I mostly agree with this take from Scott Greer.
1. The divide in style and substance between the online and offline Right is now probably greater than the divide between the mainstream Right and the Dissident Right.
2. The Dissident Right is one faction competing for influence in a larger online Right.
3. Some issues that the Dissident Right have always cared about like immigration and fighting Wokeism or anti-White racism have a lot more traction than others like the Jewish Question. Breitbart, for example, has more heavy coverage of illegal immigration than most Dissident Right sites.
4. The Dissident Right has little influence over the GOP. Washington is a gerontocracy and politicians are more sensitive to the views of older voters who are much more likely to vote. While the Center Right has collapsed over the past decade, it still punches far above its weight.
5. I also strongly agree with both Scott Greer and Walt Bismarck that the Populist Right is soaked in stupid conspiracy theories and infested by hucksters and grifters. It is currently represented by people like Lauren Boebert in Congress who are an embarrassment. We can do a lot better.
“It’s never been easier to discover “Dissident Right” viewpoints than in the current year. These once forbidden ideas now inspire some of the biggest names in conservative commentary. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, Charlie Kirk, Steven Crowder, various Blaze hosts, and a slew of others all echo Dissident Right ideas. Thanks to Elon Musk’s acquisition of X and the platform’s commitment to free speech, right-wing posts go viral all the time. The line between mainstream right and dissident right is very thin when it comes to the online sphere.
One could argue that the term Dissident Right (DR) is no longer relevant as it’s no longer restricted to the margins. It’s hard to be in dissent when the mainstream accepts your ideas. This is a valid position, but it comes with important caveats. The DR still lies at the margins when it comes to the Offline (aka real-world) Right and it’s not in the dominant position within the Online Right. It’s premature to declare victory for the Dissident Right.
First, we need to define some terminology.
The Dissident Right gained popularity after the implosion of the Alt Right. People desired a new term to distinguish themselves from the mainstream right while avoiding the now-toxic label of Alt Right. Coined by John Derbyshire in the early 2010s, Dissident Right was adopted as the replacement term. No one has been particularly happy with it, but in lieu of a better term, everyone has stuck with it. … ”
Has the Dissident Right gone mainstream?
I would argue that people like Liz Cheney are the dissidents now.
The 2024 Republican primary has settled a lot of questions: Donald Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party, the status of “True Conservatism” in the Republican Party, the relative strength of the Populist Right and the Center Right, the relative appeal of Trumpism and Reaganism, whether the party wants to proceed in a nationalist and populist direction or a more traditional conservative one.
The Republican base is animated by conspiracy theories and a host of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, cultural and economic grievances against liberalism. It is centered on a cult of personality and a charismatic leader. It yearns for a strong man. It is animated by a thirst for revenge, fear of racial and cultural decline and us vs. them thinking. Pat Buchanan-style nationalism is taken for granted now. Immigration is by far the most important issue for Republican voters. The upcoming vote on Ukraine aid is so polarizing that it could bring down House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Daily Wire and most other conservative websites traffic in White identity politics. Both parties have embraced some version of industrial policy and economic nationalist rhetoric about putting American workers first.
The Alt-Right / Dissident Right is fully within the mainstream of the dominant current pulsating through rightwing politics in 2024. Fuentes, Scott Greer and Alex Jones participated in the Stop the Steal rallies. Fuentes and Jones were at January 6. There might be some slight differences over which conspiracy theories to embrace (Jones is soft on Jews, hard on the NWO and globalist elites), but none of them are in any sense an “alternative” to what Trump represents or “dissenting” from the establishment which is Trump. They are all strong supporters of the MAGA status quo.
If you look under the hood of the Republican coalition in 2024, it looks a lot more like the sort of atavistic rhetoric, driving impulses and dynamics that you would have found on a White Nationalist forum in the 2000s than anything put out by the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation. It has gotten to the point where a large chunk of the Republican base would even support a violent revolution to “Take Back America.” You could make the argument it was already attempted on January 6.
In every church and community in the country and especially among established elites who were satisfied and successful in the pre-Trump years, you will find disoriented, usually older Rip van Winkle Republicans trying to understand the revolution that has swallowed them whole. The divide is usually younger / older, online / cable television, non-professional / professional. These people are Mike Pence and Nikki Haley voters. Older people who watch Hannity and listen Mark Levin and read The Wall Street Journal are more offline Right. When Tucker Carlson was at FOX News, he was cultivating a younger, more online and radical populist audience, which would tune out when Hannity came on at 9 PM.
Generational change that is gathering momentum is what is driving this. I’m one of the youngest Gen Xers / earliest Millennials. My political views were shaped entirely by the internet and the world as I experienced it after 9/11 in the 2000s. I barely remember the Cold War. I grew up during the culture war in the 1990s. America has been bitterly polarized for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember a time when there were only a handful of television stations or platforms for rightwing influencers. Young people on the Right in 2024 were all born after 9/11 and grew up on social media while the generation that was most strongly influenced by WW2, television and postwar conservatism has largely passed away over the last twenty years. It is the sheer passage of time that is driving ideological change on the Right.
In the 2030, I will be 50-years-old and people my age will be becoming grandparents. The horizon of political awareness will have shifted ahead in time another decade. There will be even fewer people who remember what was life like before the Cold War. The memory and grip of the 20th century on American politics will be much weaker. Nearly everyone will be digital natives. Historians will be writing about “True Conservatism” and the mainstream media which passed away in the 2020s.
I’m now so old that I barely remember William F. Buckley who died in 2008. Rich Lowry was the editor of National Review in the George W. Bush era when I developed my political views in reaction to people like David Frum and Jonah Goldberg. I don’t remember what it was like in the Buckley era. I was meditating on this last night driving home when I saw this new Buckley documentary on PBS. I’m about to turn 44-years-old – half way to my grave – and I have to learn about this era on YouTube.
Note: Alt-Right and Dissident Right are terms which should be retired. This is just how rightwing politics is these days and will be for a long time going forward.
Far Reich?
Brad, the only problem is that the Dissident Right offers no real solution and Americans are far further gone than the Germans of the Weimar Republic ever were.
Racially, culturally, socially…in pretty much every realm of their society
I attended two tapings of Firing Line and regarded him as an idol in my young conservative activist days.
We were fighting the cold war and priority one was to deter and ultimately defeat the USSR. We were all staunchly pro-Israel. Times have changed so much since then.
So, have I.
“regarded him as an idol”
How could you respect someone who is so distant from the common aspects of a normal life, without regard for the plight of WHITE citizens?
The growing disbelief by under-30yo in the Holocaust and Israel’s current actions will play a huge part in US politics and society in even the next 10 years. And a lot more normies on both the R and L are coming to understand the immense amount of wealth and power that the jews have control over in the US. What was once considered Fringe Right has now become normalized.
“What was once considered Fringe Right has now become normalized.”
Then there, at the very least, we (i.e., me) who were around (21) when you could by a Spotlight newspaper from Liberty Lobby from a vending machine by just inserting a quarter in front of the local JBS building, are justified. HW, you think you are old?
I remember vividly the November day JFK died, walking home with four other parochial students, when the nuns let us all go (without busses or chaperones, teachers or any other adult) – in the middle of the day, and my mother meeting me at the door, crying unashamedly, teh B/W TV flickering in the living room. I remember the TV show called the Apollo Moon Landing in 1969. And I barely remember the Mousketeers.
Trust me, America was a HELL of a lot better when it was 90% White, Christian, and Jews were confined to NYC, Boca, and Sunset Blvd- and faggots still got beat up for being pervs.
Buckley is a good example of American degeneration.
Buckley was born to ultra rich, very racist parents. He didn’t have racial ideals because he was raised in total isolation from racial reality. He didn’t have any racial loyalty to his own WHITE race.
He is symptomatic of those who live in a bubble apart from the realities of daily life. It’s the same for all the upper strata of America, Waltons, Mars, duPonts, Buffetts etc.
The rich are disloyal to the people and system that made their wealth possible.
The jwz are the opposite, they are fiercely loyal to their system and contribute heavily to its financial and moral support.
in this aspect, WHITES really fail .
Since Brad brought up the late Larry Auster, who I counted as a friend back in the day (he was a Jewish convert to Christianity who was totally disowned by his family for it), l looked up his old site, which is still up as a kind of archive of his writings.
This post from 2012 addresses the issue you mention – which I’ve come to believe is the underlying disease of whites (not just the wealthy ones). Jews are an opportunistic infection whose actions tend to mask the underlying disease. The Synagogue of Satan hasn’t changed in any meaningful way in 2000 years. What’s charged are the whites who live in Europe, America and the Euro-derived places like Australia and New Zealand. Most don’t believe in anything now – not even their own existence as a people.
Your criticism of Buckley is correct, but you don’t understand the context of the times. There was hardly anyone who said anything different but him. He was different. He once said that he would rather have any common man in office picked out of the phone book than the present representatives (or something like that). Now we find in fact he was a cut-out to channel dissent into more controlled outlets. But no one knew this at the time, and there was no internet. No other mass communication but a few TV stations and radio stations.
I remember when my grandpa died I went through all of his old copies of National review, some as far back as the 60’s. It was interesting how different and in a lot of ways the exact same the conservative movement is. I remember one article specifically talking about the deterious nature of welfare where they were arguing that was the root cause of the crime wave at the time (the 1980’s). It’s like the precursor to the, “they need more fathers in the home” conservative mantra.
“talking about the deterious nature of welfare where they were arguing that was the root cause of the crime wave”
That’s one of the very things I so despised Buckley for, lumping WHITES and nggrs together. Needy WHITES who deserved welfare contributed nothing to crime, while the discolored were the entire source of the crime wave, but filthy Buckley would never address that critical distinction.
Liberal Democrats promote the idea that Trump and Trump-aligned politicians are “dissident right” for their own motives. But I think dissident right people who actually believe it or either deluding themselves or defining themselves too much by what the opposition says. If you take Trump’s talking points I can see why people say it’s catering to the far right, but then his actions always pivot back to the center right.
This just in from Ricky Bobby:
Come with the DR if you want to live.
I came across this documentary – I didn’t get a chance to review it fully, but the concept suggest what MIGHT HAVE BEEN, if history had been kinder to our people:
“Nazi Town, USA | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS”
I highly recommend GL Rockwell’s chapter in WP 50 years of failure, it’s now 100 years of failure – the failure of American Conservatism, Conservative sandbox, economic conservatism. the John Burch Society and yes William F Buckley and National Review back in Rockwell’s day.
Nothing much has changed with Conservative Inc.
I think the short answer is that yes, it is premature. No, the remnants of white nationalism have not rebranded and taken over the GOP. The GOP is against wokeism and reverse racism and handles those issues better than Democrats (who handle economic issues of rich vs. poor better). But you can see what happens to candidates with racialist pasts who don’t sufficiently distance themselves from their pasts (as Duke can’t now because he has so much stuff online and the guy from Charlottesville got defeated). They get rejected by both parties, not just the Democrats.=
You do not get loyalty from selling out your own kind, your own thoughts and your own beliefs. Anyone who’d expect otherwise needs to have their head examined. People are only loyal to the truth. ……And what is truth? quid est veritas?
” Has The Dissident Right Gone Mainstream?”
Translation:
The dull masses are slowly starting to see reality.
Brad, GOP operatives always ratchet up the rhetoric at this time of year. They did it in 2022, and I suspect this is a repeat. They are just mobilizing certain influencers and communities. Don’t get excited.
I can rememember clearly in 1988 when, in a moment of boredom, I leafed through the magazines in a lobby. One of them was the National Review. I was *astounded* to read my kind of opinions in print. I had never, ever before read this kind of thing except in a few”opposing thoughts” editorials in the newspaper. I thought I was alone. Just so you younger folk get an idea of the huge place Buckley and NR used to hold in American politics. Even back then, they did a pretty good job erecting a cordon sanitaire around ight-wing thought and keeping it as far as possible from the mainstream.