The New Right vision of politics is unapologetically elitist, hierarchical, and communitarian. The right-wing base, in contrast, is rebellious, egalitarian, and individualist. The New Right and the right base are united in their hatred for the meritocratic striver culture of America’s bicoastal elites. But their attitudes towards elite politics are fundamentally different.
Think of both the left and the right as having an elite and a mass. On the left, the elites and the mass are on the same page. The elites treat the mass as victims in need of help, and the mass on the left is satisfied to be treated that way. On the right, the elite opposes the left’s elite because the elite on the right has its own elitist project. The mass on the right opposes the left’s elite because the mass does not want to be part of any elitist project. So on the right, the elite and the mass are on a different page, except that they both oppose the elite on the left.
My concern these days is with the problem of institutions. Suppose that Harvard and the New York Times suddenly decided to discard Wokeism. Imagine that Harvard reverted to the pursuit of knowledge and the Times reverted to straight factual reporting. In that case, I would respect the value provided by those institutions. The mass on the right would still resent the elitism of those institutions.
I am skeptical of populism. I do not have faith in “the people” either as individuals or collectively. Human nature is far from reliably good. I think that society requires strong norms and institutions in order to constrain behavior. I buy into the civilization vs. barbarism axis.
But I am skeptical of elites. I think that most people who say that they have the answers turn out to be fools or knaves. The better elites are those who focus on norms and institutions, rather than on heroic leadership or “the right policies.” And the better elites are those who focus on the perils of strong government, rather than on its promise.
Agree with most of this, but you’re missing the point on Harvard and the New York Times. This isn’t some infection they can shake off, the Woke are the wolves picking off the dying, straggling sheep. The internet is killing off the outdated information jobs of newspaper journalist and university academic, just as it has largely killed off the information job of taxi dispatcher in cities all over the world.
It is that fundamental weakness that has allowed the Woke parasites in, they are incapable of causing such weakness themselves. Harvard and the NYT will survive the death of most other universities and newspapers, as the flagships that are most endowed, but they will be sunk too. It is inevitable.
It doesn’t strike me that the ‘right mass’ (lower middle class white people, essentially) would by necessity resent Neutral Harvard or Honest NYT for ‘elitism.’
Their resentment now comes from the sense that these institutions hate them and want to destroy their lives (true, and mostly done).
If these organs could be detached from Power (what Woke is to them – essentially a gun pointed at what little they still own) there would be no cause for resentment. In the world where your petty bourgeoisie could simply ignore the intellectual class as a bunch of chattering fools, rather than scourge and a menace, both groups would be happier.
“My concern these days is with the problem of institutions.”
Which side holds a near monopoly on institutional power within academia, the media and big tech? Is it even close?
“The mass on the right would still resent the elitism of those institutions.”
Can somebody please flesh this out a bit? The populist right opposes the NYT and Harvard for being elite? The populist right resents these institutions primarily because those institutions malign and marginalize them.
It seems to me you basically misunderstand most of the conservative mass. They don’t necessarily resent all Elite. The resent the ‘distant’ or ‘global’ elite. They like local elites quite well, typically. That’s where the challenge is – forming distributed associations which include local elites.
You’re getting close, but it’s not quite like that.
Notice the contradiction in which the “right mass” is simultaneously accused of being both ‘populist’ (i.e., anti-elitism) and ‘authoritarian’ (i.e. hero-worshipful of their *own* champions / elites).
(As an aside, it’s almost impossible to talk about ‘populism’ in any serious way, because the “prevarication of names” has muddied the conversational waters and what once had precise meaning is now reduced to an ill-defined political boo-word like ‘fascism’. But in general, it is the feeling of being conquered, colonized, and commanded by a hostile and alien ruling class inimical to the customs, beliefs, traditions, and interests of those who are the True, Legitimate, Real Volk. American leftist elites are “counter-volkisch” (e.g., 1619 project), and American right populist sentiment is an “anti-counter-volkisch” reaction to all attempts at the status-denigration and transvaluation of the moral interpretation of the traditional national heroic narrative, and a replacement of it with one of a sequence of leftist triumphs undoing that stained legacy.)
At any rate, the right mass is not actually a bunch of prickly individualists, lone wolf hermits, and cats too hard to herd. It has no problem venerating the military and reflexively granting great respect and deference to flag officers (much to their own detriment, as the unfortunate truth is that senior military leaders can no longer fulfill their primary responsibility of winning wars).
And while it’s true that military professionals do not occupy the highest rungs on the status ladder in our (left-favoring) mode of social organization, they are still pretty high up there, and the military is indisputably a collectivist enterprise that is quasi-‘elitist’ (i.e., elites call the shots, everyone else obeys) quasi-‘aristocratic’ class-based with officers over men in a rigidly ranked hierarchy.
But it is (or, was, before going woke) a staunchly meritocratic and neutral enterprise perceived as being aligned with the genuine public interest and American patriotism.
So, it’s not that the American right mass won’t follow and rally around any elites or elitist institutions whatsoever, it’s that only particular ‘volkisch’ kinds will work given the particular circumstances of time and place. This is the counterargument to Greer’s thesis, and which can be supported with historical counterexamples, none of which, however, seem viable at the moment (partly due to less homogeneity and assimilation).
But which may become so, or evolve into some new form that is. The problem with the New Right isn’t that the right mass can’t be led by elites, it’s that they have been barking up the wrong trees so far in their efforts at ‘reformulation’ of who those elites are supposed to be, and what they are supposed to be doing. But it’s not inherently impossible that in a process of educated trial and error they’ll figure it out eventually, and hopefully before it’s too late to make any difference.
My read of history is that, since the French Revolution, only a very few “ideological patterns” have worked well enough to organize the right mass with enough cohesion and solidarity – and to form them into obedient ranks behind their own elite leaders – to have had any chance whatever in terms of being able to pose any challenge to the various manifestations of leftist movements and hold them at bay, which ‘mere conservatism’ cannot do except in the short-term.
These forms are not mutually exclusive and can be combined or have a lot of overlap, but I think in general they are: Theocracy, Monarchy (or some modern forms of quasi-dictatorship), Militarism, Fascism, and “Ethno-Nationalism”, of both the organic and synthetic varieties.
Perhaps only in the United States did ‘liberty’ / ‘classical liberalism’ work too, for a while, and only because – due to unique aspects of American history – the ethos of freedom and state-skepticism *was* the traditional, volkisch custom going back to the heritage of the rights and liberties of Englishmen and the narrative of the Revolution. And thus, as Hayek pointed out, old American ‘conservatism’ has always been distinct from the European variety in carrying this originally radical and emancipatory element along with it, and in a way which stood in contrast and as a perpetual co-evolving rival with American progressivism. It’s largely because no other countries have this indigenous rival that they stood no chance to resist American-style progressivism.
Unfortunately for the prospects of the New Right finally hitting on the correct formula, the left has instinctively been doing everything they can to suppress and undermine the potential for a recrudescence of any one of these rival ideological patterns.
There isn’t enough ethnic homogeneity anymore for genuine organic nationalistic resistance, and they’ve made it clear that organization on the basis of promoting the interests of the non-diverse is the worst thing in the world. Non-communist monarchy / dictatorship is evil and they are all on the “enemies list” to be bumped off in ‘springs’ just as soon as circumstances permit.
(Since the mid 19th century, whenever a monarch tried to intervene against leftism with anything less than ruthless violence, the leftist elements and trade unions made it clear who was supposed to stay out of things and play the role of ceremonial figurehead, and who was really boss – see, e.g., The Easter Crisis in Denmark.)
Fascism, Militarism and (traditional) Theocracy (cf., ‘falange’) don’t need any elaboration, and anyway, the basic of traditional American social conservatism was a historically ‘exceptional’ amount of religious adherence and regular practice continuing into the 20th century when it had already started dying out in the other developed countries. But American has now caught up, and woke is the dominant religion, and so that won’t work any more for the right.
Sp, any of those *in isolation* is a non-starter – part of why the New Rightists tend to flail, because they tend to fixate obsessively on one element to excess and to the expense of balance with the others. That’s like trying to bake a cake with only sugar, but no flour, milk, butter, and eggs.
What the New Right requires, therefore, is a new combination with the right mix of the right amounts of all these elements, combined with a new way to organize the right mass and keep them in line behind their own new elites, and long enough and with enough actual power and willpower to finally break the fever of the wokeist menace.
Great comment. Shows a strong understanding of the various forms of ‘reaction’ which have been tried so far and how none seems overly promising for our moment.
Rather than a reactionary potpourri (or cake, as you put it) I wonder about simple competence as a promising ‘ideological pattern’ the right might try next. Maybe nominating a real CEO next time around instead of a celebrity impersonator (which already worked somewhat well, despite the obvious downsides)?
The other reason the new right and related projects (including the reformicons from a few year back) have trouble is that they are socially disconnected from the masses they want to lead. If white America has “come apart” in Murray’s words, they live on the Belmont side of the divide. #1 thing they could do to get to a version of elite politics that will rally masses is build out mass institutions that will force them into regular contact with actual masses. My 2c
1. Is this a “substack effect” that, in my impression, it seems like we’ve recently gone back in time 15 years and interesting, higher-level conversations can now happen deep in the comments to a blog post again? I don’t know if it can last, but I hope so and certainly welcome this development.
2. In my mind there is no question at all that you are quite correct as to the near total estrangement and class alienation of modern political intellectuals from their hoped-for constituents. It seems to me that this has been made worse over time and thus especially bad for the latest generation of younger political intellectuals by impersonal forces which have caused more efficient sorting and greater centralization into fewer “Big Winner Cities” and by the increased class-segregation divergence to which this contributes. Many New Rightist therefore almost necessarily find themselves in the position of ‘class traitor’ purportedly for the sake of the interests of another class they barely know (and whose folkways and preferences they likely barely tolerate).
3. However, the big question that would take a whole essay to explore is whether this really matters all that much. I suspect it matters a little, but not all that much. Political intellectuals coming from a higher class and not having much in common or mixing much with their actual ‘base’ is a common feature of history, even recent American history on the right. William F Buckley exuded the unmistakable air of the snobbish aristocrat. I once met the late Charles Krauthammer who gave off a similar vibe, and whose erudite commentary, I was once informed, was some of the most popular among the typical Fox viewer at that time. Tucker Carlson plays that role today, and I figure he shares a similar degree of estrangement. Trump has prole tastes and had incredibly good instincts for what sells well to the proles in his base, but in reality he had very little in common or connection with them, less, for example, than Bill Clinton who had similar tastes and instincts but as least had a upbringing among that class, unlike, say, Obama.
The point of all that is to emphasize that while the estrangement is certainly true, common, and severe, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will also lack popularity, salience, or resonance if one can hit the right chords with the right mass, or even, with enough time and persistence, nudge the right mass to get on the train and thus toward having a new or revised set of desires and preferences more like those casting to be their new elites. A common meme on the less mainstream right is that this is precisely what the Straussians and neoconservative intellectuals – not exactly of Red Stater MAGA Amerikaner stock, tastes, or deportment! – were successfully able to accomplish on the American right, at least for a while.
There’s that old business joke about there being no amount of marketing which can save a hopelessly bad product, “The Dogs Won’t Eat It.” Some things dogs love on first bite. Others they can be gradually coaxed into eating and even liking, with the “hunger being the best sauce” helping the process along. But with some things, they’re rather starve.
So, for example, I think Vermeule’s Integralism is intellectually coherent and even ‘correct’ in terms of the validity of many of his core points and insights, but the dogs we have today won’t eat it, and getting them to in on par with all the other “regime complete problems”. Oren Cass’ “National Protectionist Diverse Arbeiterpartei” (NPDAP) has more of a chance, but so far seems to lack sufficient flavor and appeal. Trump and Carlson seem to have a much better handle on what the dogs will eat up, which, as Hanania pointed out, seems to be 24/7 anti-leftist counter-wokening culture war that is, so far, mostly symbolic, the “catharsis of those being lowered in status” and empty, impotent, and fruitless whining about the “progressive outrage of the day”.
My guess is that what many of the New Right intellectuals are really estranged from is precisely this kind of kind of Trump-Carlson-Cotton-Cruz-Hawley (and maybe now Vance too?) red meat culture-war politics. They find all that nasty and distasteful – not to mention cancel-bait and reputationally toxic because the left will always call it all racist – and so they would rather wonk out in policy white papers or write high-brow systematizing analysis of the political situation. I can sympathize! Politics need that level, but it also happens at the grass roots where the mud is, and there is no alternative to being willing to get one’s hands dirty to give the dogs at least a little of what they want.
And I think the bigger problem is not so much that New Right elite intellectuals don’t mix with ordinary members of the right mass volk, but that they are (rationally!) allergically averse to the Trumpy things they like. You could mix them all up in a social blender for years, but you wouldn’t cure that allergy without some new institution that could solve the “individual reputation destruction” problem.
I think Kling completely misunderstands the mass on the right. We don’t resent elites- we resent elites that attempt to wield power over us. We increasingly resent elites who claim to be our allies because they seem, these days, to be ineffectual at best, and enemies inside the wire at worst.
+1!
I don’t resent people who do well in life, or are more successful than I. I do resent many that wield an unjustified political power over me.
Everyone on the right was mostly fine with the elite owners and athletes of MLB, until they pulled the All-Star game out of Georgia over a new voting law. Then came the resentment. Same goes for the NFL and all the anthem kneeling stuff. Same goes for Coca Cola and the “be less white” scandal. Same goes for Bezos and Amazon until it started banning books and authors on the right.
The left can whip up class hatred against the rich elites simply for *being* rich elites. The right doesn’t hate elites for the sake of hating elites, they hate *politicized* elites who are perceived to be improperly abusing their power, influence, and authority in ways which harm the right.
If the right is against a particular whole class of elites, it is usually those in the Institutions of Influence and the “Intellectual Fashion Industry” – Journalism and Academia especially – because those whole sectors are so thoroughly dominated by leftists trying to use their positions to dump on the right.
A great devolution of power from D.C. would go a long way to righting the ship, in my not so humble opinion. People in D.C., NY, LA, and SF can be as woke as they want to be as long as they leave me alone.
“On the left, the elites and the mass are on the same page.”
The point of making Biden the candidate was that he’d say words like malarkey instead of intersectional.
A term like “birthing people” is popular with elites but not the mass. Which is why Biden was put up as the face of the party.
The winning candidate couldn’t do the pronoun thing. The DNC judged correctly that voters needed to be given a guy who would say “Do I look like a radical socialist?” and then dismantle the racist highways and call it infrastructure spending.
Ordinary voters on the left and the right are on the same page about all the outrage-of-the-day stuff. The elites are a lunatic fringe.
You’d have to be the kind of racist lunatic they applaud at Yale to think “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind” is a winning campaign slogan. So the elites eat up their red meat about shooting people in the head for being white, but the mass get a softer message.
That message is not: “There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil.” That message is not: “We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.”
Richard Hanania wrote a brilliant article that covers the type of behavior that NYT deserves resentment for:
I don’t resent people or organizations just because they’ve done well. Here, NYT is threatening a successful tech company, with genuine legal threats, over their preference of staying politically neutral. I admire Coinbase, who are arguably elite, and more successful than I.
Let me give a practical example here. A lot of my friends attend the March for Life every year. These friends are all very normal college graduate Catholics who don’t follow politics at all and might not even be aware of the NYTimes existence. I would think these people represent the “masses” your talking about, in that Trump split white college graduates down the middle given their religion and that most of them are now married with kids they probably lean but not overwhelmingly vote R.
I don’t detect any “resentment of elites” amongst them. But they were really appalled at what happened over the Covington Catholic kids at the March for Life. And they were also appalled at how quickly the Catholic elite establishment threw those kids under the bus, only some later somewhat reversing their stance when it became too embarrassing. Further, they had to watch the March for Life get cancelled this year because of COVID concerns, even thought the summer racial riots were lauded for burning down our cities in defiance of stay at home orders.
Arnold, you keep thinking that the elites can be talked out of their downward spiral. They can’t. They weren’t even talked into it. They just responded to an incentive structure where being more woke is all benefits and no cost. Until their behavior is punished at a personal level, which probably needs to come from populist backlash, they aren’t going to change. Once you hurt them, and credibly convince them the pain will only get worse and worse the more they misbehave, will they re-evaluate their actions. If right wing elites want to be of any use, they ought to find a way to hurt progressives enough to make them stop acting this way.
I don’t think it matters. It is still greatly underappreciated how the internet and software is destroying the institutions that house these elites. Previously, if you were a great journalist, you might join a big city paper and break stories there, albeit under their editorial control. Now, you can just open a Substack, rake in much more, and have full editorial control.
There is an unbundling effect here, where true superstars were historically forced to take less pay to support many other would-be elites, like the music companies where one hit album paid for a bunch of busts. Now, you take on all the risk, no advances for your first book or album on self-publishing platforms like Kindle or Soundcloud, and all of the reward too.
Both these new online platforms and various dependent effects like unbundling are going to destroy most existing elites, whether in media or government. I know they can sense that, hence the Wokesterism is just them pitching one last fit before they’re swept away into the dustbin of history.
I don’t know a single individual IRL that subscribes to a substack or even knows that it is.
Matty Y can post about how egregious anti-white DEI programs are…but I and ever other employee in my massive company were just told to report to one.
I think these people are mostly talking to themselves. Tom Hanks is making editorials in the NYTimes about how we are all a bunch of racists responsible for Tulsa and that needs to be taught in school.
I think people underestimate how much it mattered that Trump was good for TV. That is where the mass audience is, and Facebook likes aren’t much different.
BTW, news story of the day. Facebook banned a republican congressmen for posting about a covid treatment drug that the IDW/Substack/GMU sphere seems to think is pretty good.
> I don’t know a single individual IRL that subscribes to a substack or even knows that it is.
Yes, very few people pay for these niche news products, just as you said most of your friends don’t know the NYT exists. But even in much more popular products like music or video- ESPN subscribers are down 20% from their 2011 peak- large chunks of the audience have broken off for the internet, never to return.
DEI is a fad, and will disappear like the Macarena.
There is increasingly no “mass audience,” the internet returns us to the pre-broadcast world of an agglomeration of niches, except instead of being stuck with your local newspaper and theater in 1900, now you self-select which substack/ghost and youtube channels you watch.
The more FB bans stuff, the more techies it spurs to create the next Parler or Gab, and one day one of those new networks will kill off FB, just as it superseded MySpace before it.
@asdf, on “you keep thinking that the elites can be talked out of their downward spiral. They can’t.”
Esp. seeing as so many of them get many such attitudes from Leftist contempt for (what are now known as) Deplorables.