The Best Reads of 2024 (So Far)
35 of the best longreads on, about, and adjacent to the new right
Maybe you already subscribe to the New Right Poast, a biweekly newspaper dedicated to curating (and commenting on) the best content coming out of the so-called New Right (or e-right, or dissident right, or whatever you want to refer to this amorphous thing of ours). The NRP has been at it for a year and a half. I discovered it when I was curating my own Write Wing Roundups, which, let me tell you, was a lot of work. Which is why I stopped. I am lazy. Dudley has not stopped. He is not lazy. To the contrary, he puts an enormous amount of himself into this, collecting not only essays (which was the sole focus of my WWR), but A/V content, and Twitter threads. If you’re not on Rocket Caesar’s data harvesting content plantation (and really, why would you be? You, the aristocratic Substack reader, are above such sordid pastimes), the NRP is your best way of staying current with the best of what Musk’s sharecroppers have come up with in the last few days as their algorithmically-addled brains battle AIs, libs, elites, and AIs pretending to be algorithmically-addled lib elites.
At the end of last year, the NRP rounded up the funniest tweets, most powerful memes, and most based reads coming out of the right-o-sphere. Those lists were the culmination of a year’s worth of meticulous curation of discourse and drama in the New Right scene. They recently published a list of the best tweets of 2024, representing the funniest stuff we’ve seen so far in Q1. Now, they’re publishing a list of the best longreads, and I’m pleased to be able to share it with you now. Be sure to read to the end to see Dudley’s Top 5 picks.
For the record, I had no input into Dudley’s list whatsoever. I swear.
I did, however, editorialize in the footnotes.
As Dudley would say: on to the reads!
The Anarchonomicon REAL Banned Book List (
)You know that cute little section of your local bookstore or library called “banned books”, a disingenuous label meant to add a frisson of transgression to otherwise utterly safe and regime-approved literature? Well, Kulak’s building himself a little shelf of actually-banned books, and buddy, you better think twice before trying to buy some of them.
The Rise of the Right-Wing Progressives (
)Marc Andreessen wrote a Techno-optimist Manifesto, and the tech media commies, who have no capability of critiquing something that they can’t put in the “right wing fascist” bucket, immediately called it right wing (and fascist). But it ain’t. N.S. provides clarity, introducing the “Right Wing Progressive”, a creature that wants to leverage state capacity to pursue progress at all costs.
A Partial Explanation of Zoomer Girl Derangement (
)zinnia explores the various ways young women cope with alienation from their own bodies due to hypersexualization in a digital age. Nothing we haven’t heard before1, but what makes her essay unique is that it comes from a woman young enough to have grown up inside a machine seemingly designed to make her hate herself. She examines this fraught topic with incredible honesty, without succumbing to the temptation to blame men or women for the current state of things.
You will probably die of a cold (
)Curtis thinks scientists padding their resumes with insanely dangerous research caused Covid, and since this is going to keep happening, you’re going to die in another pandemic.
Astrology: science or pseudoscience? (
)You think astrology is for your BPD art-ho gf? Neoliberal Feudalism argues that astrology is a patrician science for boys too. Honorable mention goes to his similar piece about physiognomy.
The American Nation: Ethnogenisis (
and in )Lafayette Lee and Darryl Cooper talk about what it means to be an American.
You Need To Be Cringemaxxing (
)You need to be prudent. You need to be vulnerable. You need to be pragmatic. You need to be learning from your elders. Being “cool” isn’t going to help you make it. You need to be cringemaxxing.
Choose boldly between Christianity & Vitalism (
)A lot of thinkers on the right are working to synthesize Nietzschean vitalism with Christianity. Last year’s @Zero HP Lovecraft essay was one of the more prominent examples. Johann Kurtz urges his readers to pick a side.
)Mr. Simpson writes a searing indictment of elite misbehavior, on their perverse desire to be seen and even loved by the proles. Meanwhile, the zombie hordes at the opposite end of the class spectrum grow too big to hide. Both, invisibles no longer.
Follow the money to the after party (Megan Basham for First Things)
The Rockefeller Foundation is funding your Bible Study, because they want you to be wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Kidding, these people hate Christianity and want to subvert your faith and demoralize you into supporting progressive causes that will enrich them at your expense. Megan follows the money.
San Francisco taxpayers funded the Bay Bridge protests (
for )On the billionaire- and taxpayer-funded NGOs that astroturf the protests blocking the highway on your way to the airport, and pushing trans-continental ethnic solidarity in all sorts of ways.
Against human resources (Helen Andrews for The Lamp)
Helen Andrews chronicles the history of human resources, that dark beating heart of corporate wokeness that defeated a masculine alternative of labor negotiations: the union.
for )Braddock wrote an essential piece about the strange and miraculous things happening in El Salvador, a country that has, against all odds, broken the power of its deeply entrenched, American-made criminal gangs. So good that Bukele himself RT’d.
)John Carter sketches out a progressive deity that demands the perpetual immolation of the past. This may be the most ambitious essay from one of Substack’s best. (Editor’s note: John Carter did not provide sexual favors to Dudley to secure inclusion in this list. The piece is that good.)2
The James Lindsay Debate Club Theory of History (
)Academic Agent explores the full ramifications of James Lindsay’s way of looking at the world.
Attack of the middle-aged MILFs (
)Peachy Keenan examines (with her hand covering one eye) the gargoyle visages, saggy appendages, and insatiable appetites of today’s lecherous mums, who’ve detonated their lives and traumatized their families in favor of near-anonymous, acrobatic afternoon delight, fucking, sucking, and cucking their way toward a self-actualization that never seems to arrive.
Bugmen and the new death of art (
)Gio takes our real-world bug-people to task over their media literacy scolding about Starship Troopers.
The online right's Kobayashi Maru test (
)What happens when war breaks out? Not ‘culture war’ or ‘fifth generation psywar’ or ‘economic war’ or any of the other forms of peevish passive-aggression that we keep calling war, but actual war? Hypersonic missiles devastating London, Chinese troops making beach landings in Taiwan, global supply chains breaking down due to naval attacks on international shipping? Morgoth takes up the question of the dissident right’s options, and they’re all terrible, because they all involve either an inexorable transition into being perceived as “traitors” by their Western host nations, or simply betraying their ideals.
A strategy for the keyboard warriors (
)J’accuse’s explains some of Trump’s undersung accomplishments that you may have missed because they’re a bit wonkier than the culture war stuff that dominates media.
Political conflict in the age of psychic warfare (
)It’s not fair. He can’t keep getting away with it3. And yet he does. John Carter continues to solidify his status as the reigning King of Effortposts with a sprawling essay about next-gen psy-warfare waged by the regime against enemies and its own subjects. Social media is either mushifying your brain, or isolating you in an echo chamber, and they engineered it that way. Nobody else is doing analysis at this high level while still being approachable and effortlessly readable. (Editor’s note: Again, you’re probably thinking that John is selling Dudley bussy access in exchange for not one but two inclusions on this list, and all the effusive praise. This is simply not the case and you’ll just have to take my word for it.4)
The counter-sexual revolution will be televised (Brendan McNamara for
)Brendan McNamara argues that the right needs a dating show and it’s such an obviously good idea that it seems basically inevitable that somebody is going to actually meme this into reality.
)The UK: there’s a six-year waiting list to get your broken arm looked at. USA: there’s your arm fixed, that will be $68,000 or your first-born daughter’s virginity. Canada: kill yourself. Duncan explores the death worship behind the facade of care and kindness in Canada’s medically-assisted suicide factories.
for First Things)Mary explores the liberal urge to rage against what nature gives you.5
Masculinity, motherhood, and American moxie (Elizabeth Grace Matthew for Law and Liberty)
A great piece about The Sopranos’ Carmela as a devouring boymom.
Self-immolation and oversocialisation (
)Reyburn on the effects of Ted Kaczynski’s concept of oversocialization in the age of the suicide selfie6.
America's super-elite disconnect (
at )Simplicius writes of elites, piggybacking from a big Rasmussen study. Who are elites? What motivates them? Why do they be like they do?
Boeing’s uncontrolled descent (Charles Wing-Uexkull for
)You hear about context collapse and you think “Oh, the crazy right wingers are talking about how black people are too dumb to fly planes again.” But Charles Wing-Uexkull says that really it’s more about how Boeing no longer lets insane visionaries exercise dictatorial control over projects, instead spreading institutional power across thousands of unaccountable bureaucratic functionaries.
Stop being mean to slutty women (
)After several years of silence, the man who brought us such hilarious Disney parody videos as Dildoween back in the heady days of the Trump campaign era Alt-Right burst back onto the scene recently. Walt Bismarck offers some sympathy for the roasties, who, he argues, serve a critical purpose. Meet the traditionalist degenerate, a man who wants to give elite freaks a safe space to do Level 99 psychic BDSM while keeping normies safely in a padded vanilla playpen, where they can’t hurt each other. Low status men should also stop slutshaming, because you gotta be a Top G if you want a perfect trad waifu. Super interesting if controversial piece.
How to appoint a commissar series (
)Yuri’s got this series going where he examines the backgrounds of our new class of vat-grown elite overlords. They all went to the same schools, took the same fellowships, were awarded the same grants and board seats at assorted blob nodes, and as a result, they all embody the same center-left basic bitch lib values.
The Near Impossibility Of Defending Yourself Against Charges Of Climate Change (
)W.M. enlightens us with a double bind that corporations now face. In order to defend themselves against dubious accusations of crimes against ESG, they must hire a respectable labcoat to provide expert testimony in court. But almost all scientists are recipients of regime patronage7. The ones who aren’t, are likely vocal about their opposition to all manner of regime positions, and as such, their opinions are more easily dismissed as kookery in court.
Political and cultural transformation in the era of massive psychic damage (
)Mr. Cluster thinks that most people’s ability to build a mental model of reality is totally shot, and the right needs not to argue or rationalize with them, but to calm them down before breaking them out of their delusions.
London, please love yourself (
)Alex writes an outsider’s ode to the UK that, despite its latter-day quirks (grooming gangs), holds a special place in her heart.
The true nature of the culture war (
)The culture war is not a sideshow. It’s the main event. Culture provides a set of higher order rules and language that enable people to figure out how to live.
Factions of the Rightosphere (
)This absolute madman developed 21 distinct factions to the current right wing, which he autistically details across several posts that showcase the intellectual diversity and tension between the various groups that fall under the right wing umbrella.
)On that quirky pro-natalist couple with the funky glasses that want to modernize traditional faith, keeping the best bits of the old stuff, and place it within a new framework, a techno-optimist religion, which, Dave thinks, will necessarily spin out of control over time.
And now…
(drumroll please….)
DADADADADADA
Dudley’s Top 5 Reads of Q1:
)for )Stop being mean to slutty women (
))Self-immolation and oversocialisation (
)And because we can’t resist a couple of honorable mentions:
A Partial Explanation of Zoomer Girl Derangement (
)You Need To Be Cringemaxxing (
)That’s it! Subscribe to to get the best reads (and tweets and memes and podcasts and more) in your inbox, twice a week. It’s free!
And of course, if you haven’t already, I wouldn’t be at all disappointed if you also chose to
to Postcards From Barsoom.
Albeit beautifully expressed. - JC
I am not the editor in question. - JC
I can’t? - JC
It’s true, no bussy access was involved. This does give me ideas however. BRB looking up flights to Bucharest… - JC
Mary, apparently, also keeps getting away with it. Who said the New Right is sexist? - JC
Reyburn is another getting-away-with-it-er. Seriously though Reyburn is great, if you don’t read him you don’t know what you’re missing. - JC
This is absolutely true by the way. There’s almost nothing more boring than discussing controversial topics with academic scientists. - JC