Foreign policy, American politics, and social science
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Just did a livestream discussing Trump’s trip to the Middle East, and a new Free Press piece on the influence of Qatar. I go over the differences between campaigns by foreign governments targeting Elite Human Capital and Low Human Capital. Later, I discuss some further thoughts on my article on Yarvin’s case for populism, and whether we can build a…
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Inspired by Scott Alexander’s piece today on how Moldbug sold out, I discuss my Unified Theory of the Far Right. It explains the transition from Moldbug the Monarchist to Yarvin the Right-Wing Populist, and also why Bronze Age Pervert under all his eccentricities always ends up supporting immigration restrictionist politicians and parties. JD Vance…
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Last week I shared a five-minute video on X of a woman hitting on various men around a university campus that has now received nearly four million views. It’s such a beautiful social experiment because you see a series of young men put in the exact same situation and watch their reactions. You can observe the gradations in how confident men are and…
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Michael Tracey wasn’t around today, so I went solo. I start by discussing this video of Pam Bondi claiming that Trump has saved 258 million lives, a day after she put the number at 119 million. We can chalk this up to stupidity, but there’s actually something more complex going on. The nation is now living under a regime that operates in a space wh…
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This morning I noticed that Christina Buttons of the Manhattan Institute posted about the troubled teen industry, and so I happened to mention I had been sent to a rehabilitation center when I was 15. I always considered it a beneficial experience, but had noticed that Paris Hilton was leading a crusade against such facilities. After asking my X fo…
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Michael Tracey and I discuss the reported peace plan the Trump administration has been selling to Russia and Ukraine. If you take what Putin and Zelensky say publicly at face value, there really isn’t much hope of settling this conflict any time soon. If, on the other hand, they are just putting forward maximalist demands as negotiating ploys or fo…
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I just did a livestream with Nicholas Decker (X, Substack), a PhD student at George Mason University. I met Nick last year at Manifest, and encouraged him to write more, as I thought he had a lot of interesting ideas. I believe I might’ve also told him to not be afraid of being provocative. He apparently took that advice to heart! For the last few …
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Michael joins me for a spirited conversation about recent events. We start with the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which I think is the most important thing going on in government right now for its civil liberties and rule of law implications. We discuss the Orwellian nature of the way the administration lies about everything, including things like …
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This is a podcast review of the book The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman (2014), a biography of Roger Ailes, and the miniseries based on the book, The Loudest Voice (2019). Ailes’ life story brings together many of my main interests. He created Fox News in 1996, and ran the network until 2016, the year before his death. Fox can be cons…
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Michael Tracey is at a Senate hearing today like a real journalist, so I’m flying solo. My mood is becoming pretty dark, as reflected in my article on how Trump’s plan is to maintain a North Korea of the right. I discuss why things have gotten this bad, and the necessity of acknowledging where people who supported Trump went wrong. Someone asks abo…
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