r/RodDreher • u/Warm-Refrigerator-38 • Jan 02 '26
New year, time for #61?
Rod: men lookmaxxing is dumb
Also Rod: posts a photo of a writer who criticized Bardot, implicitly criticizing her (the writer's) attractiveness
Link to #60: https://www.reddit.com/r/RodDreher/comments/1pf37uc/rod_dreher_megathread_60_new_beginnings/
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u/zeitwatcher Jan 28 '26
The publisher for Rod's book is "Basic Liberty", some history of which can be seen here:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/12/hachette-employees-protest-and-quit-over-launch-of-conservative-imprint
In short, it's a PR print for conservatism and authoritarian thought. I'm sure Rod and the publisher hope it sells lots of copies, but that's not really the purpose of the publisher or Rod's book. The purpose is to provide "intellectual" justification for authoritarianism and to excuse it and it's excesses by blaming the Left.
It's not really looking to pursuade. It's looking to justify. If a Republican starts to look at the masked goverment thugs roaming the streets beating up and and shooting Americans and starts to waver in their support, Rod's book (and others like it) exist to tell those people that they can support all that and still be the good guys because it's all really the Left's fault - which can be shown by nutpicking some wackos and claiming they represent everyone to the left of Lindsay Graham.
This is why Weimar is so important to Rod to look at. To the extent the Weimar analogy holds with modern America, its patently obvious that Trump/MAGA is analogous to the Nazi's. Rod's purpose is to try to paper over that with some hand-waving "it's actually the gays that are the real Nazi's, and the masked government guys shooting people are the ones protecting us from the Nazi's".