The patchwork of the right

Many people may not have much appreciation for this because the right is always presented in such a monolithic manner. These grotesque caricatures that The Resistance loves to swing at! But this ‘new right’ that has formed is a strange and fascinating quilt…

The dynamic at play is intriguing itself. Trump functioned as the all-time historic “common aggressor”. My sociology-major wife once shared that term with me in college and it’s always made a lot of sense. One of the best means of humans bonding is through their disliking of another. Easy to bond over talking some shit. Trump was that on steroids! He functioned as such a powerful common aggressor that it held this unholy union together with almost no issue (big assist goes to the serving-media, of course, who it wouldn’t be possible without). It wasn’t that long ago, for example, that Bernie Bros hated the left-establishment more than the right. Suddenly, none of that mattered. Just Trump. Always and only Trump. It’s eerie what he was turned into…. but that’s a story for another day.

Now we have a similar dynamic in its infancy on the right. We have massive energy and a sense of unity on the right in America. You can mock “freedom” all you want, but it’s hot glue right now! And what is that bond largely? It’s common aggressor. We know what we’re against: this coercive federal force with the entirety of media and Big Tech and so many of our cultural institutions circled around it, which became so drunk on sanctimony and out of control it felt it could steer an election and then brag about it. I fired off a righteous rant the other night describing the fire that’s burning…

Theo Jordan @Theo_TJ_Jordan

I'm done being told I'm wrong. I'm doing being told what to do, what to think, what is right and wrong, what the standard is we all must meet. It's every god damn front! From what letters are capitalized to who can write cookbooks to which people its ok to have reading your words

We’re gathered around now, we’re the ones surging. And it’s been easy because we know what we’re against. The pressure from the other side seems to get more intense by the week. Drives our bond deeper and steels our resolve. This cycle has been ongoing for a long time now. The energy on the right is hot!

Theo Jordan @Theo_TJ_Jordan

@glibbergabber Through all the division they tried to curate and manufacture, what they actually created in the end was unity. 🇺🇸 Checkmate.

But who is this “right”? It’s a really interesting question. There is, of course, the GOP from a pure political sense. But a lot of us see the GOP as simply a voting-vehicle right now. That party doesn’t have our fealty. Hell, no political party owns my fealty. You earn it. I’ll be with you if I think it’s right for the country. So the GOP isn’t a good description at all, even though it’s going to roar in this next cycle in the voting booths because of this energy that will be behind it. But there are a lot like me. People who don’t have much connection with the GOP. People who haven’t spent their lives devoted on the right but now find themselves there squarely. I can’t speak for others, but for me the path is clear. I’ll be helping remove the current powers-that-be, clean up the layers of corruption that these pulled-back curtains have revealed, and then we’ll evaluate the new guys. If they’re the problem at that time, I’ll turn my cannons that way. I believe some things are going on that are bigger than just US elections. And I am quite certain this process is going to reveal that, put us in a posture of addressing it, and change the climate quite substantially. So, that is a later bridge. Right now my objective is clear.

Then we have the most important voting block in the nation. The many MANY people who are long-time DNC voters but are staggering away from the party like plane-crash survivors. This makes up a big chunk of that intense energy on the right. These folks feel betrayed. They’re pissed! They aren’t conservatives (though many are becoming as they spend time over here) and they surely aren’t “GOP”. A lot of them will be pulling a GOP plug in a few weeks though, I can promise you that. But I’ve maintained consistently since I came here that there is one thing that will push this block away… Donald Trump’s name on the ticket.

You have our religious right, which in my opinion are about to experience a period of growth. I very much view this leftist push (let’s call it what it is, a cultural takeover) as a secular religion. It has every hallmark. And when you view it that way, it’s very easy to contrast it with Christianity. The stark comparisons between the two at times are eerie. I’ve also mentioned I’m married to a devout Catholic and we’re raising our children under the faith, even though I myself am a life-long atheist. I feel more connected than ever to my Christian brothers and sisters here in the states, however, as I see the values and moorings pushed by the church as valuable for a society that seems to be in a freefall of deterioration. Critical pillars and values and structures I find important are reflected if not codified in religious culture, they largely stand directly antithetical to much of this leftist doctrine I so staunchly oppose. So it’s easy for me to feel a lure here, and a sense of peace on these grounds amongst the chaos. But there’s an easy line to be crossed here, as the notion of fighting against indoctrination of schoolchildren was a battle first fought in this arena. If the religious right surges and crosses fundamental protections of our nation that I view as vital, then that won’t be the camp I’m riding with. This is one of those developments I’ll have a keen eye on down the road, as my stock in the church is quite high right now.

And there are various other factions within this new right web, from outlets and names we know in the media world, old faces in new places like Glenn Greenwald, to the think tanks, and all the politicians and corporate sphere folks big and small who weave it all together. I feel very united on ‘my side’ right now. But there are a lot of big names I don’t interact with. Many important platform pieces and mantras I don’t jive with. I’m happy where I am, and I think I’m in an incredible little spot right now that is bursting with this new sense of life and optimism. A new America seems real close on the horizon now. But when the common aggressor fades, who makes up the quilt? The left is going through that bigtime now as the singular glue that was Donald Trump begins to really fade. The right will go through it and have to face this analysis and mirror in a couple years. Can the patchwork hold? We’ll see. Let’s hope we do a much better job of internal housekeeping than what we just saw.