How New Is the New Right?
Who is the New Right? That is the question at the heart of James Pogue's engrossing and somewhat disturbing story for Vanity Fair. To answer this question, Pogue covers the influence Peter Thiel has on this budding group of "rich crypto bros and tech executives to back-to-the-landers to disaffected members of the American intellectual class." Pogue's story takes him to the halls of Thiel's National Conservatism Conference, where he helps trace how the New Right is becoming, at least in their minds, the new counter-culture.
In his reporting, Pogue shows that part of what is driving some on the New Right is a reaction against the world as it is. While the group does include a somewhat wide variety of people, including former Bernie Sanders voters to Rod Dreher, they do share the common view "that individualist liberal ideology, increasingly bureaucratic governments, and big tech are all combining into a world that is at once tyrannical, chaotic, and devoid of the systems of value and morality that give human life richness and meaning." Pogue spends a good chunk of time attempting to explain the thoughts and writing of Curtis Yarvin, the "Prophet," behind the world-historical critique and buzz words of the New Right.
While Yarvin is an intriguing individual in his own right, the most disturbing reporting Pogue does is on JD Vance, who is currently tied for the lead with Josh Mandel in Ohio's GOP Senate primary. Vance tells Pogue that Conservatives should not just wait for the Left to fail, saving what they can so that they can rebuild. Instead, Vance argues that the Right should use the Left's institutions against themselves. Vance would like to see a second Trump term in 2024 where Trump fires all government bureaucrats and replaces them with Trump loyalists (this is an idea from Yarvin known as RAGE or Retire All Government Employees). Vance acknowledges that the courts are likely to challenge the legality of this type of action but thinks Trump should channel his inner Andrew Jackson when Jackson supposedly defied SCOTUS' ruling in Worcester v. Georgia by saying, "the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it," which led to the infamous “Trail of Tears.”
This is not normal politics. As Pogue writes, "This is a description, essentially, of a coup." Or, as Anne Applebaum noted on Twitter, the New Right sounds quite a bit like the old Bolsheviks in their desire to destroy a corrupt political system and replace it with a better one run by new elites. It is impossible to say whether or not the ideas of Yarvin were in the minds of Trump and his supporters in Congress during the events of Jan 6. Still, it is not hard to see how what Vance is proposing is a kinder, gentler attempt to overthrow the government than storming the Capitol. And given recent reports on GOP texts before, during, and after Jan 6, there are elected officials who would, at least, not try to stop Trump if he attempted Vance's plan. In short, the main thing that is new about the New Right is the façade of respectability they use to hide behind the old authoritarian impulses Trump and his supporters have always had.
3 More Things
1) The Chicago Tribune has an plea for public schools to include information literacy classes from Victor Shi, a sophomore at UCLA. Shi's overall point is that our public schools need to catch up with the times. Gone are the days when all of America agrees on what the facts are for any given news story. Between newspapers, talk radio, network news shows, cable news and opinion shows, social media, and the internet, Americans have never had more options for where to get news. It would be a service to our nation to have public schools give "students the tools necessary to effectively navigate the information ecosystem and discern fact from fiction."
2) Reid J. Epstein and Jonathan Weisman's latest for the New York Times attempts to understand why Democrats are not running on saving democracy in 2022. In short, message fatigue and a deeper concern about inflation, the economy, and rising costs of goods. Epstein and Weisman report that Democrats appear to have ceded the voting rights messaging to Republicans because there is an overarching fear that if Democrats can not put forward a plan to address voters' economic concerns, they won't be in power to do anything about voter rights anyway.
3) Evangelical Churches continue to be a source of spreading disinformation about the 2020 election, according to the New York Times' Charles Homans. Homans reports on several churches, like Colorado Springs' Church for All Nations, who have invited speakers like Mike Flynn and organizations like the U.S. Election Integrity Plan and F.E.C. United to continue pushing election conspiracies. While these churches may be small, like Greg Locke's Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., they are still playing a part in spreading disproven, conspiracy-laden claims, and it does not seem as if many wish to stop any time soon.