The modern American political landscape features a perplexing imbalance. The progressive movement has a mainstream core which achieves most of the practical political wins, but it also accepts a much more radical constellation of leftist beliefs. Leftists regularly portray themselves as open communists, violent Antifa foot soldiers, and revolutionary queer activists, and are still accepted inside the movement. Far from being cancelled by their peers, these more radical elements are elevated by the mainstream and given prestigious positions in critical institutions like universities. In contrast, the American right abandons or actively destroys anyone outside the approved mainstream window of opinion.
00:00:30.000The modern American political landscape features a perplexing imbalance.
00:00:34.880The progressive movement has a mainstream core which achieves most of the practical political wins,
00:00:40.100but it also accepts a much more radical constellation of leftist beliefs.
00:00:44.820Leftists regularly portray themselves as open communists, violent Antifa foot soldiers,
00:00:50.060and revolutionary queer activists, and are still accepted inside the movement.
00:00:54.300Far from being cancelled by their peers, these more radical elements are often elevated by the mainstream and given prestigious positions in critical institutions like universities.
00:01:06.520Ideas and leaders from the vanguard freely circulate into the mainstream, invigorating the liberal elite.
00:01:13.100In contrast, the American right abandons or actively destroys anyone outside the approved mainstream window of opinion.
00:01:22.380The field of acceptable opinion inside mainstream conservatism is laughably small,
00:01:28.720and anyone seeking to make a career inside the movement must stick to an incredibly narrow range of pre-authorized ideological platitudes.
00:01:37.520There's rarely any dedicated cultivation of young talent,
00:01:41.560and few institutions are willing to serve as an incubator for budding intellectual movements.
00:01:47.400To its great shame, the most dangerous threat to an up-and-coming right-winger who's seeking to push the boundaries of acceptable opinion
00:01:56.140are other members of the conservative movement,
00:01:59.880looking to eliminate the competition and receive a pat on the head from the mainstream press.
00:02:06.320Every viable political movement has an acceptable mainstream and a more radical vanguard.
00:02:13.180The mainstream serves as the forward-facing element of the movement,
00:02:17.400presenting the most popular and acceptable positions while securing practical political victories.
00:02:23.620Everything in the mainstream should be practiced, polished, and presentable.
00:02:29.380Optics are key, and reputations are closely guarded.
00:02:33.680The mainstream may at times seem too careful or too calculating, but that's good and necessary.
00:02:41.340These are the political operatives meant to sell the platform to the masses.
00:02:45.620The vanguard operates in productive tension with the mainstream, as the heart and mind of the movement.
00:02:53.820Because the vanguard isn't forward-facing, they can explore new and challenging ideas.
00:02:59.780The vanguard contains the most passionate activists, often willing to employ new tactics and lines of attack in their work.
00:03:06.960When I found out my friend got a great deal on a designer dress from Winners, I started wondering,
00:03:12.960is every fabulous item I see from Winners?
00:03:16.120Like that woman over there with the Italian leather handbag.
00:04:56.000Even a former radical leftist terrorist like Bill Ayers can become a beloved mentor with a prestigious, well-paying job at a university.
00:05:07.060Radical ideas from the leftist vanguard are regularly and successfully circulated into the progressive platform.
00:05:15.200The mainstream takes care of the vanguard, and the vanguard revitalizes the mainstream.
00:05:21.020Everybody understands that they have a role to play.
00:05:23.920On the American right, no vanguard is allowed to exist at all.
00:05:30.580A narrow set of ideas was carved into stone by William F. Buckley, peace be upon him,
00:05:36.620and, until recently, these were the only positions anyone hoping to make a career in the conservative movement was allowed to hold.
00:05:46.020And yes, sorry, people do need to be able to make a living doing this kind of thing.
00:05:50.920The left knows that it has to take care of people, that patronage is critical to its political machine.
00:05:57.040The right rejects this for some reason and ends up in exactly the situation you would expect.
00:06:03.120In the post-war consensus, being authentically right-wing was considered incredibly dangerous,
00:06:09.520so the old right was purged and replaced.
00:06:12.380Free trade, constant war, and a toothless version of social conservatism became the fusionism that drove out all other forms of traditional right-wing thought.
00:06:23.220The politics of Pat Buchanan proved far wiser than the neoconservatism of the Bush dynasty,
00:06:29.140but he would have to wait decades to see those positions vindicated after the relentless failures of conservatism, Inc.
00:06:35.760To this day, the most dangerous threat to a promising young right-wing talent is not the leftist media or smear organizations like the ADL and SPLC,
00:06:47.280but mainstream conservatives looking to gatekeep their positions of privilege.
00:06:52.340Whether they admit it or not, most mainstream conservatives understand that cancellation is a power wielded by the left,
00:06:59.460and the best way to eliminate the competition is to steal that power and turn it on the right-wing vanguard.
00:07:06.760Mainstream conservatives regularly dig up old position papers, private messages, or former associations
00:07:13.040in order to destroy talented political operatives by paying them as too radical.
00:07:19.380No one is ever fired from a position in a conservative institution for being a former leftist,
00:07:25.100but plenty of promising careers have been destroyed because an individual held opinions on immigration,
00:07:31.060nationalism, or foreign policy which were considered too extreme on the right.
00:07:36.900This is why so much of the work traditionally done by the vanguard has now been moved to the online right,
00:07:43.840or what is commonly called the dissident right.
00:07:46.720A large amount of the activism and energy that helped to propel the Buchanan-esque populism of Donald Trump
00:07:53.780had to be built entirely outside of the mainstream conservative system.
00:07:59.340The mainstream infrastructure is still trying to absorb and redirect that energy even today,