What began as investments by the likes of Peter Thiel in “anti-woke” art festivals and alternative media has evolved into a full-throated youth movement. As this week’s New York magazine cover story explores, this trend has particularly taken off among a subsection of educated urbanites who view progressive orthodoxy as the new establishment to rebel against. The scene today, housed in glamorous DC spots, marks a cultural shift every bit as significant as the transition from Sixties counterculture to Eighties yuppie excess.
As the New York dispatch, written by Brock Colyar, argues, these aren’t the stereotypical MAGA warriors of liberal imagination. They’re young, well-connected, and very online — crypto nerds, influencer e-girls, and what Colyar calls “gays of all stripes”. Many come from liberal backgrounds, including former Bernie Sanders supporters and Joe Biden voters who now see themselves as cultural rebels. They refer to themselves not as Republicans but as members of “the movement”.
Just as Wall Street’s “greed is good” ethos eventually displaced and mocked the earnest idealism of the hippie and New Age generations which preceded it, today’s young Right has learnt to wield irony like a weapon, turning woke-scold pieties into punchlines. The old Left-winger went from being a moral authority to a figure of mockery in less than a decade, and today’s progressive activists are headed for a similar fate.
The money men behind this cultural shift understand exactly what they’re doing. An investment in making “anti-woke” attitudes fashionable, like investments in attacking critical race theory or steering kids away from college, has helped disconnect the next generation from ossified power structures saturated with progressive rhetoric. When Thiel bankrolled early experiments such as the New People’s Cinema Club in 2022, he wasn’t just funding art — he was seeding a movement.
The strategy has worked. When one partygoer tells New York that she’s excited about “rounding up illegals”, the laughter conceals a truth that many progressives find hard to swallow. Recent polling shows 66% of Americans now support deporting illegal immigrants, including shocking numbers of young urban voters who would have rushed to cancel each other for supporting such policies a few years ago. The late conservative tastemaker Andrew Breitbart knew the score: first you change how people talk, then you change how they think, then you change how they vote. Arynne Wexler, a conservative influencer with over a quarter of a million Instagram followers who is quoted in the New York story, has little trouble echoing Breitbart: “Culture is upstream of politics.”
What makes this moment different from previous attempts at conservative cool is that it has authentic cultural credibility. “You can be urban, live in a condo, go to Casa Cipriani, and still be normal and vote for Donald Trump,” according to one partygoer in the New York article. Even institutions that were once reliable bastions of progressivism are adapting. TikTok, long viewed as a Gen-Z liberal stronghold until Donald Trump became an unlikely champion of its continued existence, recently became an official sponsor of conservative influencer events. The platform’s shift mirrors broader changes in youth culture, where transgression against progressive orthodoxy has become its own social currency.
The Left seems to have been caught flat-footed by all this, still operating on an outdated playbook where conservative automatically equals cringe. While Democrats chase celebrity endorsements from ubiquitous but hardly transgressive stars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, the Right has built an entire ecosystem of podcasters, artists, and tastemakers who make rebellion against progressivism feel thrilling and new. As one conservative publicist told New York: “MAGA is MTV for Gen Z […] Meanwhile, Democrats sound like ’80s Republicans protesting rap songs.” As with all trends, the tide comes in then goes out.
Of course, this whole scene could implode tomorrow. Movements built on irony and transgression have a way of eating themselves. While the Right’s long-term investment in culture is paying unexpected dividends, the real question is what happens next. What’s particularly striking in New York‘s reporting is how these new conservative influencers relate to Trump himself. He’s their Beyoncé, not their Reagan: more ageing cultural icon than avant-garde messiah. Whether you find all of this thrilling or terrifying probably depends on your politics. Either way, it’s working.
The transformation of American culture in the Eighties showed how quickly seemingly permanent social changes can be reversed when the right combination of money, media, and generational ennui align. Today’s young Right-wingers appear to have not just studied that playbook carefully, but iterated and improved on it. They’re doing something more important than winning elections — they’re winning the culture war by making their opponents look like the establishment squares the Left once mocked. What’s more, they’re discarding the old trappings of this decaying worldview, like DEI programmes, even as they keep the party going.
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SubscribeI don’t buy it. This was all 100% the opposite less than 90 days ago when these hipsters were all being scolded into voting for the joy vibe of Kamala. No such trend was disclosed or even hinted at. Now all of a sudden this has been clandestinely taking place for over a decade?
I believe that it is simply a fact that many of these young people now feel the freedom to think out loud. Everyone knew we were all being gaslit for the last 8 years and now we are free! Free at last!!
Yep, that just about sums it up.
Your final words, referencing MLK, are echoing Trump’s own allusions to MLK during his inauguration speech, re: being judged by the content of character, before sweeping DEI into the dustbin of (US) history.
This has been building for some time Warren.
I was at a sold out Jordan Peterson lecture back in 2019, most of the young attendees were well turned out and positive; very different to the types you see at “progressive” get-togethers.
Will the Peterson Bros save the world?
Agreed. I first noticed it nearing eight years ago after several attacks on freedom of speech culminating in the Count Dankula case which was around the time of Trump winning first time which galvanised younger blokes to out themselves although they were quickly destroyed by the left. It won’t be so easy this time round, hopefully. But I went to see JP at the O2 with Sam Harris and Douglas Murray and it was a sea of youth. After JP’s breakdown Decca Aitkenhead did a massive hit job on him in the Sunday Times and when I called up to cancel in protest was told they’d been inundated. These people have always been there, just scared to come out thanks to the tyrannical despotic left.
Tell us, what do you see at progressive get together?
This is the same as the 80s with Reagan and the preppies into the yuppies and lying demented reagan. James spader made an early career playing who these young people are playing now
Last year an acquaintance of mind went on a two-month road trip across the USA. His wife, being the nosy sort, asked a lot of the locals about their politics and was surprised at just how many of them were supportive of Trump and his policies but felt they couldn’t openly discuss it for fear of being ostracised socially. In other words, just what me and a lot of friends on the other side of the Atlantic had long suspected.
So yes, I’m sure you’re correct.
And I am sure that you just completely made this story up.
If you are going to fabricate thigs out of nothing then at least try to make them interesting or funny.
Not nice is it, finding oneself so unexpectedly on the wrong side of History?
You know who’s the coolest? Middle aged, menopausal women like me who summoned the courage to speak up in 2021 – 2023 against trans/vaccine passports/land acknowledgements/masks etc, when doing so was not cool.
Being a male who behaved like you, I’m concerned that I need to identify as menopausal if I want to be considered the “coolest” …
If you didn’t speak up on transgenderism til 2021 you’re part of the problem; the really cool brave women had been doing it for five years by then. Women of your vintage of entry into the debate joined in when it was fashionable and easy.
Dionne is also part of the problem because she has lumped together four different issues under one umbrella. All of these topics are nuanced in their own way.
Okay, remove cool points, take them for yourself – but it certainly was not fashionable or easy to sit across from the Principal of the elementary school in my small community and voice concerns about the large Trans flag that had just been raised in 2021 (still hanging). Or to be cancelled by my woke daughter for not being vaccinated (still not talking to me) nor to be kicked off my community forum for speaking up (still banned). Not easy at all.
I hope that your insane anti-science cult beliefs are worth it.
I guess you can continue to worship a buffoon like Trump from afar while your family and community disown you. Great choices…
I don’t like Trumps leadership style, too divisive and rude mannered. I’m on the West coast of Canada so he’s not my leader to worship. My beloved daughter will come around and my three sons adore me. Our community consists of more than cancel happy radical lefties – all the trades folk know where it’s at, they are still good for a laugh.
I am sure your three sons tolerate you and your fringe views. Your daughter shows more strength.
Assuming your kids are grown, or at least teenagers, why are you haranguing the local elementary school about whatever flag they chose to fly, Karen?
And as for being “still good for a laugh”, one has to assume that you mean they will still pretend to laugh at your racist and weird comments, probably just to shut you up for a little while.
Every community, even small ones on the west coast of Canada, has someone like you who thinks what they read from a stranger on Facebook or what some dimwit on Joe Rogan tells you is gospel and everyone else is lying. You are tiresome but can be easily ignored as I will now demonstrate!
Why are her views “fringe”? She represents the majority in USA and UK, not sure about Canada. You mean you disagree with her; why not be honest and say so? There is no shame in being in a minority.
She hasn’t told you why she was at the school; you could ask politely instead of jumping to a conclusion based on your own prejudices. We do know she has 4 children, perhaps she’s a school governor?
And why do you use the sexist and racist term “Karen” when her name is Dionne?
In the US, the majority is a whisker, possibly; can’t say for sure due to those who chose not to vote and the piles of uncounted ballots
Squawk away, sad little duck. Your side is losing ground with every passing day.
Meh. So what, you said you didnt think women had peni, no one asked for those little vaccine cards, you grew tired of land acknowledgements and probably questioned how fabric prevented covid and so, you… jumped on maga and, like, yay for you? Do you now feel the smallest whisper in your head begining to question yet again: maybe Hegseth lacks merit?, Could it be rfk jr isnt qualified nor well?, does it seem suspicious to allegedly before inspector generals?, not only has the war in Ukraine still going, is Putin ignoring trump? Blah blah blah if so, will you speak out now?
That New York magazine photo is an object lesson in how Progressives are eating themselves.
Published against a scolding article titled “The Cruel Kids Table” it purports to frame this new conservatism as just another exclusive club for the scions of moneyed white privilege.
Progressive social media was of course quick to pick up on this theme: deriding the sea of white faces, suits, cocktail dresses, and MAGA hats.
Except it wasn’t. The picture is deliberately cropped to exclude a number of black attendees at the event who are just out of picture. The wider shot is available on social media and a number of black conservatives have come forward to say they were also present.
This was, at best, a misrepresentation of the event and at worst a deliberate falsehood presented with the intention of stoking racial division. And now we all know it.
New York magazine stoking racial division? Well I never! Whatever next?
Apparently the organizer and host is black.
What were the numbers in the full pic, white to black? You realize, yes, that class is the very issue that is rising, not race, so i’d be interested in the actual decision of why the cropping, bc how much racial division do you actually think that pic caused?
The lesson for progressives is clear: keep the consequences of your policies away from the suburbs.
The lesson for UK conservatives is also clear: make sure the middle class suburbs experience the consequences of progressive policies. House the men from the boats in Richmond, not Rotherham.
Better still house the men from the boats next to the houses of the various mayors, police chiefs and Members of Parliament. And BBC presenters.
Especially BBC presenters!
Rub their noses in diversity!
“The strategy has worked. When one partygoer tells New York that she’s excited about “rounding up illegals”, the laughter conceals a truth that many progressives find hard to swallow. Recent polling shows 66% of Americans now support deporting illegal immigrants, including shocking numbers of young urban voters who would have rushed to cancel each other for supporting such policies a few years ago.”
It’s really not that difficult to understand and not shocking at all. It was perfectly predictable. We have witnessed one catastrophe after another. Keeping the border open for four years, has finally exposed the progressive woke crowd and others who had been insulated from those consequences, from the everyday realities produced by their policies. They live in New York and San Francisco, Boston and Chicago where the crime rates have exploded–even as they’ve been hidden from official crime statistics by district attorneys who routinely redefined crime making felonies misdemeanors and eliminating cash bail, where the money to rebuild highways, electrical grids, and housing has been siphoned off to provide illegal aliens with comfortable hotel suites.
Thus, It’s not simply elections that have consequences. So do the uber left policies that have been pursued by the authoritarian left, even as they have the temerity to chastise Donald Trump as a fascist. The people who have been hurt by the imposition of the widespread harm that ideologically driven political decisions taken by the far left handlers of Joe Biden are not only working class folks, but middle class former cheer leaders of the scolding, irrational extremists who insisted on open borders.
Anyone paying modest attention to the evolution of the increasing institutional dominance of the far left could see the backlash coming, led almost entirely by those talking “common sense” while asking those formerly inclined toward the woke crowd to reconsider their voting decisions. It’s not a stretch to say that those extremist policies have led to an entire city in California being burned to the ground, to daily occurrences of murders and stabbings, disappeared housing, overbearing and condescending progressive “leaders”, and a ubiquitous institutionalizing of DEI political philosophy.
Under those circumstances, it’s not difficult to explain what appears to be a cultural and political shift underway. Thank goodness!!
Try to be concise so people might read your comment.
Agreed, it’s too long.
I read it, and thought it pretty good.
If it split into many smaller paragraphs, it would have been more readable. Small chunks is the key!
Where do you think the wealthy conservative radical right lives?
…turns out that NY Magazine clipped that cover photo, to cut out the black people in the crowd!!
One can certainly see the attraction – bright, beautiful, positive and happy young people versus the depressing woke scolds.
Not sure about the “crypto nerds” though. Probably my least favorite people on the planet.
Yes, Greeta t**d wouldn’t fit in.
You’ve been watching the scowls on the right, right? The haunted victimhood of having all the power and money while still ceaselessly whining?
It’s pretty easy to make your opponents look like establishment squares when they are establishment squares.
My thought exactly.
Jimbo, you even manage to sound old when you are trying to be cool!
I just love how clueless you people are!
I think the author is maybe overthinking it by describing as some kind of grand plan. To me it simply appears to be the normal order of things.
Kids will always rebel against the dominant structures in society, and every few decades those rebelling then become the dominant ones themselves.
The 60’s saw the hippy culture which was largely a reaction to the very conservative one that preceded it. This lefty group were then usurped by (financially) hard right Reagan/Thatcherism and City excess. This in turn was then replaced by Blair/Clintons Third Way which went back to being much more progressive (in the political sense), and has arguably been the dominant political philosophy ever since (despite the Tories being in power for the bulk of it). After being the establishment long enough it’s now cool again to rebel and move back towards the opposite direction.
It’s a story as old as time. England has veered massively during its history between times of dull Puritanism and wild hedonism. Even the boring youngsters today are simply a reaction to the laddish/laddette culture that was the norm when I was younger. Give it a decade and they’ll all start misbehaving again
Exactly, social and political movements are pendulums, swinging first one way and then the other, through generations. They have to go too far one way before they swing back (we certainly went too far with progressivism, the group think craziness became utterly intolerable – cancel culture, BLM..).
There was certainly no grand plan that brought this about – it’s a natural social phenomenon.
Precisely. No political system or movement is perfect, all have tradeoffs and over time in any system the negatives become more prominent thus pushing people back towards the other direction
Pathetic, ham-fisted attempt to somehow imply that conservative money is the impetus behind this long-time-coming, utterly organic vibe shift.
Yeah, it’s like training to claim credit for the sun and the rain.
And thank goodness for that. There may be hope after all…
Not really. You’re mistaking being against something as being for something.
These people are just fashionable and they’re moving with the fashion, they’ll move onto the next thing when that comes along. Anti-woke and woke are one in the same in that they are both forces of repudiation, both will lead to vapid, superficial and materially oriented societies. That is why the woke convert so easily to the anti-woke, they quickly realise that not much changes when you do.
Interesting article, thanks. Yes, all movements have a beginning and an end. I don’t think its ending is part of any clever right wing plan or came about by sponsoring cultural events. To borrow your wording, progressivism ate itself. It became too shrill, too self righteous and too self-absorbed – the writing was already on the wall. I would say the end started maybe 5 years ago, ironically when Biden got back in.
“Anti-woke art festivals? I’m sorry I missed those!
Yeah. It stills feels like close to 100% of art is not right wing.
Practically all gallery owners are liberal and will not exhibit ‘conservative artists’….fact
Am reminded of PJ O’Rourke’s ‘Republican Party Reptile.’
If a significant part of the status quo suddenly switches teams and starts supporting your counter culture, is it still a counter culture? Although it has to be said Thiel was an OG when it comes to this movement and didn’t really switch, as far as I know.
Fredric Jameson argued that postmodernism is the cultural logic of late capitalism. One interpretation of this assumption is the observation that these subversive cultural movements tend to be coopted and commoditied within the underlying dominant power structuren of big money and major corporate interests over time. This already happened with the postmodern left and now we might be seeing it with the postmodern right. Cultural shifts can certainly change the Overton window but in the end the status quo does not seem too affected. In fact, the culture war can easily be used to distract and divide as well.
And the many mediations can vary in their importance. For example, much of what has since been categorised as ‘progressive’, ‘woke’ or ‘cancel’ culture was put together by students from relatively comfortable backgrounds when they encountered others from less comfortable ones at college, in a kind of Dutch auction of guilt, e.g. ‘I’m not a privileged exploiter, I’m really not.’ So, a little bit more open access can have complex results, including demands for extensive counterbalancing of exclusions, depending on the momentary state of mind of the young privileged. Which can easily move on.
As an Deplorable of longstanding this story warms my heart.
I’m confident that when everybody seems to have embraced woke culture that the reaction against it is going to excite the young go getting types.
Guess I’ll have to mosey over to the other side.
Important not to misrecognise or mischaracterise what passes as ideas, orientations or modes of talking. They aren’t necessarily based on what is claimed about them by others.
For example, much of what has since been categorised as ‘progressive’, ‘woke’ or ‘cancel’ culture was put together by students from relatively comfortable backgrounds when they encountered others from less comfortable ones at college, in a kind of Dutch auction of guilt, e.g. ‘I’m not a privileged exploiter, I’m really not.’ So, a little bit more open access can have complex results, including demands for extensive counterbalancing of exclusions, depending on the momentary state of mind of the young privileged. Which can easily move on.
Desperate attempt to make Trump’s cruel absurdities seem cool. There has always been the Brocks and the Tuckers who think its funny to wear a bow tie and say that they think democracy is overrated and apartheid wasn’t that bad. Guys like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel in fact. Weirdoes to the rest of us.
The kids in the picture above are prime examples of this. Over privileged and not very smart, daddy’s money will insulate them from their own lameness but let’s not equate that with being among the cool kids – they aren’t.
Stephen Miller and that awful woman that is the new press secretary are the conservative kids – and they are the polar opposite of cool.
Let me know when Trump starts winning in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or anywhere else where tastemakers actually live and vote. Until then its just a bunch of asshole kids going to parties funded by super weird rich South African guys.