Paul Gottfried, the man who named the Alternative Right, explains how cultural Marxism has converged the so-called “conservative movement”:
Not only does Cultural Marxism exist, but it now appears to be taking over Conservatism Inc. Thus even with Paris burning, National Review was still attacking the Right. In the second round of the French election, Tom Rogan urged a vote for Emmanuel Macron on the grounds Marine Le Pen is insufficiently hostile to Vladimir Putin and is a “socialist” because she “supports protectionism.” Macron’s actual onetime membership in the Socialist Party, and his view that there was no such thing as French culture, apparently was not a problem [French election: American Conservatives Should Support Macron, April 24, 2017].
Conservatism Inc. goes along because these goals are partially achieved through corporate capitalists, who actively push Leftist social agendas and punish entire communities if they’re insufficiently enthusiastic about gay marriage, gay scout leaders, transgendered rest rooms, sanctuary cities etc.. Wedded as it is to a clichéd defense of the “free market,” the Beltway Right not only won’t oppose this plutocratic agenda, but instead offers tax cuts to the wealthiest and most malevolent actors.
It is because Cultural Marxism can co-exist with our current economic and political structure that our so-called “conservatives” are far more likely to align with the New Left than the Old Right. The behavior of our own captains of industry shows the rot is deep and that multiculturalism is very much part of American “liberal democratic” thinking, even informing our bogus conservatism. “Conservatism” is now defined as waging endless wars in the name of universalist values that any other generation would have called radically leftist. And Cultural Marxists themselves now define what we call “Western values”—for example, accepting homosexuality
The takeover is so complete, we might even say “Cultural Marxism” has outlived its usefulness as a label or as a description of a hostile foreign ideology. Instead, we’re dealing with “conservatives,” who are, in many ways, more extreme and more destructive than the Frankfurt School itself.
Many conservatives seem to believe Cultural Marxism is just a foreign eccentricity somehow smuggled into our country. Allan Bloom’s “conservative” bestseller The Closing of the American Mind contended that multiculturalism was just another example of “The German Connection.” This is ludicrous.
Case in point: unlike Horkheimer, or my onetime teacher Herbert Marcuse, leading writers within Conservatism Inc. are sympathetic to something like gay marriage.
These include:
Jonah Goldberg [Gay Marriage vs. goodwill, USA Today, April 1, 2013]
Jamie Kirchick, published at National Review and borderline hysterical on the issue
John Podhoretz [Why John Podhoretz is Wrong on Gay Marriage, by Matthew Schmitz, First Things, November 21, 2012]
David Brooks [The Power of Marriage, by David Brooks, New York Times, November 22, 2003]Indeed, homosexual liberation is so central to modern conservatism that the Beltway Right’s pundits urge American soldiers to impose it at bayonet point around the world.
Conservatism doesn’t conserve. Alt-Right or else.