March 22, 2022
You'd be forgiven for not having followed the latest media kerfuffle, which centers on the publication of a new "radical" magazine called Compact. Founded by two religious conservatives and one Marxist, the magazine purports to defend community "against a libertine left and a libertarian right." It, like most magazines, matters mostly to people who write for magazines. But, indulge me for a moment, because Compact helps explain an important evolution in right-wing politics. Basically, a lot of people staffing Compact have grown disillusioned with liberalism. The biggest name on the masthead is Sohrab Ahmari, a fire-breathing religious conservative who has made waves by advocating (and modeling) a new form of hyper-combative right-wing politics, which involves cultural conservatives "discrediting their opponents and weakening or destroying their institutions." Contrarians such as Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey are also listed as contributing editors. They got weirdo leftist Slavoj Žižek, too. Although the magazine publishes heterodox thinkers from across the political spectrum, many of the people involved can be placed into a single bucket: anti-establishment "post-liberals." They usually voice support for a social democratic welfare state (yay!) while deriding contemporary feminism, transgender people and liberalism (boo...). Suffice to say the magazine gathers people who don't like "cancel culture" or "wokeness" and need to talk about it—a lot. But they also want to say they're still, you know, smart. In their view, the problem is that a lot of other people have become dumb and don't want to hear about their interesting ideas. What are those? Well, let's take a look at the articles. In the first issue of Compact, here are some sample headlines: "Why We Need the Patriarchy" (!!!);"The Case Against Aesthetic Castration" (???); and "The Great Reset is Real" (...) How... enticing? In place of reading Compact, I'd recommend that you listen to a podcast that a lot of us at Mother Jones are huge fans of. It's called Know Your Enemy, and it features two writers—Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman—as they analyze right-wing ideas, intellectuals, and authors. It's nice that they read deeply and ask difficult questions. Instead of grievance or anger, they usually go for curiosity. My personal favorite episode so far is a deep dive into William F. Buckley's New York City mayoral campaign (an under-referenced but foundational moment in the history of American conservatism). But I'd also recommend a recent episode on Southern California housewives in the postwar era who formed conservative networks to "protect the family" against perceived threats like diversity, socialist activists, and the federal government (a phenomenon that appears to be recurring today in the form of the critical race theory wars). – Noah Y. Kim Dark-money groups criticizing dark money, and a new appreciation for Justice Breyer. BY STEPHANIE MENCIMER
BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG
BY HANNAH LEVINTOVA
BY HANNAH LEVINTOVA
BY FIONA HARVEY I ask you to try to imagine that you have suddenly lost all and that you are leaving behind your husbands, brothers, and fathers, not knowing when or if you will see them again. This is what we are looking at. BY PETER TURNLEY
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