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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.
Part of it is that Hanania reveals the fact that the "conservative" establishment has been complicit to cultural/ethnic far left extremism.
This fake conservative establishment which failed to stop it and in part supported this, and even further radicalized in such leftist direction don't want to stop and certainly don't and want their dirty laundry come to the surface. To be fair, not everyone on the modern historical right has been complicit. It wasn't unanimous.
There are genuine right wingers who might agree with Hanania that are part of the right. Not everyone gets to have his book succeed just cause his book makes a valid point. Hanania's also been attacking the right on various issues so he might had lost some of his popularity from that. His name recognition might not be that great too. Maybe some are also afraid to promote him due to the relation with "Hoste".
The "heterodox" University of Austin promising freedom of speech which was founded by a group including Bari Weiss cancelled Hanania, which is what I expected from any place associated in such manner with Bari Weiss.
The allowed stupid discourse that they originally promoted is telling: https://twitter.com/nathancofnas/status/1495204921141915650#m
So there is a deliberate agenda by some malicious gatekeepers who are suppressing asking the right questions which can lead to genuine opposition. And part of this suppression includes promoting a focus on areas that don't challenge things. And leftists who don't want to oppose other leftists. But if you are like that don't talk about freedom of speech and heterodox ideas. Let those for the actual heterodox. Unless the goal is to subvert opposition to orthodoxy by having the heterodox also be orthodox.
I do think it is having some positive influence. But there are entrenched elites who can't be convinced out of positions they haven't reasoned themselves into. Some of the people who matter will be more likely to pay attention and put pressure, or even replace some of said entrenched elites.
Well hasn't Hanania said he doesn't value free speech for its own sake, and that he's surprised that conservatives get away with as much speech as they do, because if he were in charge he wouldn't let progressives get away with anything?
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