‘Klepto-Queens’ and Far-Right Infighting

Earlier this year, the writer Sohrab Ahmari published a piece on the website of the religious-conservative magazine First Things explicitly attacking the worldview of another member of that tribe, David French.

The subject in hand was the future of the American right. Can it be reconciled both to Donald Trump and to God? Ahmari’s piece accused French of timidity, and of selling out both his politics and his faith in opposition to Trump. Ahmari phrased all this strongly, and was accused by a good number of doing so with harshness.

The Prison States

The twentieth century has passed and the world has changed. The great evil of the period can perhaps be assumed to have mutated and changed, too. That era’s gravest sin and greatest threat, totalitarianism, seems less evident today, and its equivalents are assumed to have updated their methods.

The Hopkins Trajectory

If Britain’s media culture can be thought of, in abstract, as Victor Frankenstein, Katie Hopkins thinks of herself as its monster. She is proud of the phrase but likely not of some of its implications. Hopkins wanted absolution from blame, painting herself almost as a Newtonian reaction. This is unsustainable. But she is a little like Shelley’s monster in another, different way. Cobbled together from other people’s opinions as much as the character was made of other people, Hopkins’ media profile is nonetheless unique – its animating influence the worst aspects of her character.

A New Right Reading List

When Osama bin Laden was found by the special forces of the United States and met his end, there was surprising attention paid to this bookshelf. First, and understandably, the volumes present were the subject of understandable interest. That bin Laden appeared to like the books of Noam Chomsky, at least enough to include them in his collection, elicited a little amusement.