rallies, his rhetorical style, and his political career are not Ivanka’s to control. The very first sentence of Stoic Epictetus’s Handbook says, ‘Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.’”
Holiday also failed to look at himself in the mirror as his actions and political beliefs are blatantly in opposition to stoicisms teachings.
“Stoicism values humility, emotional control, and loyalty to family,” Shellenberger wrote on social media. “And yet America’s leading popularizer of it, Ryan Holiday, displays none of those qualities in his angry, TDS-fueled condemnation of Ivanka Trump. He displays an arrogance every wisdom tradition warns against.”
Others joined in, blasting Holiday for “crashing out” on Ivanka.
Writer and researcher Josh Wilkos pointed out, “Also Stoicism does not value hyper sexualized, homosexual, mentally deranged men dressing up as caricatures of women and reading children’s books to innocent children,” along with a screenshot of an article noting Holiday’s Texas bookstore hosts drag queen story time events.
Also Stoicism does not value hyper sexualized, homosexual, mentally deranged men dressing up as caricatures of women and reading children’s books to innocent children. pic.twitter.com/8e6NkfLxV6
— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) May 3, 2026
An Italian 𝕏 user blasted Holiday, writing, “That guy Ryan Holiday is what Nietzsche used to call Bildungsphilister, a person who has some education and perhaps formal knowledge about a subject yet he lacks any genuine artistic depth. He is the Oz Pearlman of intellectuals: a low-level con-man like many who pretends to be some sort of enlightened philosopher. Ryan Holiday wrote a bunch of books on ‘Stoicism’ (or what he believes to have understood about Stoicism) without ever reading the Stoics in their original language. He admits, with pride, that he read “many translations”… he never ever even tried to learn ancient Greek?!?”
He added, “He’s a marketer, and a very good one, but like all Bildungsphilister (note the plural is the same as the singular in German for this word) loves to appear smarter than he really is.”
Holiday also went viral this week for his rant against Elon Musk during an October appearance on The Daily Show.
“Elon Musk as a Cautionary Tale of Empathy,” he wrote in a social media post Tuesday, along with a segment of his Daily Show interview.
Bashing Musk, Holiday misquoted the Tesla founder by alleging he told top podcaster Joe Rogan that “Empathy is killing Western civilization,” when Musk actually said “suicidal empathy” is bad and that empathy in general is good.
He continued to suggest Musk’s brain has been broken by social media and that he “now gets his information and his worldview from Russian bots.”
𝕏 users responded to the viral clip by again calling out Holiday’s hypocritical political bias.
During a recent “No Kings March,” Holiday ranted against the Trump administration, labeling officials such as War Secretary Pete Hegseth “a Fox News co-anchor” while intentionally ignoring his military background and dissing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an anti-vaxxer who is to blame for the resurgence of measles.
He also proudly admitted he’s indoctrinating his children, saying his nine-year-old son made a protest sign reading, “Fuck ICE.”
The stoic author is “one of those” liberals who allowed his father’s support of Donald Trump to “strain” their relationship, writing about the situation in a pathetic letter titled, “Dear Dad, Please Don’t Vote For Donald Trump This Time,” and discussing their feud in multiple podcasts.
Holiday’s background is in marketing where he cut his teeth working for American Apparel and used brilliant reverse-psychology tactics to help other marketing clients go viral.
During his time at American Apparel, the marketing guru was behind a strategy to hire barely-legal young women to pose for sexual adverts directed at U.S. youths.
He promoted the 2009 Tucker Max movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, by organizing protests against Max, the author of a book by the same name, and ended up working with dark philosophy strategist and author Robert Greene.
In addition to writing about and promoting stoicism, Holiday also now runs his own marketing firm where he uses “depraved publicity tactics” such as “forging and leaking documents, creating fake Twitter accounts and buying web traffic for blog posts he generated,” according to the New York Times.
The leftist California-born author owns a bookstore in the small Texas town of Bastrop where he enforced mask mandates years after most businesses ditched the draconian COVID regulations, proudly displays trans flags and a pro-abortion “Don’t Tread On Me” sign with a uterus made of a snake.
Most recently, Holiday is being criticized by his local community for engaging in good old-fashioned gentrification by reportedly raising the rent on a black-owned barbershop and forcing the small business to relocate.
While posing as a stoic, Holiday has become a speaker and guru advising NFL coaches, Olympians, hip-hop stars and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
Even people like NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers have endorsed Holiday’s books while likely being unaware of the author’s far-left beliefs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Holiday ironically used Rodgers’ endorsement of his book “The Daily Stoic” to promote the Covid vaccine.
Essentially, the grifting faux-intellectual is profiting off his latest niche while living in a manner that counters the very belief system he promotes.
Head over to TheAlexJonesStore.com where you can purchase great products such as Ultra Methylene Blue, our Electrolyte Drink Mix, Alex Jones Live shirts and hats, Turmeric Gummies and much more!
One Response
Posted 10 hours ago. No comments. It’s over bro. Pack of up.