Believe it or not, prior to about the mid-1950s, to be on the “Right” in American political discourse actually meant you opposed American wars & interventions abroad most of the time, and it meant you took seriously ideas of individual liberty, even if you weren’t always 100% consistent on them. Then there was a ‘revolution within the form,’ so to speak, and with remarkable speed & completeness, a handful of individuals changed what “Right” meant in American politics, into something defined above all else by hawkish militarism, and with (at best) mere lip service paid to ‘limited government,’ etc.  Who the Old Right were, and how the New Right hijacked their brand, is the subject of this episode.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• Who the “Old Right” were and what they believed
• How the “New Right” displaced the “Old Right,” and changed what it meant to be on the rightwing in American politics, rebranding the term from denoting (for the most part) libertarianism to denoting, in extreme cases, fascistic warmongering

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External Links

• Albert Jay Nock, “Isaiah’s Job”
• Isabel Paterson, “The Humanitarian with a Guillotine” (one of CJ’s favorite passages of all time)
• Murray Rothbard, “Buckley Revealed” (Rothbard had figured Buckley out all the way back in the early ’50s)
• Randolph Bourne, “War is the Health of the State”