“Something old and wild and blind at war with man and the works of man” — Poul Anderson
Years ago, I thought it was valuable for me to understand the depth of the human capacity for atrocity, so I made myself look at photos and videos of some of the worst things people had done to each other.
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people → think → other
So in 2015, I made myself watch the full, unedited video of ISIS burning a man alive in a cage.
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ISIS → make → cage
However horrifying that sounds, it was worse.
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it → sound → ?
The man stood in the cage and hung his head while masked ISIS fighters all around him sang grim chants.
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fighters → stand → chants
No scripted scene in Game of Thrones could have approached the raw, atavistic horror of that real-life execution.
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scene → script → execution
It was like something out of the ancient world — a human sacrifice on the steps of a temple built to gods long forgotten.
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It → build → gods
I thought of that video when I heard about the Trump administration’s plan to stage a public televised execution by firing squad.
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I → think → squad
The condemned man, the 2009 Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, certainly deserves death, and a firing squad is a relatively humane way to kill a man.
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squad → condemn → man
But to televise this event to the nation seemed like an act of barbarism — the kind of spectacle that was already a disgusting relic when Britain abolished it in 1868 (for the U.S., it took more than 60 more years).
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it → televise → years
Except for MAGA Republican men — a slice of a slice of the right-wing base — every segment of American society deeply opposed the idea of shooting Hasan on live TV:
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segment → oppose → TV
Seemingly swayed by the bad polling, Trump cancelled the idea, declaring that the execution wouldn’t be livestreamed.
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execution → sway → idea
But the episode has revealed something important about the nature of the men who now rule America.
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who → reveal → America
Public executions actually aren’t a new idea on the right — Charlie Kirk was calling for them years ago.
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Kirk → call → them
Now everyone knows that this wasn’t just empty rhetoric.
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this → know → ?
It is very important that we understand the New Right.
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we → understand → Right
Donald Trump himself is currently in command of the New Right, but not for much longer — he is old, older than Biden was at the same point in his presidency, and already visibly declining.
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he → decline → presidency
What’s more, Trump is a singular figure — a charismatic but spectacularly corrupt mafia type with authoritarian tendencies and a worldview mashed together from early-1990s CNN and half-remembered stories of America’s pre-WW2 glory days.
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Trump → ’ → days
There are many reasons Trump is amenable to the New Right, and became their beloved leader and standard-bearer, but he is fundamentally not of them, and when he is gone, it is that ideology, rather than another charismatic figure, which will flow into the vacuum his exit creates.
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exit → be → vacuum
Like MAGA now, it will rule through factional politics — the strategy by which a small minority becomes the majority-of-a-majority-of-a-majority.
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minority → rule → majority
The New Right will lack Trump’s charisma, but it will also lack the baggage of his corruption and (possibly) the lingering stink of his policy blunders.
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it → lack → blunders
So it is important that we understand this ideology — not simply because it rules us now, but because we may find a purer version of it ruling us sometime in the not-so-distant future.
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version → understand → future
The New Right, Western Civilization, and the Europe obsession
I already wrote a post about the New Right, in early 2025:
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I → write → 2025
A slightly abridged version was later published in The Free Press.
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version → publish → Press
In that post, I argued that the key to understanding the New Right was its conception of “Western Civilization” under siege:
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key → argue → siege
To a large-ish number of Americans, [the New Right] told a coherent story about who they were, where they came from, and what commonalities tied them together.
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commonalities → tell → them
The story it told was about “Western civilization”.
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it → tell → civilization
When I say “Western civilization”, I don’t mean it in the Cold War sense of “the free world”.
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I → say → world
It doesn’t include Japan or Latin America, and it very much does include Russia.
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it → include → Russia
The Western Civilization that the New Right believes in is defined by three things: 1) European racial descent, 2) Christian heritage, and 3) veneration of the previous two things.
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Right → believe → things
European descent and Christian heritage define “Western” for the New Right, but respect for those things defines “civilization”.
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respect → define → civilization
If you created an all-white country, and it was full of blue-haired genderqueer atheist decolonial-leftist white people, that would be anathema to the New Right…
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that → create → Right
Nor are the New Right typically pious or born-again Christians…
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Right → bear → ?
[Christianity is] more of a source of shared heritage, and a boundary that demarcates historical Europe from the rest of the world.
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that → share → world
It’s less about Christ than about Christendom.
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It → ’ → Christendom
This concept explains why the New Right cares so much about Europe.
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Right → explain → Europe
It’s important to realize that this is new.
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this → ’ → ?
Not only did they vigorously advocate against U.S. involvement in European wars, but they viewed the waves of South and East European immigration as fundamentally alien — a threat to the cultural and racial purity of America.
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they → advocate → America
Francis Walker called those immigrants “beaten men from beaten races”, and most of the restrictionism of the period — especially the famous immigration law of 1924 — was explicitly aimed at choking off the flow of people from places like Poland, Italy, and Greece.
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most → call → Poland
You can see faint echoes of that old anti-European sentiment in Trump’s desire to withdraw from NATO.
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You → see → NATO
But overall, the New Right cares much more about Europe than any incarnation of the Right in American history ever has before.
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incarnation → care → history
…and 85 more, not listed.
The Aporia
