Lyman, Kersey And Kirkpatrick On Rufo: Most Effective Activist—But Has He Peaked? | Articles

Lyman, Kersey And Kirkpatrick On Rufo: Most Effective Activist—But Has He Peaked?

09/14/2023

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VDARE.com’s BOOK CLUB is open to non-subscribers this week: Border Hawk’s Dan Lyman and Paul Kersey join me to discuss Christopher Rufo’s America’s Cultural Revolution: How The Radical Left Conquered Everything.

Complete audio below:

VDARE Book Club

Amazing interview with @VDAREJamesK, @BWLH_ and @realdanlyman on Chris Rufo's important book: "America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything"

Learn more here --> https://t.co/PSXJn0ZkjT pic.twitter.com/qZOFRaGM3j
— VDARE (@vdare) September 13, 2023

Rufo is probably the most effective single conservative activist in the United States today, helping to create an actual movement against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in education. What he’s accomplished is rare because he doesn’t back away from describing the Left as it is. His book is probably the most powerful analyses of Leftist activism since Pat Buchanan’s The Death of the West. It is an essential introduction for conservatives confused about just how this country was reduced to the sad state it is in today.

I’ve often thought that the most important truth about right-wing activism is that “those who know, can’t, and those who can, don’t know.” In other words, to truly understand the Left, you must be familiar with the history of its leading theorists and activists. But knowing what is truly at stake is not compatible with mainstream American politics. With a compliant media, it is simply too easy for a system that is fundamentally controlled by the other side to marginalize patriot activists and make them look crazy or extreme. Facing this, the temptation is to actually become extreme, because a vanguardist solution looks like the only way forward in the face of such an overwhelmingly hostile Regime.

Rufo is the exception. He remains connected to the mainstream and is politically effective, though he doesn’t soft-pedal (much) on what is at stake.

At the same time, it may be that he’s already peaked. He remains committed to a colorblind, meritocratic vision that simply has no mass appeal outside white conservative circles. At the same time, Conservatism Inc. leaders are eager to simply be rid of the fight. Rufo’s recent shot in City Journal at VDARE.com [No to the Politics of “Whiteness,” August 30, 2023] and what some call “white identity politics” must be seen in this light.

Rufo claims white advocates—he names VDARE—ignore two competing loci: the individual and the universal. But individualism only works in homogeneous societies. And universal rights can't work
in a multiracial US-- outcomes inequalities won't be acceptedhttps://t.co/u4H1RZynGd
— VDARE (@vdare) September 3, 2023

It could be an attempt to keep his movement firmly within the mainstream, but the problem is that the very Leftist activists he criticizes and their media mouthpieces are the ones who determine what is mainstream and what is not.

For this reason, I view his attack on us (and the late Sam Francis) as worse than a moral crime: a mistake. It gained him nothing.

The panel discusses these and other ideas—thank you for your attention and we will have more soon.

James Kirkpatrick [Email him | Tweet him @VDAREJamesK] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. His latest book is Conservatism Inc.: The Battle for the American Right. Read VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow’s Preface here.