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Notes -
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.
Not sure how it generalizes but I read single thing written by Hanania. It was on topic that I know relatively well and what Hanania wrote was atrociously offensively bad take and extreme misinterpretation of reality.
Don't leave it at that! What was the topic, what was the take, and how was it wrong?
Sadly I commented about it elsewhere under my real name so prefer to remain vague about it :(
But I searched <Richard Hanania Poland> (to have less specific topic) and found this gem as the first match: https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1506652611851685889
where he
(1) compares wealth of country fighting but not strictly winning with Russia and implies that larger wealth would be definitely enough to crush Russia so strongly that it would not be a military threat (what is nonsense: maybe ratio is 20 or 50 or 100)
(2) forgets that it is not computer game where wealth directly translates to military power (see his own example, Germany - is he really claiming that German military is 12 times more powerful than Ukrainian one?)
(3) forgets that being military nuisance and threat is achievable with vastly lower expense if you focus on it, as Russia did (see also North Korea)
(3b) Russia has ICBMs and nukes. Entity having ICBMs and nukes is a military threat, potential targets being wealthy are not causing nuclear weapons to stop working.
Even if Europe would spend the same share of money and effort on military as Russia does, then Russia still would be a military threat (unless 100% effective anti-ICBM and anti-cruise missile systems would be created and deployed to cover entire Europe, which is dubious)
(3c) Russia still has enormous piles of weaponry and ability to produce more
(4) Has "This should end the idea that Russia is a military threat to "Europe" once and for all." and directly after that has "They could threaten the Baltics" which are part of Europe.
(5) Wait, is he claiming that Russia is unable to threaten Ukraine? Which is decidedly in Europe (lets assume he means EU by "Europe" to be charitable in interpreting it).
Also, claim that Ukraine per capita is only 6 times less wealthier than Germany is suspect to me. It looks like comparison of GDP with PPP adjustment (raw GDP has 11 times difference). But it is not wealth, that is just income. Accumulated income (=wealth) of Germany is much greater than he claims. What ironically makes his justification weaker than in reality.
Overall, not as egregious or problematic as other case that soured me on him - but not something that wants to me read his book, on topic where I am less able to spot suspect claims.
That's a shame, but I understand.
This is an interesting one, because on hand yeah, that's bad, but on the other GDP fetishism is a real problem among our intellectual classes. I almost don't want to blame him for taking prevailing theories at face value.
That part alone would be less problematic but claiming
about country that has nukes is hilarious. And claiming that Ukraine and Baltics are not in Europe.
(noone is obligated to post geopolitic hot takes on Twitter - but if he is doing them I am happy to judge him based on that)
(also, there is reason why I am not posting here under my real name. I post my professional stuff separately in way that is not mingled with posts on topics where I do not have 20+ year of expert knowledge)
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