A man who lost 113 pounds over the past year called out MSNBC for a column tying White supremacists and Adolf Hitler to physical fitness.
"Please leave fitness and getting healthy out of the polarization we see in every aspect of American life," Dave Danna, 31, told Fox News. "I can't stress enough how not interested I am in someone's personal politics at the gym."
"My hope is that we can set aside the clickbait articles like this and focus on mental health and physical health and move forward," he continued.
MSNBC columnist Cynthia Miller-Idriss wrote in her piece, "Pandemic fitness trends have gone extreme – literally," that researchers discovered "fascist fitness" groups online that are "radicalizing young men with neo-Nazi and White supremacist extremist ideologies." She said young men are first lured in "with health tips and strategies for positive physical changes" then are later invited to closed chat groups and exposed to far-right content.
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The column, written in 2022, got renewed attention this week after MSNBC tweeted a link to it.
"The far right’s obsession with fitness is going digital," the tweet said.
Danna said it was "disheartening" to see MSNBC dragging exercise, which has provided positivity in his life, into something as "incredibly counterproductive" as American politics.
"I wouldn't want to turn off any segment of the population from joining a gym, from working on their health, because they might not want to be associated with the alt-right – I don't want to be associated with the alt-right either," Danna said. "But that's not what I get from working out."
Danna started his fitness journey in June 2022 after he stepped on the scale and saw an error message because he exceeded the maximum 400-pound limit. A year later, he's down 113 pounds and has gained a following on Twitter from his daily motivational posts about his progress.
"I specifically don't talk about politics, I don't talk about the culture war in my journey," Danna said. "I don't do that specifically because my hope and what I see in the real world 99% of the time is that exercise, fitness, weight loss and health is for everybody."
Although Miller-Idriss acknowledged that fitness is mostly a hobby that is "enjoyable and rewarding for brain health and overall well-being," she said its intersection with extremism "leans into a shared obsession with the male body, training, masculinity, testosterone, strength and competition."
Danna doesn’t think there's anything inherently wrong with masculinity or competition. He said they can often provide "constructive bonding" that helps men both mentally and physically.
"But it's not just men who can exercise and go to the gym, and it's not just about hypermasculinity or competition at all," he added.
Danna said he believes these are popular buzzwords the media uses to get clicks.
"They understand what will get people on both sides riled up, and they use that," he said.
Miller-Idriss also wrote that fitness and violent hypermasculinity have always been central to the far-right and linked physical fitness to Hitler.
"In ‘Mein Kampf,’ Hitler fixated on boxing and jujitsu, believing they could help him create an army of millions," she wrote.
As a Jewish man, Danna said he doesn't appreciate likening anything to Nazi mentality.
"I don't think it's relevant or useful to make that comparison," he told Fox News. "And even if you're going to make it, I think it falls flat of what they were trying to do."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan both tweeted criticism at MSNBC.
"Being healthy is ‘far right.’ Holy f---," Rogan wrote Monday in a tweet that received more than 25 million views.
"MSNBC thinks you’re a nazi if you work out lmaooo," Musk tweeted.
Danna said Americans' deteriorating health is a pressing issue that should be embraced by everyone.
"It's a society-wide issue, and we're going to have to tackle it as such, transcending politics," he said.
MSNBC did not respond to a request for comment.
