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The Redpilling of the American public intellectual?
Being extremely online, using both X and Substacks and having used them for several years, I cannot not notice a process of redpilling of many US-opinion makers, both blue and grey tribe members.
Elon Musk and Marc Andressen are the first obvious examples, with both of them having directly followed and quoted members of the Dissident Rights (Andressen some days ago tagged Covfefe Anon in a post). Musk in particular speaks often with figures like Indian Bronson, Cremièux and Hanania, all of them supporters of the HBD and "liberal-racist" or "liberal-realist" (still fun that we are talking about an Indian, a Jew and a Palestinian).
Then we have the old New Atheism and IDW intellectuals gang like Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt and others. Their contribution to progressive criticism is not new, but from what I see on X, on the wake of the Harvard controversy, they are talking an harder turn. I cannot confirm because it is only an impression from who they interact with on X.
We have the "Silicon Valley Galaxy", the network of Musk-supporters based in California, with people like Mike Solana (another gay man) exorting the virtues of nationalism and communism-bashing on his wildly popular newsletter.
Nate Silver is a very fun example. A gay Jew who, in the last year, took an hard turn against progressivism because of Covid criticism and the purges that came from it, and now on his substack is attacking the left at every turn, attracting the very entertaining hate of the academic crowd on every post.
Also an individual like Noah Smith, while still completely faithful to the Neoliberal project, began to heavily criticize the progressives, saying that they are way more dangerous than the right.
I am sure that there are other names I forgot.
All of this to say that I see a change of opinion of public figures that, in the year 2016, would have been for sure allies of the Democrats against a Trumpian state. Obviously the change of opinion of twitter-based figures, online characters and academic eretics is not a change of opinion of the PMC at large, but for sure is more that the Dissident Right could have hoped for some years ago.
Noah Smith has been a figure so repellent ideologically to the right, and hostile to it, that I am actually curious about what he said.
So, there are figures that can be friendlier to the right. But as for some left wingers who are rather prejudiced towards right wing associated groups and see their rights as illegitimate, and identify more with groups associated with the left, and support mass migration and tend to see opposition to them as immoral it would be a repeated mistake from the past to put too many hopes on them.
The generally reasonable dissident right figure Auron Macyntire is correct about liberals. That a subset of them when other progressives are unwelcoming, or they disagree on their pet issues like say Israel, they turn to the right but they don't think they have done anything wrong. They want to run the right in accordance to their own values while looking down on right wingers. And of course they start gatekeeping and deplatforming actual right wingers and preferring people like them.
Similarly we get heterodox academies of Jonathan Haidt whining about intolerance of heterodoxy, while their organization and groups are made almost exclusively by liberals. Or forums like motte, which as far as I am aware, all moderators are liberals, but is supposed to be a neutral forum, and the ideology of those who moderate is unrepresentative of the posters.
We also see these figures try to do the same with "centrism" and define themselves as the only moderates and centrists and everyone who disagrees with them as an extremist. Even though in practice their social views, or views on immigration, or on how much they sympathize with various identity groups are far left. Even if some other progressive extremists are further left than them. If you don't define what is centrist by the last couple of years, and by what leftists who run media define as centrist and moderate and what they define as far right. Any longer term outlook realizes that actually the dissident right, part of what they are pushing were more pervasive and dominant in the past, and we have had a radicalization in the recent past. It would be a welcome development for that to be corrected. Moreover, we should also care about how some trends in politics that have been in influence for a couple of decades have evolved today, and their observable effects.
Elon Musk and Mark Andersen although not dissident rightists do seem to have been influenced more so, or share an agreement with several issues promoted by the dissident right that are valid.
In general, I like the more moderate figures of the actual right, and dissident right like Auron Macyntire, while for the general faction, I think they are pushing in the right direction and society is too lopsided in a left wing and antiwhite direction, but I don't agree with the ends that some dissident rightists wish but have a more moderate preference. Meaning if the more extreme dissident rightists were the dominant part of society I would dislike them, however I do find the more moderate figures to be more moderate than the liberals and Ben Shapiro types too. And that the liberals are the dominant faction makes it quite wrongheaded to not prioritise them. As for the neocons, there isn't really that substantial difference with many liberals and the sweet spot of where to be on such issues is not attained by neocons. Not by a long shot.
I do think I have been influenced too by some of the figures of the dissident right and their views, and seeing that they got things correct.
But I was also influenced by the past religious right now, in a way I wasn't in the past. Frankly, it was mainly the liberals as a group, and their key politicians and political organizations and how far they have pushed and how that they behaved that played that role. And when talking about liberals a key part of the issue are how beholden and key part of it are various identitarian extreme lobbies of the progressive stack alliance of intersectional identities.
The right wingers who have been warning and being cautious and were defamed as being uncharitable, and unfair, were in fact correct. Part of that correctness relates to the skepticism towards liberals/progressives who are willing to sometimes criticize progressives. Of which even Obama has done so, in his quote about how the world is messy, but this doesn't change that Obama's influence lies after and before such statements. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/31/774918215/obama-says-democrats-dont-always-need-to-be-politically-woke
As president he helped push things in the woke direction. He certainly is supportive of the even more extreme Biden administration. And quite recently played a key role in a film with antiwhite racist rhetoric. https://www.foxnews.com/media/obama-produces-first-fiction-movie-netflix-gave-extensive-notes-director-cyberattack-plot
Biden's and that general faction's extreme policies, of open borders, of authoritarian persecution of political opposition, on purging non woke, or following the progressive supremacist party line, are in fact alienating people. For that to count as winning, we should have to see a lot more than that and policy changes as a result of opposing faction/coalition exercising power. And of course, we shouldn't actually care too much about people who are part of Biden's faction but make some limited criticisms. It would be detrimental actually, in that it disincentivize caring about an actual opposition. The right has had a lot more rhetoric about winning, when it hasn't been winning, while the left pretending they are the underdogs, where they aren't, hasn't been detrimental to them. So, we should be realistic.
I've spent about 60 seconds on this sentence and I'm still not sure I understand. For clarity, do all 3 theys refer to the same group, that subset of liberals?
Yes, the liberals who turn to the right don't think they have done anything wrong. I also mean by saying other progressives that the dinstinction between liberals and progressives as a tribe is false, and there is in fact enormous crossover.
Part of the advantage of liberals as a tribe, is this false sentiment of neutrality, of moderation, of centrism, when they are creatures of the left in reality.
I'm probably first and foremost a classical liberal, extremely libertarian, with sympathies to anarchocapitalism. I oppose nearly all progressives in some form, though they're not necessarily wrong about everything. Mainly to the extent they want to intrude upon or eradicate classical liberalism.
As a young teenager, I had a vague notion of progress, from barbaric wars to slavery to racism to the color blind attitude I embraced wholly in the 1990s. Clinton was cool, Bush and Reagan were evil empire.
But I had a libertarian history teacher who was great with insights and making conceptual connections, and read some Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman before college. Then Rothbard, Hayek, Mises. Then 9/11 happened and I moved rightward in a couple dimensions.
Am I the exception that proves the rule? Or a creature of the left?
All this to say, it's an interesting idea, but I don't buy the conclusion. I think liberalism is a concept prior to left/right, and while the left/right spectrum is useful, it fails to illuminate the nature of liberalism.
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