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Sam Francis.

The Sam Francis I Knew

The late conservative thinker, who died 20 years ago Saturday, has transcended the pariah status imposed on him during his life.
by Paul Gottfried via The American Conservative on February 20, 2025
Protesters in the middle of a road holding a sign that displays the three downward arrows symbol and reads "destroy fascism."

Is Trump Hitler, or just… Woodrow Wilson?

Comparing Trump to Hitler and Mussolini obscures the basis of his mass appeal.
by Ben Burgis via Damage on December 4, 2024
J. D. Vance speaking at a campaign rally for Donald Trump.

J. D. Vance Is Summoning the John Birch Society

Far from a novel form of populism, J. D. Vance’s appeals are indistinguishable from the economic vision of the 1970s John Birch Society.
by David Austin Walsh via Jacobin on July 29, 2024
Donald Trump wearing 2000 "America First Pat Buchanan" sticker.

The Crack-Up

John Ganz’s “When the Clock Broke” renders the signal political battles of the present in an entirely new light.
by John Ganz, Chris Lehmann via The Baffler on June 21, 2024
A political cartoon of Spiro Agnew holding an axe behind his back.

Oh, We Knew Agnew

On Spiro Agnew's lasting legacy.
by Jerald Podair, Zach Messitte, Charles J. Holden via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 27, 2023
Pat Buchanan

Good Old Pat

Reflecting on Pat Buchanan's legacy.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on January 25, 2023
Image of the conservative's idelic white nuclear family, wearing red baseball caps.

Why Conservatism Can Never Be “Populist”

Conservative “populism” has never been about egalitarianism, but about mobilizing support for traditional hierarchies.
by Matt McManus via Current Affairs on January 11, 2023
Members of the John Birch Society pledging allegiance to the flag at a meeting, Chicago, 1961.

The Birchers & the Trumpers

A new biography of Robert Welch traces the origins and history of the anti-Communist John Birch Society and provides historical perspective on the Trump era.
by James Mann via New York Review of Books on June 2, 2022
Paul Ryan against a background of graph paper and a dotted line.

The Struggle for the Soul of the GOP

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?
by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on April 12, 2022
A shot from behind of Rush Limbaugh giving a speech at a Make America Great Again rally.

The Right’s Reign on the Air Waves

How talk radio established the power of the modern Republican Party.
by Jake Bittle via The New Republic on June 1, 2020
Samuel Francis

The Outsider

Who was behind the "Trumpist manifesto" released twenty years before Trump became president?
by Matthew Rose via First Things on September 16, 2019

Populist Persuasions

The promise and perils of left populism.
by Joe Lowndes via The Baffler on October 31, 2018

Ronald Reagan Was Once Donald Trump

The Trump candidacy looks a lot more like Reagan's than anyone might care to notice.
by Frank Rich via Intelligencer on June 1, 2016
Elon Musk holds a chain saw as he shakes hands with Argentine president Javier Milei at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Method in the Far Right’s Madness

How today’s far right manages to combine the call for economic freedom with pseudoscience about natural hierarchies of race and IQ.
by Quinn Slobodian, Bartolomeo Sala via Jacobin on April 13, 2025
Headshots of Charles Murray, Friedrich Hayek, and Elon Musk in front of a red backgrounds.

Free Markets and Fixed Natures

How neoliberals fell in love with “human nature”—the glue that still unites the divergent factions of the new right.
by Quinn Slobodian via Boston Review on April 9, 2025
Floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Regime Change in the West?

Where amid this turmoil does neoliberalism stand? In emergency conditions it has been forced to take measures.
by Perry Anderson via London Review of Books on March 25, 2025
Photograph of Benito Mussolini

Gold and Brown

Libertarianism, fascism, and democracy.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on February 10, 2025
Donald Trump half-obscured by the American flag.

Emperor Trump’s New Map

The president who built his fan base on isolationism is pivoting to a kind of imperialism that the U.S. hasn’t seen in decades.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on January 23, 2025
Ku Kluz Klan imperial wizard Hiram Wesley Evans.

Making Sense of the Second Ku Klux Klan

Understanding the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century gives insight into the roots of today’s reactionary activists and policymakers.
by Chad Pearson via Jacobin on December 22, 2024
William F. Buckley, Donald Trump.

The Modern Conservative Tradition and the Origins of Trumpism

Today’s Trumpist radicals are not (small-c) conservatives – but they stand in the continuity of Modern Conservatism’s defining political project.
by Thomas Zimmer via Democracy Americana on December 16, 2024
Donald Trump at the 2018 CPAC. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Trump’s Neo-Fusionism

Using Murray Rothbard vs. Sam Francis to understand the next administration.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on November 29, 2024
Parade of cars with Donald Trump flags and American flags.

The “Fascist” With a Popular Majority

Donald Trump’s victory will inevitably reopen the “fascism debate.” But does a populist whose appeal cuts across diverse groups truly fit the fascist profile?
by Tristan Hughes via Jacobin on November 19, 2024
Followers salute Trump at his rally in Madison Square Garden.

Trump in the Garden

Eight years into the fascism debate, few skeptics seem to be willing to admit that they were wrong.
by Patrick Iber via Dissent on October 29, 2024
Thomas Carlyle.

A Fundamentally Anti-Democratic Tradition: Zack Beauchamp's "The Reactionary Spirit"

Where conservatives may seek to conserve their democratic systems, reactionaries by their nature seek to weaken or abolish them.
by Matthew McManus via Liberal Currents on October 14, 2024
Sen. Joe McCarthy confers with Roy Cohn during a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

A Not-So-Hostile Takeover

Long before the rise of Trump, the American conservative mainstream enjoyed a complex partnership with the Far Right.
by Gillis J. Harp via Commonweal on October 4, 2024
Brigadier General Smedley Butler.

Genesis of the Modern American Right

During the Great Depression, financial elites translated European fascism into an American form that joined high capital with lower middle-class populism.
by Joseph M. Fronczak, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on September 16, 2024
Composite of Reagan and Trump.

How the GOP Went From Reagan to Trump

The 40th president inadvertently prepared the ground for the 45th in multiple ways.
by Max Boot via The Atlantic on September 8, 2024
Ross Perot at a press conference.

Did the Early 1990s Break American Politics?

John Ganz offers a whirlwind tour of the cranks, conservatives, and con artists who helped remake the American right at the turn of the 21st century.
by David Klion via The Nation on July 29, 2024
Collage of American events in the 1990s.

The Nutty Nineties

What was in the water circa 1992?
by Katrina Gulliver via Law & Liberty on July 9, 2024
People seated at town hall meeting.

What We Get Wrong About White Workers

Deindustrialization has helped create a right-wing turn in many Midwestern towns. Long traditions of labor militancy can explain why it hasn’t in others.
by Chris Maisano, Stephanie Ternullo via Jacobin on July 9, 2024
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