 So I remember about five years ago, we started talking about kind of the alt-right and I remember I did a couple of shows I think on what was then kind of the Iran book show or something similar about the alt-right. And then of course we had the election and everything else happened and that's when I kind of noticed them and the alt-right and you know after the show I got all this anti-semitic stuff and it was pretty nasty. And they've been around since then at the fringes nipping away and we'd be talking about this phenomenon on the right for a long time but when did this kind of come to consciousness for you, when did this issue become real and then what has stimulated kind of your most more recent interest in writing and engagement with this? Yeah, so as you said four or five years ago, I think we both started hearing about becoming moderately interested in what at the time was called the alt-right. And, you know, I think the turning point event was Charlottesville and the protestants Charlottesville and the aftermath of what happened in Charlottesville and I think it shocked me, it shocked you, it shocked I think a lot of people that there was this movement, which at the time consisted of a number of sort of very disparate groups I would say, from, you know, neo-Nazis to various white nation's front people, various identitarian groups. I mean, I think the coalition that formed at Charlottesville was actually a fairly, well, fairly broad spectrum group of people that loosely went under the name of the alt-right, probably the most famous person associated with the alt-right. And I think the guy who gave the name to it is this Richard Spencer guy who was a white nationalist type. But with Charlottesville, the whole thing seemed to implode and in fact it really did implode, the alt-right died I think in many ways at Charlottesville. And then that whole sort of movement just kind of, it seemed on the surface to my way of thinking, it kind of disappeared. And then it was now, I guess, two years ago that I became aware of a different kind of movement that was not necessarily associated with the alt-right. And it was a movement that was primarily online that grew out of places like 4chan and 8chan. And it was largely an underground movement of young people who took Pepe the Frog as their mascot. Well, Pepe was really the mascot of the alt-right even five years ago. Maybe, yeah, might have been, but Pepe only came to me sort of post alt-right. And this was the time of Milo Yiannopoulos and other people like that. And I started noticing that young people in particular were latching onto this. I had been aware of following, had been writing on the sort of general generic rights for quite a number of years. Well, we wrote a book together, right? That's right. On the Neoconservatives. I did a book on Neoconservatism and I'd actually been sort of writing on the conservative intellectual movements for probably 20 years, even prior to the Neocon book. But the right, broadly speaking, both conservative and libertarian was largely a movement that had increasingly become focused in Washington, D.C. And in the major conservative and libertarian think tanks, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, et cetera, et cetera. So it was a movement at the time, and now we're talking sort of 2000, up to maybe 2010 at the most. It was a movement led by these white paper think tanks, for lack of a better term. So in other words, it was a movement of grown-ups, you might say. But then all of a sudden, I don't know, I think around 2017, I became aware that there was this underground movement of young people, and they were entirely online. And so I started exploring. I mean, I had kind of a personal interest in the subject because it turns out somebody that I had known had been a part of this world, which I knew nothing about. And so I started exploring it. And I quickly discovered, and you and I have talked about this at the time, young 14-year-old girl who goes by the name of Sof, who was putting out these incredibly provocative, I mean, and that's putting it mildly, videos. And she had a million followers on YouTube. And then there was this guy, Sam Hyde, who's very popular on what I call the dissidents' right. And he had his own TV show and the guy was frankly kind of a madman. Anyway, I just, I started following this world. And then I think the turning point came in August of 2018. And interestingly enough, two, I'd say important things happened that year. The first was Jordan Peterson's sort of disappearance. That's when Peterson just sort of fell off the map. Or maybe that was, I'm sorry, that was 2019. He fell off the map in 2019. And so in August of 2019, Jordan Peterson just fell off the edge of the earth. And then he stopped giving talks. And I think most people know his very sad story since then. But the very same month, the Claremont Review of Books published a review by Michael Anton, who was the author of the infamous Flight 93 election essay that really was a kind of catalyst behind the Trump campaign in 2016. People don't know that essay. Can you quickly give it a, like a one paragraph summary? Yeah. Well, the thesis is, think of the 2016 election as Flight 93. And you're a passenger on Flight 93. And you basically have two options. You can just go down with the plane that's been taken over by terrorists, or you can, against all odds, try and fight the terrorists and take back the plane, the plane. And maybe you have some small possibility of surviving. But basically the argument down anyway, but at least you fought in a sense, but at least you fought. Yeah. And that, that's how Anton viewed Trump's election. The left has become increasingly to tell the Terian, they are going to destroy America. Trump for all of his vices and flaws is the only possibility to fight the left. So you might as well vote for Trump. So Anton wrote a review of a book titled Bronze Age Mindset by the perversely named Bronze Age pervert. And up until that point, I'm not sure that I even heard of the book or of the Bronze Age pervert. But that review, which was a review that was both in awe and in shock of this book by Bronze Age pervert. But on the whole, though, I would say the Anton review was generally speaking, at the very least fascinated by Bronze Age mindset, if not somewhat supportive of the Bronze Age mindset. And from that moment forward, certainly in one small corner of the online dissident right, particularly amongst graduate students in political philosophy. And all of a sudden, the Bronze Age pervert and his book became the hottest ticket in town. And so the Bronze Age pervert has a has a very large following on Twitter, almost 60,000 followers on Twitter. He has a very popular podcast called Caribbean rhythms. And so that's, you know, I started becoming very interested in what was happening with with the online dissident right and because you know, I'm a university professor, I'm interested in what young people are interested in. And with this larger interest in that I've had for decades now in the on the right in, you know, an interest in conservatism and libertarianism. I just started following this stuff. And I will go ahead. Well, I mean, Anne has a question that where she's attempting to insult both of us, but she says that you did a show on BAP a year ago from bad suggestion is actually longer than a year ago but yes. At what point is the focus on the fringe right away to steer clear of cancel culture. I mean you're talking to Brad who has been cancer cultures attempted to cancel many times and has fought them vigorously on campus and has published up ads against them and has done, you know, all kinds of work with regard to cancer culture, and I basically devoted I think 50% of the last few shows to cancel culture so what you want and what many of these people want is that we never talk about the fringe right because the only enemy, the only enemy is the left. And this is a good question I guess. Is it true that in the you know is BAP a friend because the left is our enemy. Well, the answer that is absolutely not right so that's why in just almost a year ago now so I guess in May of 2020. I wrote this essay that that has caused an enormous firestorm of controversy title the rise and fall of the pajama boy title that you just can't get out of your head. And, and with that, then I have spent the last 10 months of my life, battling with these guys who have launched a kind of personal. Not ideological interestingly enough but a personal jihad against me. And so, if for some reason and thinks that Brad Thompson hasn't been a victim of both the woke right and the woke left she's sorely mistaken. I spent an entire academic career, being attacked and and attempts to cancel me by both the right and the left. And I'm probably one of the few people in history who's been foy it three times. I have freedom of information requests, where, you know, hundreds of pages of my emails have been produced, and, and, and attempted to make public so this this is a trend on, among certain, you know, people affiliate with objectivism that, and it's a trend I think on the right more broadly on the, on the better right that there's only one enemy and that's the left and we should focus all our energy all efforts on that and ignore So I, we've done two shows by and his own admission in one year right a year ago or now, and that to her is she's going up a plaque take because of two shows, because we haven't dedicated every second of every waking moment to attacking cancer cancer culture, which is being attacked by us but also by, you know, plenty of people I mean there's a whole army out there attacking culture culture, every single day anyway, back to back so you published pajama needs issues which is one of the great titles ever. And it got it really got them it got people talking, but before we get to back before we really dig into about the article doesn't just go after about, I mean and and I don't want to present it as a only force on the right that we think is worthy dealing with. But it also takes on kind of the trad cons traditional conservatives. So talk a little bit about trad cons, and then maybe broader what what what you consider the dissident right and who who who counts within the dissident right. So, you know, there, there are all kinds of sub factions in the dissident right. I've been primarily concerned with, I think the two largest factions, the so called Catholic trad cons or cath trads as they're sometimes called on the one hand, and then primarily bronze age pervert and his followers on the other hand, the Catholic trad cons, as they're called in the essay the pajama boy Nietzsche ends I take up primarily two of the leading voices of the Catholic trad cons, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, a guy named Patrick Denean, who wrote a book called why liberalism failed, and then so Rob Amari, who is the editor of the New York Post. And, and, and what I what I try to do in the pajama boy Nietzsche and essay is demonstrate that both of these factions of the reactionary right are profoundly anti American and in fact not only are they that, but they join with the left in their anti Americanism so in the essay I begin with a critique of the 1619 project. And, and then I turn to these, these, these two factions which I consider to be equally anti American, and they are openly and explicitly anti American so the Catholic trad cons for instance on the one hand. I would argue that all of the things that they regard to be corrupt immoral and evil in 21st century America. And this would be primarily on on cultural issues so so Rob Amari seems particularly exercised by drag drag queen reading power, for instance, right. And, and, but what Amari and Denean one argue is that the nihilism and moral relativism of late 20th and 21st century liberalism is the direct result indeed it is the culmination of the principles of the anti American founding. So, for Denean and Amari, there is a straight line between the Declaration of Independence and the Port Huron statement which was the, the, the, the new left statement of the 1960s that there's a direct relationship between Thomas Jefferson's ideas and that and drag queen story hour right so it's one continuous whole, it's the working out of those ideas. And that is just simply false. And then they make a very specific claim, both there and you know in the whole Amari French which was this fight with on within the right. I read a lot of kind of what they what these trad cons were writing the real opposition they have is really twofold it's the individualism. The individualism is what the left is about. And it's a, you know rejection of community and tradition, and in the state and the common good and the public interest, and all that so they reject individualism they blame the funny fathers for instilling and that the inevitable outcome individualism is the left and then, in a sense they don't do this explicitly, they reject reason they reject at least the individual's capacity to think for themselves. And so what they reject is individual values, and your choice of values your ability to use your mind, because, again that leads to subjectivism, which is what what they blame that link between Jefferson and and in the modern left to be. Absolutely so I mean the way the way the way to sum it up is the founders view is that the purpose of government is to protect the rights of individuals for the Catholic trad cons the purpose of government is to promote virtue and the common good, or the public welfare. And of course I mean that the whole idea of the common good is an anti concept that that has that has no basis in in in reality. And so they they are willing to use the coercive force of the state to make men good, rather than withdrawing the force the course of force of the state in order to make men free. And that's the fundamental difference between their view and the founders view, but somehow they believe that that the founders emphasis on on individual rights and individualism leads to the what they consider to be the corrupt culture of the world in which we live today. And so, you know that you might you might describe them as central planners of the right, as the central planners of the left want to control, want to control man's body they want to control what you know what he produces these central planners of the right want to control what he thinks. And, and, and his, his, his, his moral views. So, and I've noted, I've noted on my show that they now have a parallel in politics which is the people like Josh Holly and, and others who admit to being central planners and want government to control much of our behavior. So they are people now in Washington who, you know, manifest these ideas. And we know we've got new think tanks centered around these kind of ideas. One by Cass and another one I forget the name of we've got conferences of conservative nationalists who these people all affiliated with I mean there was, this is more than just an academic movement this is now an academic political movement. Yeah, it is and the Catholic trad cons, they, they tend to be somewhat more intellectually respectable because you know they all have those fancy college degrees and, and some of them teach it at universities and they have high powered visible positions in the media and amongst the intellectual elite, Bronze Age pervert and his followers, however, you know, it's a movement mostly of young men, I'd say between the ages of 18 and 35. But with Bronze Age pervert and his followers. They likewise reject the principles of the American founding. So, you know what are they often instead so you know the the the trad cons. We know what they're often instead they offer kind of a traditionalist authoritarian. You know we can impose our values on you and we're going to guide society to be good. What is, what is BAPS BAP is short for Bronze Age pervert. What is BAPS solution what's his ultimate state. I mean, BAPS philosophy is there's a lot to say about it and much of it is profoundly convoluted, but there is there is a kind of systematic philosophy but to go directly to your question I mean what what is the end point what is the political end point of baptism. It is by his own admission, and that of his followers. It is what they call Caesarism. So, I mean, and it's military rule, it's the military state that they are proponents of and BAP in the book Bronze Age mindset and on his podcast. See who is he tells you who his political heroes are. They include Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Edward, yes, Eduardo Strozner, Juan, Perón, Salazar and Franco from Spain and Portugal. Right, so those are the big revival and interest in Franco. It's interesting. He's considered the less bloody of all the dictators of the 20th century. And there's a there's a lot of people now coming out of Franco wasn't that bad that you know, unbelievable. Yeah, so it's at the very least, it's strong man authoritarian rule and and and that it's worse it's it's in there and in the essays that I wrote after the rise and fall of the pajama by Nietzscheans. And I've sort of laid out fairly systematically BAPs moral and political philosophy. And it at the, at the very least it's flirting with fascism, if not openly supporting. If you admire Saddam Hussein you're flirting with fascism there's no meaning today. What I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, women or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. 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