I know Lemmy isn’t normally the best place to search for this, but are there any high-quality right-wing explainers, or modern books, or media outlets?
I myself am ultra-left (quite literally communist, to the dictionary sense of the word), but I’d like to quit the bubble that inevitably forms around and look at good arguments of the opposing side, if there are any.
Is there anything in there beyond temporarily embarrassed millionaires and fears that trans people will destroy humanity? Is there rational analysis, something closer to academic research, behind modern ideas of laissez-faire capitalism and/or political conservatism?
I’ve tried outlets like PragerU, but they are so basic they seem to target a very uncritical audience.
I’d like to see the world in the eyes of an enlightened right-winger, and see where they possibly fail (or if suddenly they have valid arguments).
If I recall from the Alt-Right Playbook’s Origins of Conservatism video, some of the early founders of conservative thought you might want to read include:
- Edmund Burke
- Thomas Hobbes
- Joseph DeMaistre
Thanks!
It partly depends on whether you want to understand pre-9/11 “reasonable” conservatism or the more recent Tea Party and Trump conservative populism.
Ayn Rand expresses the fairy tale version of romantic, rugged individualism, which is pretty important to understanding modern right-wing politics, especially in North America. I think the main idea conservatives take from her work, directly or indirectly, is that progress is driven by individual work and achievement, and that any kind of forced wealth re-distribution (through social programs, for example) is effectively theft, and therefore immoral.
The modern populist right-wing movement was originally driven and disseminated by right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. So, listening to right-wing talk radio or podcasts is also a good window into the modern movement. It puts on full display the resentment felt by modern right-wingers.
If you would rather not experience right-wing media directly, but would rather read rational analysis about it, then one good choice is David Frumm. He is an old school Reagan/Bush conservative, and has lived through the transition of the Repubs to populism. He is very critical of Trumpism, like most people, but he comes from the perspective of a reasonable and well-informed conservative insider.
Fareed Zakaria has a new book called Age of Revolutions, which views modern conservative populism as a very significant political re-alignment with similarities to various revolutions of the past, both successful and unsuccessful. Fareed talks about the conditions that lead to populism. In that sense, he treats Trump’s popularity as a symptom and outcome of specific underlying societal problems.
Thank you! I’d like to understand both, really, though my first concern is about modern, “Trump” conservatism.
I’m not sure of you’ll find the academic research you are looking for, at least out of the US, since the modern Conservative movement seems to have eschewed academia as filled with Liberals.
I haven’t read this book yet, but I’d recommend Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir about JD Vance’s life in Appalachia, It came out in 2016, and I recall folks thinking that it was a good read, even if they didn’t agree with Vance’s politics, and partially explained Trump’s appeal to rural voters whose lifestyle bears no resemblance at all to Trump. The book has to be somewhat compelling, since Ron Howard made a movie out of it. And Vance parlayed it into a Senate seat, after all.
Interesting! Thank you
Maybe read something from Jordan Peterson? He’s conservative, against gender politics or modern life. Sells ‘simple truths’ that look well reasoned if you’re not too intelligent (or don’t believe in equality…) I think he wrote several books and has lots of YouTube videos available.
Peterson seemed more pretentious than competent to me.
As you well said, “look well-reasoned if you’re not too intelligent”
But thanks!
Probably more right-wing than you’re looking for, but The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt. Insightful on how these people think, and much more readable than works by some Nazi philosophers I could mention. Also if you’re interested in a good deconstruction of far right views, I highly recommend Neoreaction a Basilisk by Elizabeth Sandifer
Thanks!
Foundations of geopolitics by Aleksander Dugan. This is the basis of modern European, conservative actions and the Russian playbook for the last 30 years.
You mean Dugin? Heard of him a lot lately.
Yup that’s him. A Russian ultra nationalist who essentially wrote a game plan for Russia to dismantle the liberal world order of the west, and was/is highly popular in russian political and military leadership. Many of his suggestions are part of russian doctrine today (like the notion that Ukraine has no cultural identity or value and should be taken over). Quite eye opening.
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America https://a.co/d/5pCJwnr
This would probably be better for an american reader. Theyre not gonna get the cultural underpinnings of ‘Foundations’ without reading an analysis and I dont think this is what OP is looking for. Foundations is Russian international relations theory.
Going to Lemmy and asking this is like going to Truth.Social and asking about resources for helping trans teens.
No… Around here people will actually talk shop on doctrine…
Truth social is where red blooded strong american men jerk each others dicks to maintain hi T levels.
We are not the same,jpeg
True, which is why I started my first paragraph with this :D
I came to Lemmy since it’s the only such platform I trust to be inhabited by real benevolent people with useful recommendations. But the bias is obviously there.
Still, I got a lot of useful reads.
I think this is a little disingenous. Plenty of leftists are academics who have studied economic/political theory. If you’re already willing to put yourself through reading Marx, you’re probably also the type who’s willing to read Milton.
Others have weighed in on the academic, but a lot of the American conservative braintrust is (literally) in think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, John Birch Society, etc. These organizations vary from “pretty right wing” Heritage to “nearly literally fascist” John Birch Society, and they put out a LOT of papers and material they use to…I’ll generously say “inform” the public discourse.
Thanks! Will check them out. Useful to get closer to sources everyday conseratives lean to
Have you already read through Plan 2025? It’s kinda the latest huge report from the Heritage Foundation, and I’d say it does a pretty good job of outlining modern right-wing ideology. It can definitely be a hard read though, some of the things they want are really stomach churning to me.
Planned to go take a read, didn’t do it yet
Oh, you wanted that, too? Shoot, I’ll save you some trouble:
- These three below are the academic powerhouses of conservatism. The Heritage Foundation (and their news arm, The Daily Signal) are your standard rage-bait, but they still put out influential stuff)
- Heritage Foundation (Project 2025 folks)
- Cato Institute—Actually more Libertarian, and has praised Biden before, but generally sides with conservatives
- American Enterprise Institute
- Family Research Council—They hate abortion and everything to do with it. The Washington Stand is their news arm.
- Alliance Defense Fund—Current Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, used to work for these ghouls as a lawyer.
That’s all I got off the top of my head. I used to have RSS feeds of all of these organizations, but reading their headlines was infuriating. It was like a shot of hate every time they popped up. So, if I’m looking for arguments, I know where to go, otherwise, out of sight out of mind.
Thanks! Yes, I see how this might be infuriating Took a glance over Project 2025, it’s not just wrong and dystopian, it’s literally self-contradictory, sometimes in the same paragraphs.
Like when they say that free competition generally reduces costs of healthcare, but then the literal next paragraph saying government should allow prices to soar to “foster innovation” - like, make up your mind! And then proceeding to say that insurance ends up in a lot of “unnecessary” appointments and that healthcare should be everyone’s own financial responsibility.
And a lot of similar examples of self-contradictory and dystopian stuff carefully covered in positive wording.
- These three below are the academic powerhouses of conservatism. The Heritage Foundation (and their news arm, The Daily Signal) are your standard rage-bait, but they still put out influential stuff)
There’s an episode of Behind the Bastards touching on the subject - “How Conservatism Won”. Not a right-wing resource at all, obviously, but that’s where a lot of the money goes indeed.
I will have to preface this with the fact that I have not read any of his books, but former British politician Rory Stewart is one of the people that comes to my mind when reading your description. I don’t think that he comes to the right policy positions, of course, but whenever I listen to him he does seem to at least have a degree of empathy for all people. He seems to at least generally see the problem even if I think that his solution wouldn’t work. He has an effective way with words in interviews and his writing is generally very well reviewed too.
He isn’t really right wing though, he is from a different Tory faction which failed to tap into much of any power in the past few governments. Politics on the Edge gave good insight into his time as an MP and his roles during the period, but he didn’t justify or go into much detail about what being on the right (centre right for him, really) truly means.
I’m not sure that makes him not right wing, surely that just means he wasn’t the kind of right wing that succeeded in the political landscape of the UK in the past 20ish years? His voting record is generally in favour of less regulation (outside of a few issues), lower taxes, military intervention, isolation from the EU. He’s pro-environmentalist, but that hasn’t always been an exclusively left-wing thing. Similarly, anarchists and Marxist-Leninists are both left wing, even if they wouldn’t necessarily get along well in a single political party together
There are many left-wing people who were for leaving the EU, so I wouldn’t use that as a measuring stick of left/right.
His voting record is something he has covered; a lot of these votes which make him seem particularly bad (I’m not a big fan of his, despite having read The Place In Between - before I knew who he was - and Politics on the Edge) but from times when people were whipped or ‘encouraged’ to vote a particular way. We found out what happened when he did go against the whip, with even Nicholas Soames feeling that wrath.
Edit: my first sentence in my previous post can be misinterpreted. My meaning is that he isn’t very (strongly) right wing, not that he isn’t right wing at all, as he clearly is centre-right at his most ‘left’.
If youre being honest, then youre going to need to look at historical material like Locke & Hobbes to get a foundation.
Modern conserativism… aggitation… can bw traced through Gingrich in the House in the early 90s, I cant think of the book off the top of my head but theres a pretty decent record of how he did manipulative things with unmanned cspan cameras at the time.
This. Perhaps even some “Wealth of Nations” and similar.
Adam Smith is less right-wing than the cargo-cultists think.
Gingrich’s “Contract With America” book was such word salad. Every other page contradicted the others.
For Gingrich, you can read his memo Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.
Maybe check out Matt McManus’s work, he’s a professor at the University of Michigan.
So I’m going to interpret your request broadly and recommend a couple podcasts. They aren’t necessarily right-wing (honestly, probably center left to center right), but they’re probably outside of what you’d normally consume and may challenge or intrigue you.
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The New Liberal Podcast New liberalism is a rebranding of neoliberalism. I’d start by listening to a couple mailbag episodes and his past best books of the year episodes.
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Conversations with Tyler Tyler Cowen is a conservative economist at the University of Chicago, but you don’t actually hear his opinions that often on his podcast which consists of interviews with an eclectic variety of folks from a homeless man to a Calvinist theologian, from music producer Rick Rubin to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. He has a unique interviewing style that consists of a series of disjointed questions. He often poses challenging questions, but he gives them plenty of space to answer and doesn’t debate. I would suggest skipping interviews with people you know you’re going to hate (e.g., Peter Thiel), but instead look for interviews that pique your interest.
Center left to center right by American standards, I suppose?
(It’s important to clarify as American center is way more right than normally considered, with Democrats normally considered center-to-moderate right outside of the US)
Thanks! Wide scope is appreciated.
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A lot of the academics associated (formerly or currently) with Chicago Booth are highly respected as economists but highly conservative. As influential and famous they may be, their personal blogs and twitter account are yikes.
E.g. Harald Uhlig, Joch H Cochrane
This is not a right wing resource, but if you’re interested in learning about the arguments and historical evolution of ideas that underpin economic liberalism/neoliberalism, I highly recommend Geoff Mann’s Disassembly required : a field guide to actually existing capitalism. It’s concise, relatively short, and treats the ‘other’ side like rational actors (which is important for understanding, I think).
Ofc this would only help understand people who are quite well informed.
Thank you!
I don’t know if you like podcasts, but Know Your Enemy is a take on the right from two leftists who used to be conservatives who approach it from an intellectual POV.
I linked to the political magazine that helps support them since it gives some rundowns of their topics that might give you some of the sources that can be read instead of listening to their podcast, if you’d prefer.
