The Cracks in the MAGA Coalition: Two Intellectual Fights Expose Divisions on the Right
The online intellectual right is currently experiencing significant internal turmoil, manifested in two interconnected disputes that reveal the strains power is placing on the diverse coalition backing Donald Trump’s resurgence. These conflicts highlight the difficulties of transitioning from an insurgent force to a governing one, and the compromises individuals make when faced with the allure of political influence.
The first battle centers on defining the philosophical core of the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement. It pits a faction of "anti-woke" writers against a broader group of figures identified as illiberal or post-liberal. James Lindsay, a prominent pundit and leading voice of the anti-woke camp, has consistently criticized his adversaries as the "woke right." He argues that their emphasis on religion, national identity, and ethnicity mirrors the left’s identity politics, posing a danger to both American freedom and the success of the MAGA movement.
In response, those targeted on the right, spanning national conservatives to white nationalists, have launched aggressive counterattacks. They accuse Lindsay of not only being wrong but also of deliberately attempting to fracture the MAGA coalition. While this may appear to be a niche online dispute, its potential impact on the second Trump administration’s thinking cannot be dismissed, given the significant influence of such online discourse.
The second fight revolves around Curtis Yarvin, a neo-monarchist blogger known for his influence on figures such as Vice President JD Vance. A recent critique by rationalist author Scott Alexander accuses Yarvin of "selling out" by aligning himself with Trump, despite his past denunciations of the "authoritarian populism" that Trump embodies. Yarvin has defended himself with sharp attacks on Alexander, drawing in defenders and critics from across the right-wing spectrum.
Each of these clashes offers valuable insights. The "woke right" controversy exposes deep divisions within the Trump world, separating anti-woke liberals from various forms of "post-liberals." The Yarvin debate reveals how easily individuals can compromise their beliefs when faced with polarization and the proximity of power.
Collectively, these disputes illustrate the challenges of transitioning from an insurgent movement to a governing force. The "woke right" debate gained attention when James Lindsay tricked a Christian nationalist website, American Reformer, into publishing excerpts from The Communist Manifesto, presented as a critique of modern American liberalism.
While describing a 19th-century text on resistance to capitalism as an example of 21st-century identity politics may seem illogical, Lindsay operates under a unique understanding of "wokeness." He equates it with collectivism, the idea that politics should be understood through the interests of groups, rather than treating all citizens as individuals. Thus, for Lindsay, communism is a form of wokeness, even though the term postdates Marx by nearly 200 years.
This broad definition allows for the existence of right-wing forms of wokeness. Neo-Nazism, Christian nationalism, Catholic integralism, and certain forms of anti-liberal conservative nationalism all place significant weight on group identity in their understanding of politics. For Lindsay, these ideologies pose the same threat to American liberalism as their left-wing counterparts.
He describes the "Woke Right" as "right-wing’ people who have mostly adopted an identity-based victimhood orientation for themselves to bind together as a class," mirroring the Marxist trade-off of liberty for the ability to harm enemies.
While Lindsay’s broad definition of "wokeness" renders it a questionable category, the charge has clearly stung his antagonists on the right, where being labeled "woke" is considered a grave insult. Prominent figures on the illiberal right, including Tim Pool, Mike Cernovich, and Anna Khachiyan, have attacked Lindsay, accusing him of being a "grifter" seeking to undermine the MAGA movement. Conversely, Lindsay’s allies, such as biologist Colin Wright and Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, have accused them of betraying MAGA.
Yoram Hazony, an Israeli intellectual, provided an interesting perspective in an essay posted on social media platform X. Hazony’s National Conservatism conference has served as a central hub connecting various strands of illiberalism to each other and to power, with figures like Vance, Tucker Carlson, and Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) delivering notable speeches at the event.
Hazony sees opposition to "wokeness" as the unifying rallying cry that brought disparate elements of the right together. Regardless of their philosophical or policy disagreements, they shared a common belief that the social left needed to be stopped by any means necessary. He argues that deploying the term "woke right" in internecine warfare actively undermines the possibility of political coalition because of the terms connotations of intentional humiliation, provocation, betrayal, and the destruction of shared symbols.
In Hazony’s view, the emergence of "woke right" as a term reflects a sense of victory. Drawing a comparison between the 2024 election and the fall of the Berlin Wall, he argues that Lindsay and his allies are engaged in a form of triumphalism, believing that true wokeness has been defeated and that they can now focus on purging their enemies on the right from the MAGA movement.
The power struggle over "woke right" stems from the perception that the Trump coalition is ascendant. Curtis Yarvin, who would likely be categorized as "woke right" by Lindsay, recently denounced Lindsay in the debate. Yarvin, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur known for his "neoreactionary" arguments advocating the replacement of democracy with a corporate monarchy, has influenced figures such as Vance and Peter Thiel.
Yarvin has become embroiled in his own bitter feud with Scott Alexander, who played a significant role in bringing Yarvin’s ideas to the intellectual forefront. Alexander, associated with the rationalist and effective altruist movements, wrote a series of pieces in the late 2000s and early 2010s that critically and fairly examined neoreactionary ideas. Alexander helped to raise awareness of Yarvin’s ideas, contributing to their spread beyond online tech circles.
Alexander, like Lindsay, is a liberal deeply critical of "wokeness." However, his criticisms of the left are more informed and less fanatical. Consequently, he has consistently opposed Trump. He believes that Yarvin should share this opposition, as the views that Yarvin expressed in the past are incompatible with supporting Trump today.
This is the central argument of Alexander’s critical essay on Yarvin, titled "Moldbug Sold Out." Alexander argues that Yarvin’s past arguments about the nature of politics are incompatible with supporting Trump today. Yarvin had previously written extensively about the transition from democracy to an enlightened monarchy, proposing a "shadow government" staffed by brilliant individuals proposing ideas so impressive that the people would voluntarily shift their allegiances.
He advocated this approach because he recognized the poor track record of elected authoritarians. He believed that "authoritarian populists" who gain power through elections would resemble figures like Hitler or Mussolini – violent and untrustworthy individuals incapable of establishing the well-meaning despotism that Yarvin envisioned.
Trump, an authoritarian-inclined populist who gained power through elections, represents the very type of leader that Yarvin had cautioned against. Yet, Yarvin has embraced the Trump movement. Alexander accuses Yarvin of betraying his own beliefs for access to power.
Alexander writes that "The MAGA movement was exactly what Yarvin feared most—a cancerous outgrowth of democracy riding the same wave of populist anger as the 20th century dictatorships he loathed. But in the hope of winning a temporary political victory, he let them wear him as a skinsuit—giving their normal, boring autocratic tendencies the mystique of the cool, edgy, all-vulnerabilities-patched autocracy he foretold in his manifestos."
In response, Yarvin posted a series of messages which basically concede Alexander’s main point: that Yarvin’s current stance contradicts his previous one. Yarvin now believes that he used to be naïve: “a libtard and a coward,” in his phrasing. The current liberal regime is so awful, so demonstrably dangerous, that the first political task should be its destruction.
“Authoritarian populism,” he writes, “is the only force with the power to end it.”
Both the "woke right" and Yarvin debates revolve fundamentally around power, specifically how it should be wielded. The "woke right" debate centers on the ultimate goals of the Trump administration. While both sides agree that the "woke left" should be eliminated, they disagree on the alternative vision. Lindsay and his allies advocate for a restoration of right-wing liberal individualism, while Hazony and his camp believe that liberalism should be replaced with an alternative rooted in religious or ethno-cultural identity. This debate primarily takes place on abstract grounds but reflects an assumption that this argument has significant implications for the next four years of American politics. Lindsay has repeatedly argued that the rise of the "woke right" threatens to derail the entire MAGA project and return power to the left.
The Yarvin debate poses a related question about power: How corrosive is it for intellectuals to be in proximity to it? Alexander suggests that it is very corrosive. He views Yarvin, whom he once respected, as tainted by access to power. Yarvin’s conduct in their debate supports this assessment.
These debates highlight two major themes. First, the extent to which the administration’s policy choices intensify the fractures in its elite coalition. Hazony is right that hostility to the left is what brought disparate groups together under the Trump banner. But now, in a world where the administration has to govern, some of those factions are bound to feel like they’re losing or even betrayed. Second, how warped the right’s ideas become when they go through the policy meatgrinder.
We already saw a version of Yarvin’s original vision of a CEO-monarch in Elon Musk’s reign of terror at DOGE. But that went so poorly that Yarvin himself disavowed it. This embarrassment wasn’t enough to turn him off the Trump project altogether — power still has its lure. But the inevitable difficulty of translating ideas into actual policy, and the specific incompetencies of Trump’s attempts to do so, are already alienating some previously aligned thinkers. Yarvin may not have a breaking point, but others like him may.
