Hello, new readers. This weekend, as you might have seen, I had a profile in The New Yorker. Writer Chris Wiley does an amazing job at capturing the spirit of this project:
Its been an exciting ride for the first year of this show. If you’re new here, these are the key pieces you may want to read:
Find audio episodes of Doomscroll on Apple, Spotify and all other podcast apps.
Also, journalist Max Read had a thoughtful piece that caught my attention: What if the Post Office had its own A.I. model?
Welcome to Doomscroll. My guest is Emily Jashinsky, a political commentator and a co-host of Breaking Points. You may recognize her from her new live-stream series After Party with Emily Jashinsky. She is also a frequent guest on The Megyn Kelly Show.
Last year, Emily appeared on The Ezra Klein Show to discuss the shifting factions of the American Right: MAGA Is Not as United as You Think. On today’s episode, I wanted to dive even deeper into the “New Right” and to offer an analysis that I have rarely heard discussed in mainstream publications.
Over the past few years, we have seen historic political shifts. “Fusionism” has held as the dominant conservative ideology since the 1960s — it is now being redefined in ways that would have been unimaginable a few years earlier. We spend a lot of time talking about the “New Right” and “Old Left” on this show. This episode lays out why these developments are so significant. The first 25 minutes of this discussion will cover an enormous amount of ground.
Many readers will be familiar with the infamous “Bernie to Trump” pipeline, popularized by journalist James Pogue and others, but less will be aware of the Marxist origins of certain canonized thinkers on the New Right. Chiefly among these voices is James Burnham, an early Troskyite who later became a key conservative thinker. Emily and I explore the rise of economic populism and the new spectrum of political factions on the right. We discuss:
The shifting coalitions of the New Right: Monarchy, Catholicism, Network States and more.
The crisis of modernity: the Trad movement, MAHA, the Bronze Age and the Christian origins of classical liberalism?
The failure of Democratic elites and the role of alt-media in shaping new political factions. Podcasts = audiences = coalitions.
The decline of “Fusionism”, the definitive orthodoxy of post-war conservative ideology.
From the beginning of Doomscroll, I’ve been committed to platforming a range of perspectives that differ from my own. This conversation with Emily is more than just an interview, its a collaboration in which we both seek to understand these new political currents emerging online and offline:
Emily Jashinsky: New Right Materialism | Doomscroll
I’m taking a few creative risks on this episode. I think the deep dive into these topics and ideologies is important. The things we discuss here will be very influential over the next few years. If this is the type of episode you’d like to see more of, let me know in the YouTube comments today.
Lastly, if you’re a loyal viewer of this program, I strongly recommend that you watch this week’s bonus episode. (I don’t care if you start a free trial and then unsubscribe.) But if you’re a dedicated reader, I want you to be aware of these more niche topics and political factions. Sometimes our bonus episodes are more casual and fun — but this one includes a number of sensitive topics that are better left as private conversations and off of the public feed. There is also some big picture analysis that I lay out towards the end of the episode that will give an orientation as to where this project is heading and what its broader goals are:
Explore these related episodes:
Congrats Josh! This creates a great shortcut for me with liberal family members. Many a holiday dinner conversations begins with "did you read that article in The New Yorker".
Now you’re just making people up Josh!