The New Right
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Shortly after the 2016 Presidential Election, the BBC raised the specter of the alt-right and its new potency: “The populist rhetoric of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has energized a disparate American movement that is accused of racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny.”
Quoted in the piece were flamboyant entertainer Milo Yiannopoulos and sideshow showman Richard Spencer. Seven years later, those figures have faded. Enter undaunted Congressman George Santos. Alternating between a Drag Queen in Brazil and a Jewish/anti-Jewish right-wing standard bearer in the new House - is this the face of the evolving right?
The media is once again mired in – perhaps purposeful – distraction. The American Right – and consequently the Right in the West – is undergoing an evolution after a revolution. It is reckoning with itself before it can reckon with taking power. How this unfolds will determine how soon the Right can re-emerge as a governing force in America and the West.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan put the American Right on a solid path for long-term success. President Nixon’s resignation following the Watergate scandal had placed the Republican Party and the American Right into disarray. Moreover, the GOP still had not settled the disruption caused by the rise of Barry Goldwater, which had dislodged the Nelson Rockefeller wing of the party. Reagan’s emergence offered an opportunity to coalesce a unifying message on the Right that reigned supreme for nearly three decades.
Timing is everything, and while Barry Goldwater captured young acolytes from George Will to Hillary Clinton, he ultimately failed to meet the nation's mood. Lyndon B. Johnson trounced him in the widest electoral defeat in over a century. When Trump ran for the Presidency, he had been toying with the idea seriously for years. For example, in his first pronouncements about international trade in the 1980s, he railed against Japan's concessions. In 2016, the same rhetoric was now directed against China and was much more electorally resonant than it would have been three decades earlier.
By 1980, the Baby Boomers had left the hippie promised land behind and were building families in a time of significant inflation. The Republican double dose of fiscal and cultural conservatism was a winning ticket. Reaganian messaging was focused on unlocking American potential and the vitality of its cultural heartland; however, a nascent neo-conservatism was also embedded. Juxtaposed to Nixonian foreign policy, Reagan tapped into a millenarian fight of good versus evil and placed American manifest destiny right in the middle.
The 1990s gave way to a Democratic kumbayesque government as the pseudo–Pax American age unfolded. It was largely peaceful, mostly prosperous, and not very adventurous (except for a few stray cigars). Presidential Candidate George W. Bush in 2000 seemed to channel Reagan but without the foreign policy of the Cold War. He consistently opposed the security state and international adventurism. Yet the big church/big business coalition was still core. With Karl Rove on point, a robust political operation drove him to victory in 2000. Pat Buchanan – and the rejectionist wing of the party – mainly was theater without much traction. Ultimately, however, the 9/11 attacks set aside the Bush approach as it stood and supercharged a big government, big war Republican Party. This eventually led to the self-destruction on the Right that enabled the rise of Trump.
Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012 was squarely anti-big war, big business, and big church. This was popular after the Iraq War and the global financial crisis. That does not mean he did not undertake military actions (he did). Or that he did not have relations with leaders from the financial sector (he did). Or that he was somehow against religion (he wasn’t). But he eschewed the DC thinking on military campaigns (see here), signed into law Elizabeth Warren’s ideas, and had no time for the successors of Billy Graham, unlike previous Presidents.
John McCain and Mitt Romney were opposed to Obama’s policies and depicted as war-mongering elite types who wanted to peer into your bedroom. Who wants that? By 2016 (or more accurately, 2015), the anointed successor on the right was former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He was set to re-consolidate another losing coalition of ideas on the national stage for the third straight election. It was not going to fly with the base of the party. The mainstream view was that the Republican Party would lose not because of its messaging but due to demographics and a changing mix of second-generation immigrants in the share of the population in swing states.
Enter The Donald. The orange hurricane quickly sucked up all the energy in the room, and his political savvy won the day, first in the primary and then in the general. Ultimately though, the election came down to just a few states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Trump – like his brands – represented nothing but filled his name recognition with what would carry the day:
· Culturally conservative but largely socially libertarian
· Economically populist – anti-big finance but pro-business creating jobs
· Anti-war but pro-military
· Nativist but big tent
To beat the existing forces on the Right, he would have had to cobble together disparate forces to build a winning coalition. With the above positions, he was hard to oppose by candidates who were then seen as pro-wall street, pro-war, pro-open borders, etc. He also realized the potency of the Ron Paul wing (successors to the Buchananists). The general was ultimately a change election, and so was Trump’s to lose. But he could have been Barry Goldwater. Timing is everything, and his positions were being voiced at the correct time [there’s a lot to be cited around polling and so forth, but for brevity, it’s not explored here in detail]. And in the three states mentioned above, he was an unstoppable juggernaut. However, he had to rip apart the Reagan consensus on the Right to forge this path.
As Trump ripped open the heart of the conservative movement in America, it laid bare all the standard bearers as empty vessels with empty suits, from Fox News to the Heritage Foundation. By 2016, this was one big, industrialized industry, helmed by figures ranging from Bill Kristol to David French. This was the Right. These were the voices behind the voices. The void gave way to a motley crew of new figures and the amorphous ‘alt-right’ to fill the space. Much of the alt-right was an apparition that has since faded. New figures from 2016 who remain relevant are few and far between but most notably include Mike Cernovich and Stephen Bannon. Cernovich online and Bannon, through networks, will still be potent forces for defining the right ahead of the 2024 elections.
The Old Right itself splintered. Some went along to get along. Ben Shapiro adapted and drove it into views for the newly formed Daily Wire. Sean Hannity is still lost. Tucker Carlson went all in. McCain's advisors never went along neither did the National Review. Without Trump – and given his subsequent losses – there is an attempted reconstitution, shepherded by Senator Mitch McConnell and a range of donors of the Old Right. They are searching for a leader who will ultimately determine to what degree the Old Right comes back to its original ideological form. For many, that is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who rivals Trump in several polls for the GOP primary.
Unlike in 1964, when Goldwater lost, Trump won in 2016. Yet, unlike in 1984, when Reagan won, Trump lost in 2020. It was a critical blow to Trumpism and the New Right. The New Right had yet to consolidate its message and its institutions. Without a leader to amplify them, the ideology has become a random repeating of past exhortations that are not adaptable and have no core to them. Without institutions to build policies and organize, the New Right consists of surface-level messages with no governing ability.
Trump lost in 2020 but should have won. He did not fail because of his agenda. He lost because the Democratic Party outorganized the GOP. They needed a clear mobilizing strategy for mail-in votes and ballot harvesting in the swing states. Plain and simple. Post-2020, Trump, though, is a shell of himself, and Trumpism, even with Trump, no longer has the same potency as it is all about destructive dribble related to past grievances. It is likely why Kari Lake and others lost in 2022, even though polling was running in their favor.
Where does all this leave the New Right in 2023? Without policy, political, and intellectual leadership, the New Right could easily give way back to the Old Right. McConnell is still in favor of big business. The Ukraine War has re-emboldened the neo-conservative movement and institutions. And the over-turning of Roe v Wade has brought back the old ‘let me come in your bedroom’ crowd. Aside from Tucker Carlson and some exuberant conservative conferences in Tampa/Orlando, the New Right post-Trump is faltering.
Likely, we will see a melange of populist rhetoric and old standards. Think of it as a mash-up between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mitt Romney, in constant psychological conflict. This New Old Right will pass tax cuts for the rich and fight wars abroad. Its principal differentiator from the Left will be demographics and culture, which will get significant attention. Yet even demographics – and immigration – is an issue fraught with concern if you’re trying to build a big coalition for victory. Thus it’s probably the obsession with culture that becomes pre-eminent. Unlike in Karl Rove’s time, culture without organization is a loser as a political force. Today the number of churches ready to bus/mobilize votes is just lower.
Without a new populist leader, it is hard to see a genuinely populist new Right re-emerge. Populists that can mobilize a winning coalition are once in a generation and have an irrefutable charisma to override norms and existing institutions. The GOP will likely be settling for more neutral leadership in 2024.
In America, the next GOP primary will see a fundamental divergence, and while it may not be a full-blown political civil war, it will lay the groundwork for the battles to come between the Old Right and New Right. The New Right will take time to build institutions and, for now, will revert to being more media-driven (like Drudge and Limbaugh back in the 1990s/2000s) – a potent but submerged force. Will the winner of this primary, who threads the needle, really be able to win in the general? It seems unlikely with such incoherence in the flanks of the GOP.
The forces that are at play in the New Right will not disappear even if they dissipate from the forefront at the national level. More likely – and it is already happening – they will find a home in three areas outside national politics: virtual communities (the new civic space), local and state-level government, and private enterprise. Organized religion re-emerging is a bridge likely too far. Silicon Valley, an active force on the American Left for two decades, has splintered. That will unlock new forces on the Right, supported by figures ranging from Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen (less visible).
This may mean the New Right is less political. Still, the overreach of the American Left in corporate America could mean that new private enterprises emerge that are more decentralized or regional, enabling the Right in other ways (see Rumble). It is also likely that states will follow the Florida model and focus on domestic concerns rather than national or global ones, ceding federal ground for now. It means that it could be as soon as 2028 that the New Right will have a new strong basis to govern nationally and will challenge the remaining vestiges of the Old Right more vociferously.
Internationally, what happens on the American Right, just as on the American Left, reverberates, perhaps with a slight delay. While we saw the rise of right-wing populists in the West, they seem to be in decline (in Brazil, most notably). The Right in Canada or elsewhere may adapt to the hallmarks of anti-establishment rhetoric mimicking the American Right. However, they continue to rely on an elite level on long-standing institutions that provide policy depth to the Right, such as the think tanks in DC or global networks like the International Democratic Union.
Around the world, the New Right post-Trump is orphaned. Unlike the critical mass in the US or where there is a significant local and state government to tap into, many in the New Right do not have a home in other countries. Without movements and leaders to turn to, they may instead cling to trappings of old issues, such as vaccines/COVID, and fall prey to the worst conspiracy theories and a Cassandra way of living.
There is a lot to be said about what a winning strategy would look like on the Right today, but it would likely be a variation of this:
Free enterprise, efficient government, strong social safety nets, pro-jobs, anti-big money, controlled immigration, cultural identity but not evangelism, patriotism that’s anti-war, and law & order.
It would be hard to lose with this set of positions. Deep political organization is still a prerequisite (more critical in today’s elections than positioning).
The Left also has a path to victory and is better organized across many countries. However, this path may close soon in an inflationary environment that puts entitlements at peril. The Left itself will likely undergo a significant reckoning in the coming years. But that discussion is best placed for another article!
Ultimately America and the West still rotate on a Left-Right nexus. While that should perhaps change, it is likely to be the political reality for the foreseeable future. The optimal place to track the New Right remains Twitter. This will change in the next 2-3 years as networks form in other online communities, which are more vibrant, and politics moves to local levels.
While it is essential to understand the evolution of both the Right and Left, the mainstream too often treats the Right as a caricature à la George Santos.
Do so at your peril, as it will blur your vision of what’s to come.