The New Culture of the Right: Vital, Masculine and Intentionally Offensive
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Who are the speakers and what is the podcast about?
Hey, how are you? Hey, Ross. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. What an amazing head of hair you have. This is great. Thank you. Thank you. You look fantastic. You look vital, one might say. Thank you. This is a very important part of the discourse on the online, right? Well, we're going to get into that. From New York Times Opinion, I'm Ross Douthat, and this is Interesting Times.
What is the 'right-wing counterculture' and when did it emerge?
There's been a lot of talk about a vibe shift since Donald Trump's election and return to office. A change not just in American politics, but in American culture. A sense that right-wing personalities are suddenly driving cultural discourse. And one way I've been thinking about this is in terms of a phrase that is traditionally applied to the left. And that phrase is counterculture. I think the best way to understand politics right now is that the United States, for the first time in my lifetime, has a real right-wing counterculture. A edgy, radical-seeming alternative to the status quo. And so I thought one way to talk about that counterculture was to invite someone who I see — we'll see if he disagrees — as one of its representatives. And that's you, Jonathan.
So, Jonathan Kieperman, welcome to Interesting Times. Ross, it is great to be here. We've known each other for a while online, of course. Purely as digital entities, yes.
Well, you know, I'm seeing your face across from me on the screen, and I'm reminded of watching Blogging Heads, like, from, you know, 10, maybe even 15 years ago. So, we've come a long way since Blogging Heads.
That's a deep cut. So that shows just how far back your online experience really goes to the days when I had more hair and it was me and other junior varsity pundits arguing on the internet. But I think, and you can correct me about this, I think the first time that we actually seriously interacted was... Correct. Correct. And at that point, right, you had a dual identity.
What distinguishes Passage Press and the new conservative counter elite?
As Jonathan Kieperman, you were still, right, a lecturer in English at UC Irvine? Correct. That's right. And then you were Lómez, a right-wing anon is the term that people use. That's right. Who wrote pseudonymously online. So that was 2020. And then in 2022... you founded a right-wing publishing house called Passage Press. And that, I would say, raised your profile pretty dramatically to the point where you were important enough to have your real name exposed by a reporter for The Guardian. Correct. In 2024. And then by January of 2025, just recently, you were notable enough to host one of the big inaugural balls, which was called the Coronation Ball. So... Did I miss anything? How is that for an account of your trajectory?
Those are the highlights. That all tracks and covers ground well enough for us to get started on this conversation. But, you know, I do want to point out that in 2020, when we first were having this dialogue and debate over the election, you also had something of a pseudonym. And, you know, I was arguing as much with Ross Douthat as I was Italics Ross. And Italics Ross, you had written at least one column, maybe two. in which you sort of made the case for why Trump might be a superior choice to lead the country despite, you know, the sort of the amount of chaos that we'd have to endure under his leadership. And I was trying, if I remember the whole episode correctly, to sort of get italics Ross closer to the surface of, you know, the real Ross, the underlying Ross. So we all are trafficking in certain kinds of multi identities, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, I think so. Those were columns that I wrote where I essentially deliberately cultivated a kind of split personality and drew up out of my union subconscious a version of myself that was that would be pro-Trump, right? So I was never for Trump. I was part of never Trump, whatever that may have been way back in the past. And I retained a basic view that it was a mistake for conservatives to sort of lash themselves to the Trump phenomenon. And so for me, it was like Italics Ross was not the true Ross lurking below the surface. That wasn't how I thought about it. But I thought about it as, you know, a set of ideas that certainly existed in my consciousness.
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Chapters
9 chapters
1
Who are the speakers and what is the podcast about?
0:00–0:43
2
What is the 'right-wing counterculture' and when did it emerge?
0:43–2:38
3
What distinguishes Passage Press and the new conservative counter elite?
2:38–8:56
4
Why has conservative art historically struggled and what defines right-wing art today?
8:56–13:41
5
Can films like 'No Country for Old Men' and shows like 'Girls' be considered right-wing art?
13:41–16:38
6
What is vitalism and how does it relate to right-wing counterculture?
16:38–19:30
7
What is the 'Longhouse culture' and how does it affect masculinity and society?
19:30–26:03
8
Is the 'Longhouse' argument just a complaint about changing gender roles?
26:03–32:16
9
How does right-wing counterculture view Christianity and religion?
32:16–1:12:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Interesting Times
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Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint for a 150-Year Life: Is It Worth It?
Scott Galloway: America Abandoned Its ‘Unremarkable’ Young Men
How Older Americans Hoard the Future
Iran, China, Canada? A Defense of Trump’s Grand Strategy