The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism
Conservatives don't want to RETVRN, traveling America to find love, alienation in the New Right, and more in this week's digest.
Note: Due to planned travel, I may not be able to produce a digest next week.
I have a recent piece over in Compact about the cultural contradictions of conservatism when it comes to the retro-Americana aesthetic so heavily promoted by the online right.
There’s a genre of right-wing social media posting that’s dedicated to retro-Americana aesthetics: Norman Rockwell paintings, pictures of cute New England towns, preppy clothing, 1950s family scenes, Beach Boys-era Southern California, and similar things. The Trump administration has even gotten into the game, with the Department of Homeland Security posting a Thomas Kinkade paining of an idealized small-town scene.
But to the extent that any such aesthetics or lifestyles are actually practiced today, it’s usually by liberals, not conservatives.
Ask yourself: Who is more likely to be buying traditionally produced artisanal products? Who is more likely to prioritize “buying local” over patronizing the big box chain? Who is more likely to preserve or rehab historic buildings? Who wants to landscape with “native plantings”? Who actually lives in those cute New England towns? To ask these questions is to answer them.
Click over to read the whole thing.
If you haven’t seen my essay on the various conservative aesthetic styles, be sure to check it out.
The Substack writer Sabrdance wrote a response to my Compact piece. As did Sumantra Maitra.
Traveling America to Find Love
One of the online right tropes is that men who can’t find wives need to head to the interior of the country and small town America, to meet wholesome young single women in gas stations and diners.
Somebody did just that, à la “a year of living Biblically” and wrote up his experience as a great feature for American Reformer.
As a single, Gen Z guy with very little to lose, I read this and decided to give it a try. I documented my road trip experience through my pseudonymous X account, Bumbadum, and my writing accumulated over 6 million impressions—my journey becoming a focal point in the raging cultural debate on the evolving landscape of dating, marriage, and especially the role of young men in modern society.
After making a rough travel plan, I notified my employer that I’d be taking a week off. On Friday morning, I left LA and began my drive across the American West. As I took the interstate into rural terrain, I began stopping periodically at diners, gas stations, and small stores.
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In Blanding, UT, a small town of around three thousand, I got breakfast at a diner, hoping to meet someone young and maybe less “corrupted” by life in a city like LA—maybe my future wife. Inside, there were zero young people. I was waited on by a woman who looked to be in her 80s. It was slow, so we chatted aimlessly. Her name was Maria. She had lived in Blanding her whole life. Years in the desert had weathered her skin. Her husband used to work at the White Mesa Uranium Mill until a round of layoffs cut a third of the workforce. The parent company (Energy Fuels Inc.) still owns multiple uranium mills and mines in the county, but they’ve been shutting down. White Mesa is the only one still operating: “Yeah, a lot of the town used to work for them—but not anymore. My husband works at Ace now.” The conversation died out at this point, and I ate in silence.
Click over to read the whole thing.
The alt-country band the Bottle Rockets released a song in 1993 called “Gas Girl” about a guy who is infatuated with a girl who works at a gas station.
Well there's a little gas station
where I like to go, tell you
There's a little girl there
I'd like to know
Best of the Web
The Supreme Court ruled that states can force porn sites to do age verification before giving access to their sites. This will protect kids, which is great. But it won’t do much to stop the porn companies. I believe the cell phone OS providers like Apple are developing technology to allow for age verification without users having to provide their actual identity to the porn sites.
After Babel: How to Protect Kids from Porn
The Atlantic: The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard—It’s Worse
Institute for Family Studies: Why Americans Aren't Getting Married and Having Kids—and How to Change That
The Free Press: Virginity Is the Last Taboo
Tom Owens reviews the book The Sovereign Individual.
Scott Greer: Dissenting Americans - The New Right is alienated from mainstream America - A dissident right author talks about Doug Wilson
The “New Right’s favorite pastor” wants to impose theocracy on America. That’s the claim of a recent Politico profile of Doug Wilson, a popular Reformed minister and podcaster.
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Wilson’s appeal to the Right is partially based on being at odds with mainstream America. While the Right claims to represent the Silent Majority, many of its more eccentric ideas are completely out of step with the rest of the country. When faced with the rather sad state of much of America, right-wingers turn to radical alternatives that challenge normie preferences. This makes them Dissenting Americans.
Like the Dissenting Protestants of the 17th century, Dissenting Americans believe they uphold the truth against the establishment. In the same way Dissenting Protestants split from the Church of England, many Dissenting Americans choose to separate from the mainstream. They move to an enclave with other like-minded individuals, they homeschool their kids, they refuse to indulge in popular entertainment, and engage in other acts of voluntary separation. Wilson does this as well, as he’s created an intentional community of believers in Moscow, Idaho, with their own businesses and schools.
New Content and Media Mentions
I was a guest on the Issues, Etc. podcast last week.
New this week:
Beyond Boomerism - Younger generations have to unshackle themselves from being overly wedded to Boomer thinking
My podcast this week is with Rev. Jake Dell on the fight to save historic churches.
Subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or Spotify.
RE: finding a spouse in rural America.
Having spent six years in the backcountry, in rural Texas and Montana, I was not surprised by the author's experience. I was in my late twenties, and in both places all of the women my age were either married, had been married, had something very wrong with them, or had left for the city.
Now, for young women, going to rural America to find a spouse isn't the worst idea, but if you're a guy, the cities and suburbs are where the women actually are, and if you're willing to put some work into filtering who you're going out with instead of just swiping right on anyone born with a vagina you can actually find someone suitable to marry.