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The Origins of Woke has not become a best seller. As of this writing, the top non-fiction book on both the Publishers Weekly and NYT best sellers lists is The Democrat Party Hates America by Mark R. Levin. While I haven't read Levin's book, I'm sure it's as disposable as any other political tract by a Fox News host, while The Origins of Woke is legitimately the most important conservative book of the last 20 years.
Argument: It's not selling well because of the Huffington Post article that exposed his old blog posts to the masses. Counterargument: Conservatives are the target market, and they tend not to "cancel" people over things like this.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because the name is cringe. Counterargument: Donald J. Trump Jr's book "Triggered" became a best seller.
Argument: It's not selling more copies because Hanania isn't a celebrity. Counterargument: Andy Ngo doesn't host anything or do many public appearances, but his book was still a best-seller.
I don't care whether Hanania is personally successful, but I really, really want the ideas in this book to gain widespread recognition. Hanania offers provide a plausible-enough plan to defeat not only wokeness, but also all of the ideologies that have gained popularity in the wake of Conservative Inc's failure to stop wokeness, including white nationalism and NRx. Speaking as a former white nationalist (or whatever you wanna call VDare readers), people with moderate temperaments adopt extreme beliefs because the mainstream hasn't offered any believable alternative.
Ben Shapiro says that we should just argue people into adopting our views because it'll suddenly work, even though we've been trying for years and it hasn't worked. Peter Brimelow says we should close the border and have white babies. Curtis Yarvin says that we should put a dictator in charge, or at least whatever FDR was. Caldwell says that we should repeal the Civil Rights Act, even though it's as much a part of our national identity at this point as the Constitution.
Hanania's proposal is essentially a modification of Caldwell's that takes political realities into account. Instead of repealing the Civil Rights Act, we should just re-interpret it in an originalist light and repeal the modifications made in the decades afterwards.
I can't say for certain why this book isn't making bank, but I theorize that it has to do with the fact that no mainstream conservative figure like a Ben Shapiro or a Steven Crowder has reviewed it or interviewed him. They're ignoring him, even though his politics are totally aligned with theirs, because they don't want to platform someone who was once a racist. National Review hasn't even reviewed The Origins of Woke.. and they reviewed Christopher Caldwell's Age of Entitlement!
So, here are three questions I have in no particular order.
Disclaimer, I haven't read Origins of Woke yet, partially because my understanding was that Hanania's solution boiled down to trying to bring white people into the fold of Civil Rights as you described. But one thing I don't get is why Hanania's argument is different from the Ben Shapiro, conservative "let's just change people's minds with arguments." Who exactly is going to buy an Originalist argument for including white people under the umbrella of Civil Rights protection? Almost nobody.
Originalist arguments have some power, the Federalist Society has its influence and many in its sphere are undoubtedly motivated by a commitment to Constitutional Originalism. But that certainly hasn't stopped Wokeness. I find it completely impossible that a so-called originalist interpretation of Civil Rights which calls to provide legal protections for White people, an interpretation which was absolutely not shared by those most influential in its creation, to be convincing to anybody except White Nationalists.
It manages to be not radical enough and too radical at the same time, which is not a compliment. I agree that the Civil Rights Act is "as much a part of our national identity at this point as the Constitution", and let's just say our Constitutional Originalist Libertarian friends have nothing to contribute to dismantling Wokeness, so a fake "Civil Rights Originalist" libertarian sounds even worse.
Trying to make laws that are based on motte and bailey between pretensions of equality but actually it is about screwing white people or men, or whatever non progressive group is an obvious way forward.
The only way it might not work is because some of the politicians calling themselves conservatives in addition to the leftists are unwilling to do this whatsoever. In that case, nothing that can work, will work. Pressure can still get more of them, but the right has a gatekeeping problem and infilitration by the left.
Hanania take that wokeness comes in part due to the law and what politicians voted for and enforced is true. Fundamentally what happened is that leftists voted for laws that preffered left wing groups and screwed the right, and supposed right wingers failed to oppose this or even joined with it.
More attention paid on this phenomenon is good, but we really need to promote much greater gatekeeping. The final evolution ought to be to be intolerant of leftists too who are too far to the left and are progressive supremacists. All this is possible, it just requires elite will to do so. And it might require some other meassures to the extend the NGO complex which was itself created and didn't exist overnight, favors one of the two outcomes. Corporate America for example acording to Bloomberg hired over 90% nonwhites. The same corporate america which sided with BLM which actually lead to a rise in murders in black community.
If the same applied against non whites, the leftists here would be advocating for the goverment to regulate and punish the people running corporations. Fundamentally right wingers need to be more aggressive and more willing to enforce justice while not buying the gaslighting of leftists who defect but want the right to be pushovers so they win. The left also should be more just and not be of te form the left is today. We need to gatekeep against that as well, rather than respecting progressive supremacist as an acceptable opinion. It's not. We can have pluralistic debate within a more limited overton window that includes valuable views and excludes the progressive supremacists.
Since you mentioned white nationalism, my take as someone who isn't a white American (I am not American and don't want to give at this point too many details about where I am from) is that some level of tribalism for white Americans being allowed is what you have if you don't have a racist antiwhite society. Unlimited white identity politics can become racist for the same reason the unlimited identity politics for Jews, blacks, women, trans, etc while no identity politics allowed for white americans, men, etc, leads to obvious prejudiced paths. So, even if someone supports multiculturalism white identity politics are a part of that, and it is insane racist bs to want zero white identity politics, when other groups, including broader categorizations with racial elements like Hispanic, Blacks, Asians, etc have theirs. Limiting the tribalism for progressive groups is the big thing if you want to make American society less racist.
I really can't take seriously at all someone who thinks zero white tribalism while allowing quite more tribalism for other groups is the solution to racism. Rather this is the kind of racist concern troll who should be gatekept. Both in a nation state and in a multicultural society, there ought to be tribalism for the majority group but with limits. Even in a nation state too much arrogance can lead to trying to take land from neighbors, etc. lack of tribalism leads to letting others take over, mass migrate, discriminate against you, and the vacuum is filled by the people who supposedly don't have tribalism adopt the tribalism of other groups, anyhow. There is a sweet spot.
So presenting things and pressuring in a direction that rejects the false dichotomy between far left extremism (that pretends of being moderation) and super far right boogieman, is important as to allow people to choose the superior moderate path of justice.
Trying to get the right in this direction is going to be more successful than trying to have a right that purity spirals and accepts the exact way of thinking of the more edgy, hardcore rightist types.
Yeah, unfortunately many commenters here seem to think that there is no hope for the modern right to ever gain ground back without going full defection, all out aggression against progressivism. Salting the earth and all that. While I do understand the impulse given that progressives have been playing that game for a while, I think it makes the already incoherent right-wing position even worse.
If the standard conservative position in the U.S. is to promote Christian ideology with the core virtues of hope, faith, and love, how can this naked war-mongering really fit into it? White identitarianism? Come on. The religion that many right-wingers profess to be defending is the origin point of the progressive ideology in the first place. I'd like to see the right promote more intellectualism within right wing spaces, the failure to do which I think has lead to many of the defeats today. Instead many just want to double down on populist aggression tactics.
No, you misunderstand me. Being contemptuous of the current form of progressivism is precisely what a virtuous right ought to do. It is defecting to various principles to not do that and conform with a destructive agenda.
But there is a sweet spot between treating the current form of progressivism with contempt and trying to be as edgy as possible. The right today has the other problem, not of edgyness but of playing a role in promoting progressive extremist policies, including of discriminatory nature.
Some of the edgy voices on the right might go too far sometimes. Moreover, progressive extremism is based on promoting a false dichotomy and the threat of far right extremism. So in addition to an ethical benefit, there is a tactical benefit too to behaving in line with the sweet spot. Most rightists in this forum are actually too much compromising with far leftist extremists and the tribal identitarianism. We should see progressive movement in power today as one that defects and both promotes hatred and abuse of the right outgroup, and discriminates and even persecutes it at every turn using rhetorical dirty tricks while doing so.
I don't think there is a positive value in conforming to the framing or the value system of the left. But while the constrains of leftists and many liberals should not bide the right, I do think it should still be constrained by principles. Someone needs to stand up for what is just. Indeed said principles not only necessitating not going too far in certain issues, but also to go far enough and act decisively enough.
Some level of White American identitarianism should be respected by everyone, including non Americans. I consider white Americans foreigners so I mean it. Its part of international justice and it is lacking in intellectualism to throw that to the side over antiwhite racism. White Americans have rights too. The opposite is unjust and racist. I have strong centrist influences in my way of thinking so it isn't just about the right.
In all honesty, the left should compromise with some level of white identity politics if it wants to stand with intellectually honest virtues and principles. The only version of International Justice that has ever worked well is the one that is about different ethnic groups having rights and respecting each others national self determination, national sovereignity, etc, etc. A situation where some ethnic groups have their history vilified and claimed not to belong to them while other ethnic groups are promoted at every turn fits into the very classic racist supremacy paradigm which is what the modern mainstream left agenda fits into.
In a multiethnic country like USA, not respecting that white American ethnic group has rights as a group is the position of racist extremists who try to push their agenda while concern trolling about just being against identity politics in bad faith. We all know that tribalism for ethnic groups (and yes racial groups are ethnic groups if they are treated as an ethnic group so Asians, Blacks qualify as ethnic groups in USA too) is quite acceptable in the USA and in general.
I don't think everyone eliminating identity politics is a good choice anyhow, since it doesn't work, and the people who mostly focus on promotintg this are concern trolls who want to eliminate the tribalism of their right wing outgroup ethnicities but don't exert anywhere near that effort for ethnic groups associated with the left, including racial ones like Blacks. In fact we see the opposite.
But we can to some extend get different tribes to respect each others rights to a greater or less degree. This in fact does conflict with a vision of white nationalism which is about whites having all the rights and other groups having none.
What I promote is intolerance towards the immoral and incorrect viewpoint that it is universalism to disallow tribalism and rights for right wing outgroup. It isn't universalism, it isn't based on any intellectual valid principle either but it is based on partisan rhetoric against the outgroup. It is war by deception.
Personally, I don't see my ethnic group as a race, although it isn't totally irrelevant aspect, it is just the ethnicity is a more exclusive category, and there is a broader category that might be related to it that I fit to. But it is just special pleading by racists to disallow white American ethnic groups any rights. Plus, when talking about whites it includes various european ethnic groups as well which also have rights that ought to be respected.
So yeah, I am not a fan of a vision of the world where white ethnic groups are only ones with rights and we shit on the rest, or the opposite. Not only the left, but the right will become less racist if it compromises with respecting the rights of european ethnic groups. And what I say about edginess is about avoiding making it the thing to be predatory towards other ethnic groups. Both because being in the sweet spot is a good goal in itself but also because it doesn't help the goal of defeating the primary racism of today which is leftist one and yes does have an antiwhite hue. Because as I said, one of the way that progressive racists promote their agenda is to falsely paint themselves as moderate and to paint the alternative as extreme. When they are on one side of the extreme and there is in fact an ethically superior moderate alternative.
Indeed, if one focuses in taking polls and seeing the way people in Europe think including some western countries like France, and more western countries a couple decades ago, this way of thinking was dominant. It is just that a minority of elites pushed through their more extreme agenda by not respecting the wishes of the people. If one focuses on polls outside of europe, one again finds little of the "eliminate all tribes" ideology. And if one focuses on liberals and leftists in western countries, one again finds very very few who push this consistently for all tribes and ethnic groups. Maybe in the past where marxists were more separate faction than the rest of the left, there might been some of them who were more sincere, but even actual marxists were promoter of cultural marxism, with third world nationalism.
*** What I say about the left and liberalism apply to an extend to past liberals. In 20th century there have been plenty of far leftist liberals and cultural marxists who supported nationalism for left wing tribes and were racist on ethnic europeans. But being fair, moderate nationalism as part of international justice has been an agenda that some leftists and quite more people aligned with, including liberals. The more far left faction and ethnic lobbies like ADL didn't really win an intellectual agenda, just pushed their view through with force and by marching in institutions.And this has not been a march towards progress but a degeneration towards injustice and into more racism, more bigotry, greater double standards, more hatred.
When it comes to the more moderate nationalism as part of international justice way of thinking, of course when it comes to centrists and rightists, it was quite the dominant strain, and remains so in many eastern european countries.
Ironically leftist intersectionality has elements of this within the progressive stack favored groups that there must be some compromise between the tribalism of the related ethnic groups and other identity groups. However, the white group that you argue against identity politics, are those which are not respected and no compromise is made for it.
Also, even American conservatives like Tucker Carlson also do this with groups like blacks. They don't say to blacks or other groups you must have no tribal identity. They find blacks who have a conception of themselves as a group, care about the well being of their group but they like white people to an extend, and they promote them. Indeed they themselves respect said blacks like Kanye West seeing their ethnic group as a valid group to identify with.
The way American conservatives like Carlson want American blacks to behave, I don't see why someone who isn't an antiwhite racist would reject for white Americans. Frankly, any notion of American multiculturalism makes zero sense without some level of white tribalism and white identity politics.
So to summarize your point, you think that the right wing should be more intolerant of Progressive virtues. I agree. But could you highlight what that looks like exactly?
The problem is it feels like conservatives are stuck between a rock and a hard place in some ways. How does the right fight against the left without escalating? I agree that breaking political norms and pushing populist extremism and violence is a terrible idea.
So does the right start cancelling people? Trying to capture institutions the way the left has been doing for decades?
What I call to be intolerant of is not really a case of virtue. Lets call it an ideology, if we want to be neutral.
There are elements of liberalism of the more classical variety that as is apparent I do think are valuable.
No, we don't agree. You seem to be trying to put words in my mouth in a way that helps you political side. I say the right shouldn't promote a predatory philosophy. Breaking political norms is the only sane idea since progressive extremists promote as political norm for them to win and an abuse of norm for any non progressive extremist to do anything. The "moderate" right (actually extremists) have been promoting hate speech laws, discriminatory policies, mass migration, and even in Britain have even aligned with zero carbon emission agendas.
So obviously a principled manner to behave should abhor the radicalization to far left and other agendas we have seen over the latest period of time.
I also never used the word populist in a negative sense, although my views are not wholly positive about populism.
The reality is woke extremists use the term populist as a pejorative and in doing so they oppose actual sane things they associate with populism.
The violent fantasy shouldn't be the way to work through, but hard work in promoting your ideals and trying to capture institutions. But I didn't say anywhere that violence is a terrible idea, nor a good idea so you are bringing a new element. It should not be the focus. Action is necessary and that action is not going to be of the form of physical violence, but arresting criminals for example can involve violence and when being physically attacked, physically defending yourself is violence. But sure, physical violence is not the goal here, but a moral order should be the goal. A just society with enforceable rules might have coercion in it but typically ends up with much less physical violence over an alternative more chaotic unjust society.
Of course. Immoral not to do so and only moral to do so. Now, I would oppose purity spiraling and cancelling moderates in the way I define it. Which means evenhanded people. Note, you are not an evenhanded individual. But trying to put people in positions of power who don't abuse it and removing those who do abuse it, and gatekeeping so the later don't reach those positions is a necessity. It is also how you get a more free society to remove the political comisars who impose struggle sessions on anyone not with their extreme ideology.
But there are other considerations at play here as well like promoting truth, or that people do have a right to a community, including an ethnic community, and not to be constantly shut upon. The extreme racism promoted by progressive supremacists and the constant propaganda of that nature is it self a massive problem. Not to add consequences of rise of crime due to BLM, or other agendas.
You could say, I align with promoting the agenda of a late 20th century patriotic normie who wants the good of his people without trying to be predatory on others.
The song and dance where far leftist extremists define themselves as moderate and call others to let them win or they are extremists and then use authoritarian means to censor, ban them, etc is rather tiresome.
My view on the right is that there is much less extremism and more a case of rightists being less absolute morons being taken advantage of by bad faith actors.
To be honest, when I complain about extremists it is people who offer this kind of extremist special pleading I am talking about. Far left extremism has been such a dominant force because we have to deal with people who after revealing they are progressives then change their attitute into the friendly advisor who must ask if conservatives have a right to exist and fight for its perspective from a weaker position. Then they pick as good alternative the leftists in conservative clothing.
Trying to win the culture war by pulling dirty tricks. Yes, it is hard for you for conservatives to fight back because you want them to lose. Even at this point when you would expect the fear of left wing extremism and further to be more motivating to a reasonable person than conservatives fighting back. The kind of policies being implemented should make you more afraid of conservatives not fighting back.
Let me offer an example. You got a choice to pick between a far left extremist who is against the right wing existing and a moderate who thinks accurately that far left extremists have went too far and want to push things in a more right wing direction to a point. You pick the later and exclude the first, benefiting your society in the process by promoting a person who is more truthful, less authoritarian and out to enforce things in line with the spirit and rule of the law. Especially before it was subverted. Much better than the far left extremist who hides his power level. Conservatives fighting back and getting institutions to stop screwing over right wing outgroups and the native people of western societies and more is actually a good thing.
The danger of escalation is an overblown issue much overwhelmed by the danger of conservatives who aren't even moderate but aligning with far to the left agendas. So, the way to do this is to focus on reality and the real problems, while not forgeting valid principles and the valid way to behave, which actually does change to an extend based on situation. Proportionality is still a thing though, but you operate differently in a political environment X where say the left is of a more extreme, intolerant variety, and different in an environment Z, where they are more moderate and tolerant.
So there is a room for compromise but only with people who are already of a more moderate disposition which makes it less of a compromise. But the secret of power is that any victorious faction does forge its victory not only through exclusion but also through flipping people from a position of strength, by promoting its own perspective as valid and being just as willing to offer the carrot as the stick. So my other alternative to add is that the right should do more patronage of culture.
Like the activists who have seized important positions in the goverment, we can get people to support what I advocate by giving writers, artists, even academics studying actual valid fields. So abandoning the libertarian albatross will help gain some elites along. Rewarding friends and punishing enemies its power 101.
But there is a difference with the left since too much parasitism is a bad thing. Things we have now with the activist complex can not be tolerated to exist even in rightist form because it is an immoral waste. So cancelling the diversity propaganda jobs will weaken the powercenter, and banning organizations like hope not hate, ADL, SPLC, etc. The authoritarian progressive supremacist and extorting grifter donation seeking activists that have succeeded in corrupting the goverment and powerful private institutions should ideally be made illegal outright and I rather we don't create a right wing analogue since such organizations are rather extreme, and are parasitical besides siphoning wealth and influence that is better reserved for elsewhere. If we have a right wing ADL dominating society in the same way ADL does now, we would have an example of a purity spiral in the rightist direction.
But we can have weaker, more moderate organizations, which means promoting public morality of course. And the world I envision there is pluralism and debate, but there is an overton window that is to the right of now's but still has limits to both right and left, but is much more limiting of far leftism than what we have now.
There is a reason why I use the term moderate because it isn't really just about the right but also about actual genuine moderates, since the current situation is intolerable to anyone who favors a moderate end. So yeah, this is an exploration of how it would look like for the right and others pushing in this direction I advocate. If you want every single detail I can't give it to you, partly because it is part of my personal philosophy to believe there are gray areas that are up to debate and black and white areas that we need to be more adamant on. So I don't actually have a vision of the world where there is an answer to every question, or I believe someone ought to have the answer to every question.
Things moving less to the left and more rightist direction to a point is one of the black and white things. Dosage makes the poison so constantly doubling down towards any direction is death, is another black and white thing. But there is a range of different dosages which might work. Yours is not one of them.
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