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Richard Hanania is a man whom I do not always agree with but do appreciate for successfully pissing off people both on the left and the right. The ability to piss off people from both of those groups is, in my opinion, generally correlated with being right about things.
Well, Hanania has allegedly been linked to a pseudonym. The allegation is that about 10 years ago, he was routinely saying taboo things about race and gender issues under the name "Richard Hoste".
Some quotes:
It's nothing very shocking for those of us who read dissident right stuff, and it's not even really that far away from Hanania's typical under-his-birth-name writing. But it may be a bridge too far for much of the more mainstream audience.
What I wonder is, which way shall Hanania go?
Own it, say "yes I am Richard Hoste and I did write those things"? He would gain praise from some people for honesty, but he would also stand probably a pretty good chance of losing book deals, interviews with some mainstream figures, and so on.
Deny deny deny?
Ignore it?
I think that it is an interesting case study, the attempted take down of one of the more famous examples of what is now a pretty common sort of political writer: the Substacker whose views are just controversial and taboo enough to have a lot of appeal for non-mainstream audiences but are not so far into tabooness, in content and/or tone, to get the author branded a full-on thought-criminal.
I'm not familiar with this guy but I think the obvious solution is to never, under any circumstances, apologize for sins against the Left. I'm reminded of the scene from Darkest Hour where Churchill, referring to peace talks with Hitler, yells "you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is stuck in its mouth!" The Left -- that is, the mass of men and women who are in control of nearly every relevant channel of Western power and influence -- aren't interested in conversation. They're interested in grinding their enemies under heel. They are the tiger, and even the most well-meaning attempts of conservatives to roll over and play the deferential gentleman get them eaten. But oh, how very gracefully those posh conservatives bowed their heads and accepted martyrdom! It won't achieve anything. The Christians with whom I stand should model themselves after the crusaders. More Richard the Lionheart and less Thomas a Kempis.
Rightists do change their beliefs like any honest person. They should be candid about that. But these changes should be framed as intellectual corrections or, at worst, correcting youthful intemperance. Never, ever, should they use Leftist semiotics (saying, "I commit to doing better," or "I apologize for my past hurtful words" is self-immolation). In other words, if you're being accused of right-wing dogwhistling then you're doing it right. Either way the Left hates the Right. They should make themselves worth the hatred.
If all that seems too rigid, then know I think these rules necessary guardrails against the conservative inclination to seek compromise. That leads to the "speed-limit conservatism" of the National Review crowd. Those people exemplify the chief problem with conservatism. The problem isn't a lack of clear policy goals or manifestos or books about the glories of Western civilization. Books are dead when their words don't fill the chests of men. The problem is that conservatives are old and bloodless. Bronze Age Pervert's book isn't a sane or articulate political project. It voices a spirit which moves and animates everything else. The actual content of the book is all performative insanity -- nobody would seriously consider comparing Mitt Romney to Alcibiades unless they're joshing around. BAP is a full-on thought-criminal who attracts just the people he needs to attract: serious young men with spines who are looking to armor themselves for the eventual crackdown their overlords will visit upon them. These men don't need another thought-piece about changing the Leftist orthodoxy from within. They need to find communities of other, understanding men with whom to build themselves against the world.
If it seems like I'm not addressing your main question, then know that's partly because I'm not familiar with Hanania (though it looks like I should be!). The best option you present appears to be #3: ignore what's going on. Not because he's ashamed or looking for approval, but because it isn't worth his time to explain himself. His silence is the answer. Eventually he might be forced to address the issue. Then he should just be honest about why he's changed his views, using parameters similar to what I outlined above. Avoiding an apologetic tone is crucial. The very young men the dissident right appeals to will sniff that stuff out as weakness, and deservedly so.
To the extent that this is not just a tautological redefinition of "the left", this strikes me as factually inaccurate. The right of center has significant support among the the police, military, non traditional media, and a large minority of traditional media. Republicans routinely win ~50% of elections at all levels, a supreme court in their favor. A majority of high-wealth individuals are Republican.
The good advice in this post is for Hanania to be honest with himself and his beliefs. It is a virtue to courageously stand up and truthfully say "yes I believed this, but here is why I changed my mind" or "I used to believe this; I still do but I used to, too". It is obviously cowardly and expedient to apologize if he does actually hold those convictions.
On the other hand, large swaths of this post are deeply uncharitable and indistinguishable from a self-fulling siege-mentality worldview (which may or may not be in accordance with reality). Many leftists have an exactly symmetric but opposite narrative, just as passionately and deeply held. I suppose you can both be right, but you both can't have the moral high ground.
The police in cities and the military are both controlled by the left; only the lower ranks are otherwise.
So? The police in smaller municipalities aren't.
The military is controlled by the commander in chief, the sec-def and the combatant commanders which are political appointees.
As was demonstrated in at least two incidents under Trump (Afghanistan and refusal to quell the DC BLM riots), the deep state has more control than this would imply.
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Historically security apparati have sided with whoever the lower to mid ranking officers have supported in the event of civil strife, not with who the top brass threw in with. For a recent example, Niger’s new President is a captain, not a general. Police departments are constrained by the opinions of the sergeants and lieutenants at least as much as by the chiefs. And according to people that are in the military, the military is in practice a lot less woke than it tries to come off as because the captains and majors aren’t on board.
This is just selection bias. When the military stayed loyal, there was no civil strife.
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