It's also a whitepill that WOKE has become an epithet; a thing to run away from.
But I really hope that BASED doesn't mean just owning the Left. Conservatives have been doing that since the 1980s, and media conservatives have made millions off it. It's tiresome. We don't need a BASED Bill O'Reilly popping up on Fox in 5 years. That would be almost certainly be a clone of Brooklyn Hollyhead or whatever his name is. Brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee Company, Liberty University, and Patriot Gold IRA.
Keyed is just good policy. The Right doesn’t have long term institutional control over academia, NGOS etc. Maybe in the next decade this will happen, but we will have to see. There is a major reorganization right going on in elite circles.
The concept of a "Woke Right" is absurd simply for the fact it doesn't have institutional gravitas. This is the key - it's how people were forced to tell themselves they believed in any of the principles of Woke Leftism. When you basically hold people's livelihoods at stake, you can make them fall in line quite easy.
I do understand what you're saying in that BASED keeps the Right in line. At the same time, BASED isn't all good ideas. A lot of it's quite retarded. The Nazi stuff, especially, as it doesn't have any sort of philosophical grounding with American right-wing thinking. I'm also of the belief that Americans foundational political views haven't really changed remarkably. There's really no polling showing support for mass deportations, for one. The only thing that's really changed is that Americans may be less engaged, which isn't necessarily a good thing. As we saw with the No Kings protests, the Left can still mobilize effectively and monopolize political attention like no other. This is still very much their show.
Point being, being BASED is hardly sufficient. The Right needs to provide a positive vision for America beyond just being anti-leftist. America remains quite leftist in its values and Trump's message, whatever it might be, is getting lost in the din. As you said, most Americans are going to ultimately judge Trump on the basis of the economy and on that front, he's not doing so great.
Unless any of this changes, BASED is all about preaching to the choir, nothing more.
Leftism and communism have the benefit that they are idealistic. The right is full of used car salesmen and business men, hardly the ones to create an idealistic future for the United States and the West more generally. Elon Musk is approaching something along that with techno-optimism, as is Silicon Valley more generally but this ethos needs to be transformed into a more institutional and idealist vision for the political economy
The Right lacks Machiavellians. Ironically, in the early Trump days, this is the archetype of the leader many on the Right claimed we needed. Strangely, being from the business world, Trump seemed like he fit the mold. I say strangely because it's become clear Trump isn't exactly a cunning, Machiavellian type. Elon Musk doesn't exactly seem that way, either, despite being from the business world.
Now, the Right expects Trump to be a strong and disciplined leader who draws on authority and tradition to bring about order and stability. But he's not really that, either, because he also lacks strength and discipline. As for authority and tradition, he doesn't know about 80% of the stuff the online Right talks about. What people like about him is his willingness to stand up to the really bad guys. But he himself is largely a vision-less leader.
Even leaders who promise to deliver order and stability have to do so in an idealistic manner. This is even more critical during moments where there's no apparent existential crisis. Maybe things just haven't gotten bad enough.
Well, good. Polls over the summer showed something quite different. Also notice the partisan disparity on the question of deporting all illegals regardless, which hasn't changed, though Indies are now mostly in favor. Again, a positive development.
Now's my turn to tell you to maybe look a little harder. X is full of right-wing accounts, most notably the highly popular Martyr Made and 9mmSMG, engaging in Nazi revisionism. Leaving aside a lot of this revisionism is based off bad history, the fact is, that stuff is still well over the line for most Americans. "Nazis were bad" is hardly a controversial statement, even if Americans have a comic book-level understanding of Nazism. I don't mind people exploring different ideas and perspectives - that's the purpose of intellectual inquiry - but a lot of these accounts are very clearly trying to rehab the image of the Nazis. There was even that Republican politician who stated the "wrong side" won WWII.
The bigger problem is that the online Right spends more time talking about Hitler than Washington. Shows a complete disconnect from the American Right's own history and philosophical underpinnings.
Have you read The Cultured Thug Handbook? I agree we need a new vision and American conservatives will never have it. We must learn what ideas exist beyond liberalism to build a healthy, good / strong vision to save what remains.
Scott’s definition of woke doesn’t suck, but it doesn’t go far enough.
The Woke are DEI / intersectionality / Critical Theory oppressor-oppressed ideologues.
Woke is rooted in the (quasi-religious) belief in oppressor-oppressed ideology, which states that the evil rich white Christian (or Jewish in the case of Israel) straight male capitalist patriarchy is responsible for all evil - and little good - in our zero-sum world.
And that the oppressed have the right BY. ANY. MEANS. NECESSARY. to overcome their oppressors.
This last is the key dividing line.
Feelings about Hamas (not “the Palestinians”, not Israel or what U.S. public policy should be, but Hamas) are the ultimate woke litmus test.
The woke believe that the evil rich white capitalist Israeli colonizers are oppressing the poor without agency PoC Palestinian natives, and so Hamas has the right and obligation to butcher, torture, rape and take hostages of civilians, including babies. And should be supported because their goals are just.
The 30+ Harvard student groups who proclaimed on Oct 8th “We hold Israel entirely responsible for all unfolding violence in the region” are the epitome of woke.
Those on the left who don’t support Hamas are mostly “progressives”, but they are not woke.
They may be into “soft-woke” (Political Correctness on steroids), but that is not woke. This actually describes a lot of older progressives, and it is what most distinguishes them from the tiny fraction of “center-left” that remains.
The fact that they refuse to “punch left” and criticize the oppressor-oppressed radical woke in their coalition is why support for Dems is at an all-time low, but is not the same as these “progressives” all being woke.
It's also a whitepill that WOKE has become an epithet; a thing to run away from.
But I really hope that BASED doesn't mean just owning the Left. Conservatives have been doing that since the 1980s, and media conservatives have made millions off it. It's tiresome. We don't need a BASED Bill O'Reilly popping up on Fox in 5 years. That would be almost certainly be a clone of Brooklyn Hollyhead or whatever his name is. Brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee Company, Liberty University, and Patriot Gold IRA.
Scott always seems to write what I’m thinking
Keyed is just good policy. The Right doesn’t have long term institutional control over academia, NGOS etc. Maybe in the next decade this will happen, but we will have to see. There is a major reorganization right going on in elite circles.
I read this a while back and thought it was a pretty good post on the topic:
https://open.substack.com/pub/persononline/p/i-am-woke-right?r=4517vy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
The concept of a "Woke Right" is absurd simply for the fact it doesn't have institutional gravitas. This is the key - it's how people were forced to tell themselves they believed in any of the principles of Woke Leftism. When you basically hold people's livelihoods at stake, you can make them fall in line quite easy.
I do understand what you're saying in that BASED keeps the Right in line. At the same time, BASED isn't all good ideas. A lot of it's quite retarded. The Nazi stuff, especially, as it doesn't have any sort of philosophical grounding with American right-wing thinking. I'm also of the belief that Americans foundational political views haven't really changed remarkably. There's really no polling showing support for mass deportations, for one. The only thing that's really changed is that Americans may be less engaged, which isn't necessarily a good thing. As we saw with the No Kings protests, the Left can still mobilize effectively and monopolize political attention like no other. This is still very much their show.
Point being, being BASED is hardly sufficient. The Right needs to provide a positive vision for America beyond just being anti-leftist. America remains quite leftist in its values and Trump's message, whatever it might be, is getting lost in the din. As you said, most Americans are going to ultimately judge Trump on the basis of the economy and on that front, he's not doing so great.
Unless any of this changes, BASED is all about preaching to the choir, nothing more.
Leftism and communism have the benefit that they are idealistic. The right is full of used car salesmen and business men, hardly the ones to create an idealistic future for the United States and the West more generally. Elon Musk is approaching something along that with techno-optimism, as is Silicon Valley more generally but this ethos needs to be transformed into a more institutional and idealist vision for the political economy
The Right lacks Machiavellians. Ironically, in the early Trump days, this is the archetype of the leader many on the Right claimed we needed. Strangely, being from the business world, Trump seemed like he fit the mold. I say strangely because it's become clear Trump isn't exactly a cunning, Machiavellian type. Elon Musk doesn't exactly seem that way, either, despite being from the business world.
Now, the Right expects Trump to be a strong and disciplined leader who draws on authority and tradition to bring about order and stability. But he's not really that, either, because he also lacks strength and discipline. As for authority and tradition, he doesn't know about 80% of the stuff the online Right talks about. What people like about him is his willingness to stand up to the really bad guys. But he himself is largely a vision-less leader.
Even leaders who promise to deliver order and stability have to do so in an idealistic manner. This is even more critical during moments where there's no apparent existential crisis. Maybe things just haven't gotten bad enough.
I've never seen a large right-wing account promoting nazi stuff and being called based.
Here's a recent poll from Harvard/Harris, showing 56% of Americans supporting mass deportations. Before commenting, maybe do a GPT/Grok search.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/10/08/polls-show-americans-overwhelmingly-support-president-trumps-mass-deportations
Well, good. Polls over the summer showed something quite different. Also notice the partisan disparity on the question of deporting all illegals regardless, which hasn't changed, though Indies are now mostly in favor. Again, a positive development.
Now's my turn to tell you to maybe look a little harder. X is full of right-wing accounts, most notably the highly popular Martyr Made and 9mmSMG, engaging in Nazi revisionism. Leaving aside a lot of this revisionism is based off bad history, the fact is, that stuff is still well over the line for most Americans. "Nazis were bad" is hardly a controversial statement, even if Americans have a comic book-level understanding of Nazism. I don't mind people exploring different ideas and perspectives - that's the purpose of intellectual inquiry - but a lot of these accounts are very clearly trying to rehab the image of the Nazis. There was even that Republican politician who stated the "wrong side" won WWII.
The bigger problem is that the online Right spends more time talking about Hitler than Washington. Shows a complete disconnect from the American Right's own history and philosophical underpinnings.
Have you read The Cultured Thug Handbook? I agree we need a new vision and American conservatives will never have it. We must learn what ideas exist beyond liberalism to build a healthy, good / strong vision to save what remains.
Scott’s definition of woke doesn’t suck, but it doesn’t go far enough.
The Woke are DEI / intersectionality / Critical Theory oppressor-oppressed ideologues.
Woke is rooted in the (quasi-religious) belief in oppressor-oppressed ideology, which states that the evil rich white Christian (or Jewish in the case of Israel) straight male capitalist patriarchy is responsible for all evil - and little good - in our zero-sum world.
And that the oppressed have the right BY. ANY. MEANS. NECESSARY. to overcome their oppressors.
This last is the key dividing line.
Feelings about Hamas (not “the Palestinians”, not Israel or what U.S. public policy should be, but Hamas) are the ultimate woke litmus test.
The woke believe that the evil rich white capitalist Israeli colonizers are oppressing the poor without agency PoC Palestinian natives, and so Hamas has the right and obligation to butcher, torture, rape and take hostages of civilians, including babies. And should be supported because their goals are just.
The 30+ Harvard student groups who proclaimed on Oct 8th “We hold Israel entirely responsible for all unfolding violence in the region” are the epitome of woke.
Those on the left who don’t support Hamas are mostly “progressives”, but they are not woke.
They may be into “soft-woke” (Political Correctness on steroids), but that is not woke. This actually describes a lot of older progressives, and it is what most distinguishes them from the tiny fraction of “center-left” that remains.
The fact that they refuse to “punch left” and criticize the oppressor-oppressed radical woke in their coalition is why support for Dems is at an all-time low, but is not the same as these “progressives” all being woke.
James Lindsay kissed the wall (wonder if Scott has too?). Like Rufo, he is a paid shill (wonder if Scott is too?—idk).
probably is the BASED thats just edgy hitler and nazi things that dont move anything forward