Scott Greer: Has The Dissident Right Gone Mainstream?

I mostly agree with this take from Scott Greer.

1. The divide in style and substance between the online and offline Right is now probably greater than the divide between the mainstream Right and the Dissident Right.

2. The Dissident Right is one faction competing for influence in a larger online Right.

3. Some issues that the Dissident Right have always cared about like immigration and fighting Wokeism or anti-White racism have a lot more traction than others like the Jewish Question. Breitbart, for example, has more heavy coverage of illegal immigration than most Dissident Right sites.

4. The Dissident Right has little influence over the GOP. Washington is a gerontocracy and politicians are more sensitive to the views of older voters who are much more likely to vote. While the Center Right has collapsed over the past decade, it still punches far above its weight.

5. I also strongly agree with both Scott Greer and Walt Bismarck that the Populist Right is soaked in stupid conspiracy theories and infested by hucksters and grifters. It is currently represented by people like Lauren Boebert in Congress who are an embarrassment. We can do a lot better.

Scott Greer:

“It’s never been easier to discover “Dissident Right” viewpoints than in the current year. These once forbidden ideas now inspire some of the biggest names in conservative commentary. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Matt Walsh, Charlie Kirk, Steven Crowder, various Blaze hosts, and a slew of others all echo Dissident Right ideas. Thanks to Elon Musk’s acquisition of X and the platform’s commitment to free speech, right-wing posts go viral all the time. The line between mainstream right and dissident right is very thin when it comes to the online sphere.

One could argue that the term Dissident Right (DR) is no longer relevant as it’s no longer restricted to the margins. It’s hard to be in dissent when the mainstream accepts your ideas. This is a valid position, but it comes with important caveats. The DR still lies at the margins when it comes to the Offline (aka real-world) Right and it’s not in the dominant position within the Online Right. It’s premature to declare victory for the Dissident Right.

First, we need to define some terminology.

The Dissident Right gained popularity after the implosion of the Alt Right. People desired a new term to distinguish themselves from the mainstream right while avoiding the now-toxic label of Alt Right. Coined by John Derbyshire in the early 2010s, Dissident Right was adopted as the replacement term. No one has been particularly happy with it, but in lieu of a better term, everyone has stuck with it. … ”

Has the Dissident Right gone mainstream?

I would argue that people like Liz Cheney are the dissidents now.

The 2024 Republican primary has settled a lot of questions: Donald Trump’s dominance of the Republican Party, the status of “True Conservatism” in the Republican Party, the relative strength of the Populist Right and the Center Right, the relative appeal of Trumpism and Reaganism, whether the party wants to proceed in a nationalist and populist direction or a more traditional conservative one.

The Republican base is animated by conspiracy theories and a host of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, cultural and economic grievances against liberalism. It is centered on a cult of personality and a charismatic leader. It yearns for a strong man. It is animated by a thirst for revenge, fear of racial and cultural decline and us vs. them thinking. Pat Buchanan-style nationalism is taken for granted now. Immigration is by far the most important issue for Republican voters. The upcoming vote on Ukraine aid is so polarizing that it could bring down House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Daily Wire and most other conservative websites traffic in White identity politics. Both parties have embraced some version of industrial policy and economic nationalist rhetoric about putting American workers first.

If you look under the hood of the Republican coalition in 2024, it looks a lot more like the sort of atavistic rhetoric, driving impulses and dynamics that you would have found on a White Nationalist forum in the 2000s than anything put out by the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation. It has gotten to the point where a large chunk of the Republican base would even support a violent revolution to “Take Back America.” You could make the argument it was already attempted on January 6.

In every church and community in the country and especially among established elites who were satisfied and successful in the pre-Trump years, you will find disoriented, usually older Rip van Winkle Republicans trying to understand the revolution that has swallowed them whole. The divide is usually younger / older, online / cable television, non-professional / professional. These people are Mike Pence and Nikki Haley voters. Older people who watch Hannity and listen Mark Levin and read The Wall Street Journal are more offline Right. When Tucker Carlson was at FOX News, he was cultivating a younger, more online and radical populist audience, which would tune out when Hannity came on at 9 PM.

Generational change that is gathering momentum is what is driving this. I’m one of the youngest Gen Xers / earliest Millennials. My political views were shaped entirely by the internet and the world as I experienced it after 9/11 in the 2000s. I barely remember the Cold War. I grew up during the culture war in the 1990s. America has been bitterly polarized for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember a time when there were only a handful of television stations or platforms for rightwing influencers. Young people on the Right in 2024 were all born after 9/11 and grew up on social media while the generation that was most strongly influenced by WW2, television and postwar conservatism has largely passed away over the last twenty years. It is the sheer passage of time that is driving ideological change on the Right.

In the 2030, I will be 50-years-old and people my age will be becoming grandparents. The horizon of political awareness will have shifted ahead in time another decade. There will be even fewer people who remember what was life like before the Cold War. The memory and grip of the 20th century on American politics will be much weaker. Nearly everyone will be digital natives. Historians will be writing about “True Conservatism” and the mainstream media which passed away in the 2020s.

I’m now so old that I barely remember William F. Buckley who died in 2008. Rich Lowry was the editor of National Review in the George W. Bush era when I developed my political views in reaction to people like David Frum and Jonah Goldberg. I don’t remember what it was like in the Buckley era. I was meditating on this last night driving home when I saw this new Buckley documentary on PBS. I’m about to turn 44-years-old – half way to my grave – and I have to learn about this era on YouTube.

Note: Alt-Right and Dissident Right are terms which should be retired. This is just how rightwing politics is these days and will be for a long time going forward.