Posted on 06/19/2025 3:31:13 PM PDT by AndyJackson
To neutralize the growing appeal of white identity politics, we must confront the loneliness, shame, and rejection that give it fuel.
In The Free Press, conservative giant Rob Dreher makes a compelling case about the dangers posed by the “Radical Right”—a loose collection of shitposters, edgelord podcasters, white supremacists, and antisemites. Though small in number, Dreher warns, they represent a genuine threat to civil society.
His entire column is brilliant, and he argues that those of us not on the Radical Right—also known as the “Dissident Right” (a term I prefer, as it’s what many within the movement use)—should be more vocal in confronting their ideas. As he writes, “If we fail to confront this now, wherever it manifests, we cannot later claim that we didn’t see it coming.”
Dreher’s willingness to devote a full column to this subject is valuable in itself. But if we truly want to defeat the Dissident Right’s ideas, we need to go further. We need to talk to them.
This is, to put it mildly, an unpopular stance. It’s far easier to demonize these angry young men than to try to understand them. Jordan Peterson has suggested that many of them suffer from “psychopathology,” effectively discouraging his audience from engaging with them at all. New York Times columnist David French describes the Dissident Right as driven by “blind rage and a quest for control.”
Even Shadi Hamid, cofounder of Wisdom of Crowds and typically a staunch advocate of free speech, has said he refuses to debate white supremacists. Popular podcaster Eric Weinstein has called for the return of “shunning” antisemites.
But shunning and demonization don’t work. In fact, there’s a strong case to be made that this kind of exclusion helped fuel the rise of the Dissident Right in the first place. When I speak to young men involved in the movement, many of them bring up Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a major concern. Many strands of CRT teach that white men are inherently “oppressors” because of their immutable characteristics. These young men are growing up in educational and social environments where they’re told that whiteness is a kind of original sin—the root of much of America’s evil.
At the same time, they watch as their black, Hispanic, and Asian peers are encouraged to form identity-based communities—while being told that any analogous communities for white people are off-limits.
"Young men are not joining the Dissident Right out of hatred, but out of despair. They feel excluded, misunderstood, and humiliated. Doubling down on condemnation and mockery doesn’t neutralize their appeal—it supercharges it."
I saw this on X and immediately felt vomitous so I asked Grok "What does the author mean by "the Dissident Right"? Summary of Answer
In summary, when Colin Wright and Julian Adorney refer to the "Dissident Right," they mean a radical, far-right faction of young men, particularly white males, who are disillusioned with mainstream society and politics, embracing extremist ideologies as a response to feelings of exclusion and despair. The term underscores both their ideological divergence from traditional conservatism and their active opposition to progressive cultural shifts, fueled by a mix of social media amplification and personal grievances.
This is a bunch of liberal elites who are part of the movement that drove the country off the edge and are trying to identify an enemy, triangulate it and neutralize it so they have identified a new group of disaffected basket of deplorables to attack and try to coax them back into mainstream liberalism.
It is clear that they are comfortable having the old-conservatives as their political enemies [I think they are all dead or gone RINO]. But they think MAGA is some group of disaffected white male angry jutes who are confused and distraught.
I am amazed at the utter lack of self-awareness and ignorance among these leftist elites who think they are going to fix something that they broke by fixing the people who want to fix what they broke. The delusion is frightening. They are fighting a ghost of their on invention.
Yeah, before you know it they'll be burning cities and attacking LEOs.
It’s pretty rich to call members of the right antisemitic. I wonder what Rep. Omar thinks of that.
The second to last sentence tells a lot. For years the progressive left has pushed the identity politics idea for all races except one. It is interesting that they now are concerned that that one group may be looking to build their own community based on identity politics and it scares them. As the saying goes sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
Who the heck is Rob Dreher?
Apparently he is some sort of so-called conservative who is concerned about his friends among the woke right. Sounds like some sort of grifter RINO, but I don't knowThe whole thing sounds like a the elite's new basket of deplorables. bit there is only so far I want to go down this rabbit hole of delusion and mental illness.
Excellent post—that is exactly the issue and many young people are starting to notice.
The best way to stop it is to end all DEI in all institutions.
Until that happens everything is fair game.
They are a small rump, while the whole LEFT is Antisemtic.
It’s Rod, not Rob. Did you write this article?
It’s a typo and I have nothing to do with any of this. I saw the original article posted and I was just horrified to discover a whole industry out to provide diagnosis and treatment for the latest discovered basket of deplorables.
“Who the heck”
He’s a conservative “gaint” of course. Nevermind we’ve never heard of him. Lol
Sounding just like a David French or a Jonah Goldberg...
Can the old time liberals and old time conservatives, you know, the nice ones, just get the country back so they can run it the way they know how to run it.
the “Braver Angels” really think they are the “Main Stream” of society. Riiiight!
Indeed.
Exactly.
Illan Omar DOESN’T care at all.
The one thing they conspicuously avoid addressing is why so many young men of all races are adopting these views. Young black men didn't vote for Trump because they are racist against other blacks. But they don't discuss that because it undermines their narrative.
Personally, I think a majority of Americans in general are sick to death of race-baiting, and just want to get along with other people regardless of skin color. I think the momentum is with those of us who think like that. And that means getting rid of crap like DEI.
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