My current strategy is just to bang out the current events / in the news stuff same-day before it gets too stale. I saw the Peterson comment, and went straight to work. Less reactive pieces with less "exigency" will be better structured, I hope.
I think of identity politics like nuclear weapons. It would be great to live in a world without identity politics but once one tribe votes as a bloc or gets special privileges because of their identity, all of the other tribes will rush to do the same. No one “disarms” because everyone is trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma and nobody wants to be on the only team dumb enough to detribalize while everyone else is running the tables.
I agree that white identity is probably behind a lot of the enthusiasm for Rufo’s ideas but I think it’s more of the “I’m sick of being demonized” variety as opposed to the “I hate everyone who doesn’t look like me” type.
Your paragraph on 'Political Catholicism' made me shiver with revulsion the same way I do when I notice that a cricket or two has managed to crawl its way inside through a small crack in my bathroom window.
Those particular Catholics are very different from either the charismatic ones – who are weird, niche, and talented but generally not organized institutionally – or the oft-referred to Blue Dog Democrats of the 90s: centrist or moderate, but apolitical, and hard workers and loyal pillars of their local community (they make for the most fun volunteer groups during mission trips).
No, instead, the aura and appearence of these 'Political Catholics', particularly in the past decade or so, have morphed into something I dub "Internet Political Catholicism"; and it honestly strikes me as one of the most obnoxious and vulgar phenomena. Out of all the reactionary coalitions (many of which I can find certain fondness for), they disgust me far more than they scare me.
A huge number of them are GenX or early Millenial former athiest-liberals, and often rationalist-adjacent due to working in IT/Software. The rest are mostly (cradle Catholic) lawyers who have used their wordcel skills to gain tons of wealth that they can use to fund Claremont-esque institutons to present 'politically Catholic' takes on American history and government.
As a group, they possess an aesthetic that tries really hard make them seem like believers, but their faith always comes off as instrumental. At least Jordan Peterson has the decency to admit he is unable to make the full leap. I suspect a whole lot of them are, like JP, nerdy INTPs, given their draw to internet communities. They do not have an instinct for genuine, civic-minded service; only intellectual games and courting influence. In that, they are similar to neo-con hawks.
At the end of day, they respect neither the Founding Fathers nor other Christiants (esp. Protestants). They hide their contempt for founding American stock and tradition behind cynical politeness, argumentative irony, and narratives of self-victimization. They make for poor political partners. Trump was kind enough to hand them a huge victory by appointing a bench to overturn Roe v. Wade; and they reward him by criticizing him for his lack of personal morals, and gauche public behavior.
As modern liberal democracy increasingly shows its deeps cracks, you can see them licking their lips: for they believe they finally have a mandate of power; the opportunity has arrived to seize the institutions and transform them into purveyors of Catholic Sharia – which is justified, in their minds, as a means to 'Save The West'.
Whatever happens to this country, I am mostly ambivalent about the outcome as long as they get crushed.
Total ignorance about Catholicism revealed. Catholicism, I regret to inform you, has always been political. It became less political after Vatican II, but it is and always has been doctrine that true freedom is the freedom to choose the good, not a libertarian conception of freedom. That’s why the Klan wanted to run us out of the country. They were buried on the ash heap of history, as you will be, while the Church will endure until Christ returns.
Also, your entire essay sucked and is absolutely incoherent. It’s a hot pile of trash that hits on every single MSNBC trope, and contributes nothing of value to society. “Rufo is a secret racist, also a Putin Stan, and also a Catholic Theocrat.” Very original, but I think I’d rather get it straight from Rachel Maddow.
All politics is theological. Walk around the U.S. Capitol rotunda sometime and look up, Washington is dressed up as a literal God. The idea that the Church is unique in having a political viewpoint is nonsense. The difference is that it doesn’t teach worship of the self like small-l liberalism does.
In any event, I’m mostly responding to OP’s claim that the normal Catholic was some kind of Joe Biden type. Historically, that’s never been the case. His type is a unique invention of Americanized Catholicism over the last century.
Saint Washington, I pray in the name of all real American Patriots that you remove this theocratic sin from your Freemasonic land. In the name of the Founders I pray, amen.
>Despite my disagreement with Peterson on the role of politics in education, he is making a very logical argument when he accuses Rufo of betraying his very own mission statement. Isn’t it a contradiction to attack “the fray of ideology” in your mission statement, and then claim that you are defending “our values?”<
Here Rufo is engaging in the same sort of emotional myth-making done by the left when they say crap about "Our Democracy." I don't care for it either, but the fact is, this is what people want to hear. Voters clearly want to be flattered in this way, reassured that they are the Smart Good People who are defending Our Values, they don't want to be forcibly confronted with the fact that they are engaged in a nasty, vicious fight over what "Our Values" actually are. Welcome to mass democracy.
Very good stuff. I particularly enjoyed the way Machiavelli was worked into the narrative.
Two books come to mind here that others might find valuable. One is a bizarre, slovenly, chaotic book by "Edward Teach" (aka The Last Psychiatrist, and possibly also someone else like his wife) titled "Sadly, Porn." Under the sprawl of Greek theater analysis, Freudian psychology, and ad hoc literary criticism is an argument that all aspects of American life have become pornography, or sentimental, in the sense of trying to give yourself emotions, feelings, beliefs, etc., without spiritually paying for them through sacrifice. The book is written as shitty as possible (the only person who has ever shitted up the place on purpose worse than this is Robert Heinlein in his "The Number of the Beast") to make the point that we should prefer what complicates to what simplifies and prefer struggle over superficial fixes that paper over, not reality, but imagination. What he's doing under various vulgarities is similar to the way Roger Scruton used to invoke Coleridge's distinction between sense and imagination in a Kantian way to encourage us to live in the Kingdom of Ends, and not just feed appetite on waxwork fantasy objects.
As an aside, this might be well-known, but I saw some data that shows that married men are the biggest users of OnlyFans. I don't know what to make of this.
Another good book relevant here is Joseph Bottum's "An Anxious Age," which examines post-Protestantism (this was before it was called wokeness) and American universalism from a Catholic perspective. It looks at the fallout from the collapse of Mainline Protestantism and the failure of Bush-era neoconservative universalism, even if it was a mythical universalism, that temporarily united Catholics and Evangelicals, to fill the void. The idea is that noble lies aren't sustainable because creeds must be believed at some point to generate action.
My mother, in my view an extremely intelligent and independent thinker, was nonetheless seemingly transfigured by parochial school and Catholic masses in Hamtramck, Michigan (a Polish community in the Detroit area) as she grew up. My father, who attended a one-room, country, Presbyterian church in rural Illinois, had all of us become members of our local Presbyterian church, which my mother actually liked because the congregation was full of university professors, which made for a stimulating intellectual atmosphere. Still, she never left her Roman Catholic upbringing behind. She could not, because those kinds of experiences in childhood leave a permanent imprint on the psyche. Consequently, despite her scientific training (her first bachelors degree was in Zoology), her adult worldview was an odd admixture of science, science fiction, and (quasi-Catholic) religion. She spelled it all out in her e-book, When the Morning Stars Sang, https://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?authorid=2529 . Catholic converts like JD Vance may have bona fide religious yearnings that they think can be satisfied by Catholicism. In the end, they are probably just confused. I'll suggest (to be as charitable as possible) that Rufo is also confused. It's just that his confusion stems from his early religious indoctrination.
If you argue that supporting Rufo is some kind of conscious and unconscious form of longing for white identity of white conservatives, would you agree that Pride events with their multicolor flags are also a form of (positive) white identity for progressives? The scale of pride of pride events is correlated by how « cucked » (White identity hated) the area is.
Not impossible, I suppose, but not as likely. Not everything is a proxy for racial identity. Pride events are much more diverse than Rufo's core audience. Rufo directly speaks about race -- gay pride has much less to do with race and more to do with sexual identity. I'd say pride attendance correlates directly with narcissistic personality traits and bad family relationships (hating your parents). Pride events are the equivalent of a MAGA rally, except with single-minded policy. Sometimes they seem to be involved with celebrity worship. I was surprised to see some debate as to whether pride events should be pro-Israel or anti-Israel. I've only been to one, and it seemed to have no theme, rhyme, or reason, other than a middle finger to beauty standards. I didn't see it as a positive phenomenon, but an entirely reactionary one.
I'd go deeper. Remember 1970's Frank Zappa type liberalism? Don't belong anywhere, be an independent free-floating atom?
It turned out 1) it only works for the privileged 2) it does not work that well for the privileged either.
So it was first underprivileged groups who made an explicit return to tribal belonging via identity politics, because they will always be treated like members of that group, no matter how much floating they try. And they found the tribe is a nice warm place and it is cool to belong.
Which gave white guys a dilemma. Either they can try the free-floating stuff, they can pull it off, but it is still a lonely place. Or they preserve the old tribe, that tribe 1970's liberalism tried the dissolve, the tribe of religion and nationalism. Or they can go explicitly white nationalist. Neither of these is working particularly well. So they are in a big dilemma.
Me, I just do the free-floating, I guess. It is not working well, but I am the type for whom nothing would work very well.
I actually don't remember, so I have to do historical research. From what I can tell, the sentiment you are espousing, "Don't belong anywhere, be an independent free-floating atom" is much more strong for the Beatniks and Hippies of the 1950s and 1960s than it is to the 1970s. The 1970s was all about Disco, which was about moving to the city and doing drugs and fitting in with the party scene.
I would love to write an article on the precursor to these attitudes in the 1940s and 1930s, which I think is very much under-studying period of culture. If you read the "bonus section" of my article on the Myth of Churchill you will find that these attitudes were alive an well in the 1920s, and probably go back even further. I honestly think it's more an expression of Faustianism than it is liberalism, although to that point, they are clearly related.
I don’t think Chris Rufo is that handsome. He’s probably Banania tier on the looks scale of right wing influencers. Unfortunately his children will be hapacels
Russian influence among the ‘new conservatives’ is very easy to understand. They merely share a goal. Conservatives want the influence of American liberals to decline because they want to preserve the highlights of the 1990s and liberals always want more. Russia wants American liberal influence to decline so it can reclaim gallicia and do stuff in Syria that is beneath anyones interest. You hold this specter of russian influence over their heads, even though Russia poses no direct threat to American citizens or assets of value (Hunter bidens private crack deposit is not an asset of national interest).
A relevant quote from a leftist politician: “the Cold War is over. The 1980s called, mitt Romney, they want their foreign policy back.”
Global anarchy would be a much preferred state to global empire. You say you value dynamism, and nations are usually more dynamic when divided. What would make America most like the cartels of Mexico would be for mass immigration to continue unabated, from Mexico, not a breakup of the empire.
There are smart black ppl who oppose DEI(glenn/mcwhorter/coleman etc.).You can hardly call any of them white supremacists or griefters.There are also women who want to ban abortions,more strongly than the men that do(steve stewart williams analyses).Generalising about groups as you do with the 'various ppl who support rufo' is like rejecting an individual black person from an office job because ppl that look like him have low iq.
As a non-white and non-religious fan of Rufo’s crusade against DEI, I enjoyed this article. I’d also be a hypocrite to not admit that perhaps I might actually be indulging in a little “racial pornography” and realize it’s probably not healthy for me. The primary issues I have with Rufo is his anti-immigrant writings.
Two items that might be worth revisiting your views on: 1. Libertarians also make (and have made) good arguments on why MOST centralized institutions should be dismantled. So it’s not just a crazy MAGA issue (albeit MAGA’s messaging doesn’t help); 2. Ben Shapiro is probably the most classically liberal and conservative public figure who shares his values quite consistently, so I wouldn’t put him any where near the same bucket as Tucker and power-lusting politicians.
I included explicit references to the libertarian "decentralization" argument. I (very charitably) grant libertarians the possibility that centralization leads to inefficiency. But I argue that efficiency is not the bedrock or foundation of a state, and it cannot be.
Ben Shapiro has been promoting Dave Rubin and Candace Owens, which shows either terrible judgment, or irresponsibility. He was doing interviews with open white nationalists (Red Ice Radio) in 2014 to promote his book. In that interview, they asked him, "why do Jews control Hollywood?" He gave no pushback and dodged the question. Here's the link:
This is one of your better pieces lately though aren’t entirely in agreement with you. As far as foreign influence in the United States, the Israeli Lobby which was somehow omitted entirely in your overview of the conservative movement exerts far more direct influence than Russia ever has or will do so.
I don't actually think the role of Israel is factually controversial, just "morally" so. The facts of the matter with Russia are much more contentious.
The Israeli Lobby is ensconced within both parties which are funded in part by Zionist billionaire donors so it isn’t a conservative vs liberal thing. The neocons who are aligned with the lobby are active within both plutocratic establishment parties, several of whom have endorsed Harris this election.
I like your stuff and I don’t even mind the stream of consciousness aspect but these essays need more structure!
My current strategy is just to bang out the current events / in the news stuff same-day before it gets too stale. I saw the Peterson comment, and went straight to work. Less reactive pieces with less "exigency" will be better structured, I hope.
I think of identity politics like nuclear weapons. It would be great to live in a world without identity politics but once one tribe votes as a bloc or gets special privileges because of their identity, all of the other tribes will rush to do the same. No one “disarms” because everyone is trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma and nobody wants to be on the only team dumb enough to detribalize while everyone else is running the tables.
I agree that white identity is probably behind a lot of the enthusiasm for Rufo’s ideas but I think it’s more of the “I’m sick of being demonized” variety as opposed to the “I hate everyone who doesn’t look like me” type.
Your paragraph on 'Political Catholicism' made me shiver with revulsion the same way I do when I notice that a cricket or two has managed to crawl its way inside through a small crack in my bathroom window.
Those particular Catholics are very different from either the charismatic ones – who are weird, niche, and talented but generally not organized institutionally – or the oft-referred to Blue Dog Democrats of the 90s: centrist or moderate, but apolitical, and hard workers and loyal pillars of their local community (they make for the most fun volunteer groups during mission trips).
No, instead, the aura and appearence of these 'Political Catholics', particularly in the past decade or so, have morphed into something I dub "Internet Political Catholicism"; and it honestly strikes me as one of the most obnoxious and vulgar phenomena. Out of all the reactionary coalitions (many of which I can find certain fondness for), they disgust me far more than they scare me.
A huge number of them are GenX or early Millenial former athiest-liberals, and often rationalist-adjacent due to working in IT/Software. The rest are mostly (cradle Catholic) lawyers who have used their wordcel skills to gain tons of wealth that they can use to fund Claremont-esque institutons to present 'politically Catholic' takes on American history and government.
As a group, they possess an aesthetic that tries really hard make them seem like believers, but their faith always comes off as instrumental. At least Jordan Peterson has the decency to admit he is unable to make the full leap. I suspect a whole lot of them are, like JP, nerdy INTPs, given their draw to internet communities. They do not have an instinct for genuine, civic-minded service; only intellectual games and courting influence. In that, they are similar to neo-con hawks.
At the end of day, they respect neither the Founding Fathers nor other Christiants (esp. Protestants). They hide their contempt for founding American stock and tradition behind cynical politeness, argumentative irony, and narratives of self-victimization. They make for poor political partners. Trump was kind enough to hand them a huge victory by appointing a bench to overturn Roe v. Wade; and they reward him by criticizing him for his lack of personal morals, and gauche public behavior.
As modern liberal democracy increasingly shows its deeps cracks, you can see them licking their lips: for they believe they finally have a mandate of power; the opportunity has arrived to seize the institutions and transform them into purveyors of Catholic Sharia – which is justified, in their minds, as a means to 'Save The West'.
Whatever happens to this country, I am mostly ambivalent about the outcome as long as they get crushed.
Total ignorance about Catholicism revealed. Catholicism, I regret to inform you, has always been political. It became less political after Vatican II, but it is and always has been doctrine that true freedom is the freedom to choose the good, not a libertarian conception of freedom. That’s why the Klan wanted to run us out of the country. They were buried on the ash heap of history, as you will be, while the Church will endure until Christ returns.
"You're ignorant about Catholics. We are much more theocratic than you think!"
Also, your entire essay sucked and is absolutely incoherent. It’s a hot pile of trash that hits on every single MSNBC trope, and contributes nothing of value to society. “Rufo is a secret racist, also a Putin Stan, and also a Catholic Theocrat.” Very original, but I think I’d rather get it straight from Rachel Maddow.
I assume you will be the first signup for Rufo's real OnlyFans!
All politics is theological. Walk around the U.S. Capitol rotunda sometime and look up, Washington is dressed up as a literal God. The idea that the Church is unique in having a political viewpoint is nonsense. The difference is that it doesn’t teach worship of the self like small-l liberalism does.
In any event, I’m mostly responding to OP’s claim that the normal Catholic was some kind of Joe Biden type. Historically, that’s never been the case. His type is a unique invention of Americanized Catholicism over the last century.
Saint Washington, I pray in the name of all real American Patriots that you remove this theocratic sin from your Freemasonic land. In the name of the Founders I pray, amen.
>Despite my disagreement with Peterson on the role of politics in education, he is making a very logical argument when he accuses Rufo of betraying his very own mission statement. Isn’t it a contradiction to attack “the fray of ideology” in your mission statement, and then claim that you are defending “our values?”<
Here Rufo is engaging in the same sort of emotional myth-making done by the left when they say crap about "Our Democracy." I don't care for it either, but the fact is, this is what people want to hear. Voters clearly want to be flattered in this way, reassured that they are the Smart Good People who are defending Our Values, they don't want to be forcibly confronted with the fact that they are engaged in a nasty, vicious fight over what "Our Values" actually are. Welcome to mass democracy.
Very good stuff. I particularly enjoyed the way Machiavelli was worked into the narrative.
Two books come to mind here that others might find valuable. One is a bizarre, slovenly, chaotic book by "Edward Teach" (aka The Last Psychiatrist, and possibly also someone else like his wife) titled "Sadly, Porn." Under the sprawl of Greek theater analysis, Freudian psychology, and ad hoc literary criticism is an argument that all aspects of American life have become pornography, or sentimental, in the sense of trying to give yourself emotions, feelings, beliefs, etc., without spiritually paying for them through sacrifice. The book is written as shitty as possible (the only person who has ever shitted up the place on purpose worse than this is Robert Heinlein in his "The Number of the Beast") to make the point that we should prefer what complicates to what simplifies and prefer struggle over superficial fixes that paper over, not reality, but imagination. What he's doing under various vulgarities is similar to the way Roger Scruton used to invoke Coleridge's distinction between sense and imagination in a Kantian way to encourage us to live in the Kingdom of Ends, and not just feed appetite on waxwork fantasy objects.
As an aside, this might be well-known, but I saw some data that shows that married men are the biggest users of OnlyFans. I don't know what to make of this.
Another good book relevant here is Joseph Bottum's "An Anxious Age," which examines post-Protestantism (this was before it was called wokeness) and American universalism from a Catholic perspective. It looks at the fallout from the collapse of Mainline Protestantism and the failure of Bush-era neoconservative universalism, even if it was a mythical universalism, that temporarily united Catholics and Evangelicals, to fill the void. The idea is that noble lies aren't sustainable because creeds must be believed at some point to generate action.
My mother, in my view an extremely intelligent and independent thinker, was nonetheless seemingly transfigured by parochial school and Catholic masses in Hamtramck, Michigan (a Polish community in the Detroit area) as she grew up. My father, who attended a one-room, country, Presbyterian church in rural Illinois, had all of us become members of our local Presbyterian church, which my mother actually liked because the congregation was full of university professors, which made for a stimulating intellectual atmosphere. Still, she never left her Roman Catholic upbringing behind. She could not, because those kinds of experiences in childhood leave a permanent imprint on the psyche. Consequently, despite her scientific training (her first bachelors degree was in Zoology), her adult worldview was an odd admixture of science, science fiction, and (quasi-Catholic) religion. She spelled it all out in her e-book, When the Morning Stars Sang, https://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?authorid=2529 . Catholic converts like JD Vance may have bona fide religious yearnings that they think can be satisfied by Catholicism. In the end, they are probably just confused. I'll suggest (to be as charitable as possible) that Rufo is also confused. It's just that his confusion stems from his early religious indoctrination.
If you argue that supporting Rufo is some kind of conscious and unconscious form of longing for white identity of white conservatives, would you agree that Pride events with their multicolor flags are also a form of (positive) white identity for progressives? The scale of pride of pride events is correlated by how « cucked » (White identity hated) the area is.
Not impossible, I suppose, but not as likely. Not everything is a proxy for racial identity. Pride events are much more diverse than Rufo's core audience. Rufo directly speaks about race -- gay pride has much less to do with race and more to do with sexual identity. I'd say pride attendance correlates directly with narcissistic personality traits and bad family relationships (hating your parents). Pride events are the equivalent of a MAGA rally, except with single-minded policy. Sometimes they seem to be involved with celebrity worship. I was surprised to see some debate as to whether pride events should be pro-Israel or anti-Israel. I've only been to one, and it seemed to have no theme, rhyme, or reason, other than a middle finger to beauty standards. I didn't see it as a positive phenomenon, but an entirely reactionary one.
I'd go deeper. Remember 1970's Frank Zappa type liberalism? Don't belong anywhere, be an independent free-floating atom?
It turned out 1) it only works for the privileged 2) it does not work that well for the privileged either.
So it was first underprivileged groups who made an explicit return to tribal belonging via identity politics, because they will always be treated like members of that group, no matter how much floating they try. And they found the tribe is a nice warm place and it is cool to belong.
Which gave white guys a dilemma. Either they can try the free-floating stuff, they can pull it off, but it is still a lonely place. Or they preserve the old tribe, that tribe 1970's liberalism tried the dissolve, the tribe of religion and nationalism. Or they can go explicitly white nationalist. Neither of these is working particularly well. So they are in a big dilemma.
Me, I just do the free-floating, I guess. It is not working well, but I am the type for whom nothing would work very well.
I actually don't remember, so I have to do historical research. From what I can tell, the sentiment you are espousing, "Don't belong anywhere, be an independent free-floating atom" is much more strong for the Beatniks and Hippies of the 1950s and 1960s than it is to the 1970s. The 1970s was all about Disco, which was about moving to the city and doing drugs and fitting in with the party scene.
I would love to write an article on the precursor to these attitudes in the 1940s and 1930s, which I think is very much under-studying period of culture. If you read the "bonus section" of my article on the Myth of Churchill you will find that these attitudes were alive an well in the 1920s, and probably go back even further. I honestly think it's more an expression of Faustianism than it is liberalism, although to that point, they are clearly related.
I don’t think Chris Rufo is that handsome. He’s probably Banania tier on the looks scale of right wing influencers. Unfortunately his children will be hapacels
I have never seen a handsome man critique either of these married men's looks, I hope you're the exception!
I’m a true hideous incel freak.. I’m a fucking monster… fuck
Russian influence among the ‘new conservatives’ is very easy to understand. They merely share a goal. Conservatives want the influence of American liberals to decline because they want to preserve the highlights of the 1990s and liberals always want more. Russia wants American liberal influence to decline so it can reclaim gallicia and do stuff in Syria that is beneath anyones interest. You hold this specter of russian influence over their heads, even though Russia poses no direct threat to American citizens or assets of value (Hunter bidens private crack deposit is not an asset of national interest).
A relevant quote from a leftist politician: “the Cold War is over. The 1980s called, mitt Romney, they want their foreign policy back.”
Global anarchy would be a much preferred state to global empire. You say you value dynamism, and nations are usually more dynamic when divided. What would make America most like the cartels of Mexico would be for mass immigration to continue unabated, from Mexico, not a breakup of the empire.
There are smart black ppl who oppose DEI(glenn/mcwhorter/coleman etc.).You can hardly call any of them white supremacists or griefters.There are also women who want to ban abortions,more strongly than the men that do(steve stewart williams analyses).Generalising about groups as you do with the 'various ppl who support rufo' is like rejecting an individual black person from an office job because ppl that look like him have low iq.
Iif you can't spell grifter or use spaces after your periods I have a hard time taking you seriously.
As a non-white and non-religious fan of Rufo’s crusade against DEI, I enjoyed this article. I’d also be a hypocrite to not admit that perhaps I might actually be indulging in a little “racial pornography” and realize it’s probably not healthy for me. The primary issues I have with Rufo is his anti-immigrant writings.
Two items that might be worth revisiting your views on: 1. Libertarians also make (and have made) good arguments on why MOST centralized institutions should be dismantled. So it’s not just a crazy MAGA issue (albeit MAGA’s messaging doesn’t help); 2. Ben Shapiro is probably the most classically liberal and conservative public figure who shares his values quite consistently, so I wouldn’t put him any where near the same bucket as Tucker and power-lusting politicians.
I included explicit references to the libertarian "decentralization" argument. I (very charitably) grant libertarians the possibility that centralization leads to inefficiency. But I argue that efficiency is not the bedrock or foundation of a state, and it cannot be.
Ben Shapiro has been promoting Dave Rubin and Candace Owens, which shows either terrible judgment, or irresponsibility. He was doing interviews with open white nationalists (Red Ice Radio) in 2014 to promote his book. In that interview, they asked him, "why do Jews control Hollywood?" He gave no pushback and dodged the question. Here's the link:
https://altcensored.com/watch?v=UybzT566yqY
Call me cynical, but I judge his actions as motivated by "power-lust" as much as anyone else.
This is one of your better pieces lately though aren’t entirely in agreement with you. As far as foreign influence in the United States, the Israeli Lobby which was somehow omitted entirely in your overview of the conservative movement exerts far more direct influence than Russia ever has or will do so.
I don't actually think the role of Israel is factually controversial, just "morally" so. The facts of the matter with Russia are much more contentious.
I’d argue that conservatives were already pro-Israel, so the lobby just knew where to focus their efforts.
The Israeli Lobby is ensconced within both parties which are funded in part by Zionist billionaire donors so it isn’t a conservative vs liberal thing. The neocons who are aligned with the lobby are active within both plutocratic establishment parties, several of whom have endorsed Harris this election.