“You can loathe state-sponsored multiculturalism without being a bigot. You can reject the Pride mania without wishing ill upon gay people. You can believe that men and women are fundamentally different, with strengths and qualities better targeted towards specific roles, without being a misogynist. You can believe in the nation state and strong borders without being a xenophobe. You can believe that children are best raised in a stable home with two parents - a mother and father - without being hostile to those who do not fit that model. Millions hold these views.”
—Paul Embery—
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If you’re new to my website or haven’t been reading my work for very long, then you likely haven’t read my older essays where I reveal that I was not always a conservative. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (meaning only several years ago and sadly not on another planet), I volunteered and worked for multiple Democratic politicians and liberal organizations at the local, state, and national level; spending most of that time begging Democrats to stop listening to campus protesters and to forsake Grievance Politics in order to focus on working class issues. After all, voters weren’t thinking about “white privilege” or “toxic masculinity”, they were thinking about healthcare and Social Security. Voters weren’t thinking about “cultural appropriation”, they were thinking about the right of workers to unionize without fear of retaliation. Voters weren’t thinking about “non-binary” pronouns, they were thinking about the price of diapers and daycare. I also argued that any Democratic candidate who wanted to have a chance of winning an election in any red state had to a) draw a direct connection between universal healthcare and the building of rural hospitals, b) repair relationships with “exiled” pro-life Democrats (of which there are many in the south - especially among hispanic Catholics), and c) disavow the growing influence of Wall Street and Silicon Valley in the party, disavow the utopian naivety of “progressive” soft-on-crime proposals, disavow any and all gun control efforts, and disavow the party’s willful blindness to the threat of Islamic terrorism.
2014 to 2019 was a period in my life when I still held onto the outdated delusion that a person could still be a Democrat in the style of LBJ or FDR or Huey Long. A period of life where I still held onto the delusion that the party would grow bored with its dalliance with woke whining, and eventually get back to emphasizing higher wages, organized labor, lower cost-of-living, and working families. And a period where I held onto the delusion that the Democrats still had a willingness to be serious about foreign policy and national defense in the way that Jim Webb, Bill Richardson, or Gen. Wesley Clark had been. I was some weird combination of “Bernie bro” and “blue dog”, and oblivious enough to think that that combination would be tolerated in the post-Obama ecosystem.
Yet when my divergent suggestions had the effect of making me the most unpopular dude in every room full of liberal organizers (that is, when I wasn’t the only dude in a room full of liberal organizers), and I saw that all my protests and gripes behind closed doors were to no avail, I’d begun to have doubts about “the goodness of my side” around mid-to-late 2020. Stubbornly neoliberal, hopelessly PC, and determined to elevate preachy killjoy politicians over likable humorous ones (e.g. Kirsten Gillibrand > Al Franken), the message was loud and clear that neither party leadership nor its Managerial Class base had any intention of changing course. Finally, in 2023, I publicly announced my departure not just from the Democratic Party but from liberalism/leftism* entirely and informed readers that I’d become a “Yoram Hazony conservative”.
This departure from liberalism/leftism was born of a strengthened conviction during Covid that the enemies of the American people really were the mainstream news media, the universities, the corporate executives, the unelected government bureaucrats, and the Hollywood celebrities who reveled in the propaganda aimed at us… all of whom embraced, and were embraced by, liberals/leftists. Meanwhile, America’s most neglected citizens were the farmers, the ranchers, the soldiers, the tradesmen, and the small business owners… nearly all of whom were decidedly not liberals/leftists. It was also clear that degenerate sexual fetishes too disgusting to name were being promoted as “valid identities” to children and teens in schools and on social media, and that the nuclear family structure really was under attack. After 2020, then, it became apparent that any national transformation in the right direction would require nothing less than a total populist “countercultural cultural” revolution; wherein the enemies of the people were finally destroyed, the family was saved, and those citizens who for so long had been neglected (and denigrated) at last received the honor they were due. And even still, today, in 2026, it must be this way. It can be no other way. That populist “countercultural cultural” revolution has yet to take place. It may have already begun (may have), but it is nowhere near complete, and is not guaranteed to be completed absent sustained popular will.
While this populist conservative cultural revolution—which is absolutely necessary, if the country is to have a prayer of being saved from almost certain collapse—is largely a subject for another article, I mention it briefly only to say that in order for such an economic and social transformation to ever have a chance of succeeding one day, conservatives have to remain credible. Conservatives have to remain serious people. And by “credible” and “serious”, I don’t mean, of course, that conservatives should start jockeying for the respect and approval of the very media and institutions I just expressed loathing for; but rather we should seek to be “credible” and “serious” in the eyes of normal non-political citizens, so they don’t look at our words and actions and think “Damn. Conservatives are lunatics.”
The bad news is that, despite conservatives currently holding every branch of government, the conservative movement as a whole (in the U.S. and abroad) is actually failing at remaining credible and serious.
And we’re failing at remaining credible and serious due to what I call the Pendulum Rule: that is, extremists on the left—who up until just a few years ago held massive amounts of cultural influence—have, by being heavy-handed in the course of pushing their agendas, created opposite extremists on the right who are now rapidly growing in number and are not going away anytime soon. Or, to shorten that: monstrous people in their bid to rid society of monsters created the very monsters they tried to get rid of.
I don’t think enough of my former comrades on the left realize (still, to this day) just how much the HR-ification of daily social interaction was a radicalizing event for young people (and especially young men) in the 2010s and early-20s.
The language policing, the sensitivity readers, the corporate diversity trainings, the social media censorship, the Instagram therapy-speak, the “moral clarity” approach to journalism—all of it—dripped with a smug self-assurance that manifested either in a condescending “better-than-you-but-patient-with-you” tone, or a scolding hall monitor tone. But regardless of whichever tone the person on the receiving end got, the intent behind both was the same: to stop anybody from saying anything unruly or “problematic”.
But the left’s success at bullying their fellow citizens into being silent about their convictions was short-lived. It was inevitable that after a long enough time of sanctimonious nagging and coercion, the dam would burst. After a while, many Americans couldn’t help but notice that accusations flung their way of having a “lack of empathy” so often came from the most envious and spiteful people on the planet. And in short order (at a time coinciding roughly with Trump’s reelection in 2024), ordinary citizens began feeling empowered to name the multitude of emperors who had no clothes. Ordinary citizens began feeling empowered to finally point out—without fear of professional or social repercussion—that:
Most cops are good men and women who put their lives on the line to keep their communities safe, “defunding the police” was a horrible idea, and violent thugs who are repeat offenders should be imprisoned or killed regardless of their race, gender, age, mental health conditions, family circumstances, horoscope, etc.
That public school teachers are not the co-parents of students, and do not have the right to override parental boundaries about what children learn regarding sexuality and gender.
That a man cutting off his dick and calling himself a woman makes about as much sense as a one-legged “dancer” pogo-sticking around a theater stage and calling it ballet.
That most women are attracted to men, most women like it when men admire them, most women are interested in having sex with men, and most women are more than a little annoyed when prominent feminists in the media and entertainment industry claiming to represent “women’s interests” present male desire as inherently predatory.
And that liberal/leftwing journalists publishing think-pieces about rural Americans like they’re guides narrating a safari is not in fact helping to turn red states blue.
Naturally the left’s response to this change in the cultural winds—because they don’t know how else to respond, certainly not with humility—has been to continue to whine ad nauseam about “ignorant yokels” from “ignorant” small towns voting for “ignorant” candidates ruining a democracy only they (the select enlightened) should be allowed to control.
Over the past year, these activists seemed to have been genuinely caught off-guard that they’ve encountered so much opposition. They actually seemed to think that villainizing and discriminating against men (and especially young men, and especially young white men) through movies, television, music, books, hiring, celebrity interviews, and at award ceremonies for over a decade could be pulled off without any eventual cultural pushback. They actually seemed to think that they could stir up racial animosity in the name of “equity” and “social justice”, without the general public catching on and calling them out for it. They actually seemed to think that they could indoctrinate kids with trans ideology, and goad parents with a “What are you gonna do about it?” attitude, and acted surprised when parents—in fact—did something about it.
But the biggest oversight on the part of the activist left of the 2010s and early-20s is that now—after crying wolf so many times about racism, sexism, homophobia, yada yada—nobody in the general public who’s sympathetic to conservatism wants to believe there are now actual wolves who are real, honest-to-god, bonafide, no-doubt-about-it, self-proclaimed, legitimate bigots. Extremists on the left have created opposite extremists on the right, and all of the conventional tools people might have employed in the past to warn society about those bigots are no longer effective, because their use was abused to advance agendas. Calling somebody a “racist” used to be a real reputation-killer because it was an accusation that was used sparingly. (The same with the term “sexist”, etcetera.) But now? Calling Bob a racist does as much damage as calling him “Bob”. The term was overused into infinite until its currency hit hyperinflation and became worthless.
I say all of this in the lead-up to this essay’s main subject because, as I begin to write what I’m about to write—an open letter and sharp rebuke to the young men who have become enamored by figures like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate—don’t think for a second I blame their existence on anything inherent to the philosophy of conservatism. No, I lay the blame for the existence of what we can call the “alt right”, “woke right”, “white identitarian right”, and groups like the Proud Boys and “groypers” entirely at the feet of the Grievance Politics left who created them inadvertently.
Nevertheless, a sharp rebuke of young men who have become enamored by figures like Fuentes and Tate is still needed, because any conservatism with any kind of lasting future has to be a “big tent” conservatism that appeals to many different groups of people, rather than a tiny sandbox that’s anxiously guarded by one demographic.
And now the beginning of my open letter…
To the young men of the “alt right”/“woke right”/“America First” right/whatever you want to be called: from this point forward I’ll be addressing you directly, and you can think of me—if you wish—as a formerly-affectionate-and-now-pissed-off uncle who’s out to save a wayward nephew. Think of me as this guy ꜜ looking at you exactly like that and in desperate need of a cigarette for undertaking what I’m about to undertake.
Real quick, I want to avoid the temptation most people might have in the moments preceding a confrontation of straining to find common ground in order to reduce tension. (“You like Hitler, I like Hayek. I guess we all have our favorite Austrian, hyuck hyuck hyuck.”) I don’t think there’s enough common ground between us to warrant that, and I doubt you’d appreciate any attempt on my part to find any anyways. So instead, I’m just gonna bluntly tell you why I think your behaviors will eventually get you into deep trouble and quite possibly take the conservative movement down with you.
This open letter is divided into subsections according to the subjects you seem to be obsessing about the most on sites like X, Substack, Reddit, YouTube, as well as real life Q&A forums where you’ve attempted to sabotage conservative speakers; these subjects you obsess about (and corresponding subsections) being black people, gays/lesbians, women, abortion, and conspiracy theories. (I thought about including Jews as well, which is a subject y’all seem to obsess over more than any of the other subjects combined, but since I’ve already written in defense of my people, I won’t talk about them again here.)
The intent of this letter is quite straightforward: I want you to stop doing what you’re doing, repent to G-d and anyone you hurt, and afterward devote yourself to leading other young men you know who are still stuck in this “alt right”/“woke right”/Nick Fuentes-Andrew Tate trap out of that trap and into a conservatism that embraces authentic manhood and rejects hating entire groups of people who don’t deserve it.
By spreading incoherent screeds and demented slanders in the name of conservatism, you have made me a “moderate” against my will, and I am not happy about it. Just as I was angry several years ago when liberalism/leftism became too extreme and weird, I find myself angry now that the right is also becoming extreme and weird. But unlike before, I don’t have the luxury of leaving one side for the other when the lunatics begin taking over the asylum. Instead I have to stay and fight, because otherwise there’s nowhere else (politically) for me to go. So strap in. This is your fault, but by G-d I’m gonna help you fix it.
Black People
Okay look, maybe the old guy’s missed the joke. Maybe your vulgar and aggressive expressions of prejudice online are just meant to be “ironic” or “edgy” or “taboo” or some other brand of Not Serious. I’m almost 35 and you’re anywhere between 18 to 24, and that’s a considerable gap, but your generation didn’t invent transgressive humor. I’m not new to laughing at stuff that’s offensive or risky, and quite frankly no one my age is. My generation grew up on South Park and came of age in the era of movies like Superbad and The Hangover. So maybe that’s what you’re doing (in a really clumsy, careless, stupid way) when you utter slurs like the n-word and make slavery jokes?
Maybe you don’t think racism is actually cool, it’s just that the Ibram Kendi/Ta-Nehisi Coates/CRT style of “antiracists” are so lame that anything that makes them mad becomes cool through sheer contrast. Is that it? Tell me if that’s it.
But I don’t think it is.
So in case you actually mean the vitriolic things you’ve been saying… I wanna talk about how you talk about black people.
Assuming you’re being serious, you’ve made it known that you don’t like black people, you get mad at whites who “worship” black athletes and musicians, and you either want to bring back segregation or expel blacks from the country completely.
I can’t help but guess that you began taking this dark turn arouuuuund the same time as the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020; where small businesses were looted and torched, while CNN attempted to frame such criminality as “fiery but mostly peaceful”. I can’t help but guess that the unjust prosecution of Daniel Penny (for stopping a drug-addled lunatic from terrorizing passengers on a train) made it all the more clear to you that Democrat-run cities did not like uppity white boys, and you likely made the correlation that many of these Democrat-run cities had minorities in political and judicial positions. And I can’t help but guess that the murders of Austin Metcalf and Iryna Zarutska by two black men (who it seems had never before been held accountable for anything in their lives either by the justice system or their parents), further sent you down a spiral where you perceived (understandably but inaccurately) that white people faced heavy penalties for even the smallest infractions while black criminals got off light even after committing the most heinous acts.
Well, alright, we can start here: you should know that the above crimes didn’t only infuriate you. They infuriated everybody (regardless of skin color) who was fair-minded and decent. You are not the only one who’s noticed an acute anti-white hostility emanating from the country’s largest Democrat-run cities (and especially emanating from Democratic representatives like Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar). You are not the only one who’s noticed that identity politics—when held up as the standard by which to measure every event and circumstance—leads to gross miscarriages of justice.
But none of this, I promise you, is going to be fixed by becoming racist toward black people.
“Well black people commit 50% of the violent crime every year despite being 13% of the population!”
Not true, but go on.
“Oooh wow, sorry, my bad, maybe my stats weren’t exactly correct. But you know damn well that blacks commit a shit-ton more crimes than whites, and also act belligerent and hostile in public places a helluva lot more than whites. I’m not gonna be called ‘racist’ because I notice patterns. Basic pattern recognition is not racism!”
Hm, you see though, the thing about “patterns” is that we’re excellent at spotting them in others and terrible at spotting them in ourselves. You say that blacks commit a shit-ton more crime than any other race? Well, after adjusting for rates instead of raw arrest counts, that actually depends on which violent crimes. Not to annoy you with more statistics, but according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Health & Human Services, while black Americans currently lead on robbery, domestic violence, and homicides by firearm, white Americans actually lead on rape, assault, and mass shootings. You say that black people act more belligerent or hostile in public places? Again, that depends on the form such belligerence and hostility takes. While a few studies imply that black Americans blast music and litter at higher rates, white Americans have higher rates of public intoxication and road rage. But I’m willing to bet you’ve never attributed any of the negative things I’ve just mentioned about white people to white people, because we’re very good at noticing patterns in others but not ourselves.
“Right, cool, ‘nothing to see here’ eh? Guess we’re not allowed to have an honest conversation about racial differences.”
I didn’t say there was “nothing to see here” or that no one was “allowed to have an honest conversation”, but all the same, I’m gonna be very blunt and tell you that you aren’t gonna like where I take you next:
It seems to me that even if everything you said about black people were true… even if your claims about American blacks weren’t extremely one-sided and deceptive… then all that would mean is that black people really need to be shown love by others. And told that they’re loved by G-d. And that the most affluent in our society (the 0.01% of America’s top earners) should make it their personal missions to “adopt” the country’s poorest neighborhoods, and fund career programs for black teens that encourage entrepreneurship, law, medicine, and military service. It’s funny how people stop behaving in antisocial ways when they no longer feel discounted by the society around them. (And again, yeah, sure, fine, it also sounds to me like violent criminals with multiple felonies on their record need harsher and perhaps even permanent penalties. But I fail to see how this observation indicts an entire race, even if a certain race might be overrepresented among violent felons. To me, a violent criminal with multiple felonies being out on the street sounds like a case for punishing clueless judges, not a case for becoming a racist.)
You point to other perceived faults of black people in America: abysmal literacy rates, poor work ethic, abundance of fatherless households, and an overall lack of ingenuity. But lack of ingenuity, fatherless households, poor work ethic, and abysmal literacy are certainly not tragedies unique to black people. Fort Worth—for example—is 70% white and hispanic, and yet only 24% of 8th grade public school students in the city can read at grade level. Las Vegas is 80% white and hispanic, but consistently ranks among U.S. cities with the highest unemployment rate. And the majority of single moms in the U.S. are white. (Keep that last one in mind whenever you feel like making shitty jokes about “Tyrone runnin’ out on his baby mama”. It’s not just the Tyrones, it’s the Tanners too.)
Also, what do you make of black conservative intellectuals like Glenn Loury, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, and Larry Elder? What do you make of black conservative YouTube channels like Tinashe Peter, Officer Tatum, and Culture Proof? What do you make even of non-conservative but still anti-woke black intellectuals like Coleman Hughes, John McWhorter, and Adolph Reed? And forget your feelings about Obama as a president or about whatever his politics were for a second… are you seriously going to sit there and say he isn’t one of the best orators in American history? Are you seriously going to say Obama—as a candidate and as a president—didn’t possess a disarming degree of coolness and dignity that in turn made America look good to outside observers? Do you just pretend, when it comes to black people, that these individuals don’t exist? Are you really so willing to give black people no credit while shifting all of the blame onto them?
You and your ilk are very fond of saying “Christ is King.” While you primarily use that slogan against Jews, may I remind you that your Christ would probably not approve of the way you belittle and curse blacks? He does, after all, say in John 7:24 “Do not judge by mere appearance but instead make righteous judgements.”
Gays & Lesbians
You’ve made it known that—just as you don’t like black people—you also don’t like gays and lesbians, you think the majority of gay men are pedophiles, you don’t think gays or lesbians should serve in the military, and you’ve remarked that a “truly Christian country” would mandate conversion therapy for homosexuals. Although these kinds of sentiments are not heard as frequently on the “alt right”/“woke right” as black hatred, woman hatred, and Jew hatred, and although mandatory conversion therapy doesn’t appear to be a top legislative priority if you and your creepy comrades ever take power, I still think the subject is worth bringing up.
I have quite a few friends who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. They’re all funny, creative, pleasant, and productive individuals, and I really have no desire to see them be aggressively persecuted. Moreover, you should know that conversion therapy doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as “pray the gay away”. Which isn’t to say that gay men or lesbian women can’t convert to religions that motivate them to live lives of celibacy (anybody can do almost anything if they’re determined enough); it’s only to say that any attempt to eradicate one’s homosexuality by fasting, or repeating prayers, or attempting to summon supernatural intervention, is unlikely to succeed as far as fundamentally changing who one is attracted to. What normally happens instead, is that a person develops a rift between their unwanted sexual identity and their wanted religious identity until the rift becomes so big that they begin to feel overwhelming guilt and self-hatred.
Do I believe marriage is between a man and woman? I do. And I think governments should reserve their recognition of marriage and parenthood as being exclusively between one man and one woman.** I also think that societies should do everything in their power to encourage masculinity in men and femininity in women, with the understanding that both sexes were made to complement one another. But I don’t wish gay men or lesbian women any ill will, and I don’t feel disgust or hatred toward them. On the contrary, I tend to think that rightwing men who protest gays too strongly are likely closeted themselves. I certainly don’t want gays or lesbians or bisexuals to be physically harmed, or hunted down, or imprisoned, or in fear of their lives. It’s obvious, at least to me, that being gay or lesbian is a rare genetic phenomenon affecting 0.5% of every human population. It’s something that nobody chooses… well, maybe not ‘nobody’, but a lot of people don’t choose it. May G-d have mercy. May G-d have mercy on them, on me, on you, on everybody in the whole world.
This answer will likely not be well-received by you, wayward nephew, but it is of no matter. Yours is the soul that’s lost, along with your mind, and by exposing you to the righteous anger you are incurring not only from me but from plenty of other normal conservatives, I’m trying somewhat desperately to jar you into correcting course before you and your friends not only permanently destroy your own reputations but destroy the reputation of American conservatism entirely.
Women
You’ve made it known that you don’t like women. You spend hours on dodgy internet forums imbibing the insecurities of anonymous posters, you listen to roided-up “alpha” podcasters who are all trying (and failing) to be the next Joe Rogan, you’ve made new friends at college or high school who agree with the resentful way in which you view the world, and all of these things act as fuel to the fire that is your contempt and loathing for the opposite sex.
I’ve come up with an explanation for how this happened to you, and that explanation is comprised of two halves.
The first half of the explanation is that for nearly the entire previous decade and for the first few years of this one, a minority of women in media created the impression that all women hated masculinity. A minority of women in media created the impression that all women did not want to be approached by men. A minority of women in media created the impression that all women secretly loathed men and found their presence gross and uncomfortable. If feminist harpies hadn’t seized so much power in the entertainment and journalism industries, then I doubt that you and your friends on the “alt right”/“woke right” would be as big a problem as you are right now. But since a minority of women in media were at the forefront of every horrendous social justice cause of the past 15 years, you and your buddies couldn’t help but think that “women” (in the abstract) had declared themselves the enemies of men. (This is a ridiculous opinion, but I understand the equally ridiculous circumstances under which you arrived at it.)
The other half of the explanation, however, as to why some of your comrades feel such a visceral hostility toward women, is frankly due to the fact that they couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison with a fistful of pardons. If their dicks were made of candy and cured cancer, there would be no discernible spike in diabetes or remissions. If they stumbled into a whorehouse with a winning lottery ticket, they’d still be told “This isn’t a charity.” But since these incels likely don’t want to admit their lack of charisma or good looks, they instead have come up with elaborate theories about “what’s wrong with modern women” and it appears that you—dear nephew—have been taken in by these.
So because you have allowed the feminists of yesteryear to embitter you, and because you have chosen to be influenced by peers who themselves have zero or minimal experience with dating, you’ve apparently begun making demeaning remarks toward women like “Repeal the 19th”, “Back to the kitchen”, and “Your body my choice” like a fucking dweeb. This dumb humor is coupled with your serious (and alarming) assertions that women should be pushed out of the workforce, that women secretly want to be groped, that women need to be slapped when they become overemotional, and that women should not be given much in the way of formal education.
Now… let me step back for a minute and tell you that men being cranky at women and women being cranky at men… that’s nothing new. The battle of the sexes has been raging since the beginning of the sexes. Men and women have always expressed frustration and confusion toward each other in general, whilst usually at the same time loving one member of the opposite sex in particular. (“Men are pigs but I scored a good one”, “Women are ballbusters but mine’s pretty great.”) Our brains are different. Men and women are different. And those differences don’t come without tension; tension that men and women normally deal with by making fun of each other passive-aggressively as a way of tolerating each other in moments when neither is fun and naked. If I could sum up the basic biological and psychological dynamic between guys and gals, that simple biological and psychological dynamic would be: mutual bewilderment, mutual attraction, and mutual antagonism. All of which is normal. All of which is not going away anytime soon.
But what you and your buddies are engaging in is not typical “battle of the sexes” stuff. And you know it. The animosity you’re displaying is something quite different from what I’ve just described. The hatred (not confusion, not frustration, hatred) you have toward women is nihilistic and—oddly—rooted to some degree in self-loathing.
Tell me, wayward nephew, is it really your position that women shouldn’t work or be a part of public life at all? Because morality aside, if it is, and you’re trying to break into politics in America, you’re gonna have a very hard time convincing me and your neighbors to vote for you. Conservatives don’t hate women. Conservatives don’t resent women. You’ve mistaken our resistance to feminism for a resistance to all things female, and buddy, that mixup is gonna cost you dearly if you don’t pump the breaks.
I want to invite you to change your opinion about women being inferior. I want to help you see that women are not only equal to men as far as intellect, creativity, and worth, but that also—like men—women can be brilliant. Women can be geniuses. Please allow me to show you how foolish your ideas are. And you know what, afterward, if you come to your senses and want to publicly deny that you ever held the chauvinistic beliefs you’re currently holding, I’ll keep this exchange a secret. We’ll forget this ever happened. I don’t want your life to be ruined, I simply want you to repent and unfuck yourself before it’s too late.
Consider the following examples of impressive women who—though impressive—never saw their impressiveness as license to hate men; and as you consider these impressive women, maybe reconsider your own hatred and reflect on whether you’ve done anything as impressive with your life or plan to.
Watch this Lex Fridman interview with Ivanka Trump. Is she not the embodiment of feminine radiance? I hate to sound over-the-top, but in this case my sincerity = gushing. That woman is radiance personified. But she’s not just radiant. Hear her talk. She is profound and witty and glowing in a way that gives life when she speaks about the subjects she’s so clearly passionate about (gothic architecture in Chicago, the business side of jewelry and fashion, the immigration journey of her mother). I don’t think a woman as elegant as her has walked the halls of the White House since Jackie Kennedy. Truly. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is a lucky man.
Listen to Billie Holiday sing “Solitude” and feel your soul long for the love and warmth and sweet melancholy you’ve deprived yourself of and deprived others of. This woman was not only the greatest jazz singer of the 1930s and 40s, but she was also a martyr. A martyr for American freedom. A martyr for free speech. When the federal government warned Holiday in 1939 to stop singing her anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit”, she refused, and as a result endured harassment by authorities to her dying day. It’s thanks in part to her that you have the ability to voice your appalling views without state intimidation, and likewise thanks to her that I have the ability to criticize you for those views.
Meg White was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Without her, a band like The White Stripes never would have existed during my teenage years. I remember when “Seven Nation Army” came out. I remember when I first heard it on the radio. The music one encounters from age 12-16 is music one never forgets, and Meg White played a huge role in shaping the music that those of us who were teens between ‘03 and ‘07 lived by. More importantly though, she paved the way in the 2000s for the great female rockers of the 2010s; among which were Emily Haines (of Metric), Lzzy Hale (of Halestorm), Dorothy Martin (of Dorothy), and Taylor Momsen (of The Pretty Reckless).
I just finished reading the newest thriller novel by T.J. Newman. It easily beats anything written by Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler. As did her first novel. She’s so good at creating suspense, in fact, that if she ever did a book signing anywhere in the North Texas area, I would be at the front of the line asking for advice instead of an autograph.
Do you think this all means nothing? Do you think the world would have been better if Ivanka Trump, Billie Holiday, Meg White, and T.J. Newman hadn’t pursued the ambitions that made them successful (and made them feel—I presume—fulfilled)? Do you really believe that “tending to home and hearth” is the ONLY thing a woman is suited for?
Maybe you do.
But in that case you should know that your career in politics, or political philosophy, or punditry, or any public-facing occupation you dream about will be short-lived. Nobody has time for this. Nobody wants an American Taliban.
Abortion
On your social media you’ve made it known—multiple times and in all caps—that you want to outlaw abortion with no exceptions; not even in cases of rape or where the life of the mother is in danger. This opinion is not solely due to your troubling political views, but due as well to your recent interest in “based” versions of Christianity that you’ve woven into your politics. Last year you wouldn’t come to the family Halloween party because “Halloween was satanic and you couldn’t celebrate it in good conscience as a Reformed Calvinist”… then when Thanksgiving rolled around, you told us at dinner that you were Eastern Orthodox… and then at your office Christmas party, you told your boss that as a Trad Catholic you believed the only thing that belonged on top of the tree was a star and not a “secular” snowflake. But regardless of which Jesus ultimately wins out in your game of Jesus Roulette, you say you hold to a Christian Nationalist worldview that not only demands mandatory conversion therapy for homosexuals but also a total abortion ban with zero exceptions.
Truthfully wayward nephew, I’m not as invested in making sure you change your opinion that there should be no exceptions for abortion. Plenty of well-meaning people hold that conviction, and though it’s a controversial point of view, it doesn’t belong in the same universe as hating black people, gays, and women. On the contrary, if babies are being murdered, then the burden of explanation lies with the person who believes exceptions exist that would justify allowing that.
Yet, as you’ve likely predicted by now, your salty uncle does believe in exceptions for abortion, and to explain why, I want to recall a tense dialogue I had some time ago with a rightwing Christian coworker. This recollection may help you consider a perspective you haven’t considered before, which, again, is not so much about you changing your mind, but more about you not judging people harshly who hold a slightly less anti-abortion stance than you do.
My coworker said to me, “I thought you were against abortion.”
“I am.”
And he winced for a split-second and replied, “But when we were talking about the October 7th attack on Israel, you said that if any of the female hostages came back pregnant from their captors, you hoped they would receive access to abortion.”
“I did, yes.”
“And then you said that the humiliation of Jewish women by Muslim men in front of the world was certain to become an instance where a real event took on unwanted and unfortunate symbolism; the symbolism in this case being ‘macho virile Islam’ bending ‘submissive bitch Judaism’ over the mattress while ‘coward Christianity’ hid under the squeaking bed hoping it wouldn’t be next. And you talked about how that demeaning symbolism would be very hard to erase from the world’s collective psyche if those rape-babies weren’t aborted upon the return of pregnant hostages. You said that anything less than the abortion of Hamas-babies would be a victory not only for Hamas but for global jihadism. Do you really believe that?”
“I do.”
“So you’re not against abortion?”
“I am against abortion. I’m against abortion in every circumstance except in cases of rape or if the life of the mother is in immediate danger. I don’t believe a woman has a moral requirement to carry a baby to term that was conceived through sexual torture and violence.”
“But the baby shouldn’t be punished for the torture and violence that created it.”
“It’s not about punishing the baby. It’s about not rewarding an evildoer with genetic offspring that came from the humiliation of his victim.”
“So you don’t consider it murder if the baby comes from rape?”
“I do consider it murder. The abortion is still murder because the unborn life is still a life. But despite the woman being the technical murderer of the unborn baby, I do not believe the guilt of murder is placed on her moral ‘balance sheet’, I think it’s placed on the rapist’s. I think he bears responsibility both for the woman’s trauma and the baby’s murder. The victim of the rape bears no guilt for actions taken afterward to preserve herself physically and psychologically.”
“See I don’t think there’s any situation that can make murder morally permissible though.”
“Oh I can absolutely think of cases where murder is morally permissible.”
“Like what?!”
Seeing that my answer shocked and horrified him (and understanding how it would shock and horrify most people), I decided to give one example of a justified instance of murder outside the framework of the abortion debate. “Let’s say you have a genius engineer who’s a Canadian citizen. He’s gained a reputation in his field for developing long range artillery technology. He’s on the cusp of using his expertise in long range artillery to develop—of all things—a ‘space gun’ capable of launching missiles at other countries from outer space. The only problem is, despite this engineer being Canadian, he intends to sell his invention to a dictator in the Middle East. For the sake of our analogy, we’ll say the dictator is Iraqi. Now nobody knows why this Canadian engineer wants to sell a super weapon to Iraq. Ideology, money, disillusionment, spite? It doesn’t really matter though. What matters is that he can’t be allowed to make that sale. He can’t be allowed to make that sale because you, the leader of another country—let’s say Israel—know that the Iraqi dictator this engineer plans on selling his ‘space gun’ to, is going to use that weapon to attack your capital. You then ask the Canadian government to investigate and arrest their citizen. But they don’t. So… running out of time before the sale is set to take place, you (the PM of Israel) authorize assassins to fly to Canada, go to the engineer’s home, ring his doorbell, and shoot him five times in the head.”
“That sounds oddly specific.”
“It is. The engineer’s name was Gerard Bull, he wanted to sell his super weapon to Saddam Hussein, and Saddam Hussein claimed he wanted to use Bull’s weapon to attack Tel Aviv. But none of these details are the point. The point is, Israel murdered the shit out of Gerald Bull. They turned his face into a spilt can of Chef Boyardee. Was that justified or unjustified? It wasn’t self-defense strictly speaking, because the danger wasn’t immediate and may never have materialized at all. The danger was probable but not definite. So the killing was murder. But one can argue—and I do—that killing an evildoer who’s in the midst of implementing a scheme that’s likely to dramatically ruin the wellbeing or end the lives of you or your loved ones in the future supersedes the normal protocol of ‘only killing when danger is imminent’. In other words, it’s not that murder isn’t always wrong. Murder is always wrong. It’s just that the wrongness of that act is dwarfed by the wrongness of allowing an evil person to continue their scheme of evil. There’s a hierarchy of morals, and which moral becomes subordinate to another depends on the context in which these morals compete. Which is to say, a wrong being contextually permissible does not make the wrong any less wrong, only… permissible. In the case of a woman being raped and impregnated by her rapist, the abortion of an unborn child is permissible in order to prevent a) the double trauma of a woman being forced to give birth to a human created by the very act that first traumatized her, b) the double reward of a rapist gaining a son or daughter from the victim he took pleasure in raping, and c) a twisted incentive being created for future rapists to impregnate women they’re obsessed with, knowing that the state will force those women to give birth.”
“But this sounds like relativism and ‘anything goes’, and I thought you thought morality was objective.”
“Morality is objective. And I don’t believe in ‘anything goes’, you know me better than that. But that doesn’t mean that the exercise of objective morality never has a situational component to it. Of course it does. 99% of the time engineers don’t deserve to get murdered by Mossad. 99% of the time unborn babies shouldn’t be murdered by their mothers. But you’re never gonna get rid of 1% no matter how hard you try.”
“You’re saying a unique situational component can lessen the wrongness of a wrong committed?”
“You think not?”
“But you’re Jewish. You believe in the Ten Commandments. What happened to ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’? You’re saying ‘Thou shalt not murder except maybe sometimes if you’re in a pinch.’”
“Oh come on, even you can surely see that lists of moral pronouncements—even divine ones—are expected to be followed generally and in most cases, and not adhered to in every single situation regardless of circumstances. You and I also believe in the eighth commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ But does the Lord expect us to cut off the hand of a starving man who steals a loaf of bread? Does the Lord judge a society kindly that incarcerates struggling single mothers for shoplifting milk? Exodus 34:6 tells me that G-d is merciful and slow to anger and abounding with lovingkindness and compassion.”
At this point I remember my coworker being quiet for a few seconds, and I could see a discomfort on his face that conveyed he was being forced to countenance a position his particular worldview required him not to countenance. Then he came back with a response which in retrospect I think was meant to reassure himself rather than address me: “I bet I could find people who were the products of rape that would tell you how happy they are their moms let them live.”
“And that’s great for them. But I bet those people wouldn’t know to be unhappy if their moms hadn’t.”
“Wow, seriously? And what if the mom discovers that keeping the baby was the best decision she ever made-”
“‘Decision’ you say?”
“You know what I mean! What if the mom discovers that keeping the baby was the best thing she was ever made to do, even if that baby was a product of the worst moment of her life?”
“Mkay, and what if the rapist files for joint custody of the baby and it’s granted? It’s happened before. Numerous times. Now not only does the victim of a rape have to carry a child to term, but she has to be in contact with her rapist on a weekly or monthly basis for 18 years. And what if the rapist gains joint custody of the baby with his rape victim, and then proceeds to rape that child? Look, I understand that it sounds bold and principled to be ‘100% pro-life with no exceptions’ but I object to that. And I don’t care if that means I’ve failed some conservative or religious purity test.”
“Well thank goodness the majority of conservative voters won’t tolerate compromise on abortion. And it’d be career suicide for any Republican politician to suggest compromises.”
“Oh I disagree. I think most Americans understand pretty well that issues like abortion have nuances. I think most people have lived pretty hard lives, and are more emotionally intelligent than they get credit for. And when it comes to the issue of pregnancy, I definitely think the crusade by a loud minority within the Republican Party against contraceptives like the Morning After Pill are insane and ill-informed.”
“But the Morning After Pill is an abortion pill!”
“See this is what scares me. The Morning After Pill is not an abortion pill. It doesn’t prevent an already-fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. It prevents ovulation so that the unfertilized egg isn’t released into the fallopian tube. And in cases where ovulation is already occurring, the pill can thicken cervical mucus so that sperm gets trapped and can’t fertilize the egg. What you just said scares me, because it’s indicative of conservative policymakers crafting abortion policy who don’t know any of the basics about contraceptives or medical scenarios wherein abortion might be absolutely necessary. It’s gonna get women killed.”
Conspiracy Theories
You’ve made it known that you no longer trust the “official narratives” about any event being reported on in the news.
I get it.
The pandemic of 2020 ushered in a much deserved decline in public trust in major political, scientific, academic, and journalistic institutions. I remember when we were made to feel crazy for suggesting that Covid came from a lab leak and not from a bat. I remember when Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden White House, Anthony Fauci (fuckety fuckwit fuckface), told us masks wouldn’t stop the spread, only to change his mind and say they would, only to later say that actually you needed to wear two masks one on top of the other, only to eventually claim you needed to wear just one mask after you were vaccinated, only to reverse course and say actually you didn’t need to wear a mask at all after vaccination.
(Just prior to the pandemic, Jeffrey Epstein—the infamous arrested sex trafficker for politicians, celebrities, and billionaire philanthropists—“killed himself” on suicide watch in a maximum security prison. So to be fair, public trust in institutions was already on the wane before Covid. But Covid was the straw that broke the camel’s back.)
The absurdity of the lies we were told six years ago is something I’ve already written about, but I bring it up again only to say that I understand your reflexive distrust to every single thing governments, international health authorities, NGOs, and major corporations say. I really do. No institution is above scrutiny, no institution deserves unwavering deference, no institution at this point deserves anything other than our disdain. Bureaucrats and media-trained “experts” are worthy of little respect, politicians even less, and corporate lackeys even less than them; and the narratives that all three believe are “best for us” should be gone over with a fine-tooth comb before being digested in any amount. You know, nephew, that I am not shy about attacking people who think formal credentials are what distinguish the knowledgable from the ignorant.
At the same time, believing in all conspiracy theories is just as bad as believing in no conspiracy theories.
By combining your need to be entertained with your hyper-vigilance, you fall into the trap of training your brain to recognize “patterns” even where there aren’t any actual patterns, until ultimately you get to a dangerous place where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable. You have to avoid this at all cost. You have to protect your brain’s ability to separate substance from noise based on evidence and probability. The only way you—as a conservative—can have discussions with folks who aren’t, is if you and the other person share the same version of reality. (And I hate to use that word “version”, because reality doesn’t have versions, it simply is; but for lack of a better term, the only way you and the other person can successfully discuss or debate is if you already have a series of agreed-upon baseline facts from which to examine differences.)
This ability to stay grounded becomes especially important when conservatives are asked to speak at length about topics of cultural or national significance:
We can’t talk about the threat of Islam to Western civilization if you think the U.S. government, the Jews, the Freemasons, or the Illuminati were “who really did” 9/11.
We can’t credibly talk about differentiating between reality and alarmism when it comes to climate change, if you believe the moon landing and dinosaurs were faked and the earth is flat.
We can’t talk about utilizing shared Israeli intelligence on ISIS cells in Minneapolis, if you believe the Holocaust was a hoax and that millions of Jews didn’t perish under Hitler.
We can’t credibly defend our Second Amendment rights, if you believe every school shooting is a “false flag operation” and accuse the grieving parents of being liars.
I don’t mean to sound insufferable, like those stupid yard signs from a few years ago, “In this house we believe…”
But “in this house”—meaning the conservative space—we should “believe” (accept) that 9/11 was orchestrated by Al-Qaeda, that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, that the earth is round, that dinosaurs are real, that the Holocaust happened, and that school shootings aren’t staged.
(The fact that I even have to write a sentence like this makes me think “What a time to be alive.”)
In Conclusion
In conclusion, wayward nephew, you and your friends have to stop. Stop yelling “Christ is King” at Jews, stop going to conservative events and berating the speakers on the stage for “selling out the movement”, and stop forcing sane conservatives to clean up your mess when outsiders wonder aloud in confusion about the civil war on the right.
You think you’re being impish and edgy and savage, but what you’re actually being is moronic. You’re acting like a toddler who says “poop” and “pee” over and over because they enjoy watching mom get mad and don’t think dad will beat them with his belt. You badly need to be beaten with a belt and sometimes I’m not even sure I mean that figuratively.
You look down on black people. Well guess what? They know that. They pick up on it. And it’s wrong. Is it true that in the past decade, white Americans and Europeans have been bullied into expressing shame for their history and pressured to punish themselves for their ancestors’ sins? Yes. Is it true that groups like BLM and Antifa have browbeaten white people in an attempt to make them feel collective guilt? Yes. Should we refuse to be lectured about “racism” from activists who clearly hate white people? Absolutely. But maybe take a break from the news and the internet for a few days, and go socialize outside in the town or city you live in.*** Maybe be friendly to your black neighbor, and you’ll find that they can be friendly back. Maybe be friendly to your black neighbor, and they’ll tell you that no one has ever been friendly to them before.
You fear gays and lesbians. Don’t panic! If you see one in the wild, stand perfectly still without blinking or breathing and they’ll mistake you for a tree. (Your chances of not being eaten increase if you pour deer piss on yourself so they can’t detect human scent.)
You can’t figure out women. Cry me a river. Welcome to Being A Young Man 101. Don’t write a manifesto or join a cult. Buy cologne. They sell Burberry Touch at Costco for $34.
You oppose abortion. So do I. But being anti-abortion—though not an elastic position—is nevertheless a position with pockets of wiggle room. It is not a straitjacket. And if you tell your fellow Americans that it is a straitjacket, don’t be surprised when they never agree to wear it.
You distrust major institutions and official narratives. Great, so do most people. But that doesn’t mean you need to “like Hitler” or “call bullshit on dinosaurs” or accuse grieving parents of kids killed in massacres of being “FBI crisis actors”. Your distrust and paranoia are not a hall pass for making an ass of yourself.
You need to splash water on your face, trim your beard, grow up, and strive to be a normal well-adjusted person. A person who contributes to his community and country, who finds his faith, and who maybe has a family someday.
I know the economy sucks. I know homeownership seems distant (and hell it might even be distant). I know we’ve all been lied to by our government, by our schools, and by corporations. I know inflation is still high and wages still suck. I know a lot of y’all are living with your parents and you’re embarrassed by that. I know a lot of y’all are angry because you work so goddamn hard and feel like your lives are going nowhere; like a tire spinning in a rut. I know that me saying “You need to splash water on your face, trim your beard, grow up, and strive to be a normal well-adjusted person” sounds a lot like a boomer telling you to pay your college tuition by getting a summer job. I don’t intend it that way. I just mean that the longer you spend going down rabbit holes and buying into alarming views, the deeper you’ll sink into despair. And the deeper you sink into despair, the less likely you are to ever live a meaningful life. And yes—yes, yes—I still think it is possible in 2026 (with enough prayer and effort and perseverance and goodwill), to build a meaningful life for yourself and those you cherish.
As far as your politics, look, listen: you don’t have to be reckless and deranged in order to be a radical force in the conservative movement and in American culture more broadly. There are plenty of noble causes you can crusade for that a) won’t get you put on the no-fly list and b) that much of mainstream conservatism is still too afraid to touch. Believing that we should go back to the gold standard of money is pretty radical. Adopting Georgism as a tax plan is pretty radical. Banning pornography is pretty radical. Outlawing adultery is pretty radical. Eliminating public schools and having private schooling and homeschooling only is pretty radical. Expanding the death penalty to encompass more crimes (like violent rape and pedophilia) is pretty radical. Not allowing foreign companies to purchase American land is pretty radical. Cracking down on giant agriculture corporations who enslave American farmers via debt, and promoting independent regenerative farming as an alternative, is pretty radical. You don’t have to be crazy or malicious or obnoxious to be radical. Radicalism can be a wonderful thing that’s displayed with grace and charisma… as long as that radicalism recognizes a transcendent order, promotes the formation of families, possesses an abundance of prudence and mercy in conjunction with its ambition, and identifies its limits rather than yields to the temptation of becoming tyrannical.
Don’t make me a “moderate” against my will by forcing me to continue opposing you. Don’t embrace ideologies and bigotries so terrible that basic sanity becomes the new center in “center-right”. Don’t expand the Overton Window so drastically that all but you and your friends see it as a portal to hell, while conservatives like me discover that we no longer have room to be the right kind of radicals.
