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The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics
The definitive firsthand account of the movement that permanently broke the American political consensus.
What do internet trolls, economic populists, white nationalists, techno-anarchists and Alex Jones have in common? Nothing, except for an unremitting hatred of evangelical progressivism and the so-called "Cathedral" from whence it pours forth.
Contrary to the dissembling explanations from the corporate press, this movement did not emerge overnight--nor are its varied subgroups in any sense interchangeable with one another. As united by their opposition as they are divided by their goals, the members of the New Right are willfully suspicious of those in the mainstream who would seek to tell their story. Fortunately, author Michael Malice was there from the very inception, and in The New Right recounts their tale from the beginning.
Malice provides an authoritative and unbiased portrait of the New Right as a movement of ideas--ideas that he traces to surprisingly diverse ideological roots. From the heterodox right wing of the 1940s to the Buchanan/Rothbard alliance of 1992 and all the way through to what he witnessed personally in Charlottesville, The New Right is a thorough firsthand accounting of the concepts, characters and chronology of this widely misunderstood sociopolitical phenomenon.
Today's fringe is tomorrow's orthodoxy. As entertaining as it is informative, The New Right is required reading for every American across the spectrum who would like to learn more about the past, present and future of our divided political culture.
What do internet trolls, economic populists, white nationalists, techno-anarchists and Alex Jones have in common? Nothing, except for an unremitting hatred of evangelical progressivism and the so-called "Cathedral" from whence it pours forth.
Contrary to the dissembling explanations from the corporate press, this movement did not emerge overnight--nor are its varied subgroups in any sense interchangeable with one another. As united by their opposition as they are divided by their goals, the members of the New Right are willfully suspicious of those in the mainstream who would seek to tell their story. Fortunately, author Michael Malice was there from the very inception, and in The New Right recounts their tale from the beginning.
Malice provides an authoritative and unbiased portrait of the New Right as a movement of ideas--ideas that he traces to surprisingly diverse ideological roots. From the heterodox right wing of the 1940s to the Buchanan/Rothbard alliance of 1992 and all the way through to what he witnessed personally in Charlottesville, The New Right is a thorough firsthand accounting of the concepts, characters and chronology of this widely misunderstood sociopolitical phenomenon.
Today's fringe is tomorrow's orthodoxy. As entertaining as it is informative, The New Right is required reading for every American across the spectrum who would like to learn more about the past, present and future of our divided political culture.
307 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2019
About the author
Michael Malice
14 books2,857 followersMichael Malice is the author of
The White Pill,
The New Right,
The Anarchist Handbook,
and
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.
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July 27, 2019
The American conservative movement is traditionally dated to 1955, the date William F. Buckley started "National Review" to “stand athwart history.” For decades, conservatives looked back to that event as some combination of Moses parting the Red Sea and Prometheus bringing fire to Man. Some still do, dreaming misty-eyed of the past as they fumble for their dentures. But it is obvious, in retrospect, that nothing Buckley did ever accomplished anything. On the contrary, he and his myrmidons, like Judas, delivered America bound into the hands of its enemies.
That probably wasn’t their intent (though it’s hard to shake the feeling that it is the intent of Buckley’s putative successors, midgets and nonentities like Jonah Goldberg and David French). Regardless, there are many fresh voices on the Right who are keenly interested in freeing us from our chains and restoring the Republic, or, in the more likely alternative, moving on to something new. Broadly speaking, these people can be called post-liberals and here, in "The New Right," Michael Malice profiles some of them. To my regret, the ones he profiles are all clowns. Worse, it seems disturbingly likely that most post-liberals are clowns. But not all, and I will return to which ones are not, and what that means—even though you will not find them in this book.
Something structural about this book kept bothering me. It felt rambling, yet it wasn’t obviously incoherent. Then, watching Malice on the Joe Rogan podcast, it hit me. This is basically a podcast, an unscripted conversation, in print. It covers different topics in a somewhat unpredictable manner; not exactly disorganized, but far from crisp. "The New Right" is essentially a rambling talk between Michael Malice and himself. That substantially weakens the book, which could have been a lot more if it had been tightened up and had clear points to make. Instead, it’s basically meandering exposition, and frustrating to read. Really, this book is in many ways a lowbrow version of George Hawley’s outstanding 2016 "Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism," which is a far better book to read if you are looking for actual, coherent information about these currents on the Right.
But "The New Right" is not awful, even if I am not sure why I subjected myself to another book about the topic of Right splinter movements. Malice, who views himself as an anarchist and is no way conservative, has a sharp eye and a willingness to spend time with pretty much any kind of person—including those who dislike him as a “New York Jew.” Malice doesn’t see the New Right as powerful, but as the leading edge of both “innovation and insanity.” Nothing may come of it, or the next big thing may come of it. Exploring that possibility requires talking neutrally to some people who are “irredeemable, horrible people,” though Malice doesn’t seem to apply that label to any of the people he actually met (even if he’s understandably annoyed at his constant pigeonholing as “the Jew”).
“Alt-Right” was created by Hillary Clinton as a political attack term, designed to be infinitely flexible so as to tie the conservative mainstream to whatever fringe figure was most being painted as the Devil at that moment. Like “fake news,” it was then repurposed by its targets, but also continues to be used by the Left as a meaningless propaganda term. Malice solves this nomenclature problem by defining “Alt-Right” as a subset of “New Right,” really his own term, “A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.” Embodied within this is an apocalyptic, zero-sum tendency; someone on the Right who objects to progressivism in toto but doesn’t see it as seeking “totalitarian world domination” or “globalist hegemony” therefore isn’t New Right. In my own typology of post-liberals, the New Right is not Augustans, whose focus is use of power to create something new that is informed by the past, but a facet of the so-called Dark Enlightenment, who focus on theory as the basis for creating something totally new, and usually insane, because divorced from actual human nature.
The author begins, in 2011, with something called the Trollboard, a private Facebook group to which he was invited, devoted to anarchism in the Murray Rothbard mold—“anarcho-capitalists,” who are also admirers of the still-living Hans-Hermann Hoppe. These discussions introduced him to new lines of right-wing thought. One was that of the Dark Enlightenment (a name not much used anymore) of whom Curtis Yarvin, whose pseudonym was Mencius Moldbug, was the most prominent member. As I have discussed at length, Yarvin offers the most thought-out alternative political system of anyone in the New Right, and is the author of the sole original concept from this group to reach broader use—the “Cathedral,” the complex of leftist organizations that dominate our society. Yarvin does not get much play here, and Malice did not talk to him, though he lurks in the background of some of his other discussions. But on the Trollboard, and in meetings with people he met through it, Malice was introduced to a wide variety of other groups, each with its own focus, and from that sprang this book.
Actually, “groups” is a misnomer. As far as I can tell, nearly all the groups Malice talks about are merely habitués of particular websites, around which a very modern type of community forms. Malice specifically mentions among many others, Xenosystems, the latter a now-dormant site that seems to mostly exist as a cross-reference for sites on the fringe Right. None of these are political organizations in the traditional sense, not even to the degree the anarcho-capitalists were in the 1960s and 1970s. That may make them even more farcical, or it may be a harbinger of how movements are created nowadays—I’m not sure, though I suspect the former. It does mean, as Malice points out, that the movement is mostly decentralized, so that taking out or deplatforming one apparent leader has little effect.
After this brief overview, Malice moves backward, talking of the Old Right, primarily what was once called paleoconservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan. He reached his apogee in 1992, when he was a serious Presidential candidate, and thundered, to the horror of the low-energy Bush Republicans, a prescient speech about the culture war which, he failed to realize, he had already lost. Buchanan’s timing was flawed—1992 was also the apogee of liberal democracy, the apparent triumph of Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, when even many conservatives believed we, the West, had won the future and the only thing necessary was making sure we had a bit more George Washington and a bit less Margaret Sanger.
In Malice’s telling, in which he wants to draw a line between Old Right and New Right, the Old Right was mostly fringe. But that is not true, even if a few members of it were purged by Buckley. The Old Right was one part, the dominant part, of National Review until perhaps twenty years ago. True, they failed at the task they set themselves, but still remain relevant, and many are morphing into new types of post-liberals, none of whom are New Right in the Malice definition. Buchanan is still alive, after all, and writes occasionally for the non-fringe and non-New Right The American Conservative magazine.
Next we get the New Right of the internet. Reddit, 4chan, Taki’s Mag, and Breitbart, which relative to Rothbard or Buchanan, have enormous, if inchoate, reach. The first two are mostly about interchange; they are sites for discussion. There are no articles, no editorial policy. The latter two have articles; Breitbart is the closest to mainstream, and is in essence a splashier version on the Right of what today CNN is on the Left, if without much first-hand reporting. Malice’s basic point is that most people, and all people on the Left, have no grasp of how the people who frequent these sites think, and that much of their effort is directed at trolling and otherwise misdirecting and humiliating their perceived enemies, rather than traditional political work. “Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as ‘associated with white supremacy’ is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as ‘associated with flag burning.’ It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.” The same trolling attitude is on display in gamer culture, which, in “Gamergate,” the social justice warriors famously tried to bring to heel, resulting in an online war with gamers who were having none of it.
Other rambling chapters talk about the New Right’s opposition to democracy as an overriding good (citing James Burnham’s The Machiavellians as formative, which it is not, except for Yarvin, whose stock in trade is claiming that obscure books explain everything). Malice covers people like Mike Cernovich, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulous, and Gavin McInnes. What primarily seems to unite these people is that very few have a working moral compass, or at least one tied to any kind of traditional morality—rather, they show the instrumental morality that characterizes the Dark Enlightenment. Many are straight-up creepy, sexually and otherwise, such as Jim Goad, some weirdo who made his bones publishing obscene “zines,” scatological hand-stapled “magazines” heavy on graphics, deliberately meant to mark the publisher, and the reader, as refusing to conform to any social norms at all. Others are various manifestations of deviants, glory hounds, lucre chasers, and psychotic utopians. None have an actual following or offer a coherent philosophy. Neither the writing here, nor those written about, is impressive.
Malice also tries to cover international influences on the New Right, from Nigel Farage to Lee Kuan Yew. This is the weakest chapter of a weak book; Malice appears to know almost nothing about international affairs, much less right-wing figures internationally, and his focus is mostly demographics, which is a pretty pinched focus, if understandable since that’s what in the news about Europe. He also makes bizarre statements, such as that Japan is doing just fine as a culture and country despite its plunging population because they still have a “unique culture,” as shown by being “the world’s largest creators and consumers of tentacle-rape pornography.” He may be joking (though there’s no indication of it), but this type of statement shows a key failure of Malice—as an anarchist, he thinks nothing can be bad, unless it harms others. He simply ignores, and probably doesn’t see, because he can’t wrap his mind around it, that Mill’s harm principle, the core principle of the modern Left as well as of Malice, is rejected by most post-liberals, which is much of what makes them post-liberals.
Finally, we turn to the explicitly racially oriented groups on the New Right, though not covered here are groups arguably on the right that are not new—primarily the neo-Nazis, whose main presence is the website Stormfront, although apparently aging fellow travelers like David Duke are still floating around. New Right racially-oriented groups include the website Vdare, the refuge for many writers expelled from the polite, compliant right for political incorrectness, such as John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow. Vdare is relatively tame, though, compared to Jared Taylor, founder of the (now defunct) American Renaissance site. This is where we slide into explicit white supremacism (called white nationalism by its adherents). Malice was in Charlottesville during the fighting there in 2017, and offers a type of behind-the-scenes account, without any relevant insights. (However, this section does contain the funniest line in the book, when one of the white supremacist types says “I’m skeptical of the Holocaust deniers because . . . everyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen thinks it should.”)
And that’s the book, which ends more or less with a whimper. Not helping is that Malice makes frequent jarring claims. He says that “The idea that ‘political correctness’ is a uniquely left-wing phenomenon is simply untrue.” I have disposed of that canard at length elsewhere, and even if it were true, the point is that political correctness by those with power, namely the Left, is used as a weapon outside its own ranks, and the Right has no such ability. Then Malice says things that make one wonder if he is cracked, such as “Most conservatives are also averse to calm discussions of children and sexuality.” (I suggest he not come anywhere near my children, for the sake of his health.) He thinks that Communism fell because Eastern Europeans were able to watch the soap opera Dynasty, and predicts North Korea will fall for similar reasons (and he’s been to, and wrote a book about, North Korea, which makes this odd claim even more jarring). He thinks that all culture starts with “low culture,” which he attributes to the marginalized, who he says are uniformly “valorized” by the Left, resulting in the Left dominating culture. No element of this analysis is even remotely true, or convincing. Malice doesn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the upper classes became enamored of low culture, and true high culture then (temporarily, we hope) disappeared after thousands of years. Most weirdly of all, he claims that modern feminism resulted because other women were offended that the women who had money and independence were brothel owners, and they wanted the same money and independence. He claims the cry of nineteenth-century feminists was “If it’s good enough for the lowest, surely it’s good enough for us.”
I have three linked thoughts after reading Malice’s book. First, all the people he profiles are either clowns or irrelevant. All these men are misfits. None will occupy seats of power in the New Venice, or lead in the expansion of the Instrumentality of Man. None have any power at all now. But that they exist says something about our political moment. Second, I think the Left’s reach has exceeded its grasp, so preparing for what is next is a crucial exercise. The fruit the Left fails to grasp will not drop into the hands of the New Right, but it will drop. Third, Malice ignores people with somewhat similar, but far more sophisticated, views. If the post-liberals are to gain actual power, it will come from those people, combined with a societal fracture and the emergence of a political leader who will grasp these threads and turn them into a whip to drive the malefactors from the Temple.
Thus, very recently there was the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. That sounds dull, like a thousand other think-tank offerings over the past forty years. But it was not. None of the New Right was featured, but most of the speakers, from Michael Anton to Oren Cass to Patrick Deneen were hostile to our current regime, Democrat and Republican, strongly opposed to the hegemony of the Left, and actively interested in exploring new ways to actively destroy that hegemony.
That is something, for the call to destruction must precede the call to construction. Burke was wrong, or rather he was right—if things are so far gone that incremental change is a lost cause, we must forge a new thing after reflection on a better time. But most important of all was the unapologetic nature of what these people had to say. The first, and usually only, line of defense by the Left against conservatives who actually threaten to undermine their hegemony is to shriek silencing epithets, usually “Racist!” In the past, mainstream conservatives in the Buckley mold have always immediately folded and kowtowed, despite the total falsehood of the attacks. After all, they want to keep being invited to the right dinner parties and paid to write in mainstream publications. Those at the conference weren’t having any. None of them are politicians (charisma is sorely lacking among post-liberals), but they came to fight, and they are not clowns.
If there is a seed of a new thing, this is it. All these people fall within my definition of Augustans, though there is daylight between, say, Michael Anton and Rod Dreher (maybe the bridge is Sohrab Ahmari, who has recently been punishing David French for his many political sins). A year ago, I said:
"My prediction is that this is the future, and from the crumbling of the Republican Party will rise a quite different big-tent conservative party, from which the neoconservatives have fled to the Democrats (as most already have—bye, Bill Kristol!) That party will receive the unalloyed scorn of those who command the social and business heights, and the conflict will, therefore, burst the channels that confined political discourse for the past seventy years. Purges on the basis of ideology will largely become a thing of the past on the Right, and I predict the result will be more power accruing to the Right—and a lot more people participating on the Right who have traditionally been viewed as unpleasant. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Probably it’s mostly good, if the goals of conservatives are accomplished and cemented, and the Left permanently broken on the wheel. But at least it’ll be different."
Still sounds about right—no pun intended. My prediction for today is that in a year, this will be a lot clearer, and there will be a lot of water under the bridge.
That probably wasn’t their intent (though it’s hard to shake the feeling that it is the intent of Buckley’s putative successors, midgets and nonentities like Jonah Goldberg and David French). Regardless, there are many fresh voices on the Right who are keenly interested in freeing us from our chains and restoring the Republic, or, in the more likely alternative, moving on to something new. Broadly speaking, these people can be called post-liberals and here, in "The New Right," Michael Malice profiles some of them. To my regret, the ones he profiles are all clowns. Worse, it seems disturbingly likely that most post-liberals are clowns. But not all, and I will return to which ones are not, and what that means—even though you will not find them in this book.
Something structural about this book kept bothering me. It felt rambling, yet it wasn’t obviously incoherent. Then, watching Malice on the Joe Rogan podcast, it hit me. This is basically a podcast, an unscripted conversation, in print. It covers different topics in a somewhat unpredictable manner; not exactly disorganized, but far from crisp. "The New Right" is essentially a rambling talk between Michael Malice and himself. That substantially weakens the book, which could have been a lot more if it had been tightened up and had clear points to make. Instead, it’s basically meandering exposition, and frustrating to read. Really, this book is in many ways a lowbrow version of George Hawley’s outstanding 2016 "Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism," which is a far better book to read if you are looking for actual, coherent information about these currents on the Right.
But "The New Right" is not awful, even if I am not sure why I subjected myself to another book about the topic of Right splinter movements. Malice, who views himself as an anarchist and is no way conservative, has a sharp eye and a willingness to spend time with pretty much any kind of person—including those who dislike him as a “New York Jew.” Malice doesn’t see the New Right as powerful, but as the leading edge of both “innovation and insanity.” Nothing may come of it, or the next big thing may come of it. Exploring that possibility requires talking neutrally to some people who are “irredeemable, horrible people,” though Malice doesn’t seem to apply that label to any of the people he actually met (even if he’s understandably annoyed at his constant pigeonholing as “the Jew”).
“Alt-Right” was created by Hillary Clinton as a political attack term, designed to be infinitely flexible so as to tie the conservative mainstream to whatever fringe figure was most being painted as the Devil at that moment. Like “fake news,” it was then repurposed by its targets, but also continues to be used by the Left as a meaningless propaganda term. Malice solves this nomenclature problem by defining “Alt-Right” as a subset of “New Right,” really his own term, “A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.” Embodied within this is an apocalyptic, zero-sum tendency; someone on the Right who objects to progressivism in toto but doesn’t see it as seeking “totalitarian world domination” or “globalist hegemony” therefore isn’t New Right. In my own typology of post-liberals, the New Right is not Augustans, whose focus is use of power to create something new that is informed by the past, but a facet of the so-called Dark Enlightenment, who focus on theory as the basis for creating something totally new, and usually insane, because divorced from actual human nature.
The author begins, in 2011, with something called the Trollboard, a private Facebook group to which he was invited, devoted to anarchism in the Murray Rothbard mold—“anarcho-capitalists,” who are also admirers of the still-living Hans-Hermann Hoppe. These discussions introduced him to new lines of right-wing thought. One was that of the Dark Enlightenment (a name not much used anymore) of whom Curtis Yarvin, whose pseudonym was Mencius Moldbug, was the most prominent member. As I have discussed at length, Yarvin offers the most thought-out alternative political system of anyone in the New Right, and is the author of the sole original concept from this group to reach broader use—the “Cathedral,” the complex of leftist organizations that dominate our society. Yarvin does not get much play here, and Malice did not talk to him, though he lurks in the background of some of his other discussions. But on the Trollboard, and in meetings with people he met through it, Malice was introduced to a wide variety of other groups, each with its own focus, and from that sprang this book.
Actually, “groups” is a misnomer. As far as I can tell, nearly all the groups Malice talks about are merely habitués of particular websites, around which a very modern type of community forms. Malice specifically mentions among many others, Xenosystems, the latter a now-dormant site that seems to mostly exist as a cross-reference for sites on the fringe Right. None of these are political organizations in the traditional sense, not even to the degree the anarcho-capitalists were in the 1960s and 1970s. That may make them even more farcical, or it may be a harbinger of how movements are created nowadays—I’m not sure, though I suspect the former. It does mean, as Malice points out, that the movement is mostly decentralized, so that taking out or deplatforming one apparent leader has little effect.
After this brief overview, Malice moves backward, talking of the Old Right, primarily what was once called paleoconservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan. He reached his apogee in 1992, when he was a serious Presidential candidate, and thundered, to the horror of the low-energy Bush Republicans, a prescient speech about the culture war which, he failed to realize, he had already lost. Buchanan’s timing was flawed—1992 was also the apogee of liberal democracy, the apparent triumph of Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, when even many conservatives believed we, the West, had won the future and the only thing necessary was making sure we had a bit more George Washington and a bit less Margaret Sanger.
In Malice’s telling, in which he wants to draw a line between Old Right and New Right, the Old Right was mostly fringe. But that is not true, even if a few members of it were purged by Buckley. The Old Right was one part, the dominant part, of National Review until perhaps twenty years ago. True, they failed at the task they set themselves, but still remain relevant, and many are morphing into new types of post-liberals, none of whom are New Right in the Malice definition. Buchanan is still alive, after all, and writes occasionally for the non-fringe and non-New Right The American Conservative magazine.
Next we get the New Right of the internet. Reddit, 4chan, Taki’s Mag, and Breitbart, which relative to Rothbard or Buchanan, have enormous, if inchoate, reach. The first two are mostly about interchange; they are sites for discussion. There are no articles, no editorial policy. The latter two have articles; Breitbart is the closest to mainstream, and is in essence a splashier version on the Right of what today CNN is on the Left, if without much first-hand reporting. Malice’s basic point is that most people, and all people on the Left, have no grasp of how the people who frequent these sites think, and that much of their effort is directed at trolling and otherwise misdirecting and humiliating their perceived enemies, rather than traditional political work. “Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as ‘associated with white supremacy’ is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as ‘associated with flag burning.’ It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.” The same trolling attitude is on display in gamer culture, which, in “Gamergate,” the social justice warriors famously tried to bring to heel, resulting in an online war with gamers who were having none of it.
Other rambling chapters talk about the New Right’s opposition to democracy as an overriding good (citing James Burnham’s The Machiavellians as formative, which it is not, except for Yarvin, whose stock in trade is claiming that obscure books explain everything). Malice covers people like Mike Cernovich, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulous, and Gavin McInnes. What primarily seems to unite these people is that very few have a working moral compass, or at least one tied to any kind of traditional morality—rather, they show the instrumental morality that characterizes the Dark Enlightenment. Many are straight-up creepy, sexually and otherwise, such as Jim Goad, some weirdo who made his bones publishing obscene “zines,” scatological hand-stapled “magazines” heavy on graphics, deliberately meant to mark the publisher, and the reader, as refusing to conform to any social norms at all. Others are various manifestations of deviants, glory hounds, lucre chasers, and psychotic utopians. None have an actual following or offer a coherent philosophy. Neither the writing here, nor those written about, is impressive.
Malice also tries to cover international influences on the New Right, from Nigel Farage to Lee Kuan Yew. This is the weakest chapter of a weak book; Malice appears to know almost nothing about international affairs, much less right-wing figures internationally, and his focus is mostly demographics, which is a pretty pinched focus, if understandable since that’s what in the news about Europe. He also makes bizarre statements, such as that Japan is doing just fine as a culture and country despite its plunging population because they still have a “unique culture,” as shown by being “the world’s largest creators and consumers of tentacle-rape pornography.” He may be joking (though there’s no indication of it), but this type of statement shows a key failure of Malice—as an anarchist, he thinks nothing can be bad, unless it harms others. He simply ignores, and probably doesn’t see, because he can’t wrap his mind around it, that Mill’s harm principle, the core principle of the modern Left as well as of Malice, is rejected by most post-liberals, which is much of what makes them post-liberals.
Finally, we turn to the explicitly racially oriented groups on the New Right, though not covered here are groups arguably on the right that are not new—primarily the neo-Nazis, whose main presence is the website Stormfront, although apparently aging fellow travelers like David Duke are still floating around. New Right racially-oriented groups include the website Vdare, the refuge for many writers expelled from the polite, compliant right for political incorrectness, such as John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow. Vdare is relatively tame, though, compared to Jared Taylor, founder of the (now defunct) American Renaissance site. This is where we slide into explicit white supremacism (called white nationalism by its adherents). Malice was in Charlottesville during the fighting there in 2017, and offers a type of behind-the-scenes account, without any relevant insights. (However, this section does contain the funniest line in the book, when one of the white supremacist types says “I’m skeptical of the Holocaust deniers because . . . everyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen thinks it should.”)
And that’s the book, which ends more or less with a whimper. Not helping is that Malice makes frequent jarring claims. He says that “The idea that ‘political correctness’ is a uniquely left-wing phenomenon is simply untrue.” I have disposed of that canard at length elsewhere, and even if it were true, the point is that political correctness by those with power, namely the Left, is used as a weapon outside its own ranks, and the Right has no such ability. Then Malice says things that make one wonder if he is cracked, such as “Most conservatives are also averse to calm discussions of children and sexuality.” (I suggest he not come anywhere near my children, for the sake of his health.) He thinks that Communism fell because Eastern Europeans were able to watch the soap opera Dynasty, and predicts North Korea will fall for similar reasons (and he’s been to, and wrote a book about, North Korea, which makes this odd claim even more jarring). He thinks that all culture starts with “low culture,” which he attributes to the marginalized, who he says are uniformly “valorized” by the Left, resulting in the Left dominating culture. No element of this analysis is even remotely true, or convincing. Malice doesn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the upper classes became enamored of low culture, and true high culture then (temporarily, we hope) disappeared after thousands of years. Most weirdly of all, he claims that modern feminism resulted because other women were offended that the women who had money and independence were brothel owners, and they wanted the same money and independence. He claims the cry of nineteenth-century feminists was “If it’s good enough for the lowest, surely it’s good enough for us.”
I have three linked thoughts after reading Malice’s book. First, all the people he profiles are either clowns or irrelevant. All these men are misfits. None will occupy seats of power in the New Venice, or lead in the expansion of the Instrumentality of Man. None have any power at all now. But that they exist says something about our political moment. Second, I think the Left’s reach has exceeded its grasp, so preparing for what is next is a crucial exercise. The fruit the Left fails to grasp will not drop into the hands of the New Right, but it will drop. Third, Malice ignores people with somewhat similar, but far more sophisticated, views. If the post-liberals are to gain actual power, it will come from those people, combined with a societal fracture and the emergence of a political leader who will grasp these threads and turn them into a whip to drive the malefactors from the Temple.
Thus, very recently there was the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. That sounds dull, like a thousand other think-tank offerings over the past forty years. But it was not. None of the New Right was featured, but most of the speakers, from Michael Anton to Oren Cass to Patrick Deneen were hostile to our current regime, Democrat and Republican, strongly opposed to the hegemony of the Left, and actively interested in exploring new ways to actively destroy that hegemony.
That is something, for the call to destruction must precede the call to construction. Burke was wrong, or rather he was right—if things are so far gone that incremental change is a lost cause, we must forge a new thing after reflection on a better time. But most important of all was the unapologetic nature of what these people had to say. The first, and usually only, line of defense by the Left against conservatives who actually threaten to undermine their hegemony is to shriek silencing epithets, usually “Racist!” In the past, mainstream conservatives in the Buckley mold have always immediately folded and kowtowed, despite the total falsehood of the attacks. After all, they want to keep being invited to the right dinner parties and paid to write in mainstream publications. Those at the conference weren’t having any. None of them are politicians (charisma is sorely lacking among post-liberals), but they came to fight, and they are not clowns.
If there is a seed of a new thing, this is it. All these people fall within my definition of Augustans, though there is daylight between, say, Michael Anton and Rod Dreher (maybe the bridge is Sohrab Ahmari, who has recently been punishing David French for his many political sins). A year ago, I said:
"My prediction is that this is the future, and from the crumbling of the Republican Party will rise a quite different big-tent conservative party, from which the neoconservatives have fled to the Democrats (as most already have—bye, Bill Kristol!) That party will receive the unalloyed scorn of those who command the social and business heights, and the conflict will, therefore, burst the channels that confined political discourse for the past seventy years. Purges on the basis of ideology will largely become a thing of the past on the Right, and I predict the result will be more power accruing to the Right—and a lot more people participating on the Right who have traditionally been viewed as unpleasant. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Probably it’s mostly good, if the goals of conservatives are accomplished and cemented, and the Left permanently broken on the wheel. But at least it’ll be different."
Still sounds about right—no pun intended. My prediction for today is that in a year, this will be a lot clearer, and there will be a lot of water under the bridge.
May 15, 2019
Written for those who get it and those who don't, Malice combines philosophy, history, memoir, and personality in this road trip through not just the edge of Polite Society but the badlands beyond it, the common through line being an opposition to progressivism.
Each chapter falls deeper through the circles of Hell, the previous being a primer for what's coming next. Always empathetic without being sympathetic or pandering, Malice takes on several levels of right-wing thought with care, consideration, and entertainment.
While the book never loses sight of who the real villains are, Malice also doesn't treat the subjects of this book with kid gloves. He takes them at their word but in doing so he is able to disassemble their arguments and argue against them in a concise and humorous manner.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the New Right, anyone apart of the New Right, and also anyone who wants to fight against the New Right.
Each chapter falls deeper through the circles of Hell, the previous being a primer for what's coming next. Always empathetic without being sympathetic or pandering, Malice takes on several levels of right-wing thought with care, consideration, and entertainment.
While the book never loses sight of who the real villains are, Malice also doesn't treat the subjects of this book with kid gloves. He takes them at their word but in doing so he is able to disassemble their arguments and argue against them in a concise and humorous manner.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the New Right, anyone apart of the New Right, and also anyone who wants to fight against the New Right.
October 14, 2020
Malice is an anarchist trickster who has performed a questionable public service by getting intimate with the diverse far fringes of 21st century right wing politics. Malice approaches the horror show of internet trolling, right libertarianism, and white nationalism with a sort of self-aware, "wink wink nudge nudge" attitude that is right up my alley. Malice writes like a less gifted H.L. Mencken or Hunter S. Thompson. It is easy to enjoy the irreverent, snarky, South Park tone of the book.
In today's climate, the book is worth reading for three different but interrelated reasons: 1) The strategic value of learning about influential right wingers and understanding what drives them. As of now, there is little competition since almost nobody talks to these people. 2) The educational value of having difficult conversations about dangerous subjects. This helps us clarify moral truth. 3) The political value of daring to push back against the established wisdom of the age. No age has the whole truth and it is paramount to keep the conversation open enough to correct errors. We need to avoid repeating the historical pattern of thought rebellion followed by thought suppression.
History is written by the victors. The mainstream "Cathedral" (Mencius Moldbug's name for the cultural establishment dominated by left wing politics) has won many victories and written many history books. In mainstream media, sensitive issues are increasingly dominated by One Correct Opinion. We can worry about this regardless of whether we agree with the aims and methods of progressivism. There exists a culture of silence punctuated by loud public denunciations about the evils of reactionary thought. Many of these reactions are justified, in my opinion, but they also function to channel the discourse to familiar talking points. As a result, speech can get stifled. And since taboos spawn taboo breakers, we have witnessed a politically incorrect, subversive, and dangerous counterculture festering and growing in the shadows. It is headed, according to all available evidence, by mostly young, mostly white, mostly men. It is a "movement" only in name, since it is united only by a shared hatred of progressive politics.
Although I could give the book four stars based on the amount of entertainment it contains, I do not think it quite deserves it. The reason is that I am offended and my feelings are hurt. Obviously! >:( OK, not really. The real reason is that there are some serious distortions, both historical and ethical, that undermine the credibility of the book. Although he takes some serious jabs at the stupidity and double standards of white nationalists and their followers, in some instances, Malice simply regurgitates, knowingly or unknowingly, ideological propaganda from the far right. For example, he jokes knowingly (cleverly I must add) with the suggestion that Bill Clinton is a mass murderer. More troublingly, he reiterates several negative stories about immigrants without countervailing positive stories. When discussing Brexit he speaks of it in glowing terms without any consideration to the massive economic and social damage that it has wrought. Elsewhere, he pontificates on the history of the Pinochet regime with insufficient knowledge. As a result, he ends up making some terrible excuses for the atrocities of the Pinochet regime in an effort to score some points against Allende and the left wing narrative. He even ends up contemplating, in a neutral fashion that is quite nonchalant, the possibility that homosexuality is a disease. All throughout I get the feeling that Malice enjoys upsetting respectable people a bit too much to care about consequences. He celebrates a culture of free speech, the art of trolling, and the virtue of being vicious. The ravenous intoxication of the internet troll is stronger than the superficial serenity of the journalist.
By refusing to identify with ANY of the mainstream positions, from progressivism to conservatism, Malice stands outside the Cathedral. He lacks the blinkers that blind people from seeing certain social developments and shackles their ability to exercise their critical speech in the face of absurdity. Feeding on his lack of decorum, Malice attacks all sacred cows and taboos. Although the book sometimes fails to perform the vital journalistic function of checking claims against facts, and although it reeks of "fiat anarchia et pereat mundus", I kinda like it. If it makes readers question the culture of silence created by political correctness - WITHOUT pushing them to the "dark side" in the process - it will have performed a massive service to public discourse. Sometimes you need good tricksters to understand bad tricksters. My recommendation: Handle with care.
In today's climate, the book is worth reading for three different but interrelated reasons: 1) The strategic value of learning about influential right wingers and understanding what drives them. As of now, there is little competition since almost nobody talks to these people. 2) The educational value of having difficult conversations about dangerous subjects. This helps us clarify moral truth. 3) The political value of daring to push back against the established wisdom of the age. No age has the whole truth and it is paramount to keep the conversation open enough to correct errors. We need to avoid repeating the historical pattern of thought rebellion followed by thought suppression.
History is written by the victors. The mainstream "Cathedral" (Mencius Moldbug's name for the cultural establishment dominated by left wing politics) has won many victories and written many history books. In mainstream media, sensitive issues are increasingly dominated by One Correct Opinion. We can worry about this regardless of whether we agree with the aims and methods of progressivism. There exists a culture of silence punctuated by loud public denunciations about the evils of reactionary thought. Many of these reactions are justified, in my opinion, but they also function to channel the discourse to familiar talking points. As a result, speech can get stifled. And since taboos spawn taboo breakers, we have witnessed a politically incorrect, subversive, and dangerous counterculture festering and growing in the shadows. It is headed, according to all available evidence, by mostly young, mostly white, mostly men. It is a "movement" only in name, since it is united only by a shared hatred of progressive politics.
Although I could give the book four stars based on the amount of entertainment it contains, I do not think it quite deserves it. The reason is that I am offended and my feelings are hurt. Obviously! >:( OK, not really. The real reason is that there are some serious distortions, both historical and ethical, that undermine the credibility of the book. Although he takes some serious jabs at the stupidity and double standards of white nationalists and their followers, in some instances, Malice simply regurgitates, knowingly or unknowingly, ideological propaganda from the far right. For example, he jokes knowingly (cleverly I must add) with the suggestion that Bill Clinton is a mass murderer. More troublingly, he reiterates several negative stories about immigrants without countervailing positive stories. When discussing Brexit he speaks of it in glowing terms without any consideration to the massive economic and social damage that it has wrought. Elsewhere, he pontificates on the history of the Pinochet regime with insufficient knowledge. As a result, he ends up making some terrible excuses for the atrocities of the Pinochet regime in an effort to score some points against Allende and the left wing narrative. He even ends up contemplating, in a neutral fashion that is quite nonchalant, the possibility that homosexuality is a disease. All throughout I get the feeling that Malice enjoys upsetting respectable people a bit too much to care about consequences. He celebrates a culture of free speech, the art of trolling, and the virtue of being vicious. The ravenous intoxication of the internet troll is stronger than the superficial serenity of the journalist.
By refusing to identify with ANY of the mainstream positions, from progressivism to conservatism, Malice stands outside the Cathedral. He lacks the blinkers that blind people from seeing certain social developments and shackles their ability to exercise their critical speech in the face of absurdity. Feeding on his lack of decorum, Malice attacks all sacred cows and taboos. Although the book sometimes fails to perform the vital journalistic function of checking claims against facts, and although it reeks of "fiat anarchia et pereat mundus", I kinda like it. If it makes readers question the culture of silence created by political correctness - WITHOUT pushing them to the "dark side" in the process - it will have performed a massive service to public discourse. Sometimes you need good tricksters to understand bad tricksters. My recommendation: Handle with care.
October 18, 2020
The author lost credibility for me when he started going on about reverse racism (it's not a thing lol). Honestly, the majority of the book felt like a joke, or something I'd expect to come from an analysis of Ben Shapiro. Parts of the book were interesting enough, namely the deep dive into conservatism in the 60s 70s, and 80s, but nothing substantially new was learned from them. The author tried to date the rise of leftism in America to the Civil Rights movement, which is overwhelmingly false. This, along with some other "facts" that were furthest from the truth ultimately resulted in a less-than-satisfactory reading experience. If you are interested in the subject, I'd recommend ditching this book and instead reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer for a much more factual read.
July 25, 2019
This is an intriguing book and is valuable to read. I vehemently disagree with Malice on some points but he gives a good account of various figures in The New Right that help to explain the entire movement and provides some helpful definitions. One key point in the book is his contrast between the conservatives using a political strategy to unsuccessfully fight the left while the New Right uses sociological strategies and techniques with success. Another main point of Malice is his theory of culture where the marginalized through low culture have an evolving impact on society at large. In all of this though there is a hint of existential absurdity. He ends with an appeal to Camus’ Sisyphus.
July 6, 2019
I do not understand why this book is so highly esteemed by other reviewers. The first quarter, about the emergence and formation of the New Right from various strands of thought, is the most interesting part. The rest of the book, however, generally retells a number of recent media-related events and describes several more or less well-known figures prominent in the new right (Coulter, Cernovich, Milo, etc.). It would make an interesting and engaging overview if you had slept over the past five years and missed everything. But if you had paid any attention, even if you followed politics in the media only superficially as I did, there is nothing truly novel or original here.
April 11, 2020
Malice comes from an interesting background - born in the USSR, a Jew growing up in NYC, self-proclaimed anarchist and anti-socialist, influenced by punk and Andy Warhol. Or maybe it's the kind of thing that felt interesting in the 90s and early 00s when we were still at a different place socially.
He delves into the history and culture of the alt-right in a way that feels familiar to someone like me who spent their formative years in weird parts of the internet. He is a good writer, funny, and I do not have a problem with his prose or even his choice of subject matter. He does a good job of tracing the start of right-wing American politics and shit-posting internet culture from people who probably did not start out even remotely political, or perhaps were just disenfranchised from our Big Two non-sensical political system.
He is very particular with his words - he looks for definitions, what people have actually said vs the idea of what they said, etc. He also visits a party with the alt right where Anne Coulter was a guest of honor. He presents all of this in a way that does a good job of shining a light on how ridiculous a lot of these people actually are off of the internet. And maybe how some of them can be reached, or prevented in the first place.
His book is an explanation to non-internet-savvy people on the left to the actual thought process behind internet trolls and "alt right" personalities... or it would be if he had spent even a smidge of effort to understand the current American left.
While waxing poetic about the nuance of a recession full of sad lonely young white men in basements he projects a "leftist movement" mostly containing the political leanings of Hillary Clinton and calls it The Cathedral. He views it as an ideology not allowed to be questioned, and seems to take this view entirely from a few selective internet videos from college campuses and how mad people get when you do or say something racist or sexist.
He does not believe that some people are actually angry about this, but that they are merely virtue signaling - if he had made a distinction between corporate Democrats and people living their lives and not enjoying having racial slurs thrown at them maybe I could take him slightly more seriously, however he does not... and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to admit that as a Jew he does feel uncomfortable when people he establishes are "just trolling" and "clearly not actually anti-semitic" do or say clearly anti-semitic things. He does not seem to draw a connection between this and the reactions of "the left" to things that clearly go above shit-posting.
Two of the big questions he poses are "Who is winning the culture war?" and "How is culture made and influenced?".
For him, the answer to the former is something along the lines of "The liberals and PC culture" (he comes off as one of those who possibly would have drawn offensive anti-Islamic cartoons as a protest against the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and pretended to be offended when people were less than thrilled). By "liberals" he means neoliberals and centrist Democrats. He also routinely labels them "leftists", showing a marked ignorance of actual American politics outside of mainstream left circles. With the time and effort he has made investigating the fringe Right it felt disappointing and a little bit confusing that he did not realize there are those on the left who also hold disdain for the Democrats.
He hates and is terrified of socialism, so perhaps this is why he avoids exploring the concerns of those left-of-center. He comes from the USSR (though he left at the age of 2) and also is of an age to be fully immersed in Cold War sentiments so this might be understandable. I'm still not sure if he thinks Bernie Sanders is an actual socialist or not.
The answer to the second question is probably the more interesting part of the book for me. Growing up as a well-educated Jew in NYC (and as a punk) it should come as no surprise that he is very aware of various fringe social cultures that have existed throughout the decades (At one point he contemplated obtaining a slot as a speaker at Charlottesville and trolling them with a detailed sourced list of his top five Drag Race contestants... before seeing video footage of who the audience participants would be and finally making that not-very-fucking-hard realization that some people actually mean what they say online, resulting in thinking better of it.).
He discusses how counter culture art and ideas gain popularity, then ubiquity, then are absorbed and repackaged by brands, and then just *is* mainstream culture. He warns that right now if "social justice" sentiment is unchallengeable it sets up fringe views of white nationalism and misogyny as "counterculture" and thus "cool". It's not totally wrong if we are to consider internet memes as art and culture, and I think that argument can be made.
But Malice still hamstrings his own argument by constantly hiding in a cloak of gen x apathy and his admittedly good sense of humor. It's not *cool* to admit that anti-semitism and racism and sexism are scary and concerning. So he can't even fully admit to himself that "ironic" memes or awful sexist statements designed that way "for impact" are bad. Because then I guess he'd be uncool and just wouldn't get the nuanced point this person is trying to make.
He wants to though. He is clearly uncomfortable and surprised at parts of the book when he interviews actual white nationalists, actual racists and sexists. He literally hears them when they say they are trying their best to push the Overton window to the right to do exactly what Malice already posits - influence culture and sieze power.
He just can't totally bring himself to face it or the reality of leftist politics in America and that is a major weakness.
Also as a final note, thank god I did not look up a picture of the author ahead of time because if I had to picture that hair cut as he said all of the smug little things he wrote in this book I would not have been able to finish it.
He delves into the history and culture of the alt-right in a way that feels familiar to someone like me who spent their formative years in weird parts of the internet. He is a good writer, funny, and I do not have a problem with his prose or even his choice of subject matter. He does a good job of tracing the start of right-wing American politics and shit-posting internet culture from people who probably did not start out even remotely political, or perhaps were just disenfranchised from our Big Two non-sensical political system.
He is very particular with his words - he looks for definitions, what people have actually said vs the idea of what they said, etc. He also visits a party with the alt right where Anne Coulter was a guest of honor. He presents all of this in a way that does a good job of shining a light on how ridiculous a lot of these people actually are off of the internet. And maybe how some of them can be reached, or prevented in the first place.
His book is an explanation to non-internet-savvy people on the left to the actual thought process behind internet trolls and "alt right" personalities... or it would be if he had spent even a smidge of effort to understand the current American left.
While waxing poetic about the nuance of a recession full of sad lonely young white men in basements he projects a "leftist movement" mostly containing the political leanings of Hillary Clinton and calls it The Cathedral. He views it as an ideology not allowed to be questioned, and seems to take this view entirely from a few selective internet videos from college campuses and how mad people get when you do or say something racist or sexist.
He does not believe that some people are actually angry about this, but that they are merely virtue signaling - if he had made a distinction between corporate Democrats and people living their lives and not enjoying having racial slurs thrown at them maybe I could take him slightly more seriously, however he does not... and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to admit that as a Jew he does feel uncomfortable when people he establishes are "just trolling" and "clearly not actually anti-semitic" do or say clearly anti-semitic things. He does not seem to draw a connection between this and the reactions of "the left" to things that clearly go above shit-posting.
Two of the big questions he poses are "Who is winning the culture war?" and "How is culture made and influenced?".
For him, the answer to the former is something along the lines of "The liberals and PC culture" (he comes off as one of those who possibly would have drawn offensive anti-Islamic cartoons as a protest against the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and pretended to be offended when people were less than thrilled). By "liberals" he means neoliberals and centrist Democrats. He also routinely labels them "leftists", showing a marked ignorance of actual American politics outside of mainstream left circles. With the time and effort he has made investigating the fringe Right it felt disappointing and a little bit confusing that he did not realize there are those on the left who also hold disdain for the Democrats.
He hates and is terrified of socialism, so perhaps this is why he avoids exploring the concerns of those left-of-center. He comes from the USSR (though he left at the age of 2) and also is of an age to be fully immersed in Cold War sentiments so this might be understandable. I'm still not sure if he thinks Bernie Sanders is an actual socialist or not.
The answer to the second question is probably the more interesting part of the book for me. Growing up as a well-educated Jew in NYC (and as a punk) it should come as no surprise that he is very aware of various fringe social cultures that have existed throughout the decades (At one point he contemplated obtaining a slot as a speaker at Charlottesville and trolling them with a detailed sourced list of his top five Drag Race contestants... before seeing video footage of who the audience participants would be and finally making that not-very-fucking-hard realization that some people actually mean what they say online, resulting in thinking better of it.).
He discusses how counter culture art and ideas gain popularity, then ubiquity, then are absorbed and repackaged by brands, and then just *is* mainstream culture. He warns that right now if "social justice" sentiment is unchallengeable it sets up fringe views of white nationalism and misogyny as "counterculture" and thus "cool". It's not totally wrong if we are to consider internet memes as art and culture, and I think that argument can be made.
But Malice still hamstrings his own argument by constantly hiding in a cloak of gen x apathy and his admittedly good sense of humor. It's not *cool* to admit that anti-semitism and racism and sexism are scary and concerning. So he can't even fully admit to himself that "ironic" memes or awful sexist statements designed that way "for impact" are bad. Because then I guess he'd be uncool and just wouldn't get the nuanced point this person is trying to make.
He wants to though. He is clearly uncomfortable and surprised at parts of the book when he interviews actual white nationalists, actual racists and sexists. He literally hears them when they say they are trying their best to push the Overton window to the right to do exactly what Malice already posits - influence culture and sieze power.
He just can't totally bring himself to face it or the reality of leftist politics in America and that is a major weakness.
Also as a final note, thank god I did not look up a picture of the author ahead of time because if I had to picture that hair cut as he said all of the smug little things he wrote in this book I would not have been able to finish it.
May 27, 2019
This is one of the best books I have seen that really drives into the current political discourse.(without being a hit piece of course) He does an amazing job of breaking the entire history (from the beginning of the current movement) and current events and provides great detail without being overbearing and boring. For those that have not been paying attention to what has been going on, in reference to the shaping of the political landscape, this book hits the nail on the head. He does not hold out on any info. A lot of this I was already privy to but some of this was new info that helped to print an even better picture.
I have Michael's other book (Dear Reader) but I have not read it yet. If that book is anything like this one, and I'm sure it is, i cant wait to read it. He has done an amazing job here.
I would recommend this to those that have shown they really want to know what's truly going on. Not those that wanna repeat catchy phrases.
I would have completed this book sooner but i didnt take it everywhere because I didnt want to mess it up haha.
I have Michael's other book (Dear Reader) but I have not read it yet. If that book is anything like this one, and I'm sure it is, i cant wait to read it. He has done an amazing job here.
I would recommend this to those that have shown they really want to know what's truly going on. Not those that wanna repeat catchy phrases.
I would have completed this book sooner but i didnt take it everywhere because I didnt want to mess it up haha.
May 21, 2019
Malice is the kingtroll of Twitter.
His writing is both lucid and erudite.
This book serves as an excellent primer for anyone not savvy to the multilayered right-wing phenomenon that had been brewing during Obama’s second term and burst onto the scene when Trump gained momentum in early 2016.
Those who follow his work will be familiar with much of this book’s content but become pleasantly surprised here and there. He often reminds us that "the right-wing (or left-wing) is not a monolith.” In this case, Malice explores the many flavors confined within the New Right umbrella to show it is not purely a gang of tiki-torch-wielding racists and freaks.
His definition of the New Right: A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
He includes interviews and memorable interactions with those loosely and tightly associated with the New Right. Malice affords them a platform to speak their truth and does not hold back on picking apart their arguments or world views. One can notice the book's pattern in which the New Right views get more foolish and objectionable with every following chapter. Still, Malice shows many of these thinkers are not merely bumbling rubes, but rather educated people with despicable worldviews.
The following people (and their ideas, work, etc.) are mentioned in the book albeit some more than others, but not all are included under the New Right moniker: Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, David Duke, Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Richard Spencer, Ayn Rand, Lysander Spooner, George Stigler, Superman, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Mencius Moldbug, Jeb Bush, Judith Rich Harris, David Lynch, Alexander Hamilton, Pat Buchanan, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, the hacker known as 4chan, his brother 8chan, Rosie O’Donnell, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Napolitano, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, Christopher Cantwell, Vox Day, Jonathan Haidt, James Burnham, Arthur Herman, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Gavin McInnes, Jim Goad, Batman, Shannon Sullivan, Cody Wilson, Thomas C. Leonard, Jim Acosta, Scott Adams, Ryan Holiday, Jared Taylor, James Alefantis, Radley Balko, Steve Bannon, Owen Benjamin, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ross Ulbricht, Jessica Valenti, Georges Sorel, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Mike Cernovich, Charlie Nash, H. L. Mencken, and many more.
Some favorite quotes:
“To be unable to associate with those you disagree with (within limits), to think there is an absolute correlation between one’s politics and one’s character, is something I find reprehensible. “The personal is the political” is a totalitarian progressive decree that I reject entirely.”
“For the evangelical left, every Facebook update can be a personal march on Selma.”
“In that moment Gavin was my personal Picture of Dorian Gray, a reflection of my conscience but one that was far older, far uglier, and with a weak chin. Also far uglier—yes, it bears repeating. Far older. ‘Well,’ McInnes said, aging and uglifying right before my eyes, ‘she looks pretty busy.’”
“Similarly, we will no longer ever have an America that sits down together to watch one of the three network anchors. For leftists, invoking ‘Fox News’ is enough to get them to dismiss something out of hand, as it is for right-wingers and CNN. Thanks to the emergence of social media, websites, newspapers, and all other aspects of the press are publicly held accountable by their respective ideological enemies in real time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
His writing is both lucid and erudite.
This book serves as an excellent primer for anyone not savvy to the multilayered right-wing phenomenon that had been brewing during Obama’s second term and burst onto the scene when Trump gained momentum in early 2016.
Those who follow his work will be familiar with much of this book’s content but become pleasantly surprised here and there. He often reminds us that "the right-wing (or left-wing) is not a monolith.” In this case, Malice explores the many flavors confined within the New Right umbrella to show it is not purely a gang of tiki-torch-wielding racists and freaks.
His definition of the New Right: A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
He includes interviews and memorable interactions with those loosely and tightly associated with the New Right. Malice affords them a platform to speak their truth and does not hold back on picking apart their arguments or world views. One can notice the book's pattern in which the New Right views get more foolish and objectionable with every following chapter. Still, Malice shows many of these thinkers are not merely bumbling rubes, but rather educated people with despicable worldviews.
The following people (and their ideas, work, etc.) are mentioned in the book albeit some more than others, but not all are included under the New Right moniker: Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, David Duke, Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Richard Spencer, Ayn Rand, Lysander Spooner, George Stigler, Superman, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Mencius Moldbug, Jeb Bush, Judith Rich Harris, David Lynch, Alexander Hamilton, Pat Buchanan, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, the hacker known as 4chan, his brother 8chan, Rosie O’Donnell, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Napolitano, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, Christopher Cantwell, Vox Day, Jonathan Haidt, James Burnham, Arthur Herman, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Gavin McInnes, Jim Goad, Batman, Shannon Sullivan, Cody Wilson, Thomas C. Leonard, Jim Acosta, Scott Adams, Ryan Holiday, Jared Taylor, James Alefantis, Radley Balko, Steve Bannon, Owen Benjamin, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ross Ulbricht, Jessica Valenti, Georges Sorel, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Mike Cernovich, Charlie Nash, H. L. Mencken, and many more.
Some favorite quotes:
“To be unable to associate with those you disagree with (within limits), to think there is an absolute correlation between one’s politics and one’s character, is something I find reprehensible. “The personal is the political” is a totalitarian progressive decree that I reject entirely.”
“For the evangelical left, every Facebook update can be a personal march on Selma.”
“In that moment Gavin was my personal Picture of Dorian Gray, a reflection of my conscience but one that was far older, far uglier, and with a weak chin. Also far uglier—yes, it bears repeating. Far older. ‘Well,’ McInnes said, aging and uglifying right before my eyes, ‘she looks pretty busy.’”
“Similarly, we will no longer ever have an America that sits down together to watch one of the three network anchors. For leftists, invoking ‘Fox News’ is enough to get them to dismiss something out of hand, as it is for right-wingers and CNN. Thanks to the emergence of social media, websites, newspapers, and all other aspects of the press are publicly held accountable by their respective ideological enemies in real time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
August 7, 2019
One of the best books about modern American politics, both the alt/new right and the “evangelical left” that it was a backlash against. Covers a pretty broad spectrum from Buchanan and Pinker to Cantwell and Jared Taylor. Always interesting when a Jewish writer is meeting with people who have made various degrees of anti Semitic statement and digs deeper to get specific about exactly what it means, etc.
Net result of the book was solidly reinforcing my dislike of democracy. Essentially all of the “identity politics”, racism, immigration restriction debates, etc cease to matter without democracy. His examples of LKY and Pinochet on the right are two excellent ones; another is the direct corporate and free market provision of services.
Interesting trips to various events, discussions with various people, etc. Overall a really entertaining and informative book.
Net result of the book was solidly reinforcing my dislike of democracy. Essentially all of the “identity politics”, racism, immigration restriction debates, etc cease to matter without democracy. His examples of LKY and Pinochet on the right are two excellent ones; another is the direct corporate and free market provision of services.
Interesting trips to various events, discussions with various people, etc. Overall a really entertaining and informative book.
June 27, 2020
This is a masterful look inside the new power base in the Republican Party. Malice refrains from condescension in an effort to find an understanding of what the new right believes while pushing back with rigorous logic.
April 4, 2021
One of the few authors who actually got #gamergate right.
August 19, 2019
Really good journalism. A must read for anyone interested in modern politics who is trying to understand what is happening on the fringe right. Especially those on the far left.
June 17, 2019
A fun and interesting read. Malice starts with ancient history (the 1980's) and the crossing and diverging paths of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Pat Buchanan. It then dives into first person accounts of modern voices in both the heart and fringes of today's "New Right"
The first person account and Malice's humor and wit make the last half of the book just fly by. I wish there was a larger sampling of the different facets represented but I understand that as a first person telling it is limited by the authors contacts and experience.
That would be my only complaint is that the book seemed too short by far. There could be a whole second volume just flushing out all the details. Maybe someday.
The first person account and Malice's humor and wit make the last half of the book just fly by. I wish there was a larger sampling of the different facets represented but I understand that as a first person telling it is limited by the authors contacts and experience.
That would be my only complaint is that the book seemed too short by far. There could be a whole second volume just flushing out all the details. Maybe someday.
July 29, 2019
A must read if you want to understand the political landscape of the Donald Trump era of American politics. Actually, probably a must read for anyone who wants to really understand politics, media, and popular culture in general.
June 29, 2022
Malice provides an exhaustive overview of the transformation of thought for the New Right. The New Right can be broadly defined as:
In other words, the New Right is characterized by their contempt for the left and engagement with the culture war. Furthermore, most but not all of the New Right believe combatting the left requires engagement with the culture war. They are skeptical of the claim of linear social progress and the façade of civilized people, believing that human nature remains unchanged since the first humans.
The intellectual foundation can be found in Thomas Sowell, Jim Goad, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sam Hyde, and many other intellectuals, public and academic. Of course, these thinkers vary widely in their political thought, and consequently, Malice emphasizes that the movement is not hegemonic. As with all political groups, there is a fringe and even a fringe within the fringe.
Malice, for the most part, does an excellent job drawing together the interconnected yet disparate thoughts between each faction of the New Right. As both the left and the right engage with cancel culture and the takedowns of temporary thought leaders, emerging replacements remain unpredictable. Tomorrow's leaders of the New Right may appear from nowhere, influencing the group in new directions. Today we see how Milo has faded out from influence, replaced by the groypers, the Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin, and even Peter Thiel. These new thinkers, groups, and followers, more likely than not, will soon be replaced. Malice provides examples of the dominance and victories the New Right has had. Whether the New Right will remain influential, only time will tell.
a loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
In other words, the New Right is characterized by their contempt for the left and engagement with the culture war. Furthermore, most but not all of the New Right believe combatting the left requires engagement with the culture war. They are skeptical of the claim of linear social progress and the façade of civilized people, believing that human nature remains unchanged since the first humans.
The intellectual foundation can be found in Thomas Sowell, Jim Goad, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sam Hyde, and many other intellectuals, public and academic. Of course, these thinkers vary widely in their political thought, and consequently, Malice emphasizes that the movement is not hegemonic. As with all political groups, there is a fringe and even a fringe within the fringe.
Malice, for the most part, does an excellent job drawing together the interconnected yet disparate thoughts between each faction of the New Right. As both the left and the right engage with cancel culture and the takedowns of temporary thought leaders, emerging replacements remain unpredictable. Tomorrow's leaders of the New Right may appear from nowhere, influencing the group in new directions. Today we see how Milo has faded out from influence, replaced by the groypers, the Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin, and even Peter Thiel. These new thinkers, groups, and followers, more likely than not, will soon be replaced. Malice provides examples of the dominance and victories the New Right has had. Whether the New Right will remain influential, only time will tell.
November 29, 2020
Micheal Malice’s The New Right reminded me of a seemingly unrelated book, Catch the Jew! by Tuvia Tenenbom. Both are oddball travelogues focusing on the fringe of society (and both authors happen to be former yeshiva students). Tenenbom wanders Israel and the Palestinian Authority chatting with everyone from prostitutes to Hamas leaders; Malice speaks to internet trolls and white nationalists in America, and both genuinely enjoy humouring everyone they meet. The New Right covers the history of the new right (obviously) and discusses various flavours of anarchy and libertarianism. The style of both books is rambling and their humour is off colour, but somehow by the end of each book I learned something of substance.
I definitely want to read Malice's Dear Reader which is about North Korea. I think it will be more focused and less all over the place.
I definitely want to read Malice's Dear Reader which is about North Korea. I think it will be more focused and less all over the place.
July 22, 2019
Besides being utterly hilarious at parts, Mr Malice is one of the very few journos that strives to understand the New Right in all its various sects. This is a guy who was plugged into the movement for many years, and not someone who was on the sidelines peaking in. He takes New Right ideas, digs to the bottom of them, and explains why they are effective and sometimes brilliant. His crime, to the “Evangelical Left” as he calls them, is to even consider the New Right’s philosophy! But you will be glad that he does, and does so with lucid writing and hilarious insights. 95/100
July 16, 2019
Better than expected. The first 1/4 went way too deep into theoretical, ideological and historical intricacies of a very specific group, and just when I thought "I'm not that into the American right-wing politics", the book shifted gears and got interesting and hilarious. Also, one of the best concise narratives of the progressive 'religion', Gamergate and gamer culture. We live in interesting times, that much is true.
October 12, 2019
A fascinating perspective looking from the outside in to movements forming on the right side of the political spectrum - outside of mainstream conservatism - which seem to be growing in force and numbers.
Also irreverent as hell.
Also irreverent as hell.
May 21, 2020
More entertaining than I expected, this is an interesting and funny read throughout. The author's idea of the "new right" is not synonymous with the racist "alt-right". He covers a lot of different viewpoints, basically including everything besides neocons. Self-described as a "new york jew" and an anarchist, Malice gives even the most extreme people covered here a fair shot but also isn't shy about pointing out the misguided logic of the more vile people featured (especially those who hate him because of his ethnicity.) He reserves the most contempt for what he calls the cathedral (basically mainstream neoliberal thought.) and has a lot of laughs at their expense.
Recommended for those interested in modern US politics who enjoy a trollish sense of humor regardless of where you fall on the left/right spectrum.
Recommended for those interested in modern US politics who enjoy a trollish sense of humor regardless of where you fall on the left/right spectrum.
June 8, 2020
Fantastic
December 3, 2020
A bizarre take on trying to polish the "new right's" history whilst trying to explain their talking points without condoning and condemning them and failing at doing that. Still worth the read at times though. The moments with Gavin, Shapiro and Breitbart are pretty funny and condemning on them.
Read
January 31, 2022Mostly garbage.
April 30, 2022
I don't often get engrossed in a non-fiction book quite like this, but this one was definitely a page-turner in the strictest sense. Many other reviewers complained about the sporadic organization of the book, and if you're looking for something neatly organized that can later be used as an indexed reference, you might want to look elsewhere, such as books mentioned by other reviewers.
It is, like the title says, a journey: Meant to read from beginning to end.
But the sporadic nature is essential to the conversational tone of the book, which is very similar in nature to a literal conversation. That doesn't mean the book was without organization though, one of my favorite devices of the book is Malice's tendency to approach an idea or concept from a mile out, providing explanations, context and examples so that by the time he presents the actual idea, you have the same context as him and can therefore sympathize with his point of view.
He often does this in podcasts as well, but having the luxury of a book these "tangents" (as other reviewers might think of them as) are a bit longer and more involved, but never boring or completely off-topic. If you are willing to follow his train of thought, they are always tied back into the discussion at hand.
Because all things in the world are related, this type of strategy is essential for a non-expert to understand beyond a shallow surface level.
Some of the discussions and explanations are of ideas that many people would find objectionable, and although when Malice disagrees with them you will certainly know, no attempt is made to do the mandatory pearl-clutching ritual about how the ideas are of course horrible and racist etc.
I suspect this is done partially just because it's not in the author's nature to ever pander to an audience, nor does he want such an audience, and partially by design to aggressively filter out any such person from ever consuming his content.
To finally mention the actual content: The information in this book has certainly been enriching, I haven't heard of the Trollboard and its role in the movement, or of Mark Shea's strategy to mess with journalists, which was certainly a function of understanding of the media as an enemy to be strategized against, nor have I ever heard of the "gay virus" theory.
I learned more about the Rothbard/Buchanan alliance which I knew only in name before.
I have heard of William F. Buckley's (whose name I keep forgetting) National Review, but I had no idea of the way they overtook Conservatism and started decreeing what is and isn't part of that movement.
Motte and Bailey is another thing I hadn't heard of before, surprisingly, nor was the idea that some people have a complete lack of empathy and as a result are incapable of differentiating between universally accepted views and views that are exclusive to themselves. Here I would add that I think many of them are perfectly capable but won't - due to a similar character flaw that causes many people to eat horribly despite fully acknowledging that a healthy diet would probably save their lives in the long run, due to the simple fact that it's easier.
Jonathan Haidt's insights and Malice's conclusions on them were also fairly interesting, another person whose work I surprisingly haven't read yet.
Pointing out how Obama openly said that he would serve a higher ideal ("fairness") even if it made everyone worse off was pretty eye opening.
However here I would point out that having a higher ideal and sticking to it despite the apparent contradictory facts has a very good evolutionary purpose. If you had done well believing what you do for years, but now find contradictory information, it is much more likely that the information is incorrect, incomplete, or you simply don't see how it's wrong, than it is that it actually proves your beliefs (which have worked all these years) wrong.
This is actually explicitly stated in stock trading strategies. The number one factor in whether you'll succeed in day trading is how well you can stick to your pre-written strategy. If the market turns against you and you are taking a loss on a trade - the idealized "rational" thing to do would be to accept that this proves your strategy wrong and change your mind. In reality, it is stressed that even a losing trade is a good trade if it was made in service of the "greater ideal" of your strategy.
In other words, the successful thing to do is to serve the ideal with a zeal some might call delusional, and not "rationally" change your mind every second on the winds of contradictory information.
True belief in a higher ideal is the shield that guards you against turning tail and giving up at the slightest sign that things aren't working out.
This is actually my problem with Haidt's sterilized, strictly short term, perfect information moral dilemmas. It's implying that the world outside the perfect information system doesn't exist in terms of either space or time. Instead of his difficult dilemmas, let me posit my above day trading scenario in an extremely easy dilemma:
Should a hedge fund manager following a strategy make a trade he know will lose his client money even though the strategy calls for the trade being made?
The answer is obviously no, why would you deliberately lose your client money?
But I just explained why it is a good strategy to serve the strategy even with a losing trade, so why this answer? This is exactly the problem with these dilemmas. Morality works on the real world, not on idealized scenarios. In the real world, you don't, in fact, 100% know that the trade will be a loss, and your action to act against your strategy will have effects on your trading psychology down the line which could result in more losses.
The people trying to rewrite these scenarios aren't doing it to fit their worldview, they're trying to rewrite them into something that represents their understanding of reality (which after all is kind of the same thing).
Of course, sometimes your higher ideals and moral beliefs are just wrong.
I have heard of his Pistachio Paradox before, but I ran the numbers and they don't add up (if I recall correctly, you'd end up eating Pistachio some 3.7% of the time), but regardless it's a great point.
The rest of the chapter of The Case Against Democracy makes a pretty good case for why Democracy works neither in theory nor practice. His description of the anti-democratic techno-anarchist view was more or less my own views being repeated back to me, which I suppose is proof of how much of a free thinker I am.
Jim Goad was a name I haven't heard before, but reading about him and his work was certainly interesting, as was reading about the history of Gavin McInnes. These kinds of stories of the history (both old and contemporary) of the cultural zeitgeist were some of my favorite moments in the book.
The history of suppression of free speech and how technical free speech - the actual ability to communicate and spread information regardless of others' opinions or government policy - has never been greater before and is increasing (although I've heard these argument in fragments) was also very enriching to read.
When Michael disagrees, especially with white nationalists, he always spends a disproportionate amount of time arguing against their views. While these parts are by no means boring or uninteresting, I think they are some of the low points of the book (which are not very low).
Descriptions of contemporary events and figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos were interesting but not much new was learned as I sort of paid attention to it as it was happening. Some of the behind the scenes stuff though was always interesting, as was the lucid explainer that underlying the actions of a lot of these new right figures was the recognition of the Corporate Press as their enemy, who is engaging in strategy against them, and examples, such as Alex Jones' successful strategy against Megan Kelly, of how they strategized against the Corporate Press in turn.
Ann Coulter was someone I didn't know very much about, so it was interesting to learn about her.
Another really interesting tidbit was Ryan Holiday, who recognized his own marketing strategy in Milo's approach, and has pointed out and warned the his critics about this. The idea of getting canceled actually being a marketing and publicity boon has become more mainstream since then, (and "no such thing as bad publicity" has been around longer still) but it's nevertheless great to know that this has been a formalized strategy for a while and to know its history. In fact, I just now remembered the 2015 video game Hatred, a mediocre game whose marketing and appeal rested almost entirely in the massive controversy (one might say massive triggering) its announcement caused in one of history's earliest instances of what today we'd called cancelling.
Maybe they've read Ryan's book.
As mentioned in my updates, the part on how low-brow culture induces cultural dominance was easily one of my favorite parts of this book. The explanation of how the lowest common denominator, mass-appeal nature of this media makes it effective to spread and for people to voluntarily and eager to consume makes it the perfect propaganda tool was really illuminating, as was how these ostensibly apolitical media can inject the politics of the west into places like the Soviet Union or north Korea by showing that even the lowest of the low in the west have fur coats while they have newspapers for toilet paper.
Another one I thought of is Korean dramas showing the idea that individual motivations are not just the primary object of the story, but the curiosity about whether these individual goals are achieved is the hook that keeps you coming back. As such, a north Korean's interest in such media is already defined in terms of Western individualism, which is already turning him away from the collectivism of the Nation and the Dear Leader.
Like Malice often says, the north Korean regime is not crazy, and everything they do is for a reason. Here too, their motivation to kill anyone caught with things as simple as trashy Korean dramas is not informed by some demented zealous rage against Western decadence, but a very informed, grounded-in-reality strategic realization that it is one of the most effective tools for radicalizing the people against them.
Continued in this same bit is a short explanation of what I think is the thesis of Thadeus Russel's book A Renegade History of the United States, in how the marginalized invent and popularize not just culture, but rights and freedoms as well. An interesting bit of trivia here that I liked was how the drag queen Divine was the inspiration for Ursule the Sea Witch fifteen years later.
All of these were tangential to the Jarod Taylor interview, and while it's good to know about him, I didn't find the actual interview terribly interesting, except for the funny fact that he would accept Thomas Sowell as hwite if he said he was.
Finally, in The Road Ahead, Malice describes several organs of the Cathedral the New Right is opposed to, and how each of these organs are breaking and losing their grip on power. What used to be a country with near universal consensus with a small group of elites having a monopoly on the microphone is quickly turning into a place where anyone is free to speak their mind to any audience they can muster, universities are increasingly seen as bad investments, corporations are increasingly defying the state either out of ideology or market reasons, and States themselves are increasingly defiant towards the Federal Government, and where this shattering of the illusion of universal consensus is leading to more and more division and independence and to more and more people recognizing these uniting organs as the enemy.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is into politics enough to care and wants to have an engaging, cursory understanding of this political phenomenon. I would not recommend it to scholars who want a neatly organized, indexable treatment of the subject with no more or less information or fluff than necessary.
Books mentioned in this book that I might look into:
The Machiavellians
Illiberal Reformers
Trust Me I'm Lying
The Renegade History of the United States
Death and Life of Great American Cities
It is, like the title says, a journey: Meant to read from beginning to end.
But the sporadic nature is essential to the conversational tone of the book, which is very similar in nature to a literal conversation. That doesn't mean the book was without organization though, one of my favorite devices of the book is Malice's tendency to approach an idea or concept from a mile out, providing explanations, context and examples so that by the time he presents the actual idea, you have the same context as him and can therefore sympathize with his point of view.
He often does this in podcasts as well, but having the luxury of a book these "tangents" (as other reviewers might think of them as) are a bit longer and more involved, but never boring or completely off-topic. If you are willing to follow his train of thought, they are always tied back into the discussion at hand.
Because all things in the world are related, this type of strategy is essential for a non-expert to understand beyond a shallow surface level.
Some of the discussions and explanations are of ideas that many people would find objectionable, and although when Malice disagrees with them you will certainly know, no attempt is made to do the mandatory pearl-clutching ritual about how the ideas are of course horrible and racist etc.
I suspect this is done partially just because it's not in the author's nature to ever pander to an audience, nor does he want such an audience, and partially by design to aggressively filter out any such person from ever consuming his content.
To finally mention the actual content: The information in this book has certainly been enriching, I haven't heard of the Trollboard and its role in the movement, or of Mark Shea's strategy to mess with journalists, which was certainly a function of understanding of the media as an enemy to be strategized against, nor have I ever heard of the "gay virus" theory.
I learned more about the Rothbard/Buchanan alliance which I knew only in name before.
I have heard of William F. Buckley's (whose name I keep forgetting) National Review, but I had no idea of the way they overtook Conservatism and started decreeing what is and isn't part of that movement.
Motte and Bailey is another thing I hadn't heard of before, surprisingly, nor was the idea that some people have a complete lack of empathy and as a result are incapable of differentiating between universally accepted views and views that are exclusive to themselves. Here I would add that I think many of them are perfectly capable but won't - due to a similar character flaw that causes many people to eat horribly despite fully acknowledging that a healthy diet would probably save their lives in the long run, due to the simple fact that it's easier.
Jonathan Haidt's insights and Malice's conclusions on them were also fairly interesting, another person whose work I surprisingly haven't read yet.
Pointing out how Obama openly said that he would serve a higher ideal ("fairness") even if it made everyone worse off was pretty eye opening.
However here I would point out that having a higher ideal and sticking to it despite the apparent contradictory facts has a very good evolutionary purpose. If you had done well believing what you do for years, but now find contradictory information, it is much more likely that the information is incorrect, incomplete, or you simply don't see how it's wrong, than it is that it actually proves your beliefs (which have worked all these years) wrong.
This is actually explicitly stated in stock trading strategies. The number one factor in whether you'll succeed in day trading is how well you can stick to your pre-written strategy. If the market turns against you and you are taking a loss on a trade - the idealized "rational" thing to do would be to accept that this proves your strategy wrong and change your mind. In reality, it is stressed that even a losing trade is a good trade if it was made in service of the "greater ideal" of your strategy.
In other words, the successful thing to do is to serve the ideal with a zeal some might call delusional, and not "rationally" change your mind every second on the winds of contradictory information.
True belief in a higher ideal is the shield that guards you against turning tail and giving up at the slightest sign that things aren't working out.
This is actually my problem with Haidt's sterilized, strictly short term, perfect information moral dilemmas. It's implying that the world outside the perfect information system doesn't exist in terms of either space or time. Instead of his difficult dilemmas, let me posit my above day trading scenario in an extremely easy dilemma:
Should a hedge fund manager following a strategy make a trade he know will lose his client money even though the strategy calls for the trade being made?
The answer is obviously no, why would you deliberately lose your client money?
But I just explained why it is a good strategy to serve the strategy even with a losing trade, so why this answer? This is exactly the problem with these dilemmas. Morality works on the real world, not on idealized scenarios. In the real world, you don't, in fact, 100% know that the trade will be a loss, and your action to act against your strategy will have effects on your trading psychology down the line which could result in more losses.
The people trying to rewrite these scenarios aren't doing it to fit their worldview, they're trying to rewrite them into something that represents their understanding of reality (which after all is kind of the same thing).
Of course, sometimes your higher ideals and moral beliefs are just wrong.
I have heard of his Pistachio Paradox before, but I ran the numbers and they don't add up (if I recall correctly, you'd end up eating Pistachio some 3.7% of the time), but regardless it's a great point.
The rest of the chapter of The Case Against Democracy makes a pretty good case for why Democracy works neither in theory nor practice. His description of the anti-democratic techno-anarchist view was more or less my own views being repeated back to me, which I suppose is proof of how much of a free thinker I am.
Jim Goad was a name I haven't heard before, but reading about him and his work was certainly interesting, as was reading about the history of Gavin McInnes. These kinds of stories of the history (both old and contemporary) of the cultural zeitgeist were some of my favorite moments in the book.
The history of suppression of free speech and how technical free speech - the actual ability to communicate and spread information regardless of others' opinions or government policy - has never been greater before and is increasing (although I've heard these argument in fragments) was also very enriching to read.
When Michael disagrees, especially with white nationalists, he always spends a disproportionate amount of time arguing against their views. While these parts are by no means boring or uninteresting, I think they are some of the low points of the book (which are not very low).
Descriptions of contemporary events and figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos were interesting but not much new was learned as I sort of paid attention to it as it was happening. Some of the behind the scenes stuff though was always interesting, as was the lucid explainer that underlying the actions of a lot of these new right figures was the recognition of the Corporate Press as their enemy, who is engaging in strategy against them, and examples, such as Alex Jones' successful strategy against Megan Kelly, of how they strategized against the Corporate Press in turn.
Ann Coulter was someone I didn't know very much about, so it was interesting to learn about her.
Another really interesting tidbit was Ryan Holiday, who recognized his own marketing strategy in Milo's approach, and has pointed out and warned the his critics about this. The idea of getting canceled actually being a marketing and publicity boon has become more mainstream since then, (and "no such thing as bad publicity" has been around longer still) but it's nevertheless great to know that this has been a formalized strategy for a while and to know its history. In fact, I just now remembered the 2015 video game Hatred, a mediocre game whose marketing and appeal rested almost entirely in the massive controversy (one might say massive triggering) its announcement caused in one of history's earliest instances of what today we'd called cancelling.
Maybe they've read Ryan's book.
As mentioned in my updates, the part on how low-brow culture induces cultural dominance was easily one of my favorite parts of this book. The explanation of how the lowest common denominator, mass-appeal nature of this media makes it effective to spread and for people to voluntarily and eager to consume makes it the perfect propaganda tool was really illuminating, as was how these ostensibly apolitical media can inject the politics of the west into places like the Soviet Union or north Korea by showing that even the lowest of the low in the west have fur coats while they have newspapers for toilet paper.
Another one I thought of is Korean dramas showing the idea that individual motivations are not just the primary object of the story, but the curiosity about whether these individual goals are achieved is the hook that keeps you coming back. As such, a north Korean's interest in such media is already defined in terms of Western individualism, which is already turning him away from the collectivism of the Nation and the Dear Leader.
Like Malice often says, the north Korean regime is not crazy, and everything they do is for a reason. Here too, their motivation to kill anyone caught with things as simple as trashy Korean dramas is not informed by some demented zealous rage against Western decadence, but a very informed, grounded-in-reality strategic realization that it is one of the most effective tools for radicalizing the people against them.
Continued in this same bit is a short explanation of what I think is the thesis of Thadeus Russel's book A Renegade History of the United States, in how the marginalized invent and popularize not just culture, but rights and freedoms as well. An interesting bit of trivia here that I liked was how the drag queen Divine was the inspiration for Ursule the Sea Witch fifteen years later.
All of these were tangential to the Jarod Taylor interview, and while it's good to know about him, I didn't find the actual interview terribly interesting, except for the funny fact that he would accept Thomas Sowell as hwite if he said he was.
Finally, in The Road Ahead, Malice describes several organs of the Cathedral the New Right is opposed to, and how each of these organs are breaking and losing their grip on power. What used to be a country with near universal consensus with a small group of elites having a monopoly on the microphone is quickly turning into a place where anyone is free to speak their mind to any audience they can muster, universities are increasingly seen as bad investments, corporations are increasingly defying the state either out of ideology or market reasons, and States themselves are increasingly defiant towards the Federal Government, and where this shattering of the illusion of universal consensus is leading to more and more division and independence and to more and more people recognizing these uniting organs as the enemy.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is into politics enough to care and wants to have an engaging, cursory understanding of this political phenomenon. I would not recommend it to scholars who want a neatly organized, indexable treatment of the subject with no more or less information or fluff than necessary.
Books mentioned in this book that I might look into:
The Machiavellians
Illiberal Reformers
Trust Me I'm Lying
The Renegade History of the United States
Death and Life of Great American Cities
December 25, 2019
I vacillated between giving this book three and four stars. It's a pretty bold and ambitious book; its goal is to depict the new right in American politics. It does it by juxtaposing it with the progressive left and traditional conservatism.
The author's style is a mix of political commentary and a gonzo-style journalism. He describes the principles like a scholar or philosopher at times; at other times he interviews the subjects, describes hanging out with them, etc.
To say that the book is "unconvincing" isn't fair since I don't think the author is looking to win over the reader. I guess "not completely accurate" is how I would describe it. For the most part, the author mentions racism on the new right fleetingly. The last two chapters have to deal with anti-semitism and racism against black people; I admit that he addresses racism more fully here but is incorrect in his conclusions. The people he uses as the face of this portion of the New Right are scholarly types who try to be intelligent. I think the author tries to depict these people as wrangling with the idea of racism and trying to be "race realists" rather than racists, or simply white nationalists rather than neo-Nazis or fascists. Maybe the people who he interviewed are sincere but most of the movement is not like this.
I don't think you can understate the role of racism and race in the new right movement. As someone who is familiar with the new right (I follow /pol/ and right twitter which is the source of the movement) I can confidently say that racism is the bedrock of most of the New Right. There are exceptions like Ben Shapiro and other somewhat mainstream commentators. There are also those who will attempt to be "race realists" and take on a scholarly approach to race, like the people Malice interviewed. The majority of the people who are Alt Right or not Alt Right but part of the New Right are gleeful racists and trolls. When a white terrorist shoots up a black church they gleefully celebrate this on /pol/. The only ones who speak out against the shootings do so because of the "optics". The people I am describing are racist; Again I reiterate that I am a person who browses these forums. These people aren't simply united against the Cathedral of progressivism as the author suggests; even if trans, interracial relationships, and white genocide weren't pushed by the corporate media and universities (this is what the alt right & some of the new right believe), the new right would still want these people gone. The author puts the cart before the horse by depicting the new right as people who have logically come to their conclusions. In my opinion, they have come up with the conclusions first and built their logic around it.
I'm not trying to put words into the author's mouth; this review is simply my interpretation of what he is saying. Besides the fundamental error about race which I have described, the author often makes incorrect assumptions and reaches. He is convincing and funny at times but I think the book is lacking in accuracy overall. While it may be challenging, I don't think there is a whole lot to be learned from it.
Despite this and my 3-star rating, I think I might recommend this book to people. The author does a good enough job of being entertaining and challenging. People who may want to learn more about the new right should read this book but again I stress that I don't believe the author is accurate. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that he browses the same forums as I do (he mentions he lurks on /pol/).
The author's style is a mix of political commentary and a gonzo-style journalism. He describes the principles like a scholar or philosopher at times; at other times he interviews the subjects, describes hanging out with them, etc.
To say that the book is "unconvincing" isn't fair since I don't think the author is looking to win over the reader. I guess "not completely accurate" is how I would describe it. For the most part, the author mentions racism on the new right fleetingly. The last two chapters have to deal with anti-semitism and racism against black people; I admit that he addresses racism more fully here but is incorrect in his conclusions. The people he uses as the face of this portion of the New Right are scholarly types who try to be intelligent. I think the author tries to depict these people as wrangling with the idea of racism and trying to be "race realists" rather than racists, or simply white nationalists rather than neo-Nazis or fascists. Maybe the people who he interviewed are sincere but most of the movement is not like this.
I don't think you can understate the role of racism and race in the new right movement. As someone who is familiar with the new right (I follow /pol/ and right twitter which is the source of the movement) I can confidently say that racism is the bedrock of most of the New Right. There are exceptions like Ben Shapiro and other somewhat mainstream commentators. There are also those who will attempt to be "race realists" and take on a scholarly approach to race, like the people Malice interviewed. The majority of the people who are Alt Right or not Alt Right but part of the New Right are gleeful racists and trolls. When a white terrorist shoots up a black church they gleefully celebrate this on /pol/. The only ones who speak out against the shootings do so because of the "optics". The people I am describing are racist; Again I reiterate that I am a person who browses these forums. These people aren't simply united against the Cathedral of progressivism as the author suggests; even if trans, interracial relationships, and white genocide weren't pushed by the corporate media and universities (this is what the alt right & some of the new right believe), the new right would still want these people gone. The author puts the cart before the horse by depicting the new right as people who have logically come to their conclusions. In my opinion, they have come up with the conclusions first and built their logic around it.
I'm not trying to put words into the author's mouth; this review is simply my interpretation of what he is saying. Besides the fundamental error about race which I have described, the author often makes incorrect assumptions and reaches. He is convincing and funny at times but I think the book is lacking in accuracy overall. While it may be challenging, I don't think there is a whole lot to be learned from it.
Despite this and my 3-star rating, I think I might recommend this book to people. The author does a good enough job of being entertaining and challenging. People who may want to learn more about the new right should read this book but again I stress that I don't believe the author is accurate. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that he browses the same forums as I do (he mentions he lurks on /pol/).
June 18, 2020
Malice undertakes an analysis of the various factions within what some would call the “alt-right”, profiling various individuals. He describes his own project as an "intellectual time capsule of the New Right" and presents a good rundown.
He does so in a sarcastic, provocative, humorous package. Malice's own anarchistic views make him an outsider, which lends him an interesting angle on other outsiders. Therefore, "The New Right" is written in a partly-understanding tone that not everybody would enjoy, particularly because he revels in skewering the excesses of what he calls the "evangelical left" (think like campus radicals and such). Therein lies my main problem with this work; he makes legitimate criticisms of how the woke left fuels the far-right, but doesn't do enough to historicize these movements and over-essentializes the left. I'm quite critical of campus radicalism, but I think he upholds the most egregious of the far-left as representative of the whole left. For instance, he even calls the "evangelical left ... lacking in empathy and unable to perceive other points of view". It's a growing trend, sure, but I find most on the left understanding and concerned with the right things. Similar to my critique of Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. I think some of the alt-right grew out of a tradition that goes back to Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, and other historical figures Malice doesn't mention, despite his pronunciation that these beliefs are "as American as apple pie". I credit him for focusing on the Buchanan-Rothbard alignment of the early 1990s, which is the subject of a great episode of the podcast Know Your Enemy, but Malice should've explored more context.
The New Right's worldview exists in opposition to progressivism, or as Moldbug puts it, "the Cathedral". They see America and "the West" as under siege by this mentality. Malice pokes holes in the ideology, especially undermining some of the more extremist ideas and revealing them for the absurdity they propose. I found his analysis of the use of memes and a war for the domination of the cultural milieu convincing. It does seem as if the New Right project wants to undermine the established channels of knowledge and culture. And trolling, which he links back to Rothbard and an-caps, is a good way to do just that. This informs his analysis of 4Chan, Gamergate, political correctness, Jim Goad, NRx, Jared Taylor, and various other actors, groups, and movements on the New Right.
Not all of the figures are the best chosen, and Malice doesn't even go into the integralist corners of the new right, which seems like a major oversight. Also, I haven't seen that many alt-right types pining for Singapore, so the segment about foreign influences was sort of weak. For that matter, you can't talk about the foreign actors fueling the alt-right without mentioning Tommy Robinson, Julius Evola, and a few other figures.
But then again, this is not meant to be an encyclopedia of fringe right thought. It's a walkthrough, an equally harrowing, equally sarcastic, equally thought-provoking one.
He does so in a sarcastic, provocative, humorous package. Malice's own anarchistic views make him an outsider, which lends him an interesting angle on other outsiders. Therefore, "The New Right" is written in a partly-understanding tone that not everybody would enjoy, particularly because he revels in skewering the excesses of what he calls the "evangelical left" (think like campus radicals and such). Therein lies my main problem with this work; he makes legitimate criticisms of how the woke left fuels the far-right, but doesn't do enough to historicize these movements and over-essentializes the left. I'm quite critical of campus radicalism, but I think he upholds the most egregious of the far-left as representative of the whole left. For instance, he even calls the "evangelical left ... lacking in empathy and unable to perceive other points of view". It's a growing trend, sure, but I find most on the left understanding and concerned with the right things. Similar to my critique of Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right. I think some of the alt-right grew out of a tradition that goes back to Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, and other historical figures Malice doesn't mention, despite his pronunciation that these beliefs are "as American as apple pie". I credit him for focusing on the Buchanan-Rothbard alignment of the early 1990s, which is the subject of a great episode of the podcast Know Your Enemy, but Malice should've explored more context.
The New Right's worldview exists in opposition to progressivism, or as Moldbug puts it, "the Cathedral". They see America and "the West" as under siege by this mentality. Malice pokes holes in the ideology, especially undermining some of the more extremist ideas and revealing them for the absurdity they propose. I found his analysis of the use of memes and a war for the domination of the cultural milieu convincing. It does seem as if the New Right project wants to undermine the established channels of knowledge and culture. And trolling, which he links back to Rothbard and an-caps, is a good way to do just that. This informs his analysis of 4Chan, Gamergate, political correctness, Jim Goad, NRx, Jared Taylor, and various other actors, groups, and movements on the New Right.
Not all of the figures are the best chosen, and Malice doesn't even go into the integralist corners of the new right, which seems like a major oversight. Also, I haven't seen that many alt-right types pining for Singapore, so the segment about foreign influences was sort of weak. For that matter, you can't talk about the foreign actors fueling the alt-right without mentioning Tommy Robinson, Julius Evola, and a few other figures.
But then again, this is not meant to be an encyclopedia of fringe right thought. It's a walkthrough, an equally harrowing, equally sarcastic, equally thought-provoking one.
May 19, 2019
Incredible. Please read.
June 27, 2019
It is mostly old hat for people who follow the alt-right/alt-lite with any consistency. Malice's perspective is more focused on his interactions with NYC NRx-ers and the history of paleolibertarianism than is necessary.
Much of Malice's uneasiness with the "new right" seems to hinge on his Jewishness, and his aversion to ethnonationalism. There are multiple anecdotes peppered throughout the book about him bringing up his Jewish identity at social events, scanning rooms for other Jews, confronting right-wingers about their stance on the JQ etc. Malice recognizes that the "Evangelical left" is a violent religious cult, but sees himself as culturally stranded as a right-wing sympathetic Jewish cosmopolitan anarchist who has a conspicuous penchant for drag and gay culture.
One thing that struck me about the book was how superficial the analysis of the alt-right's rise and makeup was. It was maybe a notch or two above what I would expect from a long Angela Nagle column, but not authoritative in any sense. I can't tell if Malice is holding back or not--I would be embarrassed to publish something on a topic I was not an expert on (which is why I don't have any books on Austrian economics, for example), but I guess some people have less shame than others.
There are a few highlights. There's a long section where he picks apart Buchanan's "Death of the West", which I've always found to be a very overrated book. Towards the end, there is a great interview with Chris Cantwell, where Chris admits his act has always been tongue-in-cheek, and while he is a genuine white nationalist, he is comfortable performing the role of being so far to the right others can point to him when accused of being Nazis for the sake of the Overton window. His thesis is also sort of interesting: he believes that art, culture and vitality originates from the bottom, oppressed rungs of society, which in America were black Americans, drag queens, urban youth, etc., but more recently as the "evangelical left" has been ascendant, it has come from young, white, impotent men, which is not proof that this paradigm has changed, but rather that culturally, those young men are now the outgroup. I just wish there was a greater ratio of material like this instead of gonzo stuff about being afraid to approach Ann Coulter at a party.
Much of Malice's uneasiness with the "new right" seems to hinge on his Jewishness, and his aversion to ethnonationalism. There are multiple anecdotes peppered throughout the book about him bringing up his Jewish identity at social events, scanning rooms for other Jews, confronting right-wingers about their stance on the JQ etc. Malice recognizes that the "Evangelical left" is a violent religious cult, but sees himself as culturally stranded as a right-wing sympathetic Jewish cosmopolitan anarchist who has a conspicuous penchant for drag and gay culture.
One thing that struck me about the book was how superficial the analysis of the alt-right's rise and makeup was. It was maybe a notch or two above what I would expect from a long Angela Nagle column, but not authoritative in any sense. I can't tell if Malice is holding back or not--I would be embarrassed to publish something on a topic I was not an expert on (which is why I don't have any books on Austrian economics, for example), but I guess some people have less shame than others.
There are a few highlights. There's a long section where he picks apart Buchanan's "Death of the West", which I've always found to be a very overrated book. Towards the end, there is a great interview with Chris Cantwell, where Chris admits his act has always been tongue-in-cheek, and while he is a genuine white nationalist, he is comfortable performing the role of being so far to the right others can point to him when accused of being Nazis for the sake of the Overton window. His thesis is also sort of interesting: he believes that art, culture and vitality originates from the bottom, oppressed rungs of society, which in America were black Americans, drag queens, urban youth, etc., but more recently as the "evangelical left" has been ascendant, it has come from young, white, impotent men, which is not proof that this paradigm has changed, but rather that culturally, those young men are now the outgroup. I just wish there was a greater ratio of material like this instead of gonzo stuff about being afraid to approach Ann Coulter at a party.
June 9, 2019
The current Establishment/Elite/Ruling Class in the United States is a Progressivism one. Many belief this Elite to have come to power in recent times, perhaps under the Obama era. However, as Michael Malice argues in this book, Progressivism has been driving the bus since the late 19th Century.
They did this by taking control of the American universities, where they foresaw new ideas and policies would be created in these institutions to effect change in society. These ideas and policies were to be distributed out to the masses via other arms of the education system and mass media. The Progressives also saw the universities as grounds to produce a self-perpetuating elite to engineer every aspect of American society via an Administriative State. This Administrative State would fully come into power with the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Under this Administrative State, the United States changed from a Classical Liberal country, one of limited government, free market economics, inalienable individual rights and a isolationist foreign policy to a country of limitless government, Corporatist/Fascist economics, the complete disregard for individual rights and an interventionist foreign policy.
Attempts to take back control from the Progressives were made by The Right (now known as the Old Right) during the first half of the 20th Century, however they failed and the Progressive influence grew under figures such as FDR, who continued the legacy of Wilson.
A second attempt was made in the middle of the 20th century. These individuals were known as The New Right. It was broad coalition of schools of thought, such as: Murray Rothbard and the Anarchists; Ayn Rand and the Objectivists; William F. Buckley and the Moderate Conservatives/ex-Trotskyists, who would become the Neoconservatives (Necons); and Barry Goldwater and the Libertarians.
The movement failed however, largely because Buckley and the Neocons purged the others (they were ex-Communists after all) and hijacked the movement. Buckley and his cronies at National Review, would come to define The Right in America for the rest of the century and early parts of the 21st Century. Conceding ground at all turns on important issues, trying to take the moral high ground and play by the rules against opposition that has no morals and does not play by the rules. In other words, as the author would put it: "Conservatism is Progressivism driving the speed limit".
With the rise of the internet and Social Media, the population has access to more information than anytime in human history. This has fueled the rise of a New "New Right", which the author defines as:
"A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony."
The "New Right" has has gained more mainstream attention in the wake of the Trump election and the Media's obsession with the "Alt-Right". But do not be confused by the hysteria of the Media, this movement is not solely about the Economic Nationalism of Trump, or the Identity Politics of the White Nationalist "Alt-right", and quite frankly, they are both the least interesting aspects of this phenomenon.
This movement is NOT a monolith and is big tent of groups and individuals, many who disagree on virtually everything and some even despise one another. Some of these groups include, but not limited to are: Traditional Conservatives, Monarchists, Minarchists/Libertarians, Objectivists, Anarchists, Techno-Anarchists, Paleoconservatives, Paleolibertarians, Autocrats and Technocrats.
There are many other groups and individuals, who are mentioned in the book and not mentioned, who are not defined by the author as "New Right", but do who are arguably allied or have some overlap with The "New Right", such as Classical Liberals, refugees of the Democratic party, The Pick Artist Community, MGTOW (Men Go Their Own Way), Manosphere community, figures such as: Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin, and quite frankly, anyone that disagrees or challenges the Progressive elite.
How the "New Right" differs from the current Establishment Conservatives, is they are far more concerned with culture than politics. They understand that "politics is downstream for culture" as Andrew Breitbart would say. In other words, you must change culture to change politics.
They also understand how culture is created, often on the fringes of society. Punk Rock, Hip-Hop and Drag Queen culture were all once niche cultures on the fringe of society and are now recognised as mainstream in culture. Where culture is being created today is on the internet and The "New Right" has managed to tap into in this, particularly on Youtube, a platform it dominates with large audiences, often made up of people between the ages of 16 to 30. This is not only threating the Progressives bottom line, as more and more people are turning away from Old Media and also New Media platforms backed by Old Media such as: Vice and Vox, but it is also threats the future of their dominates as an ideology in society.
They also recognise that Progressivism ultimately does not want to co-exist with any other ideology and will not stop until everything that isn't Progressivism is destroyed, because of this, "New Right" are not willing to concede ground on anything and in most cases, are not interested in civil discourse, as it is ultimately impossible.
The book is written from the first person perspective of the author, Michael Malice, as he navigates his way through what the "New Right" is. Whilst the movement is like the "Tea Party and "Occupy" movements, which had no clear leaders, the "New Right" does have personalities. Malice does not really explore these personalities, but uses them as a jumping off point to explore the ideas and beliefs of this movement and the origins of these ideas and beliefs.
It's basically a "101" guide to these ideas and beliefs, so those more familiar with the ideas, or those looking for more of a book focused on the personalities might be disappointed. Regardless through, it's a light and humorous read, but yet is well researched and gives some legitimate analysis to something culturally significant that has been happening the last few years, which as been overlooked by the mainstream, partly on purpose and partly because of lack of understanding, for one reason or another.
If want to know what "The Right" actual means, it's history, it's beliefs, the context of the Trump election and understand the current political and cultural divide in America, but also understand Brexit, the EU elections, the election of Bolsonaro and the political and cultural divide across the West, you must read or listen to this book.
They did this by taking control of the American universities, where they foresaw new ideas and policies would be created in these institutions to effect change in society. These ideas and policies were to be distributed out to the masses via other arms of the education system and mass media. The Progressives also saw the universities as grounds to produce a self-perpetuating elite to engineer every aspect of American society via an Administriative State. This Administrative State would fully come into power with the election of Woodrow Wilson.
Under this Administrative State, the United States changed from a Classical Liberal country, one of limited government, free market economics, inalienable individual rights and a isolationist foreign policy to a country of limitless government, Corporatist/Fascist economics, the complete disregard for individual rights and an interventionist foreign policy.
Attempts to take back control from the Progressives were made by The Right (now known as the Old Right) during the first half of the 20th Century, however they failed and the Progressive influence grew under figures such as FDR, who continued the legacy of Wilson.
A second attempt was made in the middle of the 20th century. These individuals were known as The New Right. It was broad coalition of schools of thought, such as: Murray Rothbard and the Anarchists; Ayn Rand and the Objectivists; William F. Buckley and the Moderate Conservatives/ex-Trotskyists, who would become the Neoconservatives (Necons); and Barry Goldwater and the Libertarians.
The movement failed however, largely because Buckley and the Neocons purged the others (they were ex-Communists after all) and hijacked the movement. Buckley and his cronies at National Review, would come to define The Right in America for the rest of the century and early parts of the 21st Century. Conceding ground at all turns on important issues, trying to take the moral high ground and play by the rules against opposition that has no morals and does not play by the rules. In other words, as the author would put it: "Conservatism is Progressivism driving the speed limit".
With the rise of the internet and Social Media, the population has access to more information than anytime in human history. This has fueled the rise of a New "New Right", which the author defines as:
"A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony."
The "New Right" has has gained more mainstream attention in the wake of the Trump election and the Media's obsession with the "Alt-Right". But do not be confused by the hysteria of the Media, this movement is not solely about the Economic Nationalism of Trump, or the Identity Politics of the White Nationalist "Alt-right", and quite frankly, they are both the least interesting aspects of this phenomenon.
This movement is NOT a monolith and is big tent of groups and individuals, many who disagree on virtually everything and some even despise one another. Some of these groups include, but not limited to are: Traditional Conservatives, Monarchists, Minarchists/Libertarians, Objectivists, Anarchists, Techno-Anarchists, Paleoconservatives, Paleolibertarians, Autocrats and Technocrats.
There are many other groups and individuals, who are mentioned in the book and not mentioned, who are not defined by the author as "New Right", but do who are arguably allied or have some overlap with The "New Right", such as Classical Liberals, refugees of the Democratic party, The Pick Artist Community, MGTOW (Men Go Their Own Way), Manosphere community, figures such as: Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin, and quite frankly, anyone that disagrees or challenges the Progressive elite.
How the "New Right" differs from the current Establishment Conservatives, is they are far more concerned with culture than politics. They understand that "politics is downstream for culture" as Andrew Breitbart would say. In other words, you must change culture to change politics.
They also understand how culture is created, often on the fringes of society. Punk Rock, Hip-Hop and Drag Queen culture were all once niche cultures on the fringe of society and are now recognised as mainstream in culture. Where culture is being created today is on the internet and The "New Right" has managed to tap into in this, particularly on Youtube, a platform it dominates with large audiences, often made up of people between the ages of 16 to 30. This is not only threating the Progressives bottom line, as more and more people are turning away from Old Media and also New Media platforms backed by Old Media such as: Vice and Vox, but it is also threats the future of their dominates as an ideology in society.
They also recognise that Progressivism ultimately does not want to co-exist with any other ideology and will not stop until everything that isn't Progressivism is destroyed, because of this, "New Right" are not willing to concede ground on anything and in most cases, are not interested in civil discourse, as it is ultimately impossible.
The book is written from the first person perspective of the author, Michael Malice, as he navigates his way through what the "New Right" is. Whilst the movement is like the "Tea Party and "Occupy" movements, which had no clear leaders, the "New Right" does have personalities. Malice does not really explore these personalities, but uses them as a jumping off point to explore the ideas and beliefs of this movement and the origins of these ideas and beliefs.
It's basically a "101" guide to these ideas and beliefs, so those more familiar with the ideas, or those looking for more of a book focused on the personalities might be disappointed. Regardless through, it's a light and humorous read, but yet is well researched and gives some legitimate analysis to something culturally significant that has been happening the last few years, which as been overlooked by the mainstream, partly on purpose and partly because of lack of understanding, for one reason or another.
If want to know what "The Right" actual means, it's history, it's beliefs, the context of the Trump election and understand the current political and cultural divide in America, but also understand Brexit, the EU elections, the election of Bolsonaro and the political and cultural divide across the West, you must read or listen to this book.
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