I wrote my doctoral dissertation on these people and how they developed from old school white nationalism and the French New Right. You can find it freely available online under the title “The Kids Are Alt-Right” at York university if you’re curious.
What a load of dreck. I've spent the majority of my adult life as a proud leftist, showing up for causes and doing far more for the downtrodden of this world than any Jacobin blogger and yet just because I don't fall in behind the current thing I'm part of the "new right"?!? Here's an idea, maybe there's a "new left" - one that doesn't believe in those quaint ideas like the right to bodily autonomy, freedom of expression or being anti-war. A loose coalition of groomer twitch millionaires, smug liberal commentators, racialist hucksters and authoritarian douche bags who rep for shitty geopolitics. Just because Thiel and Yarvin are just as annoyed with that group of shitlibs as people like me doesn't mean we're on the same side. Like a broken clock, those wankers can be right twice a day and still be rubbish. A more interesting and reality based assessment would be something along the lines of "why does America's political system let smug internet commentators think they're clever by calling anyone who disagrees with them a Nazi and right wing just because there's no serious third alternative to the utter shit show of Dems v Republicans?" But since y'all still laughingly think you're "the left", when my ol' grandpop the Irish dissident would have been throwing molotov cocktails through your windows screaming "die fascists" you're never going to ask that one are you. Get off my (leftist) lawn and take your stupid "in this house" signs with you, you sad excuse for corporate propagandists.
Hi Chris, I don't know what you're responding to here, really. I don't think post or the Vanity Fair article is trying to attach a label to anyone who doesn't want it. The people Pogue talks to seem quite willing (eager, even) to take on the mantle of "the New Right." I don't know you from Adam, but the point of this post is to talk about people who are part of a self-defined scene, not just rope in anyone who reads Yarvin, or whatever. I'm just a guy with a Substack; if you want to pick a fight, I suggest going on Twitter.
C'mon man, you just posted a Carl Beijer screed unironically, I kept rereading this piece looking for the punchline and there wasn't one. I subscribed for free because I enjoyed the hilarious tone and canny insights of your previous pieces and my finger has hovered over the paid subscription button numerous times because it _was_ a refreshing break from that hell-site Twitter, but this? I didn't come here for a fight, just some honest feedback from someone who's tired of being cast as a fascist. Just because I still believe the same things I did 10 years ago, and one of those things is that what is going on is _not_ normal, doesn't mean Moldbug and I are pals. Crikey, I hate that guy more than the libs do. If this were an irony-laden reflection on how the media has devolved into calling anyone I don't like is a Nazi in increasingly somber and serious tones, I'd be laughing right along. This self-defined "scene" these articles rabbit on about is just normal people saying "gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out", not exactly Triumph-Of-The-Will stuff. The only irony in your article is that you're uncritically casting this as some sort of anodyne political insight. I'm not here to tell you how to do your job, but even the court jesters got rotten fruit thrown at them when the dropped a stinker.
Yeah, IDK man, the Vanity Fair piece seems to me to be about a really specific group of people who self-identify as "new right" conservatives, not as "normal people saying 'gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out.'" Am I misreading it? The people quoted are, like, John Milius's daughter saying that she's right wing, Honor Levy talking about Curtis Yarvin... and then two prominent right-wing politicians, a prominent right-wing tech investor, a prominent right-wing blogger. Where are the people saying "count me out"? They're all involved in the scene! (Where are the "normal people," for that matter? Everyone quoted is rich and successful.) I mean, I am as annoyed as anyone with breathless Democrat paranoia about Trump, but J.D. Vance quite literally, openly, suggests that Trump should commit a coup if he takes power. I feel like that earns me the right to do some Triumph-of-the-Will stuff, no? Just a little of it, at any rate?
I don't want to read too much into what you're saying, but I feel like we're talking about different articles. From what I can tell the Vanity Fair article is not about "the IDW" or about some vague collection of heterodox liberals—Bari Weiss and Thomas Chatterton Williams and Mark Lilla or whoever—but very specifically about a group of people who describe themselves to Vanity Fair—happily!—as reactionaries. So, like, if you are not a member of that scene, if you don't think of yourself as reactionary, I don't see why you should feel implicated in this post. I feel like I need to say it again: I have no idea who you are, I've never met you, I don't care if you're left-wing or right-wing or whatever. (Thank you for the kind words about the newsletter, though.) I can see you being mad if I was swinging around accusations of fascism at an article that was about people who were iffy on the Democratic party, but that is not the people in this article, at least as far as I can tell. Is there something I'm missing?
i think there is a vestigial impulse in a lot of culture writing and political analysis: there are progressives who now explicitly hate the modern democratic party and "neoliberalism" but also, paradoxically, they remain defensive against other ppl hating the democratic party and neoliberalism (for the "wrong" reasons).
that said, i don't quite see your problem w this particular piece. i think max's questions are fair questions. i think the incoherence he's identifying is in fact a reflection of your point re "gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out." the product of this frustration is a sort of intermissionary political incoherence in american life rn.
Because modern-day fascism goes out of its way to convince itself that it doesn't really exist. I've coined a term for this tendency: fashoid.
Because we've seen the re-emergence and durability of the early mid-20th century fascism, and it tells itself and others that it doesn't exist, opponents of fascism fall into the moral quicksand of labored ethical debates and analysis paralysis. Giving them the opening they need to normalize themselves.
Fascism has also taken on 21st century characteristics. Classic fascism starts with a foundation of ethnic nationalism, as well as idiosyncrasies to make it a totalitarian worldview (it creates a culture, truth, etc.). The 21st century confers nationalism around identities other than nations. The internet has spread white supremacy, the far-right ideology prevalent in the U.S., to all European and European-settled societies. Race is now outcompeting nation as a fastening principle beyond the U.S.
There's also masculinism, the second-largest tribe in the coalition. These are who we call MRAs, MGOTWs, misogynists, et al, and their thinking is the mirror image of feminism, but with the roles reversed. This community is also very large because it is closely allied with religious conservatives and fundamentalists who also conflate feminism with sexual/gender nonconformity and secularism. All of them see Emasculation in All Things.
The smallest is the group we now know as the neoreactionaries, cared for and fed by Peter Thiel. Before Trump, we used to call this clique libertarianism. Their close reading of economists and Ayn Rand led them across the Peter Thiel Memorial Bridge toward Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land.
For any of us not in this camp, we can group these groups under the umbrella of fashoid. Not the pure definition of fascism, not boutique terms like fascist-adjacent, nationalist, identitarian, but an all-encompassing term that accounts for evolution, shared DNA and tribal affinities, and distinctions without a difference.
Proposal for a Q5: Who's swindling who? It's probably easy for the twitch streamers and ketamine krew who have found this "movement" personally profitable to imagine that they'll be able to vibe shift away when the Thielbucks dry up. And it's hard to fathom how the doomed Vance campaign is ROI positive. But I feel like more than a few of them will end up holding the bag when an attempt at provocation goes sour. (See Baked Alaska w/ the Alt-Right). Worth remembering what the origin of the word "brand" is every now and then.
Yup—not just Baked Alaska but Milo, Loomer, Lucian Wintrich (remember him?), even to some extent Cernovich all crashed and burned. (And got memory-holed by all of us journalists who were writing about them.) It's amazing both how quickly a new cadre of edgy, suspiciously well-funded shitposters has emerged, and how little both they and we (again, journalists) seem to have learned from what happened with the last bunch.
I wrote my doctoral dissertation on these people and how they developed from old school white nationalism and the French New Right. You can find it freely available online under the title “The Kids Are Alt-Right” at York university if you’re curious.
I have your dissertation bookmarked. Your work is greatly appreciated.
Google, Only More Racistly: a memoir
Fascists.
in a more just world, you would have 12x the audience of fuckin'... weiss and those other shitheads.
The tradeoff would be that the conversations would get at least 12x more insufferable.
What a load of dreck. I've spent the majority of my adult life as a proud leftist, showing up for causes and doing far more for the downtrodden of this world than any Jacobin blogger and yet just because I don't fall in behind the current thing I'm part of the "new right"?!? Here's an idea, maybe there's a "new left" - one that doesn't believe in those quaint ideas like the right to bodily autonomy, freedom of expression or being anti-war. A loose coalition of groomer twitch millionaires, smug liberal commentators, racialist hucksters and authoritarian douche bags who rep for shitty geopolitics. Just because Thiel and Yarvin are just as annoyed with that group of shitlibs as people like me doesn't mean we're on the same side. Like a broken clock, those wankers can be right twice a day and still be rubbish. A more interesting and reality based assessment would be something along the lines of "why does America's political system let smug internet commentators think they're clever by calling anyone who disagrees with them a Nazi and right wing just because there's no serious third alternative to the utter shit show of Dems v Republicans?" But since y'all still laughingly think you're "the left", when my ol' grandpop the Irish dissident would have been throwing molotov cocktails through your windows screaming "die fascists" you're never going to ask that one are you. Get off my (leftist) lawn and take your stupid "in this house" signs with you, you sad excuse for corporate propagandists.
Hi Chris, I don't know what you're responding to here, really. I don't think post or the Vanity Fair article is trying to attach a label to anyone who doesn't want it. The people Pogue talks to seem quite willing (eager, even) to take on the mantle of "the New Right." I don't know you from Adam, but the point of this post is to talk about people who are part of a self-defined scene, not just rope in anyone who reads Yarvin, or whatever. I'm just a guy with a Substack; if you want to pick a fight, I suggest going on Twitter.
C'mon man, you just posted a Carl Beijer screed unironically, I kept rereading this piece looking for the punchline and there wasn't one. I subscribed for free because I enjoyed the hilarious tone and canny insights of your previous pieces and my finger has hovered over the paid subscription button numerous times because it _was_ a refreshing break from that hell-site Twitter, but this? I didn't come here for a fight, just some honest feedback from someone who's tired of being cast as a fascist. Just because I still believe the same things I did 10 years ago, and one of those things is that what is going on is _not_ normal, doesn't mean Moldbug and I are pals. Crikey, I hate that guy more than the libs do. If this were an irony-laden reflection on how the media has devolved into calling anyone I don't like is a Nazi in increasingly somber and serious tones, I'd be laughing right along. This self-defined "scene" these articles rabbit on about is just normal people saying "gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out", not exactly Triumph-Of-The-Will stuff. The only irony in your article is that you're uncritically casting this as some sort of anodyne political insight. I'm not here to tell you how to do your job, but even the court jesters got rotten fruit thrown at them when the dropped a stinker.
Yeah, IDK man, the Vanity Fair piece seems to me to be about a really specific group of people who self-identify as "new right" conservatives, not as "normal people saying 'gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out.'" Am I misreading it? The people quoted are, like, John Milius's daughter saying that she's right wing, Honor Levy talking about Curtis Yarvin... and then two prominent right-wing politicians, a prominent right-wing tech investor, a prominent right-wing blogger. Where are the people saying "count me out"? They're all involved in the scene! (Where are the "normal people," for that matter? Everyone quoted is rich and successful.) I mean, I am as annoyed as anyone with breathless Democrat paranoia about Trump, but J.D. Vance quite literally, openly, suggests that Trump should commit a coup if he takes power. I feel like that earns me the right to do some Triumph-of-the-Will stuff, no? Just a little of it, at any rate?
I don't want to read too much into what you're saying, but I feel like we're talking about different articles. From what I can tell the Vanity Fair article is not about "the IDW" or about some vague collection of heterodox liberals—Bari Weiss and Thomas Chatterton Williams and Mark Lilla or whoever—but very specifically about a group of people who describe themselves to Vanity Fair—happily!—as reactionaries. So, like, if you are not a member of that scene, if you don't think of yourself as reactionary, I don't see why you should feel implicated in this post. I feel like I need to say it again: I have no idea who you are, I've never met you, I don't care if you're left-wing or right-wing or whatever. (Thank you for the kind words about the newsletter, though.) I can see you being mad if I was swinging around accusations of fascism at an article that was about people who were iffy on the Democratic party, but that is not the people in this article, at least as far as I can tell. Is there something I'm missing?
i think there is a vestigial impulse in a lot of culture writing and political analysis: there are progressives who now explicitly hate the modern democratic party and "neoliberalism" but also, paradoxically, they remain defensive against other ppl hating the democratic party and neoliberalism (for the "wrong" reasons).
that said, i don't quite see your problem w this particular piece. i think max's questions are fair questions. i think the incoherence he's identifying is in fact a reflection of your point re "gee, I guess if that's what the left and right believes these days, count me out." the product of this frustration is a sort of intermissionary political incoherence in american life rn.
The last question is the key one. Why do we have to keep coming up with new names for the people who want to get rid of democracy?
Because modern-day fascism goes out of its way to convince itself that it doesn't really exist. I've coined a term for this tendency: fashoid.
Because we've seen the re-emergence and durability of the early mid-20th century fascism, and it tells itself and others that it doesn't exist, opponents of fascism fall into the moral quicksand of labored ethical debates and analysis paralysis. Giving them the opening they need to normalize themselves.
Fascism has also taken on 21st century characteristics. Classic fascism starts with a foundation of ethnic nationalism, as well as idiosyncrasies to make it a totalitarian worldview (it creates a culture, truth, etc.). The 21st century confers nationalism around identities other than nations. The internet has spread white supremacy, the far-right ideology prevalent in the U.S., to all European and European-settled societies. Race is now outcompeting nation as a fastening principle beyond the U.S.
There's also masculinism, the second-largest tribe in the coalition. These are who we call MRAs, MGOTWs, misogynists, et al, and their thinking is the mirror image of feminism, but with the roles reversed. This community is also very large because it is closely allied with religious conservatives and fundamentalists who also conflate feminism with sexual/gender nonconformity and secularism. All of them see Emasculation in All Things.
The smallest is the group we now know as the neoreactionaries, cared for and fed by Peter Thiel. Before Trump, we used to call this clique libertarianism. Their close reading of economists and Ayn Rand led them across the Peter Thiel Memorial Bridge toward Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land.
For any of us not in this camp, we can group these groups under the umbrella of fashoid. Not the pure definition of fascism, not boutique terms like fascist-adjacent, nationalist, identitarian, but an all-encompassing term that accounts for evolution, shared DNA and tribal affinities, and distinctions without a difference.
Proposal for a Q5: Who's swindling who? It's probably easy for the twitch streamers and ketamine krew who have found this "movement" personally profitable to imagine that they'll be able to vibe shift away when the Thielbucks dry up. And it's hard to fathom how the doomed Vance campaign is ROI positive. But I feel like more than a few of them will end up holding the bag when an attempt at provocation goes sour. (See Baked Alaska w/ the Alt-Right). Worth remembering what the origin of the word "brand" is every now and then.
Yup—not just Baked Alaska but Milo, Loomer, Lucian Wintrich (remember him?), even to some extent Cernovich all crashed and burned. (And got memory-holed by all of us journalists who were writing about them.) It's amazing both how quickly a new cadre of edgy, suspiciously well-funded shitposters has emerged, and how little both they and we (again, journalists) seem to have learned from what happened with the last bunch.