They say that the further a pendulum swings in one direction, the further and harder it will swing back the opposite way. This is visible in everything from war to politics, but it is becoming increasingly obvious in our culture.
The political Left has dominated culture for the past few decades, injecting its ideologies and belief systems into everything from government policy to children’s entertainment. The past year, however, has seen an almost full-scale internal collapse of the movement, coinciding unsurprisingly with the re-election of President Donald Trump in the US. Of course, the Left will live on, and some people will continue to adhere to its tenets, but for now, in the culture, it is in rapid decline.
However, the space it leaves behind will not remain empty, and the pendulum must swing back. And so, the death of the Left has given rise to the New Right – a Right totally unlike the Biden-era conservatism that most people are used to. This Right has new ideas and new faces, and some of these faces appeared together a few days ago in Miami.
In a surprising turn of events, a collection of internet-famous so-called “manosphere” influencers met for a party which would take them from a luxurious penthouse to a party bus, and to a nightclub, livestreaming almost the whole evening. The motley crew included (but was not limited to) Andrew Tate, the Muslim former kickboxer and self-proclaimed pimp, currently facing human trafficking charges in Romania; his brother, Tristan, the nominally Christian influencer who largely follows the greater Tate; Nick Fuentes, the Hitler-admiring incel king and leader of the online “Groyper” movement; Justin Waller, the polyamorous Instagrammer and construction company CEO; and Clavicular, the viral “looksmaxxing” meth-head influencer who allegedly ran over a person recently in a Cybertruck.
This sudden meeting was a surprise to many, especially considering the fact that many of the men at the meeting have radically different views on subjects, from religion, to marriage, to politics. And yet, they still showed up together, drank together, went to the club together, and chanted “Heil Hitler” to the Kanye West song together.
The meeting went viral, breaking the Right-wing internet in approval and criticism. Nevertheless, the internet popularity of these men should not be allowed to obscure one important fact about them: they are bad people. Not simply men with somewhat backward ideas, but men who make it their mission to indoctrinate vulnerable teenage boys with their promiscuous, rage-filled, and victim-complex-inducing philosophies.
The Tate brothers have built their empire around Andrew’s success, which was supported for some time by pornographic “scam” services and prostitution, despite both claiming to belong to religions which strictly condemn extramarital sex. Tristan, nominally a Christian, spent part of the evening warning the 20-year-old Clavicular not to get attached to hookers, but nevertheless agreeing with Waller that he should “still f*ck them”. Fuentes has made his name by supposedly “ragebaiting” the internet, whether that means expressing admiration for Hitler and Stalin (a somewhat contradictory position, unless his admiration is for their shared talent for mass murder), comparing the holocaust to baking cookies, or calling for the “annihilation” of “perfidious Jews” once he takes power. Justin Waller is a strong advocate for polyamory and blithely justifies sexual infidelity towards partners, claiming that having three partners makes him “believe in family 3X more than you”. Clavicular, finally, is of the view that looks are more or less the most important thing in life, going to the lengths of taking crystal meth, testosterone, and hitting himself in the face with a hammer to enhance his features to the utmost, all the while openly advertising it all on Instagram.
Many who lean conservative would be inclined to ignore these people. Why give them more attention? It just feeds them exactly what they want. Certainly, these men are in the business of clicks, and they will get them any way possible, but this does not mean they should be waved off. This was the fatal mistake of the Left.
For decades leading well into the 21st century, the political Left grew in influence and power. As it began to dominate culture, there was more room in the movement for radical voices, giving way to the insanity of transgenderism, the lockdowns, and the general cultural decay of the West. The problem was not so much that radical voices existed on the Left, but rather that they were given so much leeway to express themselves. Because nobody viewed them as a serious threat at the time, they were allowed to hijack the whole movement, and quickly began to spout ideas like transgender surgeries for children as if this was what the Left had always stood for. By the time they had taken power, it was too late to stop them – any pushback was labelled as bigotry, and so the entire Left was guilt-tripped into accepting them. The reasonable Left, which actually relied on some notions of logic to support its arguments, was killed and replaced by the Left that we saw come to dominate the US under Biden.
The same thing will happen to the Right if caution is not observed. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Israel has given rise to major rifts in the conservative movement. The reasonable Right – which was led in its heyday by voices like Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Matt Walsh, and Jordan Peterson – is being fractured by its radicals, with Shapiro and Kelly seemingly falling out over the emergence of Fuentes after a long-standing friendship. With the reasonable Right on the ropes, someone will eventually take the spotlight, and it might be the “alpha males”. These men, like the radical Left, are not interested in preserving their movement. There is nothing conservative about them; conservation is the last thing they want. Rather, they want to tear down the conservative movement entirely and rebuild it in their own image. They are using their popularity to become the new faces of the Right. They are coming for the crown, and they certainly won’t let being banned from any platforms deter them from their goal.
These men, apparently, have a combined following of over 16 million on X alone, with many of them getting hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers on livestreams, especially Fuentes. As paradoxical as their unity may seem, it has begun, and it is only a matter of time before it grows. This unity is the truly dangerous aspect of the situation; scattered, their influence is marginal, but together, they command the attention of a vast audience. While the reasonable Right bickers over Israel and other minor squabbles, the New Right is sneaking onto the scene, united underneath the godfather of the movement, Andrew Tate, and led by the heir to the throne, Nick Fuentes.
Nothing short of a miracle is likely to change these men’s opinions (except seemingly for Clavicular, who demonstrated multiple times throughout the evening that he is ready to fold at the slightest pressure in order to stay with the “cool kids”). However, their viewers, or at least some of them, can be swayed. Put simply, the “alpha males” must be exposed for what they really are: chronically online narcissists, and fake men.
Most of these influencers build their brand on masculinity, contrasting their approach with the de-masculinisation that was promoted by the Left. However, a distinction exists, and must be recognised, between being masculine and being a real man. While a real man is masculine, he tempers himself, and is not simply a testosterone filled teenager in the body of an adult. Real men don’t cosplay as gangsters in ridiculous spandex-tight suits. Real men don’t talk about and treat women like sex toys. Real men don’t salute reigns of terror responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocents. Real men don’t wear makeup and take stimulants to appease their vanity. Real men do not abandon all reason and logic for the sake of “ragebaiting”. Real men are calm, patient, reasonable, modest, and (arguably most importantly) chivalrous. A man’s manliness is often best judged by how he treats women, and by this standard none of the manosphere influencers come remotely close to passing the bar.
I suspect many people are inclined to laugh at what they perceive as a clown show. Laugh at them as much as you want, but I am already seeing their influence amongst the younger generation, even here in Ireland. As comical as they may appear together (and the combination of terribly-fitted suits, outlandish political opinions, and performative masculinity is certainly laugh-inducing), this is no joke: these men are actually manipulating the thoughts of today’s youth, and something must be done about it. If we don’t figure out what, and soon, the new Right that is taking root is at risk of growing into something as hideous as the Left it hoped to vanquish.
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Patrick Vincent writes from Dublin