Far Right Politics and Hereditary Monarchy
Why is MSNBC — the corporate so-called progressive cable network — covering the coronation of King Charles III?
As we move into media hype overdrive over the coronation of King Charles III, it might be instructive to look briefly into the far right’s obsession with royalist mythology. The link between hereditary royalists and the American far-right is indeed strange, first and foremost because we are a democracy that broke off from the British monarchical system 245 years ago in a sanguinary war. And yet, the Heritage Foundation -- nominally the premier incubator of American conservative policy -- recently ran a virtual event titled, unironically: "The Crown Under Fire: Why the Left’s Campaign to Cancel the Monarchy and Undermine a Cornerstone of Western Democracy Will Fail."
Martin Guellin of The Independent described the proceedings thusly:
The host, Heritage Foundation’s Joseph Loconte, introduced the event by shouting, “God save the Queen!” Five white conservatives then proceeded to praise the monarchy, while all agreeing that “there isn’t a scintilla of racist beliefs within the royal family,” as Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, said to approving nods from the other panelists.
While most of the British members of the panel defended the monarchy as an almost apolitical institution, with the Queen as a benign, mostly symbolic head of state, Loconte and the conservative pundit Nile Gardiner talked about Buckingham Palace as if a war was unfolding, and they were Winston Churchill addressing a terrified country. Gardiner described Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah as “a cruise missile strike against the British monarchy” and went on to say that American attacks on Buckingham Palace were “essentially anti-British”, and came from furious liberals who “hate the Crown, Brexit, tradition, history, western civilization, and no doubt tea and scones as well.”
How did we come to this?
It all began with the unravelling of the conservative movement. Before World War II, the American right-wing was a seething, flatulent ideological gas cloud of bigots, anti-Semites, libertarians, neo-maxi-sum-dweebies and conspiracy freakazoids. Sound familiar?
But in 1955, Bill Buckley started publishing National Review, a magazine, though now culturally irrelevant, that once had enormous power on and over the right. By focusing the various constituencies of the right on the Soviet Union and high taxation and the evils of busing, it unified the white working class, which, at the time, was more than 7 in 10 American households. It excommunicated the most overly bigoted of the right wing and curbed its worst excesses in order to make modern conservatism a palatable political philosophy. Goldwater’s landside loss, in 1964, was a trial run; Reagan’s victory, in the ‘80 election, was the culmination of the conservative dream realized. “Forty seven per cent of all blue collar voters supported Reagan; 44% of those from labor union households backed him,” Johanna Brenner and Robert Brenner observed.
The pendulum swings. The former Soviet Union, Reagan and Buckley have all shuffled off the mortal coil.
The “gatekeepers,” in essence, are no longer. And the Pandora’s Box — of America’s toxic bigotries — is once again open, launching all manner of hidden bigotries and irrational conspiracy theories to the four winds. From Matthew Continetti, who notices:
Lately, though, it’s seemed as if the process by which William F. Buckley legitimized American conservatism has gone into reverse. The gatekeeper theory of media, it turns out, works only when the barriers to entry in the media are high. When Robert Welch was deprived access to subscribers of National Review, he really had no other means to address an audience beyond the members of the John Birch Society. When an article alleging a Zionist conspiracy to control the banks was rejected, it meant the end for that article and for the writer’s future. Publishing a magazine and producing television is expensive. Not everyone can do it.
But anyone with the Internet can write a blog or tweet or Facebook post or can Skype or record a podcast. The castle no longer has walls. The gatekeepers are mostly useless. Yes, the rise of social media may have helped conservatives—it allowed them to investigate, report, opine, entertain, and influence politics and policy by giving them the means to bypass liberal outlets. We’ve gone from a universe with half a dozen conservative journals publishing on infrequent schedules to one where there are dozens of center-right websites operating 24/7.
All of this occurs at a time of historic fear and insecurity among whites, who are experiencing population decline. The white, non-college working class is being particularly hard hit, with deaths of despair. The “Birther” conspiracy, delegitimizing the first African-American President, was a significant political moment tied to the growing white, non-college, aggrieved and enraged culture. And the fact that Donald Trump, the most high-profile purveyor of Birtherism, was elected Obama’s successor cannot be overstated.
The bigotries of the past are not only unbound, they are being repackaged. Curtis Yarvin — formerly known as the libertarian-right blogger Mencius Moldbug— is one of the foremost "elitist ressentiment" thinkers. Commonweal’s Matt McManus sums his thought — a hard-right reaction against white working class demographic decline — up nicely and in the process provides us with a deep and disturbing gaze into the strategic project of ressentimentistas:
Yarvin sometimes writes as if his problem with the democratic Left is that it is committed to chaos. As he puts it in Gentle Introduction, “Right represents peace, order and security; left represents war, anarchy and crime.” But Yarvin’s own idea of a national “reset” to establish an American monarchy would mean seizing political power and using it to radically upend the established order. It is not quite right to call Yarvin a restorationist, since the United States has never had a monarchy as long as it’s been an independent sovereign state. In his more candid moments, Yarvin will admit that his real priorities aren’t order and stability—at least in the near term—but protecting the freedom of an elite by imposing strict laws on the lower orders.
Yarvin believes his kind of authoritarian libertarianism could be achieved only through a non-democratic state led by titans of industry like Steve Jobs or, more recently, Elon Musk.
Distorting urban crime statistics to give white voters a sense of overwhelming chaos in blue American cities has been workshopped by the GOP since the Cold War. But the obsession of far-right enthusiasts on the subject of hereditary monarchical structures of government as superior to those of democracies goes beyond American shores. It is a global force within the nationalist movement. Damien T, for example, the 28-year old man who slapped Emmanuel Macron in 2021, had royalist ties. From Politico Europe:
While delivering the slap, the man shouted “Montjoie! Saint Denis! A bas la Macronie!” (Montjoie! Saint Denis! Down with Macronland), a royalist phrase inspired by a 12th century Kingdom of France war cry. “Montjoie, Saint-Denis” is a reference to Charlemagne’s banner, which French kings of old took to battle. Damien T. appears to be a Middle Ages enthusiast, with social media accounts following both royalist pages and those relating to medieval and fantasy universes. The slapper also practices the modern Japanese martial art kendo, as well as historical European martial arts, which he teaches.
Charmed, I’m sure. That slap, it should be noted, was entirely without glove.
Billionaire Peter Thiel, who had a decidedly mixed record funding Republican candidates in the midterms, is a well known techno-monarchist — a term describing Silicon Valley nerd-kings. He reminds us that start-ups are not run as democracies. Thiel and former Senate candidate Blake Masters wrote in “Zero to One” (via The New Yorker):
Apple’s value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person. This hints at the strange way in which the companies that create new technology often resemble feudal monarchies rather than organizations that are supposedly more “modern.” A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades. Paradoxically, impersonal bureaucracies staffed by trained professionals can last longer than any lifetime, but they usually act with short time horizons. The lesson for business is that we need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme; we need unusual individuals to lead companies beyond mere incrementalism.
Which bridges the single leader theory, feudal monarchies and, for good measure, Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead quite nicely.
In Uganda, right wing populist Museveni’s son announced his candidacy for President, before withdrawing it; Biden this week met with Ferdinand Marcos the Younger, in hopes of containing China in the South China Sea; and Don Jr whined about not getting enough facetime on the Fox network.
There is a clear and dangerous run-through between far right influencers and monarchies. The Harry and Meghan Oprah interview was a signal cultural moment for this particular, obsessive cohort. It had the unifying themes of racism and royalty, which is pure, right-wing deliciousness. Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers have been serving up this venomous pudding for years, piping hot, stoking the fires of anti-Meghanism and recently settling with Buckingham Palace, according to Prince Harry.
Finally, I ask: Why is MSNBC — the corporate so-called progressive cable network — covering the coronation of King Charles III? How does a televised celebration of a very racially problematic monarchy fit into the mission statement of MSNBC?
And does the “progressive” management of the station know the far-right linkage to celebrations of hereditary monarchy?
Tucker Carlson’s Racist Text Didn’t Get Him Fired (Joan Walsh)
Will ChatGPT mean the end of Horoscope writing? (James Ledbetter)
WGA Strike: An Unexpected Ally on Wall Street (Joe Del Bruno)
The banking crisis continues. (Fareed Zakaria)
The refreshing defiance of E. Jean Carroll at the Trump trial (Monica Hesse)