The denouement of the Reagan-Bush era, as I define as the roughly 30 year period beginning with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and ending in 2009, saw the subsequent decline of the ‘old guard’ of conservatism. George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval rating of an exiting president at 25%–a new low compared to Carter’s 28%. John McCain’s lopsided ’08 defeat was followed by Romney’s equally humiliating loss in 2012. 2016 seemed destined for a repeat. But on June 16, 2015, Donald Trump strolled down that escalator and announced his candidacy, uttering four words that would reshape American politics, those of course being Make America Great Again!
I’ll admit, I doubted him, and I wasn’t alone. At the time bookmakers gave him just a 1-2% chance of winning the election, while the prevailing assumption was that Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio would secure the nomination but lose to Hillary, who was the presumptive Democratic nominee. But then Trump started winning.
Trump defies categorization or labels. Here is someone whose personal life is sometimes as messy or inconsistent as his politics. Like FDR, he seeks to micromanage the private sector, and is fiercely protectionist. He’s ambivalent about gun rights, and in rejection of the religious-right, has voiced pro-life sentiments. Instead of megachurches, Trump played to the UFC crowd, which John McCain in 1996 likened to ‘human cockfighting’. Trump came to power by correctly reading the frustration of voters, who had become cynical of status-quo conservatism. Similar to the left’s grievances politics, the Right has its own grievances, but whereas the Left channels such indignities into something resembling a morally consistent framework, this isn’t seen as much on the Right.
This has led to various contradictions, such as rightfully praising law and order in the context of opposing ‘defund the police’ and the BLM protests in 2020, but creating exceptions for the Jan 6th protestors. It’s possible that these are not mutually exclusive. One can try to make an argument that the Jan 6th protestors were justified in entering the Capitol. But during the pre-vibes era, these positions coexisting as equally valid was much less tenable. Yes, the left are no strangers to breaking the law, but they’ve never held law and order as a guiding principle.
During Covid, there was a similar split or incoherence of having to hold the following positions as equally valid–that Covid was overblown due to miscounting, or even a conspiracy, but at the time blaming China for this virus that didn’t exist or was only an overhyped cold. Or Trump praising the vaccines as exemplifying American ingenuity, to the annoyance of many of his supporters. Of course, during Covid the left has its own contradictions, like preaching the virtues or infallibility of science, but at the same time creating exceptions for obesity in the context of Covid risk even when the data showed otherwise, or ignoring data which showed very low Covid mortality rates for healthy young people.
(My own position has been that Covid was real and a lab leak–but that the lockdowns and other policy was a mistake. Exhortations to ‘trust the science,’ was a pretext for censorship, even when confronted by contradictory evidence that called into question the veracity of said science.)
Otherwise, outside of some ‘core positions’ such as gun rights and opposing wokeness, there isn’t much that unifies the vibes-based right. There is no dominant narrative or ideological archetype, rather multiple competing worldviews of roughly equal popularity and representation. Some heavily support civic participation, such as getting people out to vote, whereas others have resigned themselves to a sort of nihilistic fatalism. Same for religion, or lack thereof. Online, the secular-right has equal representation as the religious-right, whereas in the early 2000s to 2010, the former was non-existent outside of certain libertarian/objectivist circles. Similarly, Trump himself is not particularly religious. Or the Catturd-right, who is avowedly pro-Trump, compared to Nick Fuentes and his ‘groypers‘ who are much more critical of Trump, which to my surprise has a Wikipedia page. This signifies its importance and diversity within the vibes-right.
Or about 9/11, are Al-Qaeda or Mossad to blame. Or was it a controlled demolition? It cannot be all three. The ‘truthers’ were originally quarantined to their own online ghettos, but on Twitter all three positions are roughly equally represented and seemingly valid, especially when otherwise fringe beliefs are amplified by accounts with large public presences and many followers. Thus, it can be hard to discern fact from fiction when only navigating by vibes and narratives constantly change, or there are many competing narratives and no obvious quality control. As we saw with Covid, the mainstream media narratives are not always correct either. Or there is pressure to conform to narratives which are empirically dubious but popular, although this is a problem with social media in general and less to do with vibes per se.
By comparison, support for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were broadly popular among the large majority of Republicans for many years. The difference was the degree of severity (e.g. ‘bomb to the Stone Age’ vs ‘bomb and rebuild’), not that the wars were quagmires and or conceived on lies or dubious intel; that would come later. The paleocons, who opposed the wars, were a marginalized minority in the ‘sphere of discourse,’ not on equally represented like we see on Twitter today.
Vibes are inherently reactionary and ‘in the now/present’. The Right has generally positioned itself, especially in the post-vibes era, as being axiomatically opposed, or in reaction, to the left. When the left took up the mantle of body positivity and ‘health at every size’ during the 2010s, it was only natural and predictable for the vibes-right take the opposite position. Thus, Sweeney’s jeans and dancing sorority girls fits as snugly as her jeans into this framework, particularly on Twitter (and less so among ‘normie’ offline conservatives). But ‘turning back the dial’ on progress amounts to only slowing the speed of progress. By the late 2010s more conservatives began to come around to gay marriage and the legalization of some drugs– positions that were verboten in the early 2000s.
I think also social conservatism became seen as moralizing and hence lower status. No one on the online-right wants to be seen as taking their politics too seriously or being seen a ‘nag’ or a schoolmarm, compared to the ‘easily-triggered left’. Being seen as above the fray or not too personally invested in issues, but at the same time positioning oneself as aggressively anti-woke, is the optimal place to be. You want to signal being integrated into society and successful, but also stand out on the sidelines as a critic of that society. This explains the contradiction of opposing careerism and blaming it for falling fertility rates, but also creating exceptions for pretty sorority girls, who go on to have careers. This also ties in with rise of what I have called ‘non-judgmental conservatism,’ to reconcile these contradictions.
This is also why Trump’s secularism has never been a problem. First, it is implicitly assumed that Trump is fighting bigger battles on the culture-war front, that makes his irreligiosity irrelevant. Second, the Christian right, despite having a large presence offline, gave up ground as a voice of moral authority by the early 2010s, weakened by scandals and the perception that its leaders had failed as responsible stewards of the cause. For example, TD Jakes, whose son was arrested on an indecent exposure charge. Or where in the Bible does it stipulate a pastor ought to have a private jet. Trump by comparison has no pretentions of moral superiority, which makes him more relatable and cool even if he’s a billionaire.
Trump has never presented himself as morally superior. His brand has always been that of a dealmaker, willing to change his mind on a whim when circumstances change. See how four months ago Trump went from being mad at Elon Musk to slowly forgiving him. It’s understood that holding strong convictions is good, up to a point, after which it becomes counterproductive because it means giving up wins. Wokeness peaked by 2022 because it became seen by broader society as uncool, not just by the Right. The Right learned, after fading into near irrelevance by 2020-2021, that culture matters more than ideological purity. Sidney Sweeney is indeed a part of culture, and can be wrapped into the milieu or conscripted into the broad cause that is anti-wokeness.
On social media, many normies who don’t follow politics that closely or hold strong ideological convictions, are aware of wokeness and hold negative views of it, even if they are not familiar with Robin DiAngelo or Ibram X. Kendi. Everyone, young and old, are ‘locked in’ or ‘pilled’ when it comes to race, and even Blacks who are not too keen on Trump, can still see the hypocrisy of upper-middle-class White leftists who preach the virtues of diversity or inclusion but whose actions reek of transparent self-interest. Compared to even the early 2000s, there are no taboos or forbidden knowledge left. We’ve all heard about MLK and Ghandi’s transgressions, or how Lincoln was not all too fond of the Blacks he is credited of freeing.
But still, I think outreach can be overdone. The need for cultural relevance or approval can lead to debasement and pandering. It’s ok to pass judgement or cast aspersions at targets deserving of it even it means coming off as uncool sometimes. Trump’s pardon of rappers merited such criticism.
One characteristic is that vibes-based conservatism is much more status-orientated and individualistic. The need to maximize one’s own personal status within the ingroup means having to take contradictory positions or flip-flopping to ride or preempt the latest vibe-wave, even when it’s premature to flip as there is not enough information. Even Trump, who can otherwise do no wrong, is not safe. A recent example is how many ‘big accounts’ on Twitter back in July excoriated Trump for attacking Iran, only to memory-hole the whole thing after ceasefire talks began just days later. It’s been four months of ‘relative peace’, which by the low standards of Middle East relations, means that neither side is lobbing missiles at the other.
Same for the Epstein situation, in which during the Summer cries for transparency to even accusations of Trump being complicit or otherwise covering for Epstein, has similarly simmered down, replaced by condolences for Charlie Kirk or wherever else has crossed the radar. And as further evidence of the irrelevance of the religious-right, Trump’s endorsement of cannabis usage for seniors was met with total indifference, whereas 20-30+ years ago this would have seen as betrayal and met with collective gasps by the Republican establishment, which as discussed above, sees maintaining cultural relevance as necessary, than serving as the proverbial stick in the mud.
Because vibes culture doesn’t try to take itself too seriously, it has blunted the left’s most potent weapon, shame. Labels like “racist,” “antisemitic,” or “fascist” don’t stick or matter as much. Instead of contrition or retreat, the Right has flipped the script by replying “So what?” at such charges. Hitler or fascism has sorta become a joke or a meme, because of how such labels have been over overapplied to the point where they have become meaningless and the public has become desensitized. When everyone is a racist or a fascist, the terms cease to convey any distinguishing qualities. It goes without saying, Trump has also frequently been likened to Hitler or equated with Nazism–labels also applied to Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and even Obama. In honesty, I think it’s time for more originally. Hitler is so played out now as the posterchild for evil. Like, how about Genghis Kahn or Atilla the Hun. They were pretty bad in their day, too.
The vibes era has made for more a more diverse landscape of politics. As mentioned before, the state of conservatism pre-vibes–before Trump and especially before Elon’s acquisition and subsequent rebranding of Twitter–had much more conformity. There was mainstream conservatism, and trailing far behind it, paleoconservatism and libertarianism, and little else. Now we have monarchists and ‘based’ Christian-nationalists mingling with centrist hereditarians and futurists who seek a oneness with AI where vibes can now exist on a chip. If anything, this is much more interesting.