Political Scoffers?

The cult of niceness lives in modern American Churchianity. Someone doesn't understand the culture war or our current political struggle - this is not some sort of intramural academic debate.

This podcast from @JustinEGiboney is one of the BEST things I’ve listened to in a long while. Over here shouting “AMEN!” while I wash the dishes 😂👏 May we take this to heart. https://t.co/SNLObPqxCR

— Grace Olmstead (@gracyolmstead) October 29, 2020

A Controlled Opposition Intellectual at Work

Hazony writes this:

Conservatism is based on inculcating norms—“guardrails”—that decent people follow instinctively because it’s how they were raised.

Liberalism teaches every individual to define reality and justice for themselves. That sounds good, but paves the way for Marxism and desolation.

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) October 12, 2020

And yet he thinks a tactical alliance between the two groups is possible:

There can't be a "fusion" between conservatism and Enlightenment liberalism. The two things don't mix.

There must be an alliance between conservatives and liberals to fight the new Marxism. But conservatives will have to stay conservatives without "fusing" with something else.

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) October 12, 2020

That's because he's controlled opposition and may even want to neuter conservatism even more.

Waiting to See Who His Third Guest Is

His first guest was David Rubin. Maybe he'll change things up to avoid being obvious with his tribalism.

Full video of my interview with @davidpgoldman on Episode 2 of @NatConTalk.

This interview focuses mostly on China vs. America, but we also get into Trump’s successful peace deals in the Mideast, and David’s personal journey to Orthodox Judaism. https://t.co/N6GwtJInrR

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) September 23, 2020

A Liberal Coalition to Counter Militant Revolutionaries

It's too late for that.

9/ My brilliant Princeton colleage (and MacArthur "genius award" winner) Sergiu Klainerman, who grew up in communist Romania under Ceausescu and knows a thing or two about what it's like to fear the consequences of speaking one's mind, on what we need now:https://t.co/Mt9LZMGe91

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) August 11, 2020

Of course it's the IDW that is Quillette that publishes this.

Pushing for Statism at the National Level

American Nationalists by Ofir Haivry and Yoram Hazony
Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party provides a blueprint for conservatives today.

“American Nationalists,” a deeply important essay at @amconmag by @yhazony and @haivry. https://t.co/9BZdFcAtsW

— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) June 18, 2020

"Jeffersonian" is wrongly used to label everything that they think is wrong, even if Jefferson may be considered to be more liberal than traditional in some respects. But he had more sense than what is being attributed to him by the two non-American authors. If Americans were acquainted with real Jeffersonian political thought, they might pick that over the new "conservatism" they are trying to push.

NuAmericans Moving In on the Hustle

The new fusionism is pro blue collar worker, anti-corporate, socially conservative

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) June 16, 2020

My friend @SiddakAhuja has a great new piece out in @amconmag

Please give it a read https://t.co/sT6k1v0a1x

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) June 15, 2020

The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers. And it couldn’t come at a better time. https://t.co/maGEEW76TA

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) June 16, 2020

Is It Too Late to Recover the Founders’ Presidency? by Gary L. Gregg II - a review of The Living Presidency by Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash

Neuhaus the Gatekeeper

The judge of what is "respectable" and "reasonable." Too bad we can't have access to his list of donors and funding. Dreher may feel that he is indebted to Neuhaus and owes praise to him, but on behalf of those former allies who were rejected by Neuhaus and were exiled by Neuhaus from the virtual marketplace of ideas, I say it is a good thing that his magazine may be buried soon. Neuhaus compromised with liberalism, and I think it can be fairly said that he even substituted liberalism for the Apostolic Tradition, upholding liberal heresy as what was moderate and reasonable. Did Neuhaus ever continue some sort of fraternal dialogue with those paleos who disagreed with him, much less give them space in his magazine? Did he ever defend their right to question the official narrative and to have opinions that deviated from that narrative? No he sought and preferred acceptance and donations from those who would have been "outraged" by those nonconformists.

Rod Dreher: First Things And Changing Times

However, in reflecting on how Neuhaus made First Things the most important magazine of its kind, I recognize that it’s not simply that being in New York, he could have cigars with the Greats when they passed through town. It’s that being in New York puts you at the white-hot core of American cultural change. I’ve often thought that a political magazine like National Review would be better off relocating from Manhattan to Dallas (while keeping a Washington bureau). I believe that First Things would lose something important if it left New York, even though New York is about as post-Christian as a major American metropolis can be. I lived in New York for five years, and though it is quite easy to be dazzled by the bright lights and thereby to lose sight of what the rest of the country is seeing, it is also true that to live in New York is to be in a position to see the future before everybody else.

The future of blue America, perhaps.

The Trump ascension obviously signaled the diminishment of authority of conservative institutions, including magazines. It’s a confusing time. First Things has tried to seize the Trump moment, clumsily. I realized over the past day, thinking about this current controversy with Reno, that the fear that Reno was making the same mistake that Neuhaus and Weigel did, hitching the magazine too closely to Washington politicians and causes, has been gnawing at me for a long time. Consider, though, how difficult this challenge is facing any editor of First Things: how to be relevant to current debates in public affairs without aligning yourself too closely with a party or politician? It’s even harder when you see yourself as a player, as First Things was from 1990 until the end of the George W. Bush administration. You can’t be a player without picking a team. What if the team captain is Donald Trump? You see the problem. Well, that’s not a problem for some Christians, but the community of intellectual Christians who read and write for First Things are divided sharply in ways that we weren’t in the Neuhaus era.

What sort of relevancy do outsiders really have to the elites? Maybe there would be a U.S. representative or two who would be sympathetic, but would the sort of attempt at mass culture of which First Things is a part have persuaded those in the Deep State, for example? Federal judges who have an erroneous understanding of the Constitution? Lawyers? Oligarchs? Cultural Marxists?

This is still the fundamental problem of conservatives, who accept the premise of liberalism that all are equally rational and open to persuasion. They are not.

This Is What Controlled Opposition Does

If you're conservative you should believe in regulating hate speech!

“The responses [to Vermeule] from many quarters of the conservative movement... [] rely on the fiction that originalism is a healthy, robust jurisprudence that is working just fine. It is not.” https://t.co/sJYGQ5GFQo

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) May 9, 2020

Gunnar Gundersen, Originalism Has Failed

American Compass Launch

Congratulations to @AmerCompass for an impressive launch this evening, including an essay series with bylines from @marcorubio, @SenTomCotton, @wellscking, and morehttps://t.co/zTB85JDk4W

— James Hitchcock (@JamesHitchcock) May 4, 2020

A host of questionable associations -- will this project be anything more than a "make-work" opportunity. Will it be successful in persuading the oligarchy and the Republican Party that factories have to be brought back to the US? Economic nationalism might be the first necessary step, but it's not the ultimate step since even economic nationalism, given resource limits, is unsustainable. But that's not a message the oligarchy would want to hear. Professional pundits, intellectuals, and think tank workers generally should be ignored. Taleb isn't a professional intellectual (except with his writing about risk and statistics) so he has a bit more credibility, as his livelihood doesn't depend upon him giving his opinion.

NRO is advertising its launch? More reason to suspect it already.

Recovering the American Tradition of Economic Policy | https://t.co/XccZ5S92Bi via @wellscking, @JuliusKrein, & @oren_cass pic.twitter.com/lLzYldcSju

— National Review (@NRO) May 6, 2020

Cass was an advisor for Romney, so this endorsement should be no surprise. What has Romney done to return manufacturing to the US?

.@AmerCompass is helping conservatives rethink how we apply our principles to the problems of today. I welcome their contribution to our national policy debates. https://t.co/iHdOxi59zl

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) May 4, 2020

Congrats to @oren_cass and @wellscking on the formal launch of American Compass! Can't wait to dive in to some of the content on the site. https://t.co/UdwDG0hbj1

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) May 5, 2020

This new think tank wants to reform conservatism. Republicans ignore it at their peril, @henryolsenEPPC writes https://t.co/Itfn7uDu0a

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) May 5, 2020

Definitely read this and pay attention to what @oren_cass and @AmerCompass are doing. It’s brand new, smart, & important. https://t.co/loJwsXep1x

— Chris Buskirk (@thechrisbuskirk) May 5, 2020

For our launch, we are featuring an essay series on Rebooting the American System, with forewords by @marcorubio and @SenTomCotton. The series makes the comprehensive, conservative case for a return to robust national economic policy. https://t.co/zMR2VLjsyf

— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 4, 2020

At The Commons, Michael Lind: "From Protecting Essential Workers to Upgrading Essential Industries"

"...the next step is to develop programs for using technology to upgrade essential industries that are low-wage, low-tech and low-productivity..."https://t.co/wDpS84VmNf

— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 5, 2020

First on The Commons, @PatrickDeneen:

Our economy "is not merely a 'given preference' that arose from purely market forces, but the culmination of... left and right liberal policies designed to shape our identities into creatures above all that consume." https://t.co/fISDVmkmXN

— American Compass (@AmerCompass) May 5, 2020

Don't Pay Any Attention to Fake Conservatives

Especially AJFLs.

All politics will be gender politics from now on.

This is what a #genderwar looks like: https://t.co/saGfRi2vWY

— Rollo Tomassi (@RationalMale) April 29, 2020

Makes one wonder what place on the SSH her husband holds.

If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire. The strongest woman and the most strident feminist wants to be led by, and to submit to, a more powerful man. Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship. https://t.co/0N8wpiJkUk pic.twitter.com/gQvhOxrfF1

— Rollo Tomassi (@RationalMale) April 29, 2020

Think about all the “conservatives” who lost their influence in the Trump Era: Kristol, Hayes, Goldberg, Will, French, Erickson, Wilson, Frum, Sykes, Sabato, Charen, Ponnuru, Gerson, Noonan, Meachum, Boot, Brooks, Rubin, Podhoretz, Scarborough, Stephens.

All of them were wrong.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) April 28, 2020

False Dichotomy

Globalism vs Nationalism. I recommend @yhazony’s book The Virtue of Nationalism: “national identity is based not on race or biological homogeneity, but on "bonds of mutual loyalty" to a shared culture and a shared history that bind diverse groups into a national unit.” https://t.co/VLuO7nM3DX

— Scott Goodspeed 🇺🇸 (@scottgoodspeed) April 26, 2020

Protecting One of Their Own?

Good on @baseballcrank and @EWErickson for writing this. I’ll just add a personal anecdote: I had lunch with Victoria Coates just as she was going into the admin: And she loved Trump in a Trumpy way. . . . https://t.co/FucaB8U4Ft

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 22, 2020

ConservativesTM: "We're Diverse Too"

This may shock some people (namely in Washington non-profits and people on twitter)

But the role of a country is to look out for its citizens above any others https://t.co/fdLVUSk1K2

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) April 3, 2020

The Hill may be true believers and not just aiming at respectability among non-conservatives, but still it seems like members of certain groups are determined to infiltrate mass media. Sagaar Enjeti, co-host of Rising, is also associated with the Hudson Institute. Is he a true believer in populism? Or is he part of the cuckservative effort to channel populism for its ends, upholding the state and using the ideology of civic nationalism to maintain control?

If he really respected Anglo-American culture he would have adopted an English name for his public persona, and I don't care what he might say about him keeping his given name is part of him being authentic. Group identity trumps authenticity; if you're that concerned about authenticity you're an ideological individualist or you haven't really assimilated.

Saagar Enjeti on Gabbard: 'I'm becoming a fan of hers
The Populist Pundits By Dustin Guastella

The Purpose of This Article on Breitbart?

I've written a post on Esther/Mordecai to look back at the week of Purim, drawing from recent books by @mikeeisenberg and @bethelseminary's John Anthony Dunne. Are we incorrectly reading piety into the story? https://t.co/BL0yd5Urbi

— Ezra Dulis (@ezradulis) March 16, 2020

One Take on the National Conservatism Conference in Rome

CWR Dispatch: In the Eternal City, the second National Conservatism conference concludes by Titus Techera
National conservatism both holds Christianity in high regard, as the title of the conference acknowledges, and makes certain demands on Christianity at a political level.

Paul Gottfried on the National Conservatism Conference

Hazony Baloney

Controlled Opposition

Not even alt-lite... an attempt to play the middle (if necessary) in order to cede ground to the cultural Marxists and to work on a consensus that all true dissidents from the state must be repressed.

Paul Gottfried on the National Conservatism Conference

AmConMag

Bishop Barron on the JBP Podcast

Byz Tx has it embedded. (Download)

Bishop Barron on JBP

Even though he has some helpful things to say, JBP is still controlled opposition, permitted to speak in order to draw people away from becoming real threats to the status quo.

CWR Dispatch: The USCCB Meeting, Jordan Peterson, and the “Nones”
It appears that the mere mention of the name Jordan Peterson is enough to send some on the far-left end of the spectrum into irrational conniptions.