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Jon and Stephen welcome back Michael Malice, author of The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics. Michael also wrote 2014’s Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il, and is the subject of Harvey Pekar’s graphic novel Ego & Hubris. He currently hosts both “Night Shade” at Compound Media and “YOUR WELCOME” at the GaS Digital Network. The Conservatarians also discuss Naomi Wolf’s interview faceplant and the media panic over a slowed-down video of Nancy Pelosi.
The intro/outro song is “Bells” by The Vacant Lots, Jon’s song of the week is “In My Room” by Fennesz, and Stephen’s song is “Lovers” by Alexander Carson. To listen to all the music featured on The Conservatarians, subscribe to our Spotify playlist!
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Dandy podcast. Michal is a hoot. Yes, Facebook is crap, but I don’t care until they collude with google on advertising prices or commit fraud. Complaining about them is like complaining about MySpace.
Excellent.
Hard to take Steven seriously when he says Trump might nuke Denmark or Ottawa if he (Trump) gets a stomach ache.
Ehhh… okay. I think I just totally disagree with Michael about how politics and popular movements work, which is why almost everything he said bounced off my brain. Once he said he was an anarchist, it kind of all clicked, because anarchists tend to totally overestimate how top-down political movements are (“all these things you think you believe were actually decided for you before you even started to think about them.” Uh, okay).
But I was still frustrated in that I couldn’t quite understand what exactly his criticism of the Old Right was, if there is apparently now a New Right. He is correct that old positions that were held and lost were then abandoned and reinterpreted after the fact, but I’m not sure what he thinks should have happened instead. Was it that those positions were wrong to start from, and we shouldn’t have cared (the argument against social conservatism), or that we didn’t care enough and stick to First Principles?
I get the impression Jon knew what he was talking about, but I don’t really feel like I did.
On Naomi Wolf, I wonder how many left-wing interviewers gave her a pass before she got to this real journalist guy on the BBC. And how many laudatory reviews were published in left-wing media. (Did any of them add a correction later? Based on experience, I’m guessing they try to muddy the waters.)
How did she react to having her thesis undermined so dramatically?
What did she say in subsequent interviews? I’m guessing she didn’t cancel all of them: she still has a book to sell!
Did she tweet out a mea culpa? Being a progressive means you never have to say you’re sorry, so I’m guessing her response was rationalization and self-justification.
I think the criticism of the Old Right was that they didn’t apply First Principles. He had the line about conservatives drive towards socialism at the speed limit. It’s a similar complaint a lot of voters have, why does the ratchet of government only go one way? When the Republicans have control, they don’t undo anything. Eventually, they adopt it and write articles like, “The Conservative Case for…”.
it must have been a good episode. I bought the book.
(i have always been a fan of Stephen’s particular brand of rhetorical overstatement)
Try Malice’s recent interviews on the Tom Woods Show too. He really makes you think.
Another great show. One minor correction, Kmele Foster’s podcast is The Fifth Column not Estate.