Furious Minds, by Laura K Field

This is a rather fresh-off-the-press non-fiction book that, I would say, is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand a lesser-known facet of US right-wing politics: its intellectual foundation.

Spoiler: the book is doubly interesting, because so many of the people you’ll meet on its pages are our well-known contemporaries. E.g. JD Vance, Peter Thiel, Tucker Carlson, Costin Alamariu (ce facuși, muica, aoleeeeu!), and many more lesser-known, but not a bit less important, intellectuals who created the right-wing doctrine as we know it.

First of all, yes – the US political Right does have an intellectual side to it, surprise-surprise. We are accustomed to think that the right swing we are all witnessing in democratic societies is due to the dramatic increase in inequality, or left-wing cancel culture and veeeeeery questionable DEI policies, or immigration crisis, or – you name it. All of this is true.

What is often overlooked, especially from the inside of the “liberal bubble”, is the fact that the Right also has a doctrine, developed by people who are, well, not stupid. We are all under the impression that the Left wing has its Chomskys, while the Right wing consists of yahoos. This is, of course, a misapprehension, which “Furious Minds” corrects.

The right-wing doctrine forms more in a pursuit of formulating and rationalizing intellectuals’ beliefs and moral codes, rather than in response to the adversities of the world. Right-wing intellectuals are quite sheltered from those adversities. As are the ones from the Left wing.

What the book leaves out is how the right-wing doctrine is connected with grassroots right-wing movements that DO originate purely as a response to adversities of life, real or imaginary. But it is not hard to extrapolate from both the facts described in the book and real-life observations. The answer is: the doctrine and grassroots feed on each other. The doctrine most definitely shapes people’s opinions because it is transmitted from the places of power. The populism catches on. Grassroots inform policymakers what crazy idea to take off the shelf of available right-wing thought next.

The book is not an easy read. Firstly, because it requires at least a basic understanding of the US founding & current political structure. Secondly, because its material is complex, and presenting it in a digestible manner would have required a special kind of talent – both on the writer’s and editor’s side. I am afraid this talent is not there. Nonetheless, it’s an important book!

Try reading it without making a constant effort to keep all the names, book titles & political currents in your head. Here’s a bullet point list of takeaways that hopefully will help you follow along & have a more relaxing read:

• The political intellectual right is not homogeneous, but consists of at least 3 large “schools of thought”: National Conservatives, Claremonters, Postliberals.
• The Right as a whole has a clear tendency towards radicalization over time, its “mainstream” being replaced by a more radical core. This way, the Hard Right Underbelly (not a school of thought per se, but rather a collection of fringe media figures) migrates towards becoming more mainstream and gains more and more influence in right-wing policymaking.
• Currently, the Right Wing in US politics is “in trend” with all major right-wing movements of recent history: it is nationalistic, religious, misogynistic, traditionalist, and so on.
• The US Right exports its doctrine, actively seeking – and succeeding – to penetrate the EU political scene. In this respect, the fall of Viktor Orban was a very serious blow to the whole Right-wing agenda.
• The Right is imbued with religious thought, with the religious part of it becoming more and more influential. As it does, the Right becomes more and more sure of itself and unapologetic. Hard to doubt oneself if you’re convinced that God sent you to set things right on Earth, right?
• Last but not least: all the conspiracy-theory-ish things the Right accuses the Left of, like e.g. promoting itself in the universities and high schools, influencing policy with money, actively taking over the political scene & the Government – all of these things the Right does. Better, bigger, more shamelessly. Only they don’t call it a conspiracy if it’s them :))))). This great little anecdote summarizes this but perfectly: ”A little boy peeps through the keyhole, watching his parents having sex. After a while, he turns around and, visibly shaken, goes: and THESE people tell me not to pick my nose?!??!”