What do billionaire Peter Thiel, Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, and edge-lordy, art-kid podcasts like Red Scare and Wet Brain have in common? According to journalist James Pogue, the author of an expansive, 9,000-word article that ran in Vanity Fair last month, they’re all part of a loose-knit constellation of fringe public intellectuals, conservative politicians, and independent media personalities that make up something called the New Right.
It’s not exactly the next wave of Trumpism, even if it occasionally looks that way: On the back of an endorsement from the former president, and funding from Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance recently won the Republican primary in the race for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. But James’ reporting suggests that the movement is a lot more ideologically heterodox, and weirder, than that.
Some of the players in the movement are Marxists or former Marxists; others, including thinkers that Vance himself is taking cues from, are sketching out visions of society that…
