Tracking: How the Right Gets Lefted

A week ago, Ross Douthat published an essay called, “How Michel Foucault Lost the Left and Won the Right.” His analysis added to a story I’ve been following since 2008—or perhaps a position I am taking. Populists on the right have increasingly adopted the tactics and presuppositions of the left. They have fully embraced identity politics, especially in the class warfare of The People versus The Elites and in the sly mixture of Christianity and white nationalism. They have also adopted leftist shaming and cancel culture tactics to enforce a mob mentality. Douthat probes the far more important move many right-wing populists have made: recasting truth as a power-narrative. You should believe nothing because everything is designed to oppress you. Many Christians think they’re enjoying the legacy of their fathers, when in reality they’re eating the pig-slop of Postmodernism and sitting in the excrement of its Enlightenment predecessor, skepticism.