'Woke right' smear weaponized by liberal interlopers against MAGA conservatives, populists — and Arby's?

James Lindsay. Photo by DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

On his website, he stated:

Woke Right refers to right-wing people who have adopted the characteristics and underlying worldview orientation of the Woke Left for putatively "right-wing," "conservative," or reactionary causes. They are, as reactionaries, the image of the Right projected by the Left made real by players claiming to be on the Right. That is, they’re right-wing people who act and think about the world like Woke Leftists.

Lindsay echoed this definition in his written responses to Blaze News, in which he suggested that woke right "means using critical theories or Marxian analysis for right-wing or anti-Left causes."

"It is very specific," Lindsay continued. "Most conservatives do not meet this definition."

A sizeable portion of the MAGA coalition does, however, supposedly meet this or one of Lindsay's other definitions. Right-wing populists, for example, are on the liberal's naughty list, as are those who subscribe to national conservatism, which he dubbed "the Woke Right final boss."

The application of "woke right" to national conservatives amounts to the more tactical smear, as it not only cuts through the MAGA coalition but deep into the Trump administration and the Republican Party.

Past speakers at the National Conservatism Conference, which is run by the Hazony-led Edmund Burke Foundation, include Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Michael Anton, another senior State Department official; Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby; White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller; Trump border czar Tom Homan; and Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).

Of course, there's also JD Vance, who underscored in a NatCon speech — given just days before President Donald Trump chose him as his running mate — that while America was founded "on great ideas," it is not, as some have suggested, reducible to "just an idea."

James Lindsay and a bunch of his friends tried to pump the hatred higher because the term 'illiberal' — it just didn't succeed in sufficiently tainting and de-legitimizing conservatives.

While Lindsay has danced around labeling Vance "woke right" for daring to express such thoughts, stating in December, "I haven't called JD Vance Woke Right anywhere yet," he has implied as much — calling him a "post-liberal" with a predominantly woke right team, who not only entertains the woke right definition of "nation" but did the unspeakable: speak at a National Conservatism Conference.

RELATED: JD Vance cuts straight to the heart of what animates Trump's nationalism — and it's not 'just an idea'

Vice President JD Vance. Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

In fairness to Vance and his fellow NatCon alumni, it is apparently easy to find oneself labeled "woke right." After all, even a fast-food chain has been tagged.

Lindsay recently indicated online that Arby's had veered into woke right territory with its post, "Unlike dad, our ham & swiss actually came back."

In the much ridiculed post, which he has since apologized for and walked back, Lindsay noted, "That's curtains for them. Cringe af."

When asked why national conservatives warrant their categorization as "woke right," Lindsay suggested that while "not all of National Conservatism is Woke Right ... the general thrust of the movement meets the basic definition."

Final boss

Hazony, the author of "The Virtue of Nationalism" whom Lindsay has repeatedly targeted with the “woke right” smear, explained to Blaze News that the strategy behind the term is not new.

"The main people who are behind this — and James Lindsay is the one who's most explicit, but I don't think that he's at all the only one — they've been doing the same thing for many years, long before the term 'woke right' came out; at least as far back as Donald Trump being elected, you know, so it's almost a decade ago," said Hazony. "There was this game of saying that in between liberals and Nazis or racialist fascists — in between, there is no legitimate position. That is a standard argument of the anti-nationalist liberal camp that has been used by many, many different people, and it's always the same."

"When people started using 'illiberal' ... in the mid-2000s, what they were doing was eliminating the legitimacy of the word 'conservative,' because 'illiberal' is anybody who's an authoritarian or a Nazi or a theocrat or a fascist, plus anybody else who's not a liberal," continued Hazony. "So that strategy, using the term 'illiberalism' as a way of saying, 'No, I'm not going to recognize that there are any legitimate conservatives or nationalists' — that's been around in that form for at least 15 years."

Hazony noted that more recently,

James Lindsay and a bunch of his friends tried to pump the hatred higher because the term "illiberal" — it just didn't succeed in sufficiently tainting and de-legitimizing conservatives. So they switched to "Christian nationalism," and it was the same kind of thing, where, you know, you pick the absolute least palatable people who can be called "Christian nationalists," you quote them, and then you say, "Well, everybody who's a nationalist and a Christian all the way right up to the borders of liberalism — that entire sphere of conservatives and nationalists who are basically normal but they have criticisms of liberalism — no, they're all illegitimate. They're all totalitarians. They all reject the American Constitution." And so they tried that; that peaked in 2023; and it failed. It petered out. They didn't succeed in convincing the average, intelligent person who's paying attention that the political spectrum is only liberals and fascists.

Whereas previous attempts failed, Hazony indicated that "this time, they have succeeded in drawing blood."

"This term [woke] was designed to be humiliating by taking the term that we were using for the Maoist-style cultural revolution that was taking over America and Britain and other countries. And now they say, 'Those of you who are fighting against this, you're exactly the same. You're the same exact thing.' And it upsets people."

'You got dogmatic, fanatic liberals who thought that the whole world simply could be brought under liberalism either by persuasion or, if not, then by conquest.'

Hazony further told Blaze News that "it's deeply insulting at a personal level for people who've devoted their time to trying to save America and the West from the woke, and at the same time, it's incredibly effective at destroying the coalition that was built — the anti-woke coalition — by making the different parties despise one another."

"The idea that liberalism is about toleration was just thrown out the window and you got dogmatic, fanatic liberals who thought that the whole world simply could be brought under liberalism either by persuasion or, if not, then by conquest."

Playing with fire

Lindsay has tried tarring Blaze Media with the same brush he has used on Hazony and others, characterizing it as "the first captured stronghold" in his imaginative woke right "takeover" narrative.

'The term has little meaning other than as a slur used by people trying desperately to gatekeep this intellectual, cultural, and commercial majority movement.'

Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson, whom Lindsay has implicated as a key player in this supposed takeover, said, "I know Lindsay and we had a decent relationship until he suddenly lumped me and my tenure here at Blaze Media with his slur."

"Obviously, we have a wide variety of people and opinions at Blaze Media. We represent the broad MAGA-MAHA majority coalition, and I take that role seriously," continued Peterson. "But I do not need to say for the record that we are not 'woke right' because the term has little meaning other than as a slur used by people trying desperately to gatekeep this intellectual, cultural, and commercial majority movement."

Peterson suggested that the term's capricious usage has helped empty it of meaning.

"What's puzzling and ultimately discrediting about the term is that Lindsay and others lump disparate people and groups together into a wild, grand conspiracy," continued Peterson. "He and his associates refer a lot to abstract -isms like hermeticism, communism, and gnosticism and call all kinds of people followers of various schools of thought: 'Nietzscheans' and 'Schmittians.'"

The "Schmittian" smear lobbed around evokes Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who critiqued liberalism, defined politics as the distinction between the categories of friends and enemies, and lent intellectual support to the Nazi regime in Germany.

Peterson noted that he once tried to explain his thoughts on Schmitt to Lindsay over text.

"As a student of political thinkers who were taught by Leo Strauss, who fled Nazi Germany (as opposed to Schmitt, who became a Nazi), I think Schmitt's writings are important to anyone who wants to seriously consider the nature of executive power, which is why they are still studied by people of all kinds throughout the world," said Peterson. "But the idea that this makes me a Nazi or that I agree with everything Schmitt says or believed is ridiculous. James recently asked me to 'denounce Schmitt' on X at his command, which sounds a lot like he's trying to initiate the very 'struggle sessions' he often decries."

Peterson emphasized the range of people and institutions that Lindsay and his fellow travelers have lumped into his "grand conspiracy," noting, for instance, that "they throw in institutions from the Roman Catholic Church to the Claremont Institute, countries from Hungary to China, and individuals from General Michael Flynn to Yoram Hazony to Peter Thiel in the mix as part of whatever the 'woke right' is."

"It becomes silly pretty quick," said Peterson.

Threatened liberals

The host of BlazeTV's "The Auron MacIntyre Show" — one of Lindsay's frequent targets — said that when it comes to Lindsay, woke right "seems to be more of a branding exercise and a political weapon than it does anything with definitive content."

"I think that's the reason so many people have had difficulty when attempting to have even a basic discussion about the term," MacIntyre said. "The guy who is most famous for coining and popularizing it himself has admitted that it wasn't a great one, and it doesn't really have a lot of content besides its ability to be used as a political weapon."

'The only thing that seems to actually link any of these people together is their willingness to win.'

MacIntyre suggested that woke right's apparent transformation in the wild from a denigratory term for anti-Semites and identitarians into a strategic full-spectrum put-down is “the real trick of this term.”

"A lot of people assume that [anti-Semites and identitarians] were the original targets, and because of that, many people thought that perhaps there could be some value in it because, you know, not all of those groups are particularly ones that people enjoy being associated with," said MacIntyre. "That said, it's become quickly clear that the expansion of the term has now come to encompass Orthodox Jews like Hazony, guys who are big fans of Israel like Tim Pool, and others."

"He's included a large number of very well-respected people who are obviously well outside of this — guys like Matt Walsh."

RELATED: Let's build a statue honoring Pat Buchanan

BlazeTV host Auron MacIntyre. Photo by DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

"The only thing that seems to actually link any of these people together is their willingness to win, their willingness to fight back against the left, their willingness to say, 'Actually, we're going to take affirmative steps. We're going to take power. We're going to use power to win political battles.' And that seems to be the main violation," continued MacIntyre.

'What they're finding is actually, no, conservatives would like to be in charge.'

When asked whether this campaign might be, at least in part, the early stages of an effort to politically neutralize JD Vance ahead of the next presidential election, MacIntyre answered in the affirmative.

"Not only is that the case, I think he's been pretty explicit about that," said the BlazeTV host.

MacIntyre suggested that Lindsay and other "new atheists, rational-centrist types" feel threatened by Vance and the national conservatives, given their willfulness and refusal to "be ruled by people who hate them, hate their values, hate their religion."

MacIntyre suspects that while the "salience" of the "woke right" term has risen, the credibility of those wielding it has "plummeted."

"[Lindsay has] made many enemies of pretty high-profile figures with good reputations by throwing around this term and attacking people who clearly don't hold any of the nefarious views he's attributing to them," said MacIntyre.

The attacks have also served to expose bad actors who "ultimately were hoping to undermine the conservative movement rather than be a productive part of it," said MacIntyre. "That's something that's critical to know at this juncture."

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Against Bari Weiss-ism

Anti-woke liberals are positioning themselves as gatekeepers on the right. We should reject their fake process neutralism, and ignore them.

Twisting the truth: Wikipedia’s ongoing misinformation war



For over a decade, I have argued with Wikipedia curators about the biographical sketch covering my life and work. Each time a surrogate or I correct false or slanderous details, the misinformation reappears within weeks — often with even greater distortions. Friends who have helped me in this thankless effort suggest giving up, believing that no matter how many corrections we make, the falsehoods will always reappear.

Christopher Rufo has assured me that anyone paying attention knows Wikipedia leans left and misrepresents those with views deemed unacceptable. However, after decades of acquiring unfriendly critics, I doubt most readers will dismiss Wikipedia’s misrepresentations in my case.

One position I will never conceal is my contempt for peddlers of what George Orwell called 'smelly little orthodoxies.' One can’t despise such people enough.

I have also observed Wikipedia’s double standard in editing biographical sketches. Friends with technical expertise have spent weeks trying to correct inaccurate statements about me. Each time, they must provide excessive documentation and navigate endless disputes before even minor corrections are approved. No matter how often they succeed, new distortions inevitably replace the old ones.

When left-leaning contributors make unsubstantiated claims about figures they associate with the political “dark side,” those assertions often go unchecked. The most recent version of my Wikipedia entry falsely states that I oppose Israel’s existence. I have never expressed any sentiment remotely resembling that.

While I have criticized AIPAC for unfairly attacking Israel’s critics, I have consistently defended Israel’s right to protect itself. Yet my biographer offers flimsy evidence to suggest otherwise. One supposed indicator is my past friendship with the late Murray Rothbard, who was explicitly anti-Zionist. But why assume I shared all his views, including his stance on Israel?

Another so-called proof is that I once wrote a review essay for the American Conservative about Elmer Berger, a Reform rabbi critical of Israel’s founding as a Jewish state. Although I described Berger’s position as unrealistic, I apparently didn’t denounce him strongly enough to satisfy those eager to paint me as anti-Israel.

Guilt by association

Wikipedia contributors also attempt to discredit me by linking me to white nationalism. They note that I spoke at an American Renaissance conference in the 1990s but fail to mention that my remarks focused solely on my research on American conservatism — without endorsing white nationalism in any form.

The entry also highlights my past acquaintance with Richard Spencer, though that relationship largely predated his public embrace of white nationalism. Even more tenuously, it refers to an attack from the ADF against an organization I once led, claiming it was “friendly” to white racists. However, even the Wikipedia entry admits that our group was never identified as inherently racist.

These misrepresentations follow a familiar pattern. When leftist editors shape a narrative, they demand exhaustive proof to correct errors. Meanwhile, baseless smears against those they oppose remain unchallenged.

The Wikipedia entry omits that I spent years writing for leftist magazines and that members of the conservative establishment once attacked me as a “right-wing Marxist.” Over decades, I have engaged with a wide range of political groups — both right and left — but rarely with establishments. My work does not focus on race, as it is not my field of study. Instead, my scholarship examines European and American political movements.

Despite this, Wikipedia and Tablet's Jacob Siegel claim that I have written extensively on Latin fascism and seek to create a “post-fascist” imitation of it for the present age. Nothing in my research on changing concepts of fascism supports that bizarre conclusion. I have consistently argued that fascism belonged to a past historical era and should be viewed as an archaic, failed political model.

Opposite of reality

One of the weirdest, most glaring errors about my work appears not in Wikipedia’s biography but in its discussion of “cultural Marxism” as a supposed Jewish conspiracy. There, I am falsely listed as a major source of this ugly, pervasive, anti-Semitic accusation — an assertion that conveniently aligns with the misleading portrayal of me in my biographical sketch.

This charge is entirely baseless. Not only have I never held the views Wikipedia attributes to me, but my books explicitly reject them. The reality is the opposite of what my critics claim.

I have argued that critical theory’s success in the United States stems from its compatibility with the country’s evolution into a managerial state engaged in social engineering. I have also repeatedly noted that today’s woke ideology — promoted by the media, educators, and public administrators — is far more radical and far less insightful than anything the Frankfurt School theorists proposed. Compared to modern woke activists and even some so-called conservatives, early Frankfurt School thinkers could be considered homophobic and sexist.

Wikipedia also claims that Telos, originally a defender of critical theory, was a legitimate leftist magazine until I supposedly took control and transformed it into a “far-right” publication. The entry falsely states, “Under Gottfried’s tenure, Telos became far-right in its outlook.” In reality, I never served as the magazine’s editor in chief; Paul Piccone held that role. I was one of many contributors on the editorial board and played only a minor role in the publication’s engagement with European right-wing thought.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Telos began exploring critiques of centralized managerial regimes, including perspectives from “decentralist” thinkers on the right. This shift was not the result of my supposed influence but rather part of a broader intellectual evolution within the publication.

Of course, I have no expectation that Wikipedia will ever portray me fairly, but I hope others won’t judge me based on its fabrications. One position I will never conceal is my contempt for those who defame me and others like them — peddlers of what George Orwell aptly called “smelly little orthodoxies.” One can’t despise such people enough.

Trump, Milei, and Orbán lead a conservative resurgence worldwide



Over the past several years, global political ideologies have shifted dramatically from left to right. Across Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa, nations that once embraced progressive policies have experienced a surge in right-leaning populism and conservative movements.

Liberal politicians aligned with the Davos-driven global agenda are being replaced by nationalists putting their countries first. Leaders like Javier Milei in Argentina, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Donald Trump in the United States have transformed the political landscape, leaving traditional elites scrambling.

The current shift to the right has ushered in Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. A successful Trump presidency could sustain this momentum for decades to come.

This trend continues. Governments in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom face mounting pressure from right-leaning factions. In the United States, even liberal figures like New York Mayor Eric Adams are echoing Donald Trump’s rhetoric, while progressive prosecutors, such as San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin, backed by George Soros, have been voted out of office.

This shift reflects more than political realignment. It signals a broader societal transformation driven by economic instability, cultural upheaval, unchecked immigration, and the political fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The failed Biden administration serves as a clear example of the transformation underway.

Economic instability

The fiscal and monetary policies of the Biden administration led to the highest inflation rate in decades, going from 1.4% when Joe Biden took office in January 2021 to a peak of 9.1% in June 2022. On average, prices were up approximately 20% during the Biden presidency. People could not afford to put gas in their cars, fill their grocery carts, or make their mortgage payments. Americans’ credit card debt reached record levels, topping $1.1 billion in February 2024.

The Biden administration’s answer was to tell the American people that inflation was transitory and that Americans had it better than the rest of the world. Not much help to a single mother trying to afford to feed her children and pay the rent.

Trump understood this and promised to return America to the economic success it realized during his first term as president. Vowing to Make America Great Again ... again.

Social and cultural upheaval

During the Biden administration, the United States experienced a cultural transformation as private companies and government agencies put diversity, equity, and inclusion over profits and efficiency.

Controversial decisions, such as using a transgender influencer as a spokesperson for Bud Light and Target’s introduction of “tuck-friendly” swimsuits for transgender teens, led to consumer backlash, boycotts, and significant revenue losses.

The White House hosted Pride Month celebrations, where some transgender attendees paraded topless. The administration also flew the transgender flag at the White House and U.S. embassies around the globe and supported policies allowing biological men to compete against biological women in sports.

Working Americans perceived these moves as a threat to traditional values and their children’s well-being. With a struggling economy, many found it difficult to support a president who, in their view, prioritized cultural debates, like access to bathrooms, over addressing pressing financial issues.

Trump capitalized on this discontent, opposing policies that allowed men to compete against women in sports, keeping boys out of girls’ bathrooms, and emphasizing unity by celebrating all Americans rather than dividing them into groups. As the newly elected president, Trump has gone further, declaring it U.S. policy to recognize only two sexes. He also mandated that only the American flag be flown at government buildings, embassies, military bases, and on government websites.

Illegal immigration

Trump made immigration and building the wall a central focus of his first presidential run. Then, Biden made a joke out of the nation’s borders by allowing unchecked illegal immigration and forbidding organizations such as ICE from deporting those illegal aliens who committed violent crimes.

An estimated 10 million people — at minimum — entered the country illegally since January 2021. Violent crimes committed by illegal aliens became a central part of the 2024 election, partly due to the brutal murder of nursing student Laken Riley at the hands of a Venezuelan national in the country unlawfully.

Trump promised the most massive deportation effort in American history of those in the country illegally. It resonated, especially with legal immigrants, with Trump winning a record number of Hispanic votes.

The COVID response

The response to COVID-19 underscored the stark divide between left-leaning and conservative leadership. Democratic governors in states like New York, Michigan, Illinois, and California imposed strict lockdowns, confining residents to their homes and forcing businesses to close. Meanwhile, Republican governors in states like Texas and Florida kept their economies open, allowing their states to thrive.

President Biden mandated that military personnel receive the experimental COVID-19 vaccine and attempted to use OSHA to enforce a nationwide vaccine requirement for workers. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the mandate. In contrast, Donald Trump opposed such mandates, a stance that resonated with many Americans who rejected forced vaccinations. Trump leveraged his opposition to COVID mandates to bolster his support for smaller, less intrusive government, continuing his “drain the swamp” message from 2016.

Sometimes called the “people’s billionaire,” Trump demonstrated a keen understanding of Americans’ frustrations during his successful 2024 presidential campaign. By addressing hot-button cultural issues such as men in women’s sports and illegal immigration, Trump appealed to voters alarmed by perceived negative changes to America’s values and culture. His promises to restore the economy, dismantle DEI initiatives, and reduce government interference in daily life resonated with middle-class voters seeking to provide for their families, keep more of their paychecks, and simply be left alone.

Political influence tends to swing between left and right over time. The current shift to the right has ushered in Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. A successful Trump presidency could sustain this momentum for decades to come.

To Create Good Aesthetics, The Right Must Believe In What They Represent

Aesthetically, what do you make of a crypto ball in a neoclassical building where glamorous outfits are topped off with red MAGA hats?

How Republicans can reward their friends and subvert their enemies



Politics is patronage

If you’ve never encountered a Boomer conservative discussing the manifest unfairness represented by programs like affirmative action, you are truly missing out. Decades of television (read: propaganda) have removed their ability to fix this. All they can do is whine about nonexistent meritocracy.It is easy to pick on Boomers, but this mindset is ubiquitous across the political spectrum. Left, right, and center voters all possess a deeply held belief that here, in our house, we do things fair, and we do it for freedom, with liberty and justice for all; or if we don’t, then we should.

The problem is that those in power do not believe this, and no matter what rhetoric they trot out, they’ll always use their positions to enrich friends and damage enemies through patronage. This approach is not restricted to the left or to “bad people”; it is how political sausage gets made. Since leftists have captured Western institutions of power (universities, media outlets, big cities, and federal agencies), the left has grown fat on this sausage while the right starves. Well, it’s time for the right to get its fair share of pork.

What might right-wing patronage look like?

Picture a made-up 51st state: New Statesota. NS is just like the other 50 states: It has a few blue cities with purple buffer zones marring an otherwise red canvas. Liberal politicians pour federal money into the blue cities, causing them to grow like tumors. This creates a feedback loop that expands the base of support and strengthens liberal politicians, who can then pour in even more funds.

It’s in our interests to pour money onto the red canvas. It’s okay if some of it runs into the purple buffer; it’s undesirable but not intolerable for it to flow toward the blue cities. It’s good for the blue elites to be apoplectic that money is getting dumped on the “undeserving” reds. We want some of those Havel’s greengrocers to consider putting on the ol’ MAGA hat for the good of the family and their business.

How can we do this?

For your consideration, we submit a framework called the Constitutional Credit System.

Leftist patronage is a messy network

Today, Americans with the correct combination of ideological underpinning and socially relevant pedigree are empowered to cavort as statesmen. They talk at crowds, meet with donors, and reward a preferred slate of experts, advisers, and constituents — all in service of perpetuating a long-standing charade called Democratic politics. At its core, this charade is a systematized process of participants seeking the highest spot possible while rewarding friends and punishing enemies along the way.

The political system is a coin with two very different faces. On one side is representative democracy controlled by the popular will. On the other is a messy network of patronage — sinecures, titles, and relationships. The two sides are only connected by the inescapable fact that they are collocated in time and space.

Unlike social welfare programs, we don’t need a massive apparatus of academics to generate a false consensus on a bunch of barely-truths and white lies. We just need to build a simple, constitutionally compliant system for rewarding right-wingers for doing right-wing things.

The right doesn't get anywhere near the latitude for largesse and sinecure that the left does. In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find even a meager handful of Big Letter Organizations that get patronage from the Outer Party (the RNC) and not the Inner Party (the DNC, aka the Liberal Mafia).

The FTX List is a good example of this process. No one is going to get money from Distribution Central unless the Inner Party says they are allowed to. Even if some handful of supposed “true conservatives” attempted to divert cash toward “good institutions,” it’s just not going to happen. Precious few good institutions exist; the Managerial Elite has seen to that.

But what about good people? Do they still exist?

Ask the devout on our side of the spectrum, and you’ll get a lot of answers. Ask the atheists, and you’ll get just as many answers, but worded differently. Ask anyone, “Who is good?” and you’ll get an overcomplicated framework that always reduces to “none are righteous except those that I personally know to be righteous.”

And that’s fine; that’s how we are wired on the right side of history. But if you tasked some AI with putting out the great survey that collected everyone’s home-brew hierarchy of goodness, you would probably come up with a rough approximation of the "mostly good,” and we posit that this approximation would overlap pretty well with the mostly right.

So can we actually reward those who vote right, look right, and think right?

Yes, and it will actually be relatively easy to do it.

Right-wing patronage can be simple and efficient

Here’s a widely known, well-worded, and completely disregarded bit of prose from the late 1700s: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America. This little blurb is about as high-minded as you can get. What the Framers were thinking by setting the bar this high is anyone’s guess. Create a 4D image in your head of “the people” and see if they have been living up to this statement. All are called; few make it. But that's only because the right has completely unfair ideological beauty standards.

Here are 10 simple qualifications for someone who should get government money without having to ask for it. This person should actively:

  • Perfect the Union
  • Establish Justice
  • Maintain domestic Tranquility
  • Maintain the common defense
  • Promote general Welfare
  • Secure Liberty for Posterity
  • Maintain the unofficial militia
  • Protect against unreasonable search and seizure
  • Promote speedy, public, local, and informed trials
  • Promote free speech

This is a right-wing grab bag. Sure, a smattering of leftists may qualify for some of these, but just as affirmative action and welfare assistance always seem to magically land on the DNC party faithful, there must be some way to do what God and our ancestors want, which is to reward your friends.

Each of these 10 convictions is a kernel of almost limitless patronage and sinecure for the deserving. In our society as it is currently configured, the deserving are largely on the right. We just need a system that rewards them.

What might this system look like?

This system needs to be simple and honest. It should require minimal effort: minimal effort for the credit receivers, minimal effort from the credit providers, minimal thought from the gatekeepers, and minimal explanations for the courts. Much of this will arise from conforming elegantly to the contours of the Constitution, and we really do want it to be promiscuous as a preacher’s daughter in terms of who it applies to (read: lots and lots of nice, churchgoing men).

This system needs to be defensible in court. It needs to be structured from constitutional square zero and stay well within those confines, because the moment the total state senses this, it will come after it.

This system needs to start small and develop quietly and quickly. It should be packaged inoffensively, politely shared with red-state governments, and deployed rapidly.

This system will be full daylight: no secret amounts, opaque components, or hidden recipients, as every aspect will be publicly available for review. Misusing or stealing money that everyone can see and track is very hard.

The biggest lesson of social welfare programs is that if you get your program running, even experimentally, you exponentially increase the number of “widows and orphans” in your armory to deploy in the presence of cameras when the bean counters come knocking. Once a system like this goes into effect, people will want it to stay effective. The goal is to target the broadest range of the rightest people in a constrained region that they dominate.

Gaming the state for fun and profit

Keeping it simple, the Constitutional Credit System should have a number of qualifying applicants equal to or slightly smaller than the number of right-wingers in the area of application from Day Zero. This means it’s built to match what the citizens are, rather than something they aspire to be.

We should build a test that right-wingers are already acing and that liberals are mostly failing. We need a scoring system in which the reds will be disproportionately represented on the profitable side of the filter and the blues are disproportionately left out in the cold. We should require that candidates have to “check enough boxes” so that liberals cannot merely get money for checking just a few.

Are you a credit to your community in a way that respects the spirit of the Constitution? You get a credit! Have you been a credit to your community for X number of consecutive years? You get more credits!

Some ideas for the grading rubric: The recipient must 1) be an American citizen, 2) pay property taxes, 3) be married, and 4) be a natural parent. The system should identify recipients and send them their reward for being constitutionally correct without the recipients having to apply for it, which is relatively easy, as each of these things is already tracked as well as rewarded individually during tax season.

We don’t need to build out the whole rubric now, but let us state clearly and shamelessly: We are devising a game that right-wingers are most likely to win just by being right-wing.

Are you a credit to your community in a way that respects the spirit of the Constitution? You get a credit!

Have you been a credit to your community for X number of consecutive years? You get more credits!

Maybe you’re the leader of a local Boy Scout troop or the organizer of a local farmers' market. Maybe you volunteer at your church regularly. Married, with children, and a property taxpayer, you are a credit to your community, which promotes the general welfare and provides for the common defense. You get a credit! A few, actually!

Think of this like a tax refund but with a pair of extra steps. We already give tax benefits to married couples; we already give child tax credits; we’re just combining these statuses and expanding them tactically to reward productive behavior that is actually good for our communities. You get more of whatever you subsidize, and we want more productive, constitutionally spirited behavior.

And who doesn’t love tax refunds? Surely, certain politicians looking to attain or maintain office would enthusiastically support modified tax refunds for their voters.

It’s going to be hard for the Boomer conservatives to even fathom why a system like this would be desirable, much less necessary and proper, but we need to sidestep, ignore, and/or mitigate this reaction decisively. The Boomer is too busy playing with his speedboat to sit through a lecture on the decline of America and the loss of prospects for future generations.

Anyone who realizes what time it is knows that habits and practices that should be restricted to friends, like courtesy, propriety, and compassion, are things our adversary uses to beat us bloody, rob us blind, and harm our children, figuratively and in far too many cases literally. But there is still a lot of pain tolerance in the broader right. Many will not at all like the idea of abusing their wonderful system of color-blind meritocracy to reward the right for being rightward.

Start sending checks to these chuds, however, and watch how quickly they call their congressman should the program ever find itself on the chopping block of the state budget inquest.

Implementing right-wing patronage can be efficient, too

We do not have the array of culture war superweapons available to the Cathedral, so we won't be able to use the institutions and methods that brought us programs like Gay Marriage Is an Unalloyed Good or Illegal Migrants Are All High-Value Contributors or Crime Is Actually Just Poverty / The Price of Freedom / The Legacy of Slavery.

We have talented writers, exceptional thinkers, specific deep pockets, and the will to power. We need to leverage these few but effective assets to get this program properly dressed to impress with its best suit on, and we need to find a selection of predominately red states with the right set of characteristics to deploy it effectively.

It should be noted that the social welfare system as we know it was forced into being in the midst of a massive outpouring of social distress. There were many detractors and critics who tried to stop it for very good reasons. But no matter what facts and figures they assembled, the opposition could not stop urbanites from demanding “free money for existing” after they had gotten a taste.

Conservatives had no hope of explaining to poor people that more and free money wasn't going to change a single blessed thing, at least not for the better. The social welfare advocates knew this; their only strategy was to get enough gatekeepers to believe that they were helping fix society, and the dynamics of self-enrichment did the rest.

But they were trying to boil the ocean. We are going to warm up a pond. We don’t need everyone on board with this idea. We don’t want a bunch of professor types extolling the virtues of the Constitutional Credit System. All we need is:

  • The precise number of theorists and writers to craft the actual program policies;
  • The targeting and acquisition team to give us a list of viable candidate states/regions;
  • A collection of influencers with the tenacity to sell water to thirsty people;
  • A well-placed local administrator exercising some basic human judgment — though this may not even be necessary. Ideally, the system is tight enough that even a DEI hire in the statehouse can’t help but send the checks to the chuds.

Unlike social welfare programs, we don’t need a massive apparatus of academics to generate a false consensus on a bunch of barely-truths and white lies. We just need to build a simple, constitutionally compliant system for rewarding right-wingers for doing right-wing things.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more ground to cover. Arguments and analysis must take place. Details need to be filled in. It’s quite likely that any intelligent person hungry for advancement and keen to take back our country has already figured out how to pilfer this idea, reconfigure it, and get it going. And that’s excellent. Let a thousand programs blossom.

This idea is going to take a coordinated effort. To move the Constitutional Credit System from the imagination onto the drawing board and into the construction and sale phases will take experienced minds and an array of skills. That's where you come in, patient reader. The CCS needs subject matter experts in policy and process, accountants, and constitutional lawyers. It requires political facilitators and active and former staffers at local, state, and federal levels. It needs storytellers and propagandists, artists and designers. With your help, it can be transformed from a promising idea into a magnetic policy proposal that attracts the necessary signatures of any desk it’s slid across — be it by executive action or detailed argument in chambers. With the coordinated effort of talented people, the CCS will replicate, scaling up and down as it gets configured for individual districts, towns, cities, and states.

“Make America Great Again” — this phrase that each of us sincerely believes implies one of two things: renovation or construction. The CCS is the tool kit that enables us to begin reframing the political landscape by the vision of those who originally framed it.

ROOKE: Wondering Why Europe Is Turning ‘Right-Wing’? Look No Further Than A Girl’s Plea For Help

'either Western Civilization's identity will be preserved, or it will be lost forever'

Establishmentarians weep, clutch their pearls over European Parliament's rightward shift



Voters across the Atlantic Ocean sent a message to the political establishment Sunday night, driving the European Parliament rightward and humiliating parties whose policies have radically transformed the continent with unchecked migration, failed assimilation, costly climate alarmism, and globalist tendencies.

The election results will reverberate for weeks and months to come. One country's prime minister has already resigned, and other leaders now face potential ousters in their respective nations.

Italy

As of Monday morning, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's national conservative Brothers of Italy party had gained 14 seats and secured nearly 29% of the vote. Reuters indicated the party's success Sunday more than quadrupled its showing in the 2019 European Union election and exceeded the 26% it secured in the 2022 national ballot.

"I am proud that Italy will present itself to the G7, to Europe with the strongest government of all. This is something that has not happened in the past but is happening today, it is a satisfaction and also a great responsibility," said Meloni.

"What we need is a Europe that will listen to citizens, that will look more to the centre-right and has more pragmatic and less ideological policies," added the Italian prime minister.

This victory has made Meloni one of the most powerful figures in the EU.

Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is part of a coalition in the parliament called European Conservatives and Reformists, which now holds 73 seats in the 720-seat parliament. ECR is set to gain the support of the National Popular Front of Cyprus, which secured 11% of the vote Sunday, largely on a message to address the problem of immigration.

Just as ECR made headway Sunday, so did the right-wing Identity and Democracy coalition, which nabbed nine seats for a total of 58. ID's gains were driven in large part by the success of France's National Rally.

France

Marine Le Pen's National Rally party ran circles around French President Emmanuel Macron's pro-European Renaissance Party, more than doubling its votes with 31.37%. The Need for Europe coalition, which includes Macron' Renaissance Party, secured only 14.6% of the vote.

This result was so embarrassing as to prompt Macron, who already lacks a majority in the French parliament, to call snap national elections on June 30 and July 7 and to call for the dissolution of the National Assembly in a few weeks.

After the French people largely kicked his party to the curb, Macron tweeted, "I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations."

Axios highlighted that Macron leaned in to old scare tactics following his humiliation.

"The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," said the president. "After this day, I cannot go on as though nothing has happened."

"The French people have sent a very clear message to the Macronist power, which, vote after vote, is disintegrating," Le Pen noted on X, suggesting that such is the consequence of denying a people their history and curbing their "influence, identity and freedom."

Following Macron's announcement of the National Assembly's dissolution, Le Pen said, "I call on the French to come and join us to form a majority around the RN [National Rally] in the service of the only cause that guides our steps: France."

Macron's government is not the only one left tottering after Sunday's election.

Germany

Despite its vilification by the liberal media and the German political establishment, and a member's pre-election stabbing, Alternative for Germany gained six seats and placed second with 15.9% of the national vote. The top spot was firmly held by the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, which took 30.2% of the vote.

Extra to its 5% gain over its showing in the 2019 EU election, Alternative for Germany managed to beat German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's establishment Social Democratic Party, which is expected to finish third with less than 14%.

According to the German publication Bild, 76% of Germans think the SPD-led (Social Democratic Party) government is not governing successfully. 570,000 voters who cast votes for the SPD in 2019 instead cast votes for AFD on Sunday.

Social Democratic Party politician Lars Klingbeil doubled down on his party's ineffective rhetoric after its trouncing, stating, "I believe that the result of the European elections will wake many people up to the fact that the Nazis have become stronger in this election."

The Telegraph indicated that less than a third of German voters cast ballots for the ruling parties combined. Joining Scholz's party in humiliation was the Green Party, which hemorrhaged roughly 9%, and Scholz's coalition partners, the Free Liberals, which netted 5%.

Migration and refugees were far and away the top concerns for Germans going into the election — more so than energy, climate, the economy, pensions, and the war in Ukraine.

The poor showing of Scholz's ruling coalition has prompted some to suggest the government has lost legitimacy.

The AFD reportedly seeks to join the ID coalition, sacrificing its scandal-plagued candidate Maximilian Krah to sweeten the deal. That would mean that between the ID and ECR, rightists in the European Parliament would control over 131 seats in the chamber, not including the seats held by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, by the Polish Confederation party, and other right-leaning groups.

Elsewhere

In Spain, the center-right People's Party overtook leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The PP took 34.2% of the vote and gained nine seats, ending up with a total of 22 of Spain's 61 seats in the European Parliament. Sanchez's radical party lost a seat and now only has 20 seats.

The right-leaning Vox party came third with six seats, having secured an additional two seats Sunday and 9.6% of the vote.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom gained six seats and 17.7% of its nation's total vote, placing second in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom campaigned primarily on two issues: immigration and health care, reported the NL Times.

"The Greens and Liberals are the big losers, they will lost many seats in the European Parliament," Wilders tweeted Sunday. "On the other hand, the PVV is winning big, just like our friends in France, Belgium, Austria, Portugal and many other countries. It was a very beautiful election day!"

In Austria, the Freedom Party, whose members will join the ID coalition, placed first with 25.7% of the vote, gaining three seats for a total of six in the parliament. According to EuroNews, the Freedom Party largely campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Green Deal, and Euroskeptic platform.

Ahead of the vote, the Freedom Party wrote on X, "Asylum crisis, corona chaos, warmongering and eco-communism – are you fed up with all of this? Then ABSOLUTELY VOTE FOR THE FPÖ today! Together we will STOP the EU madness!"

A weepy Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation Sunday after his Flemish Lierals and Democrats party was crushed by right-leaning and nationalist parties. Croo's party lost a seat, such that it placed last with only one seat in the parliament.

"For us, it's a particularly difficult evening. We lost. As of tomorrow, I will resign as prime minister," said Croo, reported the Guardian.

The nationalist right-wing New Flemish Alliance placed first. Its leader, Bart De Wever, will likely become the country's next prime minister. The anti-immigration Vlaams Belang Party came second.

Unsuccessful concern-mongering, continued

Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the centrist European People's Party — the biggest coalition in the new legislature — vowed to serve as a check on the ascendant right, reported Reuters.

"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," said von der Leyen. "But it is also true that extremes and on the left and the right have gained support and this is why the result comes with great responsibility for the parties in the center."

Von der Leyen's continued presidency over the European Commission will rely upon the backing of the EU's national leaders.

Days ahead of the election, the BBC warned that a rightward shift might mean "more power for nation states, less 'Brussels interference' in everyday life"; less power for the European Commission; tougher EU legislation on migration; and a pushback against climate alarmist policies.

Upon seeing the results pour in, the Washington Post sounded the alarm that the "'cordon sanitaire' erected by more mainstream parties against the putative descendants of Europe's fascist movements had collapsed" and that "a new age of right-wing politics in the West" had arrived.

The New York Times noted that right-wing parties "have gained across the continent as voters have grown more concentrated on nationalism and identity, often tied to migration and some of the same culture-war politics pertaining to gender and L.G.B.T.Q. issues that have gained traction in the United States," then warned the result could "hearten kindred political forces loyal to former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks a return to office."

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Leftist stabs right-wing politician in German city where Islamic terrorist just went on a stabbing spree



With the European parliamentary elections just days away, radicals in the streets and in the media appear to have ramped up their attacks against right-wing politicians. The right-leaning Alternative for Germany, poised to secure new seats Sunday, is a popular target for such attacks.

On Tuesday evening, one radical slashed 62-year-old AFD politician Heinrich Koch with a carpet knife in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, roughly five miles away from where an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing spree Friday.

According to the German publication Junge Freiheit, Koch — a Rheinau district council member and an AFD candidate for Mannheim city council — spotted a leftist tearing down his campaign posters around 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday, near the market square where Islamic terrorist Sulaiman Ataee murdered a police officer Rouven L., stabbed politician Michael Stürzenberger, and cut up four other anti-jihad demonstrators.

Footage of the incident shows Koch run over to confront the vandal tearing down the posters only to realize he was armed with a knife. Police indicated the 25-year-old suspect, who previously damaged and stole several election posters, stabbed Koch.

AFD Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier told Junge Freiheit that Koch was taken to the hospital with injuries to his stomach and face.

AFD cochairman Tino Chrupalla said in a statement, "Our members and representatives are the most frequent victims of political violence and destruction. That cannot stop us. Get well soon, Heinrich!"

Alice Weidel, cochairwoman of the AFD, assigned some blame to the AFD's leftist political opponents and the media, claiming they "are creating a climate in which even extreme physical attacks are no longer shied away from. We condemn this violence and call on people to finally return to the basic democratic practices!"

Markus Frohnmaier, the regional chair of the AFD, said, "It is unacceptable that this mental agitation against our party continues, with surveillance and an attempt to push us out of the democratic political consensus in Germany. Because incidents like the one in Mannheim are the result of this!"

Hans-Georg Maassen, former president of Germany's domestic security agency, similarly suggested the German left has set the stage for future attacks.

"We are currently seeing the seeds sprout," Maassen told Junge Freihei. "We must finally return to social reconciliation, and that can only work if the political left refrains from treating its opponents like enemies."

Mannheim Mayor Christian Specht, who previously intimated the anti-jihad demonstrators stabbed last Friday were partly responsible for their attacker's rampage, said in a statement Wednesday, "This cowardly act is abhorrent and cannot be justified in any way. Anyone who attacks election candidates is calling into question our free, equal, general, direct and secret elections — and thus the basis of our democracy."

"This despicable incident is one of a series of attacks on campaign workers and politicians that are currently being observed throughout Germany," continued Specht. "The hatred and willingness to use violence that are currently breaking out in our society are unbearable."

The AFD has drawn the ire of the left, in part, by criticizing the fallout of Germany's immigration policies and officials' refusal to deport criminal noncitizens.

For instance, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a member of the AFD, generated outrage in 2021 for citing government statistics in an X post that showed Afghan and African asylum seekers disproportionately engaged in certain types of violent crimes. Despite the veracity of her statements, Kaiser was charged and convicted with incitement to hatred.

Weeks after her May appeal fell through, there were two instances of migrant knife attacks: one in Mannheim and another in the northeastern German town of Bergen.

In Sunday's election, EuroNews indicated that AFD stands to secure 15 seats in the European Parliament. A June 5 German voting intention poll showed AFD trailing the center-right Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union alliance in second place.

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Womp, womp! Massive layoffs hit Media Matters after Elon Musk lawsuit



Media Matters has solely existed to be a watchdog against the right for years, often seeking to ruin the lives of conservatives via cancel culture.

Now, the media company is having massive layoffs after Elon Musk brought it to court in November — and Lauren Chen is not above celebrating.

“They are a leftist watchdog organization that basically just exists to smear right-wing figures. And to be clear, the problem here is not that Media Matters advances, like, leftist talking points kind of, like, the Young Turks. No, Media Matters is really in a totally separate category,” Chen says.

“It seems like all they do is sit around consuming right-wing content, looking for sound bites or unflattering quotes to take out of context in the hopes of canceling right-wing figures,” she continues, adding, “and I therefore hate them.”

Last year, Media Matters messed up when it attempted to smear the wrong person and ended up getting sued by Musk. Media Matters was accused of manufacturing a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts in order to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X corp.”

“They were essentially trying to play the algorithm to get really unflattering screenshots for X, even though for the average user this is not at all what would appear if you were using the platform,” Chen explains.

The media company has just now been forced to fire at least a dozen staffers.

“We’re confronting a legal assault on multiple fronts, and given how rapidly the media landscape is shifting, we need to be extremely intentional about how we allocate resources in order to stay effective,” the president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, said in a statement.

“For right-wing content creators like myself, that means there’s going to be fewer people out there looking to basically quote mine you in the hopes of destroying your career,” Chen says happily.


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