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The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics
The definitive firsthand account of the movement that permanently broke the American political consensus.
What do internet trolls, economic populists, white nationalists, techno-anarchists and Alex Jones have in common? Nothing, except for an unremitting hatred of evangelical progressivism and the so-called "Cathedral" from whence it pours forth.
Contrary to the dissembling explanations from the corporate press, this movement did not emerge overnight--nor are its varied subgroups in any sense interchangeable with one another. As united by their opposition as they are divided by their goals, the members of the New Right are willfully suspicious of those in the mainstream who would seek to tell their story. Fortunately, author Michael Malice was there from the very inception, and in The New Right recounts their tale from the beginning.
Malice provides an authoritative and unbiased portrait of the New Right as a movement of ideas--ideas that he traces to surprisingly diverse ideological roots. From the heterodox right wing of the 1940s to the Buchanan/Rothbard alliance of 1992 and all the way through to what he witnessed personally in Charlottesville, The New Right is a thorough firsthand accounting of the concepts, characters and chronology of this widely misunderstood sociopolitical phenomenon.
Today's fringe is tomorrow's orthodoxy. As entertaining as it is informative, The New Right is required reading for every American across the spectrum who would like to learn more about the past, present and future of our divided political culture.
What do internet trolls, economic populists, white nationalists, techno-anarchists and Alex Jones have in common? Nothing, except for an unremitting hatred of evangelical progressivism and the so-called "Cathedral" from whence it pours forth.
Contrary to the dissembling explanations from the corporate press, this movement did not emerge overnight--nor are its varied subgroups in any sense interchangeable with one another. As united by their opposition as they are divided by their goals, the members of the New Right are willfully suspicious of those in the mainstream who would seek to tell their story. Fortunately, author Michael Malice was there from the very inception, and in The New Right recounts their tale from the beginning.
Malice provides an authoritative and unbiased portrait of the New Right as a movement of ideas--ideas that he traces to surprisingly diverse ideological roots. From the heterodox right wing of the 1940s to the Buchanan/Rothbard alliance of 1992 and all the way through to what he witnessed personally in Charlottesville, The New Right is a thorough firsthand accounting of the concepts, characters and chronology of this widely misunderstood sociopolitical phenomenon.
Today's fringe is tomorrow's orthodoxy. As entertaining as it is informative, The New Right is required reading for every American across the spectrum who would like to learn more about the past, present and future of our divided political culture.
307 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2019
250 people are currently reading
3,355 people want to read
About the author
Michael Malice
14 books2,910 followersMichael Malice is the author of
The White Pill,
The New Right,
The Anarchist Handbook,
and
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il.
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July 27, 2019
The American conservative movement is traditionally dated to 1955, the date William F. Buckley started "National Review" to “stand athwart history.” For decades, conservatives looked back to that event as some combination of Moses parting the Red Sea and Prometheus bringing fire to Man. Some still do, dreaming misty-eyed of the past as they fumble for their dentures. But it is obvious, in retrospect, that nothing Buckley did ever accomplished anything. On the contrary, he and his myrmidons, like Judas, delivered America bound into the hands of its enemies.
That probably wasn’t their intent (though it’s hard to shake the feeling that it is the intent of Buckley’s putative successors, midgets and nonentities like Jonah Goldberg and David French). Regardless, there are many fresh voices on the Right who are keenly interested in freeing us from our chains and restoring the Republic, or, in the more likely alternative, moving on to something new. Broadly speaking, these people can be called post-liberals and here, in "The New Right," Michael Malice profiles some of them. To my regret, the ones he profiles are all clowns. Worse, it seems disturbingly likely that most post-liberals are clowns. But not all, and I will return to which ones are not, and what that means—even though you will not find them in this book.
Something structural about this book kept bothering me. It felt rambling, yet it wasn’t obviously incoherent. Then, watching Malice on the Joe Rogan podcast, it hit me. This is basically a podcast, an unscripted conversation, in print. It covers different topics in a somewhat unpredictable manner; not exactly disorganized, but far from crisp. "The New Right" is essentially a rambling talk between Michael Malice and himself. That substantially weakens the book, which could have been a lot more if it had been tightened up and had clear points to make. Instead, it’s basically meandering exposition, and frustrating to read. Really, this book is in many ways a lowbrow version of George Hawley’s outstanding 2016 "Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism," which is a far better book to read if you are looking for actual, coherent information about these currents on the Right.
But "The New Right" is not awful, even if I am not sure why I subjected myself to another book about the topic of Right splinter movements. Malice, who views himself as an anarchist and is no way conservative, has a sharp eye and a willingness to spend time with pretty much any kind of person—including those who dislike him as a “New York Jew.” Malice doesn’t see the New Right as powerful, but as the leading edge of both “innovation and insanity.” Nothing may come of it, or the next big thing may come of it. Exploring that possibility requires talking neutrally to some people who are “irredeemable, horrible people,” though Malice doesn’t seem to apply that label to any of the people he actually met (even if he’s understandably annoyed at his constant pigeonholing as “the Jew”).
“Alt-Right” was created by Hillary Clinton as a political attack term, designed to be infinitely flexible so as to tie the conservative mainstream to whatever fringe figure was most being painted as the Devil at that moment. Like “fake news,” it was then repurposed by its targets, but also continues to be used by the Left as a meaningless propaganda term. Malice solves this nomenclature problem by defining “Alt-Right” as a subset of “New Right,” really his own term, “A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.” Embodied within this is an apocalyptic, zero-sum tendency; someone on the Right who objects to progressivism in toto but doesn’t see it as seeking “totalitarian world domination” or “globalist hegemony” therefore isn’t New Right. In my own typology of post-liberals, the New Right is not Augustans, whose focus is use of power to create something new that is informed by the past, but a facet of the so-called Dark Enlightenment, who focus on theory as the basis for creating something totally new, and usually insane, because divorced from actual human nature.
The author begins, in 2011, with something called the Trollboard, a private Facebook group to which he was invited, devoted to anarchism in the Murray Rothbard mold—“anarcho-capitalists,” who are also admirers of the still-living Hans-Hermann Hoppe. These discussions introduced him to new lines of right-wing thought. One was that of the Dark Enlightenment (a name not much used anymore) of whom Curtis Yarvin, whose pseudonym was Mencius Moldbug, was the most prominent member. As I have discussed at length, Yarvin offers the most thought-out alternative political system of anyone in the New Right, and is the author of the sole original concept from this group to reach broader use—the “Cathedral,” the complex of leftist organizations that dominate our society. Yarvin does not get much play here, and Malice did not talk to him, though he lurks in the background of some of his other discussions. But on the Trollboard, and in meetings with people he met through it, Malice was introduced to a wide variety of other groups, each with its own focus, and from that sprang this book.
Actually, “groups” is a misnomer. As far as I can tell, nearly all the groups Malice talks about are merely habitués of particular websites, around which a very modern type of community forms. Malice specifically mentions among many others, Xenosystems, the latter a now-dormant site that seems to mostly exist as a cross-reference for sites on the fringe Right. None of these are political organizations in the traditional sense, not even to the degree the anarcho-capitalists were in the 1960s and 1970s. That may make them even more farcical, or it may be a harbinger of how movements are created nowadays—I’m not sure, though I suspect the former. It does mean, as Malice points out, that the movement is mostly decentralized, so that taking out or deplatforming one apparent leader has little effect.
After this brief overview, Malice moves backward, talking of the Old Right, primarily what was once called paleoconservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan. He reached his apogee in 1992, when he was a serious Presidential candidate, and thundered, to the horror of the low-energy Bush Republicans, a prescient speech about the culture war which, he failed to realize, he had already lost. Buchanan’s timing was flawed—1992 was also the apogee of liberal democracy, the apparent triumph of Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, when even many conservatives believed we, the West, had won the future and the only thing necessary was making sure we had a bit more George Washington and a bit less Margaret Sanger.
In Malice’s telling, in which he wants to draw a line between Old Right and New Right, the Old Right was mostly fringe. But that is not true, even if a few members of it were purged by Buckley. The Old Right was one part, the dominant part, of National Review until perhaps twenty years ago. True, they failed at the task they set themselves, but still remain relevant, and many are morphing into new types of post-liberals, none of whom are New Right in the Malice definition. Buchanan is still alive, after all, and writes occasionally for the non-fringe and non-New Right The American Conservative magazine.
Next we get the New Right of the internet. Reddit, 4chan, Taki’s Mag, and Breitbart, which relative to Rothbard or Buchanan, have enormous, if inchoate, reach. The first two are mostly about interchange; they are sites for discussion. There are no articles, no editorial policy. The latter two have articles; Breitbart is the closest to mainstream, and is in essence a splashier version on the Right of what today CNN is on the Left, if without much first-hand reporting. Malice’s basic point is that most people, and all people on the Left, have no grasp of how the people who frequent these sites think, and that much of their effort is directed at trolling and otherwise misdirecting and humiliating their perceived enemies, rather than traditional political work. “Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as ‘associated with white supremacy’ is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as ‘associated with flag burning.’ It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.” The same trolling attitude is on display in gamer culture, which, in “Gamergate,” the social justice warriors famously tried to bring to heel, resulting in an online war with gamers who were having none of it.
Other rambling chapters talk about the New Right’s opposition to democracy as an overriding good (citing James Burnham’s The Machiavellians as formative, which it is not, except for Yarvin, whose stock in trade is claiming that obscure books explain everything). Malice covers people like Mike Cernovich, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulous, and Gavin McInnes. What primarily seems to unite these people is that very few have a working moral compass, or at least one tied to any kind of traditional morality—rather, they show the instrumental morality that characterizes the Dark Enlightenment. Many are straight-up creepy, sexually and otherwise, such as Jim Goad, some weirdo who made his bones publishing obscene “zines,” scatological hand-stapled “magazines” heavy on graphics, deliberately meant to mark the publisher, and the reader, as refusing to conform to any social norms at all. Others are various manifestations of deviants, glory hounds, lucre chasers, and psychotic utopians. None have an actual following or offer a coherent philosophy. Neither the writing here, nor those written about, is impressive.
Malice also tries to cover international influences on the New Right, from Nigel Farage to Lee Kuan Yew. This is the weakest chapter of a weak book; Malice appears to know almost nothing about international affairs, much less right-wing figures internationally, and his focus is mostly demographics, which is a pretty pinched focus, if understandable since that’s what in the news about Europe. He also makes bizarre statements, such as that Japan is doing just fine as a culture and country despite its plunging population because they still have a “unique culture,” as shown by being “the world’s largest creators and consumers of tentacle-rape pornography.” He may be joking (though there’s no indication of it), but this type of statement shows a key failure of Malice—as an anarchist, he thinks nothing can be bad, unless it harms others. He simply ignores, and probably doesn’t see, because he can’t wrap his mind around it, that Mill’s harm principle, the core principle of the modern Left as well as of Malice, is rejected by most post-liberals, which is much of what makes them post-liberals.
Finally, we turn to the explicitly racially oriented groups on the New Right, though not covered here are groups arguably on the right that are not new—primarily the neo-Nazis, whose main presence is the website Stormfront, although apparently aging fellow travelers like David Duke are still floating around. New Right racially-oriented groups include the website Vdare, the refuge for many writers expelled from the polite, compliant right for political incorrectness, such as John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow. Vdare is relatively tame, though, compared to Jared Taylor, founder of the (now defunct) American Renaissance site. This is where we slide into explicit white supremacism (called white nationalism by its adherents). Malice was in Charlottesville during the fighting there in 2017, and offers a type of behind-the-scenes account, without any relevant insights. (However, this section does contain the funniest line in the book, when one of the white supremacist types says “I’m skeptical of the Holocaust deniers because . . . everyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen thinks it should.”)
And that’s the book, which ends more or less with a whimper. Not helping is that Malice makes frequent jarring claims. He says that “The idea that ‘political correctness’ is a uniquely left-wing phenomenon is simply untrue.” I have disposed of that canard at length elsewhere, and even if it were true, the point is that political correctness by those with power, namely the Left, is used as a weapon outside its own ranks, and the Right has no such ability. Then Malice says things that make one wonder if he is cracked, such as “Most conservatives are also averse to calm discussions of children and sexuality.” (I suggest he not come anywhere near my children, for the sake of his health.) He thinks that Communism fell because Eastern Europeans were able to watch the soap opera Dynasty, and predicts North Korea will fall for similar reasons (and he’s been to, and wrote a book about, North Korea, which makes this odd claim even more jarring). He thinks that all culture starts with “low culture,” which he attributes to the marginalized, who he says are uniformly “valorized” by the Left, resulting in the Left dominating culture. No element of this analysis is even remotely true, or convincing. Malice doesn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the upper classes became enamored of low culture, and true high culture then (temporarily, we hope) disappeared after thousands of years. Most weirdly of all, he claims that modern feminism resulted because other women were offended that the women who had money and independence were brothel owners, and they wanted the same money and independence. He claims the cry of nineteenth-century feminists was “If it’s good enough for the lowest, surely it’s good enough for us.”
I have three linked thoughts after reading Malice’s book. First, all the people he profiles are either clowns or irrelevant. All these men are misfits. None will occupy seats of power in the New Venice, or lead in the expansion of the Instrumentality of Man. None have any power at all now. But that they exist says something about our political moment. Second, I think the Left’s reach has exceeded its grasp, so preparing for what is next is a crucial exercise. The fruit the Left fails to grasp will not drop into the hands of the New Right, but it will drop. Third, Malice ignores people with somewhat similar, but far more sophisticated, views. If the post-liberals are to gain actual power, it will come from those people, combined with a societal fracture and the emergence of a political leader who will grasp these threads and turn them into a whip to drive the malefactors from the Temple.
Thus, very recently there was the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. That sounds dull, like a thousand other think-tank offerings over the past forty years. But it was not. None of the New Right was featured, but most of the speakers, from Michael Anton to Oren Cass to Patrick Deneen were hostile to our current regime, Democrat and Republican, strongly opposed to the hegemony of the Left, and actively interested in exploring new ways to actively destroy that hegemony.
That is something, for the call to destruction must precede the call to construction. Burke was wrong, or rather he was right—if things are so far gone that incremental change is a lost cause, we must forge a new thing after reflection on a better time. But most important of all was the unapologetic nature of what these people had to say. The first, and usually only, line of defense by the Left against conservatives who actually threaten to undermine their hegemony is to shriek silencing epithets, usually “Racist!” In the past, mainstream conservatives in the Buckley mold have always immediately folded and kowtowed, despite the total falsehood of the attacks. After all, they want to keep being invited to the right dinner parties and paid to write in mainstream publications. Those at the conference weren’t having any. None of them are politicians (charisma is sorely lacking among post-liberals), but they came to fight, and they are not clowns.
If there is a seed of a new thing, this is it. All these people fall within my definition of Augustans, though there is daylight between, say, Michael Anton and Rod Dreher (maybe the bridge is Sohrab Ahmari, who has recently been punishing David French for his many political sins). A year ago, I said:
"My prediction is that this is the future, and from the crumbling of the Republican Party will rise a quite different big-tent conservative party, from which the neoconservatives have fled to the Democrats (as most already have—bye, Bill Kristol!) That party will receive the unalloyed scorn of those who command the social and business heights, and the conflict will, therefore, burst the channels that confined political discourse for the past seventy years. Purges on the basis of ideology will largely become a thing of the past on the Right, and I predict the result will be more power accruing to the Right—and a lot more people participating on the Right who have traditionally been viewed as unpleasant. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Probably it’s mostly good, if the goals of conservatives are accomplished and cemented, and the Left permanently broken on the wheel. But at least it’ll be different."
Still sounds about right—no pun intended. My prediction for today is that in a year, this will be a lot clearer, and there will be a lot of water under the bridge.
That probably wasn’t their intent (though it’s hard to shake the feeling that it is the intent of Buckley’s putative successors, midgets and nonentities like Jonah Goldberg and David French). Regardless, there are many fresh voices on the Right who are keenly interested in freeing us from our chains and restoring the Republic, or, in the more likely alternative, moving on to something new. Broadly speaking, these people can be called post-liberals and here, in "The New Right," Michael Malice profiles some of them. To my regret, the ones he profiles are all clowns. Worse, it seems disturbingly likely that most post-liberals are clowns. But not all, and I will return to which ones are not, and what that means—even though you will not find them in this book.
Something structural about this book kept bothering me. It felt rambling, yet it wasn’t obviously incoherent. Then, watching Malice on the Joe Rogan podcast, it hit me. This is basically a podcast, an unscripted conversation, in print. It covers different topics in a somewhat unpredictable manner; not exactly disorganized, but far from crisp. "The New Right" is essentially a rambling talk between Michael Malice and himself. That substantially weakens the book, which could have been a lot more if it had been tightened up and had clear points to make. Instead, it’s basically meandering exposition, and frustrating to read. Really, this book is in many ways a lowbrow version of George Hawley’s outstanding 2016 "Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism," which is a far better book to read if you are looking for actual, coherent information about these currents on the Right.
But "The New Right" is not awful, even if I am not sure why I subjected myself to another book about the topic of Right splinter movements. Malice, who views himself as an anarchist and is no way conservative, has a sharp eye and a willingness to spend time with pretty much any kind of person—including those who dislike him as a “New York Jew.” Malice doesn’t see the New Right as powerful, but as the leading edge of both “innovation and insanity.” Nothing may come of it, or the next big thing may come of it. Exploring that possibility requires talking neutrally to some people who are “irredeemable, horrible people,” though Malice doesn’t seem to apply that label to any of the people he actually met (even if he’s understandably annoyed at his constant pigeonholing as “the Jew”).
“Alt-Right” was created by Hillary Clinton as a political attack term, designed to be infinitely flexible so as to tie the conservative mainstream to whatever fringe figure was most being painted as the Devil at that moment. Like “fake news,” it was then repurposed by its targets, but also continues to be used by the Left as a meaningless propaganda term. Malice solves this nomenclature problem by defining “Alt-Right” as a subset of “New Right,” really his own term, “A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.” Embodied within this is an apocalyptic, zero-sum tendency; someone on the Right who objects to progressivism in toto but doesn’t see it as seeking “totalitarian world domination” or “globalist hegemony” therefore isn’t New Right. In my own typology of post-liberals, the New Right is not Augustans, whose focus is use of power to create something new that is informed by the past, but a facet of the so-called Dark Enlightenment, who focus on theory as the basis for creating something totally new, and usually insane, because divorced from actual human nature.
The author begins, in 2011, with something called the Trollboard, a private Facebook group to which he was invited, devoted to anarchism in the Murray Rothbard mold—“anarcho-capitalists,” who are also admirers of the still-living Hans-Hermann Hoppe. These discussions introduced him to new lines of right-wing thought. One was that of the Dark Enlightenment (a name not much used anymore) of whom Curtis Yarvin, whose pseudonym was Mencius Moldbug, was the most prominent member. As I have discussed at length, Yarvin offers the most thought-out alternative political system of anyone in the New Right, and is the author of the sole original concept from this group to reach broader use—the “Cathedral,” the complex of leftist organizations that dominate our society. Yarvin does not get much play here, and Malice did not talk to him, though he lurks in the background of some of his other discussions. But on the Trollboard, and in meetings with people he met through it, Malice was introduced to a wide variety of other groups, each with its own focus, and from that sprang this book.
Actually, “groups” is a misnomer. As far as I can tell, nearly all the groups Malice talks about are merely habitués of particular websites, around which a very modern type of community forms. Malice specifically mentions among many others, Xenosystems, the latter a now-dormant site that seems to mostly exist as a cross-reference for sites on the fringe Right. None of these are political organizations in the traditional sense, not even to the degree the anarcho-capitalists were in the 1960s and 1970s. That may make them even more farcical, or it may be a harbinger of how movements are created nowadays—I’m not sure, though I suspect the former. It does mean, as Malice points out, that the movement is mostly decentralized, so that taking out or deplatforming one apparent leader has little effect.
After this brief overview, Malice moves backward, talking of the Old Right, primarily what was once called paleoconservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan. He reached his apogee in 1992, when he was a serious Presidential candidate, and thundered, to the horror of the low-energy Bush Republicans, a prescient speech about the culture war which, he failed to realize, he had already lost. Buchanan’s timing was flawed—1992 was also the apogee of liberal democracy, the apparent triumph of Francis Fukuyama’s end of history, when even many conservatives believed we, the West, had won the future and the only thing necessary was making sure we had a bit more George Washington and a bit less Margaret Sanger.
In Malice’s telling, in which he wants to draw a line between Old Right and New Right, the Old Right was mostly fringe. But that is not true, even if a few members of it were purged by Buckley. The Old Right was one part, the dominant part, of National Review until perhaps twenty years ago. True, they failed at the task they set themselves, but still remain relevant, and many are morphing into new types of post-liberals, none of whom are New Right in the Malice definition. Buchanan is still alive, after all, and writes occasionally for the non-fringe and non-New Right The American Conservative magazine.
Next we get the New Right of the internet. Reddit, 4chan, Taki’s Mag, and Breitbart, which relative to Rothbard or Buchanan, have enormous, if inchoate, reach. The first two are mostly about interchange; they are sites for discussion. There are no articles, no editorial policy. The latter two have articles; Breitbart is the closest to mainstream, and is in essence a splashier version on the Right of what today CNN is on the Left, if without much first-hand reporting. Malice’s basic point is that most people, and all people on the Left, have no grasp of how the people who frequent these sites think, and that much of their effort is directed at trolling and otherwise misdirecting and humiliating their perceived enemies, rather than traditional political work. “Describing Pepe the cartoon frog as ‘associated with white supremacy’ is akin to describing the Stars and Stripes as ‘associated with flag burning.’ It is technically correct, factually true—and utterly clueless.” The same trolling attitude is on display in gamer culture, which, in “Gamergate,” the social justice warriors famously tried to bring to heel, resulting in an online war with gamers who were having none of it.
Other rambling chapters talk about the New Right’s opposition to democracy as an overriding good (citing James Burnham’s The Machiavellians as formative, which it is not, except for Yarvin, whose stock in trade is claiming that obscure books explain everything). Malice covers people like Mike Cernovich, Alex Jones, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulous, and Gavin McInnes. What primarily seems to unite these people is that very few have a working moral compass, or at least one tied to any kind of traditional morality—rather, they show the instrumental morality that characterizes the Dark Enlightenment. Many are straight-up creepy, sexually and otherwise, such as Jim Goad, some weirdo who made his bones publishing obscene “zines,” scatological hand-stapled “magazines” heavy on graphics, deliberately meant to mark the publisher, and the reader, as refusing to conform to any social norms at all. Others are various manifestations of deviants, glory hounds, lucre chasers, and psychotic utopians. None have an actual following or offer a coherent philosophy. Neither the writing here, nor those written about, is impressive.
Malice also tries to cover international influences on the New Right, from Nigel Farage to Lee Kuan Yew. This is the weakest chapter of a weak book; Malice appears to know almost nothing about international affairs, much less right-wing figures internationally, and his focus is mostly demographics, which is a pretty pinched focus, if understandable since that’s what in the news about Europe. He also makes bizarre statements, such as that Japan is doing just fine as a culture and country despite its plunging population because they still have a “unique culture,” as shown by being “the world’s largest creators and consumers of tentacle-rape pornography.” He may be joking (though there’s no indication of it), but this type of statement shows a key failure of Malice—as an anarchist, he thinks nothing can be bad, unless it harms others. He simply ignores, and probably doesn’t see, because he can’t wrap his mind around it, that Mill’s harm principle, the core principle of the modern Left as well as of Malice, is rejected by most post-liberals, which is much of what makes them post-liberals.
Finally, we turn to the explicitly racially oriented groups on the New Right, though not covered here are groups arguably on the right that are not new—primarily the neo-Nazis, whose main presence is the website Stormfront, although apparently aging fellow travelers like David Duke are still floating around. New Right racially-oriented groups include the website Vdare, the refuge for many writers expelled from the polite, compliant right for political incorrectness, such as John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow. Vdare is relatively tame, though, compared to Jared Taylor, founder of the (now defunct) American Renaissance site. This is where we slide into explicit white supremacism (called white nationalism by its adherents). Malice was in Charlottesville during the fighting there in 2017, and offers a type of behind-the-scenes account, without any relevant insights. (However, this section does contain the funniest line in the book, when one of the white supremacist types says “I’m skeptical of the Holocaust deniers because . . . everyone who says the Holocaust didn’t happen thinks it should.”)
And that’s the book, which ends more or less with a whimper. Not helping is that Malice makes frequent jarring claims. He says that “The idea that ‘political correctness’ is a uniquely left-wing phenomenon is simply untrue.” I have disposed of that canard at length elsewhere, and even if it were true, the point is that political correctness by those with power, namely the Left, is used as a weapon outside its own ranks, and the Right has no such ability. Then Malice says things that make one wonder if he is cracked, such as “Most conservatives are also averse to calm discussions of children and sexuality.” (I suggest he not come anywhere near my children, for the sake of his health.) He thinks that Communism fell because Eastern Europeans were able to watch the soap opera Dynasty, and predicts North Korea will fall for similar reasons (and he’s been to, and wrote a book about, North Korea, which makes this odd claim even more jarring). He thinks that all culture starts with “low culture,” which he attributes to the marginalized, who he says are uniformly “valorized” by the Left, resulting in the Left dominating culture. No element of this analysis is even remotely true, or convincing. Malice doesn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the upper classes became enamored of low culture, and true high culture then (temporarily, we hope) disappeared after thousands of years. Most weirdly of all, he claims that modern feminism resulted because other women were offended that the women who had money and independence were brothel owners, and they wanted the same money and independence. He claims the cry of nineteenth-century feminists was “If it’s good enough for the lowest, surely it’s good enough for us.”
I have three linked thoughts after reading Malice’s book. First, all the people he profiles are either clowns or irrelevant. All these men are misfits. None will occupy seats of power in the New Venice, or lead in the expansion of the Instrumentality of Man. None have any power at all now. But that they exist says something about our political moment. Second, I think the Left’s reach has exceeded its grasp, so preparing for what is next is a crucial exercise. The fruit the Left fails to grasp will not drop into the hands of the New Right, but it will drop. Third, Malice ignores people with somewhat similar, but far more sophisticated, views. If the post-liberals are to gain actual power, it will come from those people, combined with a societal fracture and the emergence of a political leader who will grasp these threads and turn them into a whip to drive the malefactors from the Temple.
Thus, very recently there was the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. That sounds dull, like a thousand other think-tank offerings over the past forty years. But it was not. None of the New Right was featured, but most of the speakers, from Michael Anton to Oren Cass to Patrick Deneen were hostile to our current regime, Democrat and Republican, strongly opposed to the hegemony of the Left, and actively interested in exploring new ways to actively destroy that hegemony.
That is something, for the call to destruction must precede the call to construction. Burke was wrong, or rather he was right—if things are so far gone that incremental change is a lost cause, we must forge a new thing after reflection on a better time. But most important of all was the unapologetic nature of what these people had to say. The first, and usually only, line of defense by the Left against conservatives who actually threaten to undermine their hegemony is to shriek silencing epithets, usually “Racist!” In the past, mainstream conservatives in the Buckley mold have always immediately folded and kowtowed, despite the total falsehood of the attacks. After all, they want to keep being invited to the right dinner parties and paid to write in mainstream publications. Those at the conference weren’t having any. None of them are politicians (charisma is sorely lacking among post-liberals), but they came to fight, and they are not clowns.
If there is a seed of a new thing, this is it. All these people fall within my definition of Augustans, though there is daylight between, say, Michael Anton and Rod Dreher (maybe the bridge is Sohrab Ahmari, who has recently been punishing David French for his many political sins). A year ago, I said:
"My prediction is that this is the future, and from the crumbling of the Republican Party will rise a quite different big-tent conservative party, from which the neoconservatives have fled to the Democrats (as most already have—bye, Bill Kristol!) That party will receive the unalloyed scorn of those who command the social and business heights, and the conflict will, therefore, burst the channels that confined political discourse for the past seventy years. Purges on the basis of ideology will largely become a thing of the past on the Right, and I predict the result will be more power accruing to the Right—and a lot more people participating on the Right who have traditionally been viewed as unpleasant. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Probably it’s mostly good, if the goals of conservatives are accomplished and cemented, and the Left permanently broken on the wheel. But at least it’ll be different."
Still sounds about right—no pun intended. My prediction for today is that in a year, this will be a lot clearer, and there will be a lot of water under the bridge.
May 15, 2019
Written for those who get it and those who don't, Malice combines philosophy, history, memoir, and personality in this road trip through not just the edge of Polite Society but the badlands beyond it, the common through line being an opposition to progressivism.
Each chapter falls deeper through the circles of Hell, the previous being a primer for what's coming next. Always empathetic without being sympathetic or pandering, Malice takes on several levels of right-wing thought with care, consideration, and entertainment.
While the book never loses sight of who the real villains are, Malice also doesn't treat the subjects of this book with kid gloves. He takes them at their word but in doing so he is able to disassemble their arguments and argue against them in a concise and humorous manner.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the New Right, anyone apart of the New Right, and also anyone who wants to fight against the New Right.
Each chapter falls deeper through the circles of Hell, the previous being a primer for what's coming next. Always empathetic without being sympathetic or pandering, Malice takes on several levels of right-wing thought with care, consideration, and entertainment.
While the book never loses sight of who the real villains are, Malice also doesn't treat the subjects of this book with kid gloves. He takes them at their word but in doing so he is able to disassemble their arguments and argue against them in a concise and humorous manner.
I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the New Right, anyone apart of the New Right, and also anyone who wants to fight against the New Right.
October 18, 2020
The author lost credibility for me when he started going on about reverse racism (it's not a thing lol). Honestly, the majority of the book felt like a joke, or something I'd expect to come from an analysis of Ben Shapiro. Parts of the book were interesting enough, namely the deep dive into conservatism in the 60s 70s, and 80s, but nothing substantially new was learned from them. The author tried to date the rise of leftism in America to the Civil Rights movement, which is overwhelmingly false. This, along with some other "facts" that were furthest from the truth ultimately resulted in a less-than-satisfactory reading experience. If you are interested in the subject, I'd recommend ditching this book and instead reading Dark Money by Jane Mayer for a much more factual read.
October 14, 2020
Malice is an anarchist trickster who has performed a questionable public service by getting intimate with the diverse far fringes of 21st century right wing politics. Malice approaches the horror show of internet trolling, right libertarianism, and white nationalism with a sort of self-aware, "wink wink nudge nudge" attitude that is right up my alley. Malice writes like a less gifted H.L. Mencken or Hunter S. Thompson. It is easy to enjoy the irreverent, snarky, South Park tone of the book.
In today's climate, the book is worth reading for three different but interrelated reasons: 1) The strategic value of learning about influential right wingers and understanding what drives them. As of now, there is little competition since almost nobody talks to these people. 2) The educational value of having difficult conversations about dangerous subjects. This helps us clarify moral truth. 3) The political value of daring to push back against the established wisdom of the age. No age has the whole truth and it is paramount to keep the conversation open enough to correct errors. We need to avoid repeating the historical pattern of thought rebellion followed by thought suppression.
History is written by the victors. The mainstream "Cathedral" (Mencius Moldbug's name for the cultural establishment dominated by left wing politics) has won many victories and written many history books. In mainstream media, sensitive issues are increasingly dominated by One Correct Opinion. We can worry about this regardless of whether we agree with the aims and methods of progressivism. There exists a culture of silence punctuated by loud public denunciations about the evils of reactionary thought. Many of these reactions are justified, in my opinion, but they also function to channel the discourse to familiar talking points. As a result, speech can get stifled. And since taboos spawn taboo breakers, we have witnessed a politically incorrect, subversive, and dangerous counterculture festering and growing in the shadows. It is headed, according to all available evidence, by mostly young, mostly white, mostly men. It is a "movement" only in name, since it is united only by a shared hatred of progressive politics.
Although I could give the book four stars based on the amount of entertainment it contains, I do not think it quite deserves it. The reason is that I am offended and my feelings are hurt. Obviously! >:( OK, not really. The real reason is that there are some serious distortions, both historical and ethical, that undermine the credibility of the book. Although he takes some serious jabs at the stupidity and double standards of white nationalists and their followers, in some instances, Malice simply regurgitates, knowingly or unknowingly, ideological propaganda from the far right. For example, he jokes knowingly (cleverly I must add) with the suggestion that Bill Clinton is a mass murderer. More troublingly, he reiterates several negative stories about immigrants without countervailing positive stories. When discussing Brexit he speaks of it in glowing terms without any consideration to the massive economic and social damage that it has wrought. Elsewhere, he pontificates on the history of the Pinochet regime with insufficient knowledge. As a result, he ends up making some terrible excuses for the atrocities of the Pinochet regime in an effort to score some points against Allende and the left wing narrative. He even ends up contemplating, in a neutral fashion that is quite nonchalant, the possibility that homosexuality is a disease. All throughout I get the feeling that Malice enjoys upsetting respectable people a bit too much to care about consequences. He celebrates a culture of free speech, the art of trolling, and the virtue of being vicious. The ravenous intoxication of the internet troll is stronger than the superficial serenity of the journalist.
By refusing to identify with ANY of the mainstream positions, from progressivism to conservatism, Malice stands outside the Cathedral. He lacks the blinkers that blind people from seeing certain social developments and shackles their ability to exercise their critical speech in the face of absurdity. Feeding on his lack of decorum, Malice attacks all sacred cows and taboos. Although the book sometimes fails to perform the vital journalistic function of checking claims against facts, and although it reeks of "fiat anarchia et pereat mundus", I kinda like it. If it makes readers question the culture of silence created by political correctness - WITHOUT pushing them to the "dark side" in the process - it will have performed a massive service to public discourse. Sometimes you need good tricksters to understand bad tricksters. My recommendation: Handle with care.
In today's climate, the book is worth reading for three different but interrelated reasons: 1) The strategic value of learning about influential right wingers and understanding what drives them. As of now, there is little competition since almost nobody talks to these people. 2) The educational value of having difficult conversations about dangerous subjects. This helps us clarify moral truth. 3) The political value of daring to push back against the established wisdom of the age. No age has the whole truth and it is paramount to keep the conversation open enough to correct errors. We need to avoid repeating the historical pattern of thought rebellion followed by thought suppression.
History is written by the victors. The mainstream "Cathedral" (Mencius Moldbug's name for the cultural establishment dominated by left wing politics) has won many victories and written many history books. In mainstream media, sensitive issues are increasingly dominated by One Correct Opinion. We can worry about this regardless of whether we agree with the aims and methods of progressivism. There exists a culture of silence punctuated by loud public denunciations about the evils of reactionary thought. Many of these reactions are justified, in my opinion, but they also function to channel the discourse to familiar talking points. As a result, speech can get stifled. And since taboos spawn taboo breakers, we have witnessed a politically incorrect, subversive, and dangerous counterculture festering and growing in the shadows. It is headed, according to all available evidence, by mostly young, mostly white, mostly men. It is a "movement" only in name, since it is united only by a shared hatred of progressive politics.
Although I could give the book four stars based on the amount of entertainment it contains, I do not think it quite deserves it. The reason is that I am offended and my feelings are hurt. Obviously! >:( OK, not really. The real reason is that there are some serious distortions, both historical and ethical, that undermine the credibility of the book. Although he takes some serious jabs at the stupidity and double standards of white nationalists and their followers, in some instances, Malice simply regurgitates, knowingly or unknowingly, ideological propaganda from the far right. For example, he jokes knowingly (cleverly I must add) with the suggestion that Bill Clinton is a mass murderer. More troublingly, he reiterates several negative stories about immigrants without countervailing positive stories. When discussing Brexit he speaks of it in glowing terms without any consideration to the massive economic and social damage that it has wrought. Elsewhere, he pontificates on the history of the Pinochet regime with insufficient knowledge. As a result, he ends up making some terrible excuses for the atrocities of the Pinochet regime in an effort to score some points against Allende and the left wing narrative. He even ends up contemplating, in a neutral fashion that is quite nonchalant, the possibility that homosexuality is a disease. All throughout I get the feeling that Malice enjoys upsetting respectable people a bit too much to care about consequences. He celebrates a culture of free speech, the art of trolling, and the virtue of being vicious. The ravenous intoxication of the internet troll is stronger than the superficial serenity of the journalist.
By refusing to identify with ANY of the mainstream positions, from progressivism to conservatism, Malice stands outside the Cathedral. He lacks the blinkers that blind people from seeing certain social developments and shackles their ability to exercise their critical speech in the face of absurdity. Feeding on his lack of decorum, Malice attacks all sacred cows and taboos. Although the book sometimes fails to perform the vital journalistic function of checking claims against facts, and although it reeks of "fiat anarchia et pereat mundus", I kinda like it. If it makes readers question the culture of silence created by political correctness - WITHOUT pushing them to the "dark side" in the process - it will have performed a massive service to public discourse. Sometimes you need good tricksters to understand bad tricksters. My recommendation: Handle with care.
July 6, 2019
I do not understand why this book is so highly esteemed by other reviewers. The first quarter, about the emergence and formation of the New Right from various strands of thought, is the most interesting part. The rest of the book, however, generally retells a number of recent media-related events and describes several more or less well-known figures prominent in the new right (Coulter, Cernovich, Milo, etc.). It would make an interesting and engaging overview if you had slept over the past five years and missed everything. But if you had paid any attention, even if you followed politics in the media only superficially as I did, there is nothing truly novel or original here.
April 11, 2020
Malice comes from an interesting background - born in the USSR, a Jew growing up in NYC, self-proclaimed anarchist and anti-socialist, influenced by punk and Andy Warhol. Or maybe it's the kind of thing that felt interesting in the 90s and early 00s when we were still at a different place socially.
He delves into the history and culture of the alt-right in a way that feels familiar to someone like me who spent their formative years in weird parts of the internet. He is a good writer, funny, and I do not have a problem with his prose or even his choice of subject matter. He does a good job of tracing the start of right-wing American politics and shit-posting internet culture from people who probably did not start out even remotely political, or perhaps were just disenfranchised from our Big Two non-sensical political system.
He is very particular with his words - he looks for definitions, what people have actually said vs the idea of what they said, etc. He also visits a party with the alt right where Anne Coulter was a guest of honor. He presents all of this in a way that does a good job of shining a light on how ridiculous a lot of these people actually are off of the internet. And maybe how some of them can be reached, or prevented in the first place.
His book is an explanation to non-internet-savvy people on the left to the actual thought process behind internet trolls and "alt right" personalities... or it would be if he had spent even a smidge of effort to understand the current American left.
While waxing poetic about the nuance of a recession full of sad lonely young white men in basements he projects a "leftist movement" mostly containing the political leanings of Hillary Clinton and calls it The Cathedral. He views it as an ideology not allowed to be questioned, and seems to take this view entirely from a few selective internet videos from college campuses and how mad people get when you do or say something racist or sexist.
He does not believe that some people are actually angry about this, but that they are merely virtue signaling - if he had made a distinction between corporate Democrats and people living their lives and not enjoying having racial slurs thrown at them maybe I could take him slightly more seriously, however he does not... and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to admit that as a Jew he does feel uncomfortable when people he establishes are "just trolling" and "clearly not actually anti-semitic" do or say clearly anti-semitic things. He does not seem to draw a connection between this and the reactions of "the left" to things that clearly go above shit-posting.
Two of the big questions he poses are "Who is winning the culture war?" and "How is culture made and influenced?".
For him, the answer to the former is something along the lines of "The liberals and PC culture" (he comes off as one of those who possibly would have drawn offensive anti-Islamic cartoons as a protest against the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and pretended to be offended when people were less than thrilled). By "liberals" he means neoliberals and centrist Democrats. He also routinely labels them "leftists", showing a marked ignorance of actual American politics outside of mainstream left circles. With the time and effort he has made investigating the fringe Right it felt disappointing and a little bit confusing that he did not realize there are those on the left who also hold disdain for the Democrats.
He hates and is terrified of socialism, so perhaps this is why he avoids exploring the concerns of those left-of-center. He comes from the USSR (though he left at the age of 2) and also is of an age to be fully immersed in Cold War sentiments so this might be understandable. I'm still not sure if he thinks Bernie Sanders is an actual socialist or not.
The answer to the second question is probably the more interesting part of the book for me. Growing up as a well-educated Jew in NYC (and as a punk) it should come as no surprise that he is very aware of various fringe social cultures that have existed throughout the decades (At one point he contemplated obtaining a slot as a speaker at Charlottesville and trolling them with a detailed sourced list of his top five Drag Race contestants... before seeing video footage of who the audience participants would be and finally making that not-very-fucking-hard realization that some people actually mean what they say online, resulting in thinking better of it.).
He discusses how counter culture art and ideas gain popularity, then ubiquity, then are absorbed and repackaged by brands, and then just *is* mainstream culture. He warns that right now if "social justice" sentiment is unchallengeable it sets up fringe views of white nationalism and misogyny as "counterculture" and thus "cool". It's not totally wrong if we are to consider internet memes as art and culture, and I think that argument can be made.
But Malice still hamstrings his own argument by constantly hiding in a cloak of gen x apathy and his admittedly good sense of humor. It's not *cool* to admit that anti-semitism and racism and sexism are scary and concerning. So he can't even fully admit to himself that "ironic" memes or awful sexist statements designed that way "for impact" are bad. Because then I guess he'd be uncool and just wouldn't get the nuanced point this person is trying to make.
He wants to though. He is clearly uncomfortable and surprised at parts of the book when he interviews actual white nationalists, actual racists and sexists. He literally hears them when they say they are trying their best to push the Overton window to the right to do exactly what Malice already posits - influence culture and sieze power.
He just can't totally bring himself to face it or the reality of leftist politics in America and that is a major weakness.
Also as a final note, thank god I did not look up a picture of the author ahead of time because if I had to picture that hair cut as he said all of the smug little things he wrote in this book I would not have been able to finish it.
He delves into the history and culture of the alt-right in a way that feels familiar to someone like me who spent their formative years in weird parts of the internet. He is a good writer, funny, and I do not have a problem with his prose or even his choice of subject matter. He does a good job of tracing the start of right-wing American politics and shit-posting internet culture from people who probably did not start out even remotely political, or perhaps were just disenfranchised from our Big Two non-sensical political system.
He is very particular with his words - he looks for definitions, what people have actually said vs the idea of what they said, etc. He also visits a party with the alt right where Anne Coulter was a guest of honor. He presents all of this in a way that does a good job of shining a light on how ridiculous a lot of these people actually are off of the internet. And maybe how some of them can be reached, or prevented in the first place.
His book is an explanation to non-internet-savvy people on the left to the actual thought process behind internet trolls and "alt right" personalities... or it would be if he had spent even a smidge of effort to understand the current American left.
While waxing poetic about the nuance of a recession full of sad lonely young white men in basements he projects a "leftist movement" mostly containing the political leanings of Hillary Clinton and calls it The Cathedral. He views it as an ideology not allowed to be questioned, and seems to take this view entirely from a few selective internet videos from college campuses and how mad people get when you do or say something racist or sexist.
He does not believe that some people are actually angry about this, but that they are merely virtue signaling - if he had made a distinction between corporate Democrats and people living their lives and not enjoying having racial slurs thrown at them maybe I could take him slightly more seriously, however he does not... and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to admit that as a Jew he does feel uncomfortable when people he establishes are "just trolling" and "clearly not actually anti-semitic" do or say clearly anti-semitic things. He does not seem to draw a connection between this and the reactions of "the left" to things that clearly go above shit-posting.
Two of the big questions he poses are "Who is winning the culture war?" and "How is culture made and influenced?".
For him, the answer to the former is something along the lines of "The liberals and PC culture" (he comes off as one of those who possibly would have drawn offensive anti-Islamic cartoons as a protest against the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and pretended to be offended when people were less than thrilled). By "liberals" he means neoliberals and centrist Democrats. He also routinely labels them "leftists", showing a marked ignorance of actual American politics outside of mainstream left circles. With the time and effort he has made investigating the fringe Right it felt disappointing and a little bit confusing that he did not realize there are those on the left who also hold disdain for the Democrats.
He hates and is terrified of socialism, so perhaps this is why he avoids exploring the concerns of those left-of-center. He comes from the USSR (though he left at the age of 2) and also is of an age to be fully immersed in Cold War sentiments so this might be understandable. I'm still not sure if he thinks Bernie Sanders is an actual socialist or not.
The answer to the second question is probably the more interesting part of the book for me. Growing up as a well-educated Jew in NYC (and as a punk) it should come as no surprise that he is very aware of various fringe social cultures that have existed throughout the decades (At one point he contemplated obtaining a slot as a speaker at Charlottesville and trolling them with a detailed sourced list of his top five Drag Race contestants... before seeing video footage of who the audience participants would be and finally making that not-very-fucking-hard realization that some people actually mean what they say online, resulting in thinking better of it.).
He discusses how counter culture art and ideas gain popularity, then ubiquity, then are absorbed and repackaged by brands, and then just *is* mainstream culture. He warns that right now if "social justice" sentiment is unchallengeable it sets up fringe views of white nationalism and misogyny as "counterculture" and thus "cool". It's not totally wrong if we are to consider internet memes as art and culture, and I think that argument can be made.
But Malice still hamstrings his own argument by constantly hiding in a cloak of gen x apathy and his admittedly good sense of humor. It's not *cool* to admit that anti-semitism and racism and sexism are scary and concerning. So he can't even fully admit to himself that "ironic" memes or awful sexist statements designed that way "for impact" are bad. Because then I guess he'd be uncool and just wouldn't get the nuanced point this person is trying to make.
He wants to though. He is clearly uncomfortable and surprised at parts of the book when he interviews actual white nationalists, actual racists and sexists. He literally hears them when they say they are trying their best to push the Overton window to the right to do exactly what Malice already posits - influence culture and sieze power.
He just can't totally bring himself to face it or the reality of leftist politics in America and that is a major weakness.
Also as a final note, thank god I did not look up a picture of the author ahead of time because if I had to picture that hair cut as he said all of the smug little things he wrote in this book I would not have been able to finish it.
June 8, 2020
Fantastic
May 27, 2019
This is one of the best books I have seen that really drives into the current political discourse.(without being a hit piece of course) He does an amazing job of breaking the entire history (from the beginning of the current movement) and current events and provides great detail without being overbearing and boring. For those that have not been paying attention to what has been going on, in reference to the shaping of the political landscape, this book hits the nail on the head. He does not hold out on any info. A lot of this I was already privy to but some of this was new info that helped to print an even better picture.
I have Michael's other book (Dear Reader) but I have not read it yet. If that book is anything like this one, and I'm sure it is, i cant wait to read it. He has done an amazing job here.
I would recommend this to those that have shown they really want to know what's truly going on. Not those that wanna repeat catchy phrases.
I would have completed this book sooner but i didnt take it everywhere because I didnt want to mess it up haha.
I have Michael's other book (Dear Reader) but I have not read it yet. If that book is anything like this one, and I'm sure it is, i cant wait to read it. He has done an amazing job here.
I would recommend this to those that have shown they really want to know what's truly going on. Not those that wanna repeat catchy phrases.
I would have completed this book sooner but i didnt take it everywhere because I didnt want to mess it up haha.
December 3, 2020
A bizarre take on trying to polish the "new right's" history whilst trying to explain their talking points without condoning and condemning them and failing at doing that. Still worth the read at times though. The moments with Gavin, Shapiro and Breitbart are pretty funny and condemning on them.
May 21, 2019
Malice is the kingtroll of Twitter.
His writing is both lucid and erudite.
This book serves as an excellent primer for anyone not savvy to the multilayered right-wing phenomenon that had been brewing during Obama’s second term and burst onto the scene when Trump gained momentum in early 2016.
Those who follow his work will be familiar with much of this book’s content but become pleasantly surprised here and there. He often reminds us that "the right-wing (or left-wing) is not a monolith.” In this case, Malice explores the many flavors confined within the New Right umbrella to show it is not purely a gang of tiki-torch-wielding racists and freaks.
His definition of the New Right: A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
He includes interviews and memorable interactions with those loosely and tightly associated with the New Right. Malice affords them a platform to speak their truth and does not hold back on picking apart their arguments or world views. One can notice the book's pattern in which the New Right views get more foolish and objectionable with every following chapter. Still, Malice shows many of these thinkers are not merely bumbling rubes, but rather educated people with despicable worldviews.
The following people (and their ideas, work, etc.) are mentioned in the book albeit some more than others, but not all are included under the New Right moniker: Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, David Duke, Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Richard Spencer, Ayn Rand, Lysander Spooner, George Stigler, Superman, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Mencius Moldbug, Jeb Bush, Judith Rich Harris, David Lynch, Alexander Hamilton, Pat Buchanan, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, the hacker known as 4chan, his brother 8chan, Rosie O’Donnell, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Napolitano, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, Christopher Cantwell, Vox Day, Jonathan Haidt, James Burnham, Arthur Herman, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Gavin McInnes, Jim Goad, Batman, Shannon Sullivan, Cody Wilson, Thomas C. Leonard, Jim Acosta, Scott Adams, Ryan Holiday, Jared Taylor, James Alefantis, Radley Balko, Steve Bannon, Owen Benjamin, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ross Ulbricht, Jessica Valenti, Georges Sorel, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Mike Cernovich, Charlie Nash, H. L. Mencken, and many more.
Some favorite quotes:
“To be unable to associate with those you disagree with (within limits), to think there is an absolute correlation between one’s politics and one’s character, is something I find reprehensible. “The personal is the political” is a totalitarian progressive decree that I reject entirely.”
“For the evangelical left, every Facebook update can be a personal march on Selma.”
“In that moment Gavin was my personal Picture of Dorian Gray, a reflection of my conscience but one that was far older, far uglier, and with a weak chin. Also far uglier—yes, it bears repeating. Far older. ‘Well,’ McInnes said, aging and uglifying right before my eyes, ‘she looks pretty busy.’”
“Similarly, we will no longer ever have an America that sits down together to watch one of the three network anchors. For leftists, invoking ‘Fox News’ is enough to get them to dismiss something out of hand, as it is for right-wingers and CNN. Thanks to the emergence of social media, websites, newspapers, and all other aspects of the press are publicly held accountable by their respective ideological enemies in real time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
His writing is both lucid and erudite.
This book serves as an excellent primer for anyone not savvy to the multilayered right-wing phenomenon that had been brewing during Obama’s second term and burst onto the scene when Trump gained momentum in early 2016.
Those who follow his work will be familiar with much of this book’s content but become pleasantly surprised here and there. He often reminds us that "the right-wing (or left-wing) is not a monolith.” In this case, Malice explores the many flavors confined within the New Right umbrella to show it is not purely a gang of tiki-torch-wielding racists and freaks.
His definition of the New Right: A loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
He includes interviews and memorable interactions with those loosely and tightly associated with the New Right. Malice affords them a platform to speak their truth and does not hold back on picking apart their arguments or world views. One can notice the book's pattern in which the New Right views get more foolish and objectionable with every following chapter. Still, Malice shows many of these thinkers are not merely bumbling rubes, but rather educated people with despicable worldviews.
The following people (and their ideas, work, etc.) are mentioned in the book albeit some more than others, but not all are included under the New Right moniker: Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, David Duke, Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Richard Spencer, Ayn Rand, Lysander Spooner, George Stigler, Superman, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Mencius Moldbug, Jeb Bush, Judith Rich Harris, David Lynch, Alexander Hamilton, Pat Buchanan, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, the hacker known as 4chan, his brother 8chan, Rosie O’Donnell, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Napolitano, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, Christopher Cantwell, Vox Day, Jonathan Haidt, James Burnham, Arthur Herman, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Gavin McInnes, Jim Goad, Batman, Shannon Sullivan, Cody Wilson, Thomas C. Leonard, Jim Acosta, Scott Adams, Ryan Holiday, Jared Taylor, James Alefantis, Radley Balko, Steve Bannon, Owen Benjamin, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ross Ulbricht, Jessica Valenti, Georges Sorel, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Mike Cernovich, Charlie Nash, H. L. Mencken, and many more.
Some favorite quotes:
“To be unable to associate with those you disagree with (within limits), to think there is an absolute correlation between one’s politics and one’s character, is something I find reprehensible. “The personal is the political” is a totalitarian progressive decree that I reject entirely.”
“For the evangelical left, every Facebook update can be a personal march on Selma.”
“In that moment Gavin was my personal Picture of Dorian Gray, a reflection of my conscience but one that was far older, far uglier, and with a weak chin. Also far uglier—yes, it bears repeating. Far older. ‘Well,’ McInnes said, aging and uglifying right before my eyes, ‘she looks pretty busy.’”
“Similarly, we will no longer ever have an America that sits down together to watch one of the three network anchors. For leftists, invoking ‘Fox News’ is enough to get them to dismiss something out of hand, as it is for right-wingers and CNN. Thanks to the emergence of social media, websites, newspapers, and all other aspects of the press are publicly held accountable by their respective ideological enemies in real time, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
August 7, 2019
One of the best books about modern American politics, both the alt/new right and the “evangelical left” that it was a backlash against. Covers a pretty broad spectrum from Buchanan and Pinker to Cantwell and Jared Taylor. Always interesting when a Jewish writer is meeting with people who have made various degrees of anti Semitic statement and digs deeper to get specific about exactly what it means, etc.
Net result of the book was solidly reinforcing my dislike of democracy. Essentially all of the “identity politics”, racism, immigration restriction debates, etc cease to matter without democracy. His examples of LKY and Pinochet on the right are two excellent ones; another is the direct corporate and free market provision of services.
Interesting trips to various events, discussions with various people, etc. Overall a really entertaining and informative book.
Net result of the book was solidly reinforcing my dislike of democracy. Essentially all of the “identity politics”, racism, immigration restriction debates, etc cease to matter without democracy. His examples of LKY and Pinochet on the right are two excellent ones; another is the direct corporate and free market provision of services.
Interesting trips to various events, discussions with various people, etc. Overall a really entertaining and informative book.
June 27, 2020
This is a masterful look inside the new power base in the Republican Party. Malice refrains from condescension in an effort to find an understanding of what the new right believes while pushing back with rigorous logic.
August 19, 2019
Really good journalism. A must read for anyone interested in modern politics who is trying to understand what is happening on the fringe right. Especially those on the far left.
April 4, 2021
One of the few authors who actually got #gamergate right.
February 4, 2025
I like Malice. His “against the grain” mindset and his stance on very limited-to-no government ideas are interesting to me.
February 21, 2023
There a couple quotes (among quite a few others scattered through this drag called a book) that truly encapsulate Malice’s entire thought process concerning this book:
“I’m not in a position to say whether that makes him a good or a bad person, (in regards to his discussions with well-known white supremacist Jared Taylor) or even a better or a worse person than a more banal racist. Frankly, I’m not particularly comfortable judging a heretic for his views at all. My gut reaction is to let Taylor live his life, and I can live mine. Our interaction was informative and he was open and amiable. I can’t entirely condemn a man who invites a stranger into his home and treats him fairly and respectfully. But I can judge whether Taylor is dangerous, and this is one place where I think progressives certainly have a point.” - page 259
And:
“I am certain that some of my contacts in the New Right are racists, anti-Semites, and all the rest of it. I am certain that far more of them than I realize have such beliefs. I judge people by their actions, not their thoughts. Having heretical thoughts needn’t imply poor behavior, because most people, racists or otherwise, are hypocrites and don’t even have the courage of their convictions.” - page 259
Malice’s book does everything in its power to white wash the right and the extremism growing within the hard-right and conservative bases but for Malice, as long as you can vomit out your incendiary, hateful, and intolerant beliefs in an appropriate, dignified manner (the good old Lincoln Rockwell special), your opinions are justifiable, even admirable so long as you’re not an outright hostile bigot. Even “trolling” is completely justifiable so long as Malice believes you’re not completely serious about the targeted harassment. Who’s kidding who, Malice wouldn’t even bat an eye if you were only “90% kidding about that”. Malice’s The New Right not only showcases a man who sold his soul to the devil to get “cozy” with the lowlifes within society but in a twisted way looks to become their court jester. To the disappointment of Malice, we will be sharing a gravesite once the “trolls” become to enact their twisted fantasies of extermination but are these people really that bad if they host respectable conversations?
Half personal diatribe towards the “evangelical left”, half normalizing right wing extremism, The New Right offers nothing of genuine value to any reader with even a basic grasp of current events, history, and politics.
“I’m not in a position to say whether that makes him a good or a bad person, (in regards to his discussions with well-known white supremacist Jared Taylor) or even a better or a worse person than a more banal racist. Frankly, I’m not particularly comfortable judging a heretic for his views at all. My gut reaction is to let Taylor live his life, and I can live mine. Our interaction was informative and he was open and amiable. I can’t entirely condemn a man who invites a stranger into his home and treats him fairly and respectfully. But I can judge whether Taylor is dangerous, and this is one place where I think progressives certainly have a point.” - page 259
And:
“I am certain that some of my contacts in the New Right are racists, anti-Semites, and all the rest of it. I am certain that far more of them than I realize have such beliefs. I judge people by their actions, not their thoughts. Having heretical thoughts needn’t imply poor behavior, because most people, racists or otherwise, are hypocrites and don’t even have the courage of their convictions.” - page 259
Malice’s book does everything in its power to white wash the right and the extremism growing within the hard-right and conservative bases but for Malice, as long as you can vomit out your incendiary, hateful, and intolerant beliefs in an appropriate, dignified manner (the good old Lincoln Rockwell special), your opinions are justifiable, even admirable so long as you’re not an outright hostile bigot. Even “trolling” is completely justifiable so long as Malice believes you’re not completely serious about the targeted harassment. Who’s kidding who, Malice wouldn’t even bat an eye if you were only “90% kidding about that”. Malice’s The New Right not only showcases a man who sold his soul to the devil to get “cozy” with the lowlifes within society but in a twisted way looks to become their court jester. To the disappointment of Malice, we will be sharing a gravesite once the “trolls” become to enact their twisted fantasies of extermination but are these people really that bad if they host respectable conversations?
Half personal diatribe towards the “evangelical left”, half normalizing right wing extremism, The New Right offers nothing of genuine value to any reader with even a basic grasp of current events, history, and politics.
May 18, 2021
This book was okay but as someone on the left I'm not really sure I was it's target audience. Malice's analysis of various Alt-Right figures was interesting enough albeit he gave off, at times, a sense that he didn't know whether to condemn some of them or not, which I think is kinda funny. In addition to that, I already knew of probably 90% of the people he was explaining so all I really got from it was how much he omitted compared to what I know about them.
Much of the book read like a series of blog posts rather than concrete chapters with a specific message in mind in which Malice is almost having a conversation with himself? He'll be talking about what the New Right figure believes in by sourcing direct quotes but then he'll make these declarative statements about the "evangelical left" out of nowhere without any historical or material analysis to really back up his little jabs at "them". Then he'll just move on and you're left wondering what the message of the chapter was and how it in any way relates to his quirky chapter titles.
All in all I think you'll like this book if either
1. You've been living under a rock since 2016
2. You enjoy the tired dunking of the woke left while also getting a vague picture of the New Right, who is very much the leading force in right wing politics right now.
Much of the book read like a series of blog posts rather than concrete chapters with a specific message in mind in which Malice is almost having a conversation with himself? He'll be talking about what the New Right figure believes in by sourcing direct quotes but then he'll make these declarative statements about the "evangelical left" out of nowhere without any historical or material analysis to really back up his little jabs at "them". Then he'll just move on and you're left wondering what the message of the chapter was and how it in any way relates to his quirky chapter titles.
All in all I think you'll like this book if either
1. You've been living under a rock since 2016
2. You enjoy the tired dunking of the woke left while also getting a vague picture of the New Right, who is very much the leading force in right wing politics right now.
November 12, 2022
WTF did I just read? Why TF did I read this? I don't know anyone who could have recommended a book this awful. Surely not.
This book is a mess, an awful, horrific mess. If you're human, do not read this. I should have stopped at first mention of eugenics because it only gets worse and worse from there. The author clearly thinks that he's all sorts of clever and pithy, but what he really is, is glib to the point of being intentionally malicious, emotionally and intellectually dishonest, and just plain reprehensible. But in a mundane way. I mean, this book isn't even a good troll, it's just something that should not have seen the light of day. Nope.
A tiny dude making snide remarks under his breath. What a revolutionary concept. This book really should have been called "Hey Left, I feel out of place and time with your new stuff but I don't belong with the Cruellas either so I'll just make up weird shit and lash out all over the place. So doesn't that mean that I'm an anarchist? Okay!" I know it's lengthier than the actual title, but it's much more accurate.
Final thought: Thoughtful hate is scarier and more dangerous than visceral hate, not a redeeming feature or something that makes it deserving of actual engagement.
Yikes.
This book is a mess, an awful, horrific mess. If you're human, do not read this. I should have stopped at first mention of eugenics because it only gets worse and worse from there. The author clearly thinks that he's all sorts of clever and pithy, but what he really is, is glib to the point of being intentionally malicious, emotionally and intellectually dishonest, and just plain reprehensible. But in a mundane way. I mean, this book isn't even a good troll, it's just something that should not have seen the light of day. Nope.
A tiny dude making snide remarks under his breath. What a revolutionary concept. This book really should have been called "Hey Left, I feel out of place and time with your new stuff but I don't belong with the Cruellas either so I'll just make up weird shit and lash out all over the place. So doesn't that mean that I'm an anarchist? Okay!" I know it's lengthier than the actual title, but it's much more accurate.
Final thought: Thoughtful hate is scarier and more dangerous than visceral hate, not a redeeming feature or something that makes it deserving of actual engagement.
Yikes.
September 3, 2024
Maybe one and a half stars for the gamer perspective and description of the frog meme, which always baffled me.
This book presents an excellent example of everything disturbing about this type of mind-set. Rife with ill-supported claims (the university system is a vast brainwashing institution bent on promoting progressive philosophy), projection (the "evangelical left" is an invention of the wealthy elite who run the media and spew lies), narcissism/hypocrisy (per this book, the "new right" correctly claims that racism is a thing of the past and that reverse racism is now a bigger problem - note the author is a white male), but is for some strange reason, the "new right" is concurrently very wrongly anti-Semitic (note the author is Jewish). Throughout, the author displays an odd glee in triggering the libtards, guided primarily by self-interest: any scree against the libtards is guaranteed to give you a paycheck, no matter how questionable the content.
It starts out mildly interesting, then devolves into a jumble of nonsensical trigger-the-lib blather. I honestly do not know whether the author even believes himself.
This book presents an excellent example of everything disturbing about this type of mind-set. Rife with ill-supported claims (the university system is a vast brainwashing institution bent on promoting progressive philosophy), projection (the "evangelical left" is an invention of the wealthy elite who run the media and spew lies), narcissism/hypocrisy (per this book, the "new right" correctly claims that racism is a thing of the past and that reverse racism is now a bigger problem - note the author is a white male), but is for some strange reason, the "new right" is concurrently very wrongly anti-Semitic (note the author is Jewish). Throughout, the author displays an odd glee in triggering the libtards, guided primarily by self-interest: any scree against the libtards is guaranteed to give you a paycheck, no matter how questionable the content.
It starts out mildly interesting, then devolves into a jumble of nonsensical trigger-the-lib blather. I honestly do not know whether the author even believes himself.
June 17, 2019
A fun and interesting read. Malice starts with ancient history (the 1980's) and the crossing and diverging paths of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Pat Buchanan. It then dives into first person accounts of modern voices in both the heart and fringes of today's "New Right"
The first person account and Malice's humor and wit make the last half of the book just fly by. I wish there was a larger sampling of the different facets represented but I understand that as a first person telling it is limited by the authors contacts and experience.
That would be my only complaint is that the book seemed too short by far. There could be a whole second volume just flushing out all the details. Maybe someday.
The first person account and Malice's humor and wit make the last half of the book just fly by. I wish there was a larger sampling of the different facets represented but I understand that as a first person telling it is limited by the authors contacts and experience.
That would be my only complaint is that the book seemed too short by far. There could be a whole second volume just flushing out all the details. Maybe someday.
July 22, 2019
Besides being utterly hilarious at parts, Mr Malice is one of the very few journos that strives to understand the New Right in all its various sects. This is a guy who was plugged into the movement for many years, and not someone who was on the sidelines peaking in. He takes New Right ideas, digs to the bottom of them, and explains why they are effective and sometimes brilliant. His crime, to the “Evangelical Left” as he calls them, is to even consider the New Right’s philosophy! But you will be glad that he does, and does so with lucid writing and hilarious insights. 95/100
July 29, 2019
A must read if you want to understand the political landscape of the Donald Trump era of American politics. Actually, probably a must read for anyone who wants to really understand politics, media, and popular culture in general.
June 29, 2022
Malice provides an exhaustive overview of the transformation of thought for the New Right. The New Right can be broadly defined as:
In other words, the New Right is characterized by their contempt for the left and engagement with the culture war. Furthermore, most but not all of the New Right believe combatting the left requires engagement with the culture war. They are skeptical of the claim of linear social progress and the façade of civilized people, believing that human nature remains unchanged since the first humans.
The intellectual foundation can be found in Thomas Sowell, Jim Goad, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sam Hyde, and many other intellectuals, public and academic. Of course, these thinkers vary widely in their political thought, and consequently, Malice emphasizes that the movement is not hegemonic. As with all political groups, there is a fringe and even a fringe within the fringe.
Malice, for the most part, does an excellent job drawing together the interconnected yet disparate thoughts between each faction of the New Right. As both the left and the right engage with cancel culture and the takedowns of temporary thought leaders, emerging replacements remain unpredictable. Tomorrow's leaders of the New Right may appear from nowhere, influencing the group in new directions. Today we see how Milo has faded out from influence, replaced by the groypers, the Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin, and even Peter Thiel. These new thinkers, groups, and followers, more likely than not, will soon be replaced. Malice provides examples of the dominance and victories the New Right has had. Whether the New Right will remain influential, only time will tell.
a loosely connected group of individuals united by their opposition to progressivism, which they perceive to be a thinly veiled fundamentalist religion dedicated to egalitarian principles and intent on totalitarian world domination via globalist hegemony.
In other words, the New Right is characterized by their contempt for the left and engagement with the culture war. Furthermore, most but not all of the New Right believe combatting the left requires engagement with the culture war. They are skeptical of the claim of linear social progress and the façade of civilized people, believing that human nature remains unchanged since the first humans.
The intellectual foundation can be found in Thomas Sowell, Jim Goad, Murray Rothbard, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Sam Hyde, and many other intellectuals, public and academic. Of course, these thinkers vary widely in their political thought, and consequently, Malice emphasizes that the movement is not hegemonic. As with all political groups, there is a fringe and even a fringe within the fringe.
Malice, for the most part, does an excellent job drawing together the interconnected yet disparate thoughts between each faction of the New Right. As both the left and the right engage with cancel culture and the takedowns of temporary thought leaders, emerging replacements remain unpredictable. Tomorrow's leaders of the New Right may appear from nowhere, influencing the group in new directions. Today we see how Milo has faded out from influence, replaced by the groypers, the Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin, and even Peter Thiel. These new thinkers, groups, and followers, more likely than not, will soon be replaced. Malice provides examples of the dominance and victories the New Right has had. Whether the New Right will remain influential, only time will tell.
November 29, 2020
Micheal Malice’s The New Right reminded me of a seemingly unrelated book, Catch the Jew! by Tuvia Tenenbom. Both are oddball travelogues focusing on the fringe of society (and both authors happen to be former yeshiva students). Tenenbom wanders Israel and the Palestinian Authority chatting with everyone from prostitutes to Hamas leaders; Malice speaks to internet trolls and white nationalists in America, and both genuinely enjoy humouring everyone they meet. The New Right covers the history of the new right (obviously) and discusses various flavours of anarchy and libertarianism. The style of both books is rambling and their humour is off colour, but somehow by the end of each book I learned something of substance.
I definitely want to read Malice's Dear Reader which is about North Korea. I think it will be more focused and less all over the place.
I definitely want to read Malice's Dear Reader which is about North Korea. I think it will be more focused and less all over the place.
June 15, 2024
After watching a YouTube video of him discussing his writings I decided to buy and read all of his books. I enjoyed the Very well written and presented ideas and am reminded of when I first understood the progressive business money making manipulative machine. We cannot let these “special right” be adopted…. Until we are set up and receiving huge funds for the next set of Alphabet people.. Can you say (=).
Does anyone notice anything else not covered that seems to fit all of these peoples? Hint.. they are ALL MISERABLE, DEMANDING….
Does anyone notice anything else not covered that seems to fit all of these peoples? Hint.. they are ALL MISERABLE, DEMANDING….
June 30, 2024
An interesting book giving some color to the historical origins of the new right. A movement that defines itself in opposition to what they call the evangelical left, progressive fundamentalists and progressive religion, summarily known as "the cathedral". They posit that the latter have overtaken US universities, and by extension the media and government.
A few interesting points are made about the Singapore regime and Pinochet in Chili as the examples of right wing governments.
Some other ideas that are usually pushed out of the main stream are elucidated.
An interesting point is made that historically the first amendment, free speech protections, was actually under more pressure than recently. The current discourse is actually much less constrained than it has ever been mostly due to tech advancements.
A few interesting points are made about the Singapore regime and Pinochet in Chili as the examples of right wing governments.
Some other ideas that are usually pushed out of the main stream are elucidated.
An interesting point is made that historically the first amendment, free speech protections, was actually under more pressure than recently. The current discourse is actually much less constrained than it has ever been mostly due to tech advancements.
July 16, 2019
Better than expected. The first 1/4 went way too deep into theoretical, ideological and historical intricacies of a very specific group, and just when I thought "I'm not that into the American right-wing politics", the book shifted gears and got interesting and hilarious. Also, one of the best concise narratives of the progressive 'religion', Gamergate and gamer culture. We live in interesting times, that much is true.
October 12, 2019
A fascinating perspective looking from the outside in to movements forming on the right side of the political spectrum - outside of mainstream conservatism - which seem to be growing in force and numbers.
Also irreverent as hell.
Also irreverent as hell.
May 21, 2020
More entertaining than I expected, this is an interesting and funny read throughout. The author's idea of the "new right" is not synonymous with the racist "alt-right". He covers a lot of different viewpoints, basically including everything besides neocons. Self-described as a "new york jew" and an anarchist, Malice gives even the most extreme people covered here a fair shot but also isn't shy about pointing out the misguided logic of the more vile people featured (especially those who hate him because of his ethnicity.) He reserves the most contempt for what he calls the cathedral (basically mainstream neoliberal thought.) and has a lot of laughs at their expense.
Recommended for those interested in modern US politics who enjoy a trollish sense of humor regardless of where you fall on the left/right spectrum.
Recommended for those interested in modern US politics who enjoy a trollish sense of humor regardless of where you fall on the left/right spectrum.
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January 31, 2022Mostly garbage.
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