JD will rebuke antisemitism without rebuking the Groypers. The Groypers were bound to arise in some form--white men have been pounded into the ground as evil incarnate. What can we expect from this idiocy of condemning white men? I think the Antisemitism would abate if every criticism of Israeli policies or politicians or individuals were not met with a reply of "antisemitism".
AOC comes across as quite dumb. She is worth $17 million after having less than 10 years in Congress on a salary of $200,000-plus. Ilhan Omar is worth $30 million. Everyone is in it for the money, including the GOP. This needs to change. We saw with Kamila that dumb women don't win presidential elections. In my opinion, neither Newsom or AOC are electible if we have free and fair elections (no stuffing of ballot boxes with fake paper ballots with unmanned drop boxes, etc.).
Respectfully, it's baloney that " every criticism of Israeli policies or politicians or individuals ... (is) met with a reply of "antisemitism". Criticism of Israel and especially Bibi is as common as humidity in DC. What plays w/antisemitism. IMHO, is unfair criticism or criticism based on obvious falsehoods. For example, "the charge of "genocide" when the work of soldier/scholar John Spencer, the world expert on urban warfare, is such a clear refutation.
I think this is wishful thinking on Nigel's part anyway. Fuentes doesn't like that JD is married to an Indian Hindu and has said so.
JD and I share the same culture (and probably blood somewhere). I can't see him overlooking a man disrespecting his wife. I sure don't tolerate people disrespecting mine.
This whole scenario is invented by Nigel and Hiryoki. Niether of them even live in the USA.
Yep. If JD goes Groyper I'll vote for any Republican that forcefully distances himself, and libertarian or whatever wherever else. I want my "missing vote" to be in the data. Let the Republicans chew on it as they process what I hope would be a 1972/84 level wipeout.
ITS ASTONISHING how fast it happened. Barely a week after a large string of Democratic victories that most conservatives had written off as impossible, the Republican coalition looks like it’s eating itself alive. The mood that was triumphant a year ago—glowing about Trump’s momentum, about new populist energy, about “the tide turning”—has curdled into bitterness. I’m thunderstruck reading here how fast the knives are out: for JD Vance, for governors and candidates who worked the hardest, for anyone accused of being too soft, too slow, or too independent.
If you read the disappointing comment threads here. And on conservative sites, you can feel the infection spreading: impatience turned to contempt, disappointment turned to conspiracy. The same voices that once called for unity now call for purges. Everyone is a sellout; everyone else is the problem. It’s like a locker room where every fan thinks he’s the coach, demanding trades and firing players—except the “team” here is the entire conservative movement.
This is more than poor sportsmanship; it’s a symptom of moral exhaustion. what we’re watching now—not moral conviction, but emotional volatility masquerading as principle.
Rod Dreher has been right to warn that antisemitism is creeping into the younger corners of the right, a poison that corrodes everything it touches. But the answer to that infection isn’t to only turn our guns inward—it’s to recover moral clarity and fight the left’s own rising antisemitism with unity, not chaos. The left moves with cohesion; we, too often, move in a circular fire.
Well, I wish you great success spending your time getting our house in order. I will continue with my energy, ignoring the crazies like I did David Duke and spend my time opposing the left wing Marxist.
I could see results of the finger-pointing . the comments above us and below me already are aiming at JD instead of the real enemy.
Well, I hope Rod's sentence above is foreshadowing something positive. However, this is also the same Vance who just a week (or so) ago, completely danced around an idiotic comment (about Judaism "openly supports the persecution of ours") from one his questioners at the TPUSA event Mississippi. He had the opportunity and his response (or lack thereof) was telling.
Have you noticed that Bannon is really the godfather of the 'burn it down' movement/vibe? For some reason it doesn't seem to stick with him, but the "destroy the system" really took off with him and Breitbart (website, not Andrew).
I haven't heard Bannon express explicitly anti-semitic views (probably because I can't stand watching him) - it seems that people of Bannon's (and yours, and my) generation are genetically less inclined to Jew hatred (excepting Tucker), because we took history seriously and our grandfathers liberated the camps.
But Steve Bannon is the source of the rage rhetoric. He was the first to coherently cobble that message together - leaving it for Tucker and Fuentes to translate into hate.
Konstantin Kisin said it correctly - GenX / Older millennials are not violently anti-Jew simply because we knew the previous two generations. As the WW2 generation moves on, the zoomers have no linkage to that epoch.
I still won't buy a German car out of respect to my grandfather. He was the most loving Archie Bunker with opinions but also sympathy for all the groups Uncle Arch didn't like. He sympathized with the downtrodden so "coloreds", Jews and "Chinamen" were held in good esteem. He hated no groups except the Germans. They were considered "sons of bitches" and he stressed that if we bought a German car he'd disown us. He was the second child and first boy born in America, and spoke only Polish until he walked his older sister to the same one room schoolhouse and were immersed in English. As a farm family, the first girl and first boy worked the hardest. Out of the whole crew of 7 kids these two were the greatest. His one trip back to Europe was to deal with the same "sons of bitches" his parents fled Poland over before the first world war.
So not buying their cars, and only the cars, something I still abide by. I am not passing it down to my kids. I just continue to avoid the products out of respect to the greatest man I ever knew not because I believe modern Germans somehow inherited guilt.
My father saw a concentration camp a day after its initial liberation. But he also saw what Germany looked like after the Allies got done bombing the place to smithereens. Dad felt that the Germans had been punished for the evils of the Reich and he did not hate them going forward.
My grandfather's entire family would have been exterminated by these people, and most of the civilians would've shrugged or even thought they had it coming for being Slavs. I don't blame him at all for having hard feelings and not wanting to support them. The people running these German companies were around for the 3rd Reich. They weren't inheriting guilt, they were members of a guilty society.
"You cannot simply point at the Zoomers and say, “Thou shalt not,” and expect it to work."
This is the right-wing post-modernism that I've been screaming about since 2015. The Woke Left imposed a lot of illegitimate "thou shalt nots". Donald Trump responded by tearing down the possibility of "thou shalt nots." And too many on the Right excused him every damn time.
No arguments friend just love :) I have faith that one day you will lean to appreciate Trump, even if it takes some time. The Lord will show you the way if you search :)
I have a bad feeling that Groyperism is going to be to the Right what wokeness was to the Left (i.e. a self-destructive catastrophe). The dopamine rush of 'hating' is just too strong. The right thing to do is to deal with the real issues soberly and seriously, but it's more of a thrill to just hate your enemies. We live in interesting times (i.e. bad ones)!
Groypers don’t control any institutions. And the leaders of right wing institutions are appalled at the rhetoric from groypers. It’s more likely the reaction by conservative institutions against Groypers will be the right wing equivalent of woke.
Yes, this is my fear: that the old guard will, for whatever reason or reasons, try to ignore or compromise with them.
I say denounce their antisemitism and do what you can to keep them from power, but at the same time work very hard to provide substantive solutions to their material complaints.
William F. Buckley defenestrated the Birchers in the early '60s. That could easily work because at that time media presentation was expensive in infrastructure, finance and talent. Nowadays any half-a$$ed bull$hiter with a little moxie can get himself out there, and maybe catch a following of multitudes. Canceling, shaming, schoolmarm finger-waging "Shame, shame, shame....." ain't going to do it anymore. In fact such measures provoke Groypers to gleefully double-down. How abut addressing the legitimate concerns of Groypers and Gropyer adjacent? Finishing up the first year and the do-nothing GOP majority Congress hasn't produced a single signal piece of legislation that would indicate they they hear us/them, though I do appreciate Trump's executive action.
The Big Beautiful Bill provided the necessary funding for ICE to carry out the mass deportations. But the reason more legislation hasn’t been passed is because of the filibuster. There’s no leverage to get Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Tillis, Curtis, etc to cave on the filibuster. Trump is doing everything he can, and it’s mostly being upheld by SCOTUS despite unprecedented opposition from the district courts.
Contra the Groypers, the solution for bypassing wayward GOP politicians is to elect more GOP senators and congressmen in swing seats. But it’s easier for Groypers to complain than do the hard work of winning elections, like Charlie Kirk did.
The hysterical overreaction to the Groypers is creating sympathy for them.
The reason more legislation hasn't been passed is because the GOP (starting with Trump) has lost the very concept of negotiation and all that goes with it: horse trading, half loaves, mutual back scratching, the works. They could have easily called the Democrats' bluff in the recent shut down by publicity offering to restore the full ACA subsidies in return for enough votes to pass some high priority item on their own agenda (maybe something on immigration?).
Elon Musk gave them the platform to become a mass movement. As much as I oppose the woke Left totalitarians controlling the rest of the platforms, having a near free for all *in this environment* made cultivating the normal reaction to woke leftism easier. If the boy was stuck on Rumble, Gab and his own platform he would be stuck with a small fraction of his current audience. At this point they're spilling over into Facebook and trolling Ben Shapiro posts with accounts that identify exactly who they are. The apparent lack of professional consequences for supporting a literal Neo Nazi is a telling sign.
Sorry but he's not a literal neonazi. And there are all sorts of professional consequences which is why none of the Groypers on X show their real names. You still are likely to get fired for explicitely aligning with Fuentes. Obviously you like that....so be happy.
By the way, I'm not a groyper. Its just annoying when people don't see him for what he is...an entertainer and comedian.
Be annoyed, I'm not going to stop calling him what he is.
I was around people like this in 2015 and 2016. I knew the movement long before Fuentes was the face of it. They were and are Nazis. Some, like Andrew Torba or Milo Yiannopolous, lied to my face and told me that they were opposed to white supremacists. Others, like Owen Shroyer, seem to be straight up stupid. Fuentes has to be pretty intelligent to do what he's been doing and enjoy as much success as he did. Promoting Nazism and then saying "haha I'm just being edgy" is just a tactic, and apparently an effective one. They're practicing entryism, sucking kids deeper and deeper into their pit of darkness. Step 1 - Tucker or whoever, Step 2 - Nick Fuentes (who IS a Nazi, btw), Step 3 (the all-in step) - Andrew Anglin or whoever. Many of the people in Fuentes' inner circle are already here. Fuentes is already here!
What you Buckley admirers don't understand is that HE FAILED UTTERLY. He destoyed the Old Right and got the President he wanted for two terms and it still led to directly to deindustrialization, 24-hour free porn on demand, and the USA spending seven trillion dollars turning Afghanistan and Iraq into Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the long term the result of Buckley's purge of the Republican party was the presidency of Ronald Reagan. If you want to elect conservatives having people loudly threatening nuclear war or the end of Social Security is not the way to do it. The Left tried to hang that sort of stuff on Reagan, but it didn't work, first off because he had no such intention, but also because the GOP as a whole did not.
My point is really about the "normie test." That is, what happens when you try to make an argument to your normie offline neighbor who doesn't follow politics? If you try to tell the guy at the bar that American politics is about fighting "white supremacy" (wokeism) or fighting "world Jewry" (Fuentesism), he is going to decide that you are a crank...
My point is that left wing institutions were sympathetic to woke. The institutions, in a sense, were in favor of being infiltrated and conquered by woke. That dynamic is not true on the right regarding Groypers.
Truly, young people (especially men) have been radicalized. And this happened pretty suddenly. When I was in college in the mid-late 2010s, everyone was very liberal. I could have counted the exceptions on my hand. Now, the university students I teach are far more conservative, even radical. I think that this must have happened first at the elite universities, among people who are more critical thinkers - then it got vulgarized online. I teach at a top US university, and there are many very conservative, intelligent, usually Catholic, students. The vulgarization of this would be the Groypers. But young people know that the game is rigged, and are ripe for any kind of radicalization.
"The game is rigged" is doing way too much work here.
The world isn't entirely fair? And this comes as a surprise? The Groypers are the naive, unworldly ones here. Work within the system to make it more fair....but don't ever expect it to be fully fair. That's what Leftist ideologues do.
"The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote."
I've seen this for twenty years, as Boomers willfully closed their eyes.
But Republicans have done NOTHING about increasing college costs. ("You're afraid to take on debt? Come on, wimp! Americans can do anything! Have the state subsidize public education like it does everywhere else? Shut up, commie!")
And Republicans have done NOTHING about increasing housing costs. ("You want to limit the free market? Shut up, commie!")
Republicans will NEVER have a theory of the state. It is only there to hurt their enemies. If they had tried to implement a more Distributist economic theory, this would have been averted. But they are simply too proud to implement Distributism.
For twenty years, I've tried to sell *actually* conservative policies to Republicans. They spent too much time calling me a socialist to implement those policies before it was too late. Now they just want to burn down the system.
Hello. I imagine housing policy is probably a big factor in the kind of program that you'd propose. Do you include anything like a redistribution of those portions of the housing stock that are nowadays being snapped up, as I hear, by large conglomerates for the purpose of creating big rental types of property portfolios?
Capital is like manure. When spread widely, it is very productive. When piled up in one place, it just stinks.
The many incentives for homeownership should be limited for a second house and eliminated for a third house. House price increases from 2010 to 2019 gave Boomers tons of equity. HELOCs allowed them to buy second/third houses in cash, thus further driving up the market from 2020-2025. Now you got 18 people bidding on a house (I was one of them), a bidding war that drives up prices even further. As the statistics show, young people can't compete against that:
I suspect a Georgist tax on ground rent would have been the best way to slow the growth of housing costs. It seems to have worked pretty well in the only non-socialist part of China: Taiwan. But I'd have to refresh my memory on the details.
Back to something you mentioned early on, if the Left succeeds in rigging our elections like they rigged the 2020 Presidential election and any number of other elections with no voter ID, mass mail-in ballots, the rigged census, importing illegals with un-American values (and then trying to give them amnesty -- you know they will) and on and on. (Takes breath.) If the Left succeeds in rigging "our democracy", I'd rather have a Franco or Pinochet, too, to be honest.
Extreme claims require extreme evidence. Republicans' lack of interest in producing even moderate evidence is telling. (Mollie Hemingway's work alone is nowhere near conclusive.)
Decadence (including intellectual sloth) is not exclusive to the Left.
I read Rigged and agree with you. Hemingway's proofs were scattershot and while convincing as individual acts of, say, voter suppression, she failed to create a master plot. It was a good read, nonetheless.
"The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote."
Is this really the first time in American history that this has happened? In the 1890s, childlessness was higher than it is today. Debt is not a new thing; 2/3 of white settlers in the 1600s were indentured. Housing prices are indeed a problem overall, but they're not a problem in the Midwest or parts of the South. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/w3tnqe/oc_map_of_united_states_home_affordability_by/
I think the deeper problem is spiritual. Even many who acknowledge the problems are still tempted by decadence. 1920s/30s Fascists critiqued decadence, but were plenty decadent themselves. The new conservative hero Sydney Sweeney just appeared in a sheer dress in which her nude breasts were clearly on display. And in a great irony, it seems likely that her great "genes" are very likely augmented.
Those with any sense of virtue going to get left out in the cold. The young are clueless, look irreparably damaged, without hope, and we only have ourselves to blame for it.
"The difference is that I am not a nihilist; I don’t want to tear it all down, but rather reform it. There are no historical examples in which “tearing it all down” produced a better, more just, more functional order."
PREACH! It may not be cool to talk about reform rather than revolution, but it has the advantage of being good and true.
Thanks Rod also worth noting that countries with Reformed Calvinistic traditions have tended to be more pro Jewish for theological reasons. This can be seen in the Netherlands and in the Anglosphere since the Puritan General Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to England. The roots are in Calvin’s appreciation that ‘salvation is from the Jews’ and that while the Church is the fulfilment of Ancient Israel there is a future salvation coming for the Jewish people. Note that this is different to the modern evangelical fad of pre-millennialism.
Nice post with a nice picture w/ the VP. I don’t have any statistics but my hunch is the problem is more than the young Jew haters. I visit “conservative” web sites including Powerline, and my anecdotal experience is that people can’t tolerate those on opposite sides. Hate Jews or hate your fellow Americans - both are bad. You can despise the very bad actors on both sides & yes the left is more violent now but you can’t let the hate consume you. And another thing - look at satisfaction polls. Ok - Prices are high & the economy can’t always create a lot of jobs but you have to be grateful. My hunch is many folks just aren’t grateful , and it adds fuel to fire. Thankfully I know Christ is in control & all will be ok one way or another.
The problem on both the right and the left for a while now has been a profound sense of victimization. People that see themselves as victims see their lives as outside their own control and look for someone to blame for all their perceived problems, Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat. Instilling a sense of victimization in people and claiming to be somebody who fights against this will always be a good way to gain political power.
"The problem on both the right and the left for a while now has been a profound sense of victimization."
Absolutely! This is something that the Right used to sensibly mock Lefties for constantly indulging in, but the wails of victimization quickly became a core feature of the MAGA Right. Which makes sense, as few people whine as much as the privileged twit who currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Speaking of which, or something like it: Rod has written about Dante as a life-changing author, as we know. I wonder if there's an equivalent exploration of Tolkien in the literary realm out there somewhere. Not by Rod, I mean, but by someone somewhere on a similar level.
Probably not, although I know a few authors who are very "Tolkienesque" in their attitudes. Rod and Solzhenitsyn are two of them. If you like eccentric pundits with offbeat views, there is also John Michael Greer.
"Jews really are disproportionately powerful in American life, and they are not shy about using that power to advance their own interests, and the interests of other groups they favor. The taboo against noticing that, and talking about what that might mean, is gone with the Zoomers. If we want to fight anti-Semitism, we have to face this seriously."
The same is true of Asian-Americans. The same is true of any group that values COMPETENCE. Good for them!
Maybe it shouldn't be taboo to notice this. But noticing it doesn't mean there is some Jewish conspiracy. If Jews make up 2% of the population and have 6% of the power, how is that a problem? How on earth are we afraid of 6%? FFS, has nobody ever read Federalist 10?
I would dispute that it's 6%. Look at the top donors to even Republican candidates. Jeff Yass, Miriam Adelson, Ken Griffin, Howard Lutnick, Elaine Wynn, Paul Singer, etc. Can I notice that? More like 20% or maybe even higher. These donors have their own priorities (Israel, low tax/libertarian economics, etc.) but by and large don't care at all about MAGA's top issue - reducing immigration. They're probably hostile to it. I remember hearing the accusation years ago about Jewish support for immigration b/c it would create a polyglot nation that would make impossible another holocaust. I became a believer in the theory on June 6th,1995 when Firing Line had a debate on immigration. On the pro-immigration side - Ira Glasser, Ed Koch, Leon Botstein and Frank Sharry. Just like there's "black fatigue", there's also "you can't notice that fatigue."
I would go further and say many of the top donors to the GOP don't care at all about reducing immigration. Republicans are still bending the knee to billionaires who want more immigration for a number of reasons I have mentioned in comments on other posts Rod has written.
The weird thing about us Jews is that there are those among us (usually in high places) that advance causes that are against our own interests. Remember that American Jewish 'leadership' - ADL, HIAS and others have been part of this. (HIAS completed its purpose years ago.) Myorkas, Raskin, Soros, Robert Malley, Wendy Sullivan, Jacob Frey, Philly DA Krasner just for starters. In a saner world, these people world have been excommunicated. And Soros ...I can't mention here what should have been done.
This is a reasonable point, and yet, Jewish Americans are much more influential in national politics than are Asian Americans -- if you make a list of the most important people in Washington, DC (think tankers, government staffers, lobbyists, lawyers, etc. etc.) there will be a lot of Jews and a lot fewer Asians.
Perhaps 60-70 percent of the top donors to the Dems are Jewish (vs. 30-40 percent of GOP donors). That's a lot. It doesn't mean there is a conspiracy, and also, it shouldn't be considered evidence of "anti-semitism" to notice this and wonder about its significance.
In the book studies and other adult education offered through our parish, the last several years (meaning my whole time there), there is a constant emphasis on the Jewishness of Catholic history. I don't know if that counts as pushback, as I'm generally the youngest person in the room by a good 15-20+ years and there are no young men to speak of in our 4 churches (the usual LifeTeen crowd in 1, my son and a couple of others in ours and probably zero in the other 2).
Hi, Laura. Is this a primarily Old-Testament exploration or more in the early to medieval Church periods that you mean? It happens that just earlier this evening, as at my Orthodox parish we're reading through the Law of Moses at the moment, we noted where certain liturgical practices come directly from that, for example.
Yes, particularly thinking about Paul. We read “Christ the Bridegroom” and talked about the Jewish imagery an how familiar that would’ve been to all the early followers. Also, the Song of Songs.
What you are studying sounds very interesting, please tell me more. I’m a new convert an curious! I try and soak up what I can.
Such as the use of incense in the divine services, broadly stated. Sometimes it's associated particularly strongly with certain hymns, such as at Vespers "Let my prayer arise," etc. and the Timiotera.
“He listened to what I had to say”
Not exactly a hopeful tone. Am I wrong to be worried?
I think JD is smart enough and political enough to know where the winds are blowing.
Remember this is the guy who flipped from a Trump hater to his VP within the span of a couple years.
JD will do a podcast with Nick before 2028, Screencap this
Not taking that bet.
But I will be supporting Ted Cruz hanging Fuentes around JD’s Neck. JD will still win the nomination.
The Democrats will then easily crush JD in the General.
With Newsom? Who do you think the Dems will nominate?
Doesn’t matter. The Dems could run AOC and win If JD doesn’t separate himself from Fuentes.
JD will rebuke antisemitism without rebuking the Groypers. The Groypers were bound to arise in some form--white men have been pounded into the ground as evil incarnate. What can we expect from this idiocy of condemning white men? I think the Antisemitism would abate if every criticism of Israeli policies or politicians or individuals were not met with a reply of "antisemitism".
AOC comes across as quite dumb. She is worth $17 million after having less than 10 years in Congress on a salary of $200,000-plus. Ilhan Omar is worth $30 million. Everyone is in it for the money, including the GOP. This needs to change. We saw with Kamila that dumb women don't win presidential elections. In my opinion, neither Newsom or AOC are electible if we have free and fair elections (no stuffing of ballot boxes with fake paper ballots with unmanned drop boxes, etc.).
Total cop out. Is JD so weak that he can’t denounce Groypers? You seem to think so.
If he can’t, then he is weak and will be tagged as nazi adjacent. Correctly.
Respectfully, it's baloney that " every criticism of Israeli policies or politicians or individuals ... (is) met with a reply of "antisemitism". Criticism of Israel and especially Bibi is as common as humidity in DC. What plays w/antisemitism. IMHO, is unfair criticism or criticism based on obvious falsehoods. For example, "the charge of "genocide" when the work of soldier/scholar John Spencer, the world expert on urban warfare, is such a clear refutation.
I think this is wishful thinking on Nigel's part anyway. Fuentes doesn't like that JD is married to an Indian Hindu and has said so.
JD and I share the same culture (and probably blood somewhere). I can't see him overlooking a man disrespecting his wife. I sure don't tolerate people disrespecting mine.
This whole scenario is invented by Nigel and Hiryoki. Niether of them even live in the USA.
It's hard to see JD podcasting with Fuentes. And if he did, Fuente's first obnoxious quip about Usha would surely result in a pummeling.
I'm more concerned about JD's ongoing friendship with Thiel.
I am highly concerned and dislike his friendship with Thiel. I am concerned with Rod being ok with him. I don’t trust the guy
It’s Thiel that scares me too. He epitomises everything wrong with planet. I don’t get Rod’s friendship with him.
Yeah that's my thought too. Fuentes is the embodiement of so many things he hates.
Your last sentence is spot on. Fuentes is a punk enjoying fifteen minutes of fame. Thiel has enough money and friends to do real harm.
Yep. If JD goes Groyper I'll vote for any Republican that forcefully distances himself, and libertarian or whatever wherever else. I want my "missing vote" to be in the data. Let the Republicans chew on it as they process what I hope would be a 1972/84 level wipeout.
Silly
I will not share a tent with them. If they're in then I'm out, along with literally every other person of good conscience and IQ over 100.
I can not begin to express how much as an American I resent that you as European feel entitled to interfere in our internal politics.
Again, Spinal Tap have been on an extended North American tour since 1982. We are here legally.
It doesn't matter if you're here legally or not. What matters is if you're a citizen.
He's joking. He is not the fake British rock star Nigel Tufnel.
ITS ASTONISHING how fast it happened. Barely a week after a large string of Democratic victories that most conservatives had written off as impossible, the Republican coalition looks like it’s eating itself alive. The mood that was triumphant a year ago—glowing about Trump’s momentum, about new populist energy, about “the tide turning”—has curdled into bitterness. I’m thunderstruck reading here how fast the knives are out: for JD Vance, for governors and candidates who worked the hardest, for anyone accused of being too soft, too slow, or too independent.
If you read the disappointing comment threads here. And on conservative sites, you can feel the infection spreading: impatience turned to contempt, disappointment turned to conspiracy. The same voices that once called for unity now call for purges. Everyone is a sellout; everyone else is the problem. It’s like a locker room where every fan thinks he’s the coach, demanding trades and firing players—except the “team” here is the entire conservative movement.
This is more than poor sportsmanship; it’s a symptom of moral exhaustion. what we’re watching now—not moral conviction, but emotional volatility masquerading as principle.
Rod Dreher has been right to warn that antisemitism is creeping into the younger corners of the right, a poison that corrodes everything it touches. But the answer to that infection isn’t to only turn our guns inward—it’s to recover moral clarity and fight the left’s own rising antisemitism with unity, not chaos. The left moves with cohesion; we, too often, move in a circular fire.
We're not "fighting the left's own rising antisemitism" until and unless we get our own house in order.
Well, I wish you great success spending your time getting our house in order. I will continue with my energy, ignoring the crazies like I did David Duke and spend my time opposing the left wing Marxist.
I could see results of the finger-pointing . the comments above us and below me already are aiming at JD instead of the real enemy.
If JD plays footsie w/Nick Fuentes he'll win the primaries and get smoked in the general. I hope he's smart and brave enough to see that.
No, JD has Middletown Ohio hardwired, You don't talk about a man's wife.
Then why is Fuentes still walking around with his nose intact?
Because the VP doesn't want to go to jail.
I'll take that bet. No effin way.
That would destroy his political future.
Funny how you didn't finish Rod's quote:
"He listened to what I had to say. And that is all I can say about it, out of respect for his privacy."
Well, I hope Rod's sentence above is foreshadowing something positive. However, this is also the same Vance who just a week (or so) ago, completely danced around an idiotic comment (about Judaism "openly supports the persecution of ours") from one his questioners at the TPUSA event Mississippi. He had the opportunity and his response (or lack thereof) was telling.
Maybe, but I think Rod didn’t want to turn his post into a news story about Vance by implying anything about his response.
That's right. You shouldn't read anything into what the VP told me by my quote. I absolutely respect his privacy.
It's just that I don't feel at liberty to repeat the VP's words to me in a private conversation.
The Groypers are here. And so are the UFOs.
Have you noticed that Bannon is really the godfather of the 'burn it down' movement/vibe? For some reason it doesn't seem to stick with him, but the "destroy the system" really took off with him and Breitbart (website, not Andrew).
I haven't heard Bannon express explicitly anti-semitic views (probably because I can't stand watching him) - it seems that people of Bannon's (and yours, and my) generation are genetically less inclined to Jew hatred (excepting Tucker), because we took history seriously and our grandfathers liberated the camps.
But Steve Bannon is the source of the rage rhetoric. He was the first to coherently cobble that message together - leaving it for Tucker and Fuentes to translate into hate.
Konstantin Kisin said it correctly - GenX / Older millennials are not violently anti-Jew simply because we knew the previous two generations. As the WW2 generation moves on, the zoomers have no linkage to that epoch.
Ordinary Men - it'll happen again.
Bannon channels Evola (and Lenin) more than the National Socialists.
Yes, Kisin had that nailed.
I still won't buy a German car out of respect to my grandfather. He was the most loving Archie Bunker with opinions but also sympathy for all the groups Uncle Arch didn't like. He sympathized with the downtrodden so "coloreds", Jews and "Chinamen" were held in good esteem. He hated no groups except the Germans. They were considered "sons of bitches" and he stressed that if we bought a German car he'd disown us. He was the second child and first boy born in America, and spoke only Polish until he walked his older sister to the same one room schoolhouse and were immersed in English. As a farm family, the first girl and first boy worked the hardest. Out of the whole crew of 7 kids these two were the greatest. His one trip back to Europe was to deal with the same "sons of bitches" his parents fled Poland over before the first world war.
So not buying their cars, and only the cars, something I still abide by. I am not passing it down to my kids. I just continue to avoid the products out of respect to the greatest man I ever knew not because I believe modern Germans somehow inherited guilt.
My father saw a concentration camp a day after its initial liberation. But he also saw what Germany looked like after the Allies got done bombing the place to smithereens. Dad felt that the Germans had been punished for the evils of the Reich and he did not hate them going forward.
My grandfather's entire family would have been exterminated by these people, and most of the civilians would've shrugged or even thought they had it coming for being Slavs. I don't blame him at all for having hard feelings and not wanting to support them. The people running these German companies were around for the 3rd Reich. They weren't inheriting guilt, they were members of a guilty society.
"You cannot simply point at the Zoomers and say, “Thou shalt not,” and expect it to work."
This is the right-wing post-modernism that I've been screaming about since 2015. The Woke Left imposed a lot of illegitimate "thou shalt nots". Donald Trump responded by tearing down the possibility of "thou shalt nots." And too many on the Right excused him every damn time.
....just like some predictable commenters will in 3...2...1....
Do you want people to argue with for some reason?
Predictable.
You predicted someone would ask you if you were looking for an argument?
No arguments friend just love :) I have faith that one day you will lean to appreciate Trump, even if it takes some time. The Lord will show you the way if you search :)
I appreciate the good things that Trump does, and I criticize the bad and terrible things he does.
As Rod says, the world is a complicated place.
Hiroyuki particularly seems to love when Trump pardons Crypto bros of their obvious fraudulent activity. Three cheers for defining deviancy down!
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry's comment on Fuentes: "a real, honest-to-goodness, classical anti-semite." https://x.com/pegobry_en/status/1987888075087692226
I have a bad feeling that Groyperism is going to be to the Right what wokeness was to the Left (i.e. a self-destructive catastrophe). The dopamine rush of 'hating' is just too strong. The right thing to do is to deal with the real issues soberly and seriously, but it's more of a thrill to just hate your enemies. We live in interesting times (i.e. bad ones)!
Groypers don’t control any institutions. And the leaders of right wing institutions are appalled at the rhetoric from groypers. It’s more likely the reaction by conservative institutions against Groypers will be the right wing equivalent of woke.
Appalled....but also increasingly afraid to speak out.
Just like 80% of liberals were afraid to speak out against the 20% Wokesters.
Margaret Mead: “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Yes, this is my fear: that the old guard will, for whatever reason or reasons, try to ignore or compromise with them.
I say denounce their antisemitism and do what you can to keep them from power, but at the same time work very hard to provide substantive solutions to their material complaints.
William F. Buckley defenestrated the Birchers in the early '60s. That could easily work because at that time media presentation was expensive in infrastructure, finance and talent. Nowadays any half-a$$ed bull$hiter with a little moxie can get himself out there, and maybe catch a following of multitudes. Canceling, shaming, schoolmarm finger-waging "Shame, shame, shame....." ain't going to do it anymore. In fact such measures provoke Groypers to gleefully double-down. How abut addressing the legitimate concerns of Groypers and Gropyer adjacent? Finishing up the first year and the do-nothing GOP majority Congress hasn't produced a single signal piece of legislation that would indicate they they hear us/them, though I do appreciate Trump's executive action.
I'm thinking of the Ryan led Congress in Trump's 1st term.
The Big Beautiful Bill provided the necessary funding for ICE to carry out the mass deportations. But the reason more legislation hasn’t been passed is because of the filibuster. There’s no leverage to get Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Tillis, Curtis, etc to cave on the filibuster. Trump is doing everything he can, and it’s mostly being upheld by SCOTUS despite unprecedented opposition from the district courts.
Contra the Groypers, the solution for bypassing wayward GOP politicians is to elect more GOP senators and congressmen in swing seats. But it’s easier for Groypers to complain than do the hard work of winning elections, like Charlie Kirk did.
The hysterical overreaction to the Groypers is creating sympathy for them.
The reason more legislation hasn't been passed is because the GOP (starting with Trump) has lost the very concept of negotiation and all that goes with it: horse trading, half loaves, mutual back scratching, the works. They could have easily called the Democrats' bluff in the recent shut down by publicity offering to restore the full ACA subsidies in return for enough votes to pass some high priority item on their own agenda (maybe something on immigration?).
Ross Douthat has a similar point, regarding the impossibility of defenestration in 2025:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/opinion/nick-fuentes-antisemitism-republicans.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U8.tfzW.gZHTrrgiLCzV&smid=url-share
Elon Musk gave them the platform to become a mass movement. As much as I oppose the woke Left totalitarians controlling the rest of the platforms, having a near free for all *in this environment* made cultivating the normal reaction to woke leftism easier. If the boy was stuck on Rumble, Gab and his own platform he would be stuck with a small fraction of his current audience. At this point they're spilling over into Facebook and trolling Ben Shapiro posts with accounts that identify exactly who they are. The apparent lack of professional consequences for supporting a literal Neo Nazi is a telling sign.
Sorry but he's not a literal neonazi. And there are all sorts of professional consequences which is why none of the Groypers on X show their real names. You still are likely to get fired for explicitely aligning with Fuentes. Obviously you like that....so be happy.
By the way, I'm not a groyper. Its just annoying when people don't see him for what he is...an entertainer and comedian.
Be annoyed, I'm not going to stop calling him what he is.
I was around people like this in 2015 and 2016. I knew the movement long before Fuentes was the face of it. They were and are Nazis. Some, like Andrew Torba or Milo Yiannopolous, lied to my face and told me that they were opposed to white supremacists. Others, like Owen Shroyer, seem to be straight up stupid. Fuentes has to be pretty intelligent to do what he's been doing and enjoy as much success as he did. Promoting Nazism and then saying "haha I'm just being edgy" is just a tactic, and apparently an effective one. They're practicing entryism, sucking kids deeper and deeper into their pit of darkness. Step 1 - Tucker or whoever, Step 2 - Nick Fuentes (who IS a Nazi, btw), Step 3 (the all-in step) - Andrew Anglin or whoever. Many of the people in Fuentes' inner circle are already here. Fuentes is already here!
What you Buckley admirers don't understand is that HE FAILED UTTERLY. He destoyed the Old Right and got the President he wanted for two terms and it still led to directly to deindustrialization, 24-hour free porn on demand, and the USA spending seven trillion dollars turning Afghanistan and Iraq into Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the long term the result of Buckley's purge of the Republican party was the presidency of Ronald Reagan. If you want to elect conservatives having people loudly threatening nuclear war or the end of Social Security is not the way to do it. The Left tried to hang that sort of stuff on Reagan, but it didn't work, first off because he had no such intention, but also because the GOP as a whole did not.
Don't control any institutions...yet.
Give them time.
And a few boneheaded decisions by those who should know better.....
My point is really about the "normie test." That is, what happens when you try to make an argument to your normie offline neighbor who doesn't follow politics? If you try to tell the guy at the bar that American politics is about fighting "white supremacy" (wokeism) or fighting "world Jewry" (Fuentesism), he is going to decide that you are a crank...
My point is that left wing institutions were sympathetic to woke. The institutions, in a sense, were in favor of being infiltrated and conquered by woke. That dynamic is not true on the right regarding Groypers.
Truly, young people (especially men) have been radicalized. And this happened pretty suddenly. When I was in college in the mid-late 2010s, everyone was very liberal. I could have counted the exceptions on my hand. Now, the university students I teach are far more conservative, even radical. I think that this must have happened first at the elite universities, among people who are more critical thinkers - then it got vulgarized online. I teach at a top US university, and there are many very conservative, intelligent, usually Catholic, students. The vulgarization of this would be the Groypers. But young people know that the game is rigged, and are ripe for any kind of radicalization.
"The game is rigged" is doing way too much work here.
The world isn't entirely fair? And this comes as a surprise? The Groypers are the naive, unworldly ones here. Work within the system to make it more fair....but don't ever expect it to be fully fair. That's what Leftist ideologues do.
Horseshoe theory indeed.
Sadly, "Them who has gets" and "He who has he gold makes the rules" has been the law for eons.
Do you think smartphones play a role here? They're plugged into their self-imposed bubbles 24/7.
"The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote."
I've seen this for twenty years, as Boomers willfully closed their eyes.
But Republicans have done NOTHING about increasing college costs. ("You're afraid to take on debt? Come on, wimp! Americans can do anything! Have the state subsidize public education like it does everywhere else? Shut up, commie!")
And Republicans have done NOTHING about increasing housing costs. ("You want to limit the free market? Shut up, commie!")
Republicans will NEVER have a theory of the state. It is only there to hurt their enemies. If they had tried to implement a more Distributist economic theory, this would have been averted. But they are simply too proud to implement Distributism.
For twenty years, I've tried to sell *actually* conservative policies to Republicans. They spent too much time calling me a socialist to implement those policies before it was too late. Now they just want to burn down the system.
Yeah if only there was a best of both worlds.
Some Socialist policies to help the social fabric
And some Nationalist policies to give the country an identity.
Man if someone could invent something like Socialist Nationalism that would be a real hit, I imagine
Thus providing more evidence that most conservative Americans hate Distributism more than they hate Fascism.
Yes, something like... the Socialist National American Labor Party! SNALP for short! Yeah, that's the ticket.
(edit: hehe... I just noticed that's "PLANS" backwards, for what that's worth.)
Yeah, he’s going to have to come up with a better name
Admittedly, "Distributism" is a terrible name. Hilaire Belloc was a better thinker than political communicator.
Of course, in the 1910s, he didn't have to think about how his system would resonate on social media.
Chesterton scholars have since renamed Localism.
They could flip that easily into “National Socialist.”:
Hello. I imagine housing policy is probably a big factor in the kind of program that you'd propose. Do you include anything like a redistribution of those portions of the housing stock that are nowadays being snapped up, as I hear, by large conglomerates for the purpose of creating big rental types of property portfolios?
Yes.
Capital is like manure. When spread widely, it is very productive. When piled up in one place, it just stinks.
The many incentives for homeownership should be limited for a second house and eliminated for a third house. House price increases from 2010 to 2019 gave Boomers tons of equity. HELOCs allowed them to buy second/third houses in cash, thus further driving up the market from 2020-2025. Now you got 18 people bidding on a house (I was one of them), a bidding war that drives up prices even further. As the statistics show, young people can't compete against that:
https://www.edwardconard.com/macro-roundup/the-median-age-of-first-time-homebuyers-in-the-us-has-climbed-to-a-record-of-40-up-from-33-in-2021/?view=detail&filters=macro-roundup-database
I suspect a Georgist tax on ground rent would have been the best way to slow the growth of housing costs. It seems to have worked pretty well in the only non-socialist part of China: Taiwan. But I'd have to refresh my memory on the details.
Back to something you mentioned early on, if the Left succeeds in rigging our elections like they rigged the 2020 Presidential election and any number of other elections with no voter ID, mass mail-in ballots, the rigged census, importing illegals with un-American values (and then trying to give them amnesty -- you know they will) and on and on. (Takes breath.) If the Left succeeds in rigging "our democracy", I'd rather have a Franco or Pinochet, too, to be honest.
I pray and work that we don't get there.
Extreme claims require extreme evidence. Republicans' lack of interest in producing even moderate evidence is telling. (Mollie Hemingway's work alone is nowhere near conclusive.)
Decadence (including intellectual sloth) is not exclusive to the Left.
I read Rigged and agree with you. Hemingway's proofs were scattershot and while convincing as individual acts of, say, voter suppression, she failed to create a master plot. It was a good read, nonetheless.
Oh rubbish. The evidence for the rigging of the 2020 election is abundant.
How come they couldn’t rig the ‘24 election then?
"The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote."
Is this really the first time in American history that this has happened? In the 1890s, childlessness was higher than it is today. Debt is not a new thing; 2/3 of white settlers in the 1600s were indentured. Housing prices are indeed a problem overall, but they're not a problem in the Midwest or parts of the South. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/w3tnqe/oc_map_of_united_states_home_affordability_by/
I think the deeper problem is spiritual. Even many who acknowledge the problems are still tempted by decadence. 1920s/30s Fascists critiqued decadence, but were plenty decadent themselves. The new conservative hero Sydney Sweeney just appeared in a sheer dress in which her nude breasts were clearly on display. And in a great irony, it seems likely that her great "genes" are very likely augmented.
Those with any sense of virtue going to get left out in the cold. The young are clueless, look irreparably damaged, without hope, and we only have ourselves to blame for it.
"The difference is that I am not a nihilist; I don’t want to tear it all down, but rather reform it. There are no historical examples in which “tearing it all down” produced a better, more just, more functional order."
PREACH! It may not be cool to talk about reform rather than revolution, but it has the advantage of being good and true.
Thanks Rod also worth noting that countries with Reformed Calvinistic traditions have tended to be more pro Jewish for theological reasons. This can be seen in the Netherlands and in the Anglosphere since the Puritan General Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to England. The roots are in Calvin’s appreciation that ‘salvation is from the Jews’ and that while the Church is the fulfilment of Ancient Israel there is a future salvation coming for the Jewish people. Note that this is different to the modern evangelical fad of pre-millennialism.
Nice post with a nice picture w/ the VP. I don’t have any statistics but my hunch is the problem is more than the young Jew haters. I visit “conservative” web sites including Powerline, and my anecdotal experience is that people can’t tolerate those on opposite sides. Hate Jews or hate your fellow Americans - both are bad. You can despise the very bad actors on both sides & yes the left is more violent now but you can’t let the hate consume you. And another thing - look at satisfaction polls. Ok - Prices are high & the economy can’t always create a lot of jobs but you have to be grateful. My hunch is many folks just aren’t grateful , and it adds fuel to fire. Thankfully I know Christ is in control & all will be ok one way or another.
Roger Scruton: "Gratitude is the first conservative virtue."
Yes.
The problem on both the right and the left for a while now has been a profound sense of victimization. People that see themselves as victims see their lives as outside their own control and look for someone to blame for all their perceived problems, Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat. Instilling a sense of victimization in people and claiming to be somebody who fights against this will always be a good way to gain political power.
"The problem on both the right and the left for a while now has been a profound sense of victimization."
Absolutely! This is something that the Right used to sensibly mock Lefties for constantly indulging in, but the wails of victimization quickly became a core feature of the MAGA Right. Which makes sense, as few people whine as much as the privileged twit who currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
True.
Rod doing the world tour like an Orthodox Gandalf.
Speaking of which, or something like it: Rod has written about Dante as a life-changing author, as we know. I wonder if there's an equivalent exploration of Tolkien in the literary realm out there somewhere. Not by Rod, I mean, but by someone somewhere on a similar level.
Probably not, although I know a few authors who are very "Tolkienesque" in their attitudes. Rod and Solzhenitsyn are two of them. If you like eccentric pundits with offbeat views, there is also John Michael Greer.
"Jews really are disproportionately powerful in American life, and they are not shy about using that power to advance their own interests, and the interests of other groups they favor. The taboo against noticing that, and talking about what that might mean, is gone with the Zoomers. If we want to fight anti-Semitism, we have to face this seriously."
The same is true of Asian-Americans. The same is true of any group that values COMPETENCE. Good for them!
Maybe it shouldn't be taboo to notice this. But noticing it doesn't mean there is some Jewish conspiracy. If Jews make up 2% of the population and have 6% of the power, how is that a problem? How on earth are we afraid of 6%? FFS, has nobody ever read Federalist 10?
I would dispute that it's 6%. Look at the top donors to even Republican candidates. Jeff Yass, Miriam Adelson, Ken Griffin, Howard Lutnick, Elaine Wynn, Paul Singer, etc. Can I notice that? More like 20% or maybe even higher. These donors have their own priorities (Israel, low tax/libertarian economics, etc.) but by and large don't care at all about MAGA's top issue - reducing immigration. They're probably hostile to it. I remember hearing the accusation years ago about Jewish support for immigration b/c it would create a polyglot nation that would make impossible another holocaust. I became a believer in the theory on June 6th,1995 when Firing Line had a debate on immigration. On the pro-immigration side - Ira Glasser, Ed Koch, Leon Botstein and Frank Sharry. Just like there's "black fatigue", there's also "you can't notice that fatigue."
I would go further and say many of the top donors to the GOP don't care at all about reducing immigration. Republicans are still bending the knee to billionaires who want more immigration for a number of reasons I have mentioned in comments on other posts Rod has written.
If a group advances its own interests at the expense of a broader general interest that can certainly be bad. Competence is not a synonym for virtue.
The weird thing about us Jews is that there are those among us (usually in high places) that advance causes that are against our own interests. Remember that American Jewish 'leadership' - ADL, HIAS and others have been part of this. (HIAS completed its purpose years ago.) Myorkas, Raskin, Soros, Robert Malley, Wendy Sullivan, Jacob Frey, Philly DA Krasner just for starters. In a saner world, these people world have been excommunicated. And Soros ...I can't mention here what should have been done.
What you won't mention is probably what I've thought of as well. Soros is an evil man.
Apart from Israel, and areas tied up with that (I.e. neocon policies), do Jews qua Jews have any specific interests?
Obviously, they don’t want anything edging towards Christian theocracy, and white supremacism would tend to target them eventually, but what else?
This is a reasonable point, and yet, Jewish Americans are much more influential in national politics than are Asian Americans -- if you make a list of the most important people in Washington, DC (think tankers, government staffers, lobbyists, lawyers, etc. etc.) there will be a lot of Jews and a lot fewer Asians.
Perhaps 60-70 percent of the top donors to the Dems are Jewish (vs. 30-40 percent of GOP donors). That's a lot. It doesn't mean there is a conspiracy, and also, it shouldn't be considered evidence of "anti-semitism" to notice this and wonder about its significance.
https://www.takimag.com/article/semitical-thinking/
In the book studies and other adult education offered through our parish, the last several years (meaning my whole time there), there is a constant emphasis on the Jewishness of Catholic history. I don't know if that counts as pushback, as I'm generally the youngest person in the room by a good 15-20+ years and there are no young men to speak of in our 4 churches (the usual LifeTeen crowd in 1, my son and a couple of others in ours and probably zero in the other 2).
Hi, Laura. Is this a primarily Old-Testament exploration or more in the early to medieval Church periods that you mean? It happens that just earlier this evening, as at my Orthodox parish we're reading through the Law of Moses at the moment, we noted where certain liturgical practices come directly from that, for example.
Yes, particularly thinking about Paul. We read “Christ the Bridegroom” and talked about the Jewish imagery an how familiar that would’ve been to all the early followers. Also, the Song of Songs.
What you are studying sounds very interesting, please tell me more. I’m a new convert an curious! I try and soak up what I can.
'Lekha Dodi', recited on Shabbat eve, draws from the Song of Solomon and has imagery of the Sabbath as a bride.
Such as the use of incense in the divine services, broadly stated. Sometimes it's associated particularly strongly with certain hymns, such as at Vespers "Let my prayer arise," etc. and the Timiotera.