Less a disciplined political machine than what venture capitalist and hard-right political kingmaker Peter Thielâwhoâs delivered the opening keynote at all three NatCon conferences in the USâcalls a âragtag Rebel alliance,â the array of voices clustered under the NatCon banner align around a number of goals and priorities. These include a near-total moratorium on immigration (whether documented or not); a robust Christian nationalism to dominate the public square; a rollback of LGBTQ rights; economic nationalism and opposition to âglobalistâ supranational institutions; hostility to China as a civilizational enemy; a seething vendetta against so-called âwoke elitesâ in cultural, academic, economic and governmental institutions; a fuzzy, ill-defined economic populism; and an increasing willingness to âget comfortable,â as thought leader Rod Dreher puts it after the conference, âusing state power to achieve conservative ends.
What unites the NatConners, beyond any specific policy lane or proposal, is the burning conviction that societal institutions are in decay, degeneracy and collapseâfrom the military to churches, public schools to government institutions, corporations to sports teams, and most distressingly of all, the conservative movement. This is due to what one called the âcancerâ of wokeness and can be traced back, for many, to the entire Enlightenment project of liberalism, democracy and human rights itself.
Only a foundational spiritual renewalâgrounded in what they claim to be the timeless, eternal truths of Biblical conservatismâcan cleanse the body politic of the US and the West from the corrupting sins of relativism, subjectivism and âwokenessâ and institute a new regime of âvirtue.â
Recycling a litany of woes familiar to anyone who watches Fox Newsâfrom the presence of trans women athletes on sports teams, to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in corporate boardrooms; from woke universities to Drag Queen Story Hourâmost speakers at NatCon offer little more than an intellectual sheen, an anti-modern flourish, to the rote and tired moral panic that characterizes todayâs conservative movement. Each speaker races to outdo the next in offering the most bleak and doom-laden prognosis of the fallen era. (...)
âMost people canât even articulate a political thought. Like, why do they get to vote? Itâs stupid.â
Itâs the evening of September 11, and Iâm sipping whiskey by the bar at a 4-star resort hotel in Miami, as a 29-year-old financial analyst, R., outlines his desire to dismantle democracy with an intense, focused composure. All around us, dozens of mostly young white men sporting smart blazersâa motley crew of conservative political operatives, think tank analysts, journalists, academics, and studentsâmingle by the resortâs open-air pool and palm trees, cigars and drinks in hand, sharing their own distaste for liberal democracy, and their plans to turn that distaste into action. One day into the third annual National Conservatism conference, and after a long afternoon of impassioned speeches about the culture war, R. is fired upâand maybe slightly drunk.
âI reject equality,â R. tells me as I strain to hide my alarm behind a veneer of curiosity. Citing fascist thinkers like Julius Evola and Carl Schmitt, he endorses white nationalist ârace realismââthe pseudoscientific theory that different racial groups carry biological and genetic differences that manifest in group disparities in IQ, wealth, moral and social norms, and moreâand rails against âbio-Leninism,â the Leftâs supposed strategy to mobilize biologically low-status social groups in order to win power.
Whatâs needed, R. tells me, is âa status hierarchy where you have a healthy society, with good values promoted and degenerate things shunned.â If he could snap his fingers and institute his ideal political system in the US overnight, I ask him, what would it be? âAn absolute monarchy,â he replies without hesitation. âIf you donât have a positive vision of what your morality should be, and have the conviction to say, âweâre right, everyone has to obey these rulesââthen the Left will impose their shitty rules, like chopping up children in the womb, or ridiculous things like pregnant men.
âAll around us, conference attendees continue to sip cocktails, exchange business cards and discuss their own fervent opposition to bodily autonomy, LGBTQ rights, racial justice movements like Black Lives Matter, âwokeness,â and liberalism more broadly, alongside more bread-and-butter topics like the challenges of working on Capitol Hill, conservative legal strategy, and the likelihood of a DeSantis presidential run in 2024. I ask R. if his penchants for natural inequality, hierarchy, and dominance are popular among other NatCon attendees.
Undoubtedly, he replies. But while most of the Extremely-Online movements that espouse these ideas, like the white nationalist America First/groyper movement or the neoreactionary âDark Enlightenmentâ movement, have been politically marginal and ineffective, the people gathered at NatCon know how to get things done. They understand, as R. puts it, that âyou have to try to operate within the rules of the gameâ¦you have to try and kill the bio-Leninist regime from within.â (...)
Sounds like they want to prop-up their woke elite.
âMost people canât even articulate a political thought. Like, why do they get to vote? Itâs stupid.â
Itâs the evening of September 11, and Iâm sipping whiskey by the bar at a 4-star resort hotel in Miami, as a 29-year-old financial analyst, R., outlines his desire to dismantle democracy with an intense, focused composure. All around us, dozens of mostly young white men sporting smart blazersâa motley crew of conservative political operatives, think tank analysts, journalists, academics, and studentsâmingle by the resortâs open-air pool and palm trees, cigars and drinks in hand, sharing their own distaste for liberal democracy, and their plans to turn that distaste into action. One day into the third annual National Conservatism conference, and after a long afternoon of impassioned speeches about the culture war, R. is fired upâand maybe slightly drunk.
âI reject equality,â R. tells me as I strain to hide my alarm behind a veneer of curiosity. Citing fascist thinkers like Julius Evola and Carl Schmitt, he endorses white nationalist ârace realismââthe pseudoscientific theory that different racial groups carry biological and genetic differences that manifest in group disparities in IQ, wealth, moral and social norms, and moreâand rails against âbio-Leninism,â the Leftâs supposed strategy to mobilize biologically low-status social groups in order to win power.
Whatâs needed, R. tells me, is âa status hierarchy where you have a healthy society, with good values promoted and degenerate things shunned.â If he could snap his fingers and institute his ideal political system in the US overnight, I ask him, what would it be? âAn absolute monarchy,â he replies without hesitation. âIf you donât have a positive vision of what your morality should be, and have the conviction to say, âweâre right, everyone has to obey these rulesââthen the Left will impose their shitty rules, like chopping up children in the womb, or ridiculous things like pregnant men.
âAll around us, conference attendees continue to sip cocktails, exchange business cards and discuss their own fervent opposition to bodily autonomy, LGBTQ rights, racial justice movements like Black Lives Matter, âwokeness,â and liberalism more broadly, alongside more bread-and-butter topics like the challenges of working on Capitol Hill, conservative legal strategy, and the likelihood of a DeSantis presidential run in 2024. I ask R. if his penchants for natural inequality, hierarchy, and dominance are popular among other NatCon attendees.
Undoubtedly, he replies. But while most of the Extremely-Online movements that espouse these ideas, like the white nationalist America First/groyper movement or the neoreactionary âDark Enlightenmentâ movement, have been politically marginal and ineffective, the people gathered at NatCon know how to get things done. They understand, as R. puts it, that âyou have to try to operate within the rules of the gameâ¦you have to try and kill the bio-Leninist regime from within.â (...)
I have a corporation. Corporations are people. If I have my corp charter book in the passenger seat then I should also be good for carpool right? Now that I think about it, the corp is dependent upon myself as well...
I would love to take this one to court, right after filing my taxes with a new dependent and signing them up for any benefit I could think of. Is it a person or not?
Now that the Truth Social thing has seen subpoenas, right on schedule thereâs all kinds of 4chan/Hunter Biden crap dropped. They apparently hacked into his account and have pics of him doing Bad Things. The timing is, of course, purposeful.
Fortunately, he is no longer being granted patents by the Chinese, or serving in a role as an official White House Senior Advisor, or scoring $2B in deals from other nations. Because that would be wrong.
I would love to take this one to court, right after filing my taxes with a new dependent and signing them up for any benefit I could think of. Is it a person or not?
I hope she or someone like her does actually pursue it.
Oh the hypocrisy! I mean the tiny person should count right?
I would love to take this one to court, right after filing my taxes with a new dependent and signing them up for any benefit I could think of. Is it a person or not?