It looks like I was right in predicting that the H-1b visa thing would blow over. It has already been overtaken by discussion about the UK and Canada, that being Trudeau resigning and Elon’s involvement in UK politics. As predicted, Elon rebounded from the H-1b controversy unscathed and stronger than ever, and even sooner than I expected. Most of the people who were mad at him earlier are no longer mad.
The ‘Woke right’ is really just another rebranding of horseshoe theory, specifically the tendency of the far-left/right to find common ground in terms of identity politics and ingroup preferences. This is seen with the recent debate on Twitter regarding h1b visas.
It’s not a new concept. Throughout the last half century, there have been many Conservative challengers to the Reagan/Clinton free-market orthodoxy. Pat Buchanan was a notable of progenitor of the woke-right in his rejection of Reaganomics and interventionism. Or Herbert Walker Bush, who was like the Right’s version of Jimmy Carter by rejecting the economic excesses of his predecessor, and like Carter also presided over a weak economy and was shown the door as a consequence.
An observation I came to a while ago is that the mainstream/center-right position is more ‘extreme’ or ‘hard core‘ compared to the far-right despite the latter often being positioned farther to the right on the political spectrum. Same for civic nationalism. The mainstream/center-right is more individualistic or ‘sink or swim’ compared to the paternalistic far-right. The mainstream-right positions on other issues such as death penalty, taxes, criminal justice, torture (in the context of the war or terror), and so on–are also fairly extreme too, either in the sense of being some variant of social Darwinism or individual ownership of one’s actions or choices in life. It’s rather impersonal in how people are sorted into winners or losers, or how extenuating circumstances of the individual are not taken into account.
On Twitter, alt-center/middle accounts tend to espouse the most hard core or hard-ass truths to life, not the far-right. What I mean is, Steve Sailer’s views on race may be controversial or extreme to polite society, but he’s not hard core. Many of his posts express ingroup preferences, similar to the left. Conversely, Noah Smith recently published the article, “Paycheck-to-paycheck” and five other popular myths. 15-20 years ago this could have easily been published in National Review. Despite the author technically being part of center-left, this is pretty hard core in terms of rejecting many politically correct notions; there is plenty for either side to take issue with his article. Noah’s worldview appeals to a certain type of person, likely someone who is already successful at life and sees the failures of others as ‘just deserts’. It’s not so much left vs. right, but about personal accountability and not blaming external factors/society for one’s position in life.
This is why during the ’16 and ’20 election cycles, terms or labels like ‘cuckservative’ or ‘soft’ never made sense to me when describing the mainstream Republican position. I was thinking to myself, are you sure we’re seeing the same thing or these words mean what you think they do? There is nothing soft or weak about enhanced interrogative techniques or being the world police. The Biden administration adopting or appropriating neoconservative foreign policy, such as in regard to Ukraine or the Middle East, does not mean Republicans have gone soft or have moved to the left, but rather that the Democrats have become more hard core.
The mainstream/center-right position is possibly harder to accept because the responsibility is placed solely on the individual. That it’s one’s own fault for one’s station in life, either due to bad genes, bad work ethic, not being meritocratic enough, etc. , is a hard pill to swallow. This can explain the popularity of more collectivist ideologies, on either side of the aisle, in which the responsibility or blame falls on outsiders or external events than the individual. If the goal is to optimize for economic growth and innovation, the mainstream/center-right position is the correct one, but I can also understand why there is cognitive dissonance too in accepting that being a loser at life is one’s own fault.
Others such as Elon Musk or Marc Andreessen try to create a ‘third way’ by combining the hyper-merit-based approach of the mainstream/center-right with the natalism that is sometimes associated with the far-right. Now even the mainstream/center is getting on board the depopulation crisis train. Again, saying that under-population is the crisis, not overpopulation, is extreme in its rejection of conventional wisdom on the matter. In my own opinion, it’s not that convincing and requires similar mental gymnastics, in that accepting that unborn life is more or equally valuable as one’s own.
Overall, the woke-right arises from the difficulty of accepting ownership or responsibility of one’s choices or outcomes in life. I am not saying radical ownership or personal accountability is the best approach to life or that I am always successful at it, but it’s a major part of where I see the divide.