The conversation moves from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Japanese tea ceremony to the story of a deaf woman hearing Beethoven for the first time, as they discuss whether taste should simply be trusted or deliberately trained, and why humans are so drawn to sublime forces that horrify and dwarf us.

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Alexander von Sternberg is the host of the podcast History Impossible, a graduate student of history, and a former guest on The Radicalist.

The History Impossible Newsletter

A Velvet Jihad

On November 7th, 2024, disturbing footage began to appear in the aftermath of a football (soccer) match between the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch club AFC Ajax. Unlike your typical stories of football hooliganism, the fight was not over the outcome of the match (Maccabi Tel Aviv lost, for what it is worth) as much as it became another prox…

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2 years ago · 8 likes · 4 comments · Alexander von Sternberg

David Volodzko speaks with Jeff Booth about the nature of inflation, the inevitability of Bitcoin, why other cryptocurrencies are inferior, Bitcoin’s volatility, common criticisms of Bitcoin, global adoption, the possibility of a Bitcoin standard, the social benefits of Bitcoin, and more.

Jeff Booth is a tech entrepreneur, founding partner of the Bitcoin venture fund ego death capital, co-founder of addy, giving the public exposure in Canadian real estate, and author of The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is Key to an Abundant Future. In 2016, Goldman Sachs named him among its 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, and he currently sits on the boards of Core Scientific, Scoop Solar, Fedi and Breez.

Barrington (X) is a philosopher, writer, host of The Barrington Report, and former congressional candidate for Georgia’s 5th District.

David Volodzko speaks with Ayaan Hirsi Ali about her new Substack project Restoration, the September 11 attacks, her father’s influence on her views, whether Islam can be reformed, the importance of Saudi Arabia’s political shift, what it would take for the West to win its conflict with subversive powers such as Islamism and Marxism, her conversion to Christianity, how to balance compassion with practical concerns in the immigration debate, the subversion of our universities and news outlets, the moral awakening of October 7, the importance of freedom of speech and civility, the breakdown of the marketplace of ideas, the heroism of figures such as Elon Musk and Bari Weiss, how Ukraine affects us all, the meaning of bravery, the principles of being a dissident, and more.

Both speakers recently wrote essays about the Soviet dissident Yuri Bezmenov and the subversion of American society by Marxist influences, we they reference in the conversation—“We Have Been Subverted” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and “How Marxism Subverted America” by David Volodzko.

is the author of Richard Hanania’s Newsletter, the founder and president of the think tank Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI), and the author of several books including the 2023 work The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics. What follows is my letter to him and his reply.

Dear Richard,

Given that your latest book, The Origins of Woke, examines the history of the movement, I thought it would be interesting for us to look at its future. I will tip my hand and say up front, I think it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. Too many have bought into the ideology, invested in the industry, and built careers off the movement. Kids on social media are high on woke while Russia and China are using algorithms to jam it through the breastplate of American youth like Vincent Vega.

Besides, nothing ever really dies. We defeated the South yet Confederate flags still fly in Southern skies. We defeated the Nazis yet neo-Nazi terrorists are still active on American soil. Even if we push back the flood of woke progressivism, our grandchildren will still be dealing with the mud of waterlogged soil left behind.

But like I said, though the water is receding, we’ve got a second flood peak coming. This is an election year and Donald J. Trump has a decent shot at winning. If he does, blue-haired baristas and alphabet-gendered pronoun police will become so triggered they’ll begin to glow and we may get an entirely new wave of woke.

The far-left runs on a grievance operating system and the GrievanceOS is written entirely in the Victim programming language. It reminds me of a computer programming interrupt, in which one suspends activities, executes an interrupt service routine to deal with some issue, then restores the code. Woke is an interrupt service routine initially intended to flag injustice, then the code became corrupted, and now it’s time to restore the code, otherwise known as Western Civilization.

In other words, woke began as a needed correction. For example, critical race theory emerged from critical legal studies, which addressed analytical flaws in legal formalism. But every correction is an over-correction. What began as debunking formalist fallacies soon became transactional and racist. Now we’re neck-deep, but I believe we are entering a post-woke era. Even San Francisco passed its tough-on-crime Proposition E ballot measure, allowing police to use drones even in non-violent crimes, with a whopping 60% support. No surprise given the city’s ugly crime trends.

Nationwide, abolitionist city council members are facing recalls over crime spikes. There’s a recall effort in glacier-blue D.C. and Seattle’s socialist city council member Kshama Sawant barely escaped recall, then decided not to run for re-election and was replaced by a sensible moderate. As I wrote in a profile for The Free Press, Oakland’s black and brown communities are sick of the BLM-caused crime spike.

On the other hand, Hollywood isn’t getting any better and the “billion-dollar casualty of woke” that is Disney is only doubling down on its Criterion Collection of preachy trash. Disney is casting black actress Ayi Edibiri as the white Irish pirate Anne Bonny in the next Pirates of the Caribbean and audiences can also look forward to the 2025 release of Snow White and Her Politically Correct Companions.

And if you thought the Budweiser debacle with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which cost the company $1.4 billion, was some kind of wake-up call, allow me to draw your attention to Advil’s new “antiracist” strategy to sell more drugs. The thing is, companies are still willing to risk a Budweiser-level flop in the hopes of recreating Nike’s 2018 “Believe in Something” campaign with Colin Kaepernick, because despite all the controversy, it generated a 31% bump in online sales.

I’ve previously commented on the rot in our education system, and that was before we began to see pro-Hamas rallies on college campuses nationwide. Meanwhile, the world of sports is still trying to figure out whether biological males are physically advantaged over women.

The rot has, of course, also cut deep into Democratic politics. Consider the Nex Benedict hate crime hoax. We now know Benedict started the physical altercation, lied to police about it, and committed suicide. Yet the Biden administration wants to suggest to Americans that Benedict was killed by bigotry. As you recently noted, “They’re really trying to create a non-binary George Floyd.”

We are witnessing the erosion of moral common sense. You can now cheer for jihadist terrorists who cook babies or support ludicrously racist rhetoric so long as the terrorists oppose Western capitalism and the racism is directed at white people. What is the upshot of all this? The worms have dug in deep and we are simply never going to get them all. There will be more racial division. More political division. More insufferable politicization of every conceivable aspect of regular American life. As a result of running this interrupt service routine for so long, truly valuable causes will struggle even more for the attention they deserve.

That’s the tragedy. Black Lives Matter harms black people most of all. The trans movement harms trans people most of all. Pro-Palestinian activists are doing Gazans no favors. As Paulo Coelho once wrote, “Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life.” That is to say, hell is the missed opportunity to do great good.

And hell spreads by feeding upon the better angels of our nature. But there is hope. I have met and interviewed people who were extremely woke and came back again. But to get there, the better angels of our nature are going to have to learn to be a little less like Gabriel and a little more like Michael. We are going to have to do the work of re-teaching people basic things such as why Shakespeare matters. Or that there is a Western Canon. And no, your favorite black trans author isn’t included simply because xe wrote an slam poem about how trans women are the only real women.

We are going to have to explain again, and again, and again, why life in Russia and China is inferior to life in America. The battle will be exhausting and not always very interesting. The other side has the sexier collection of clickbait protest signs. They are on the side of REVOLUTION. We are on the side of dull common sense and reason. But the thing about clickbait is, it always disappoints once you actually click.

Hey David,

I think at this point I’m less concerned about woke than you are, even though I continue to support the policies I outline in my book to roll back the civil rights regime. I already see us moving away from the worst days of the insanity.

You mention the Nex Benedict hoax. Compared to George Floyd, it’s barely gone anywhere. Biden posts about this, or talks about Trans Day of Visibility, and conservatives dunk on it, and it has no larger impact on the culture.

I’ve talked about Sydney Sweeney’s boobs as unironically a sign that the vibe is shifting. I think that what we went through circa 2012-2021 was a one-time madness based on the rise of social media, which we didn’t have antibodies against.

This is probably also the cause of the increase in mental health problems among the youth. Eventually the virtue signaling got old, and most importantly Elon Musk bought Twitter. It sounds kind of lame to attribute the fall of woke to one business acquisition that was quite random, but it looks clear to me that this is what happened, and if future historians are doing their job well they will recognize the momentousness of that event. 

I disagree that Trump winning will reactivate the energies of his first term. The frenzy has burned itself out. Have you looked at the stuff that Trump is saying on Truth Social these days? He’s become more deranged than ever, basically declaring himself an instrument of God, and we just shrug it off at this point. Again, the left not having Twitter is a big deal. It was a coordination mechanism that hasn’t been replaced.

If Democrats pull off a 2024 victory, I think liberalism will remain sort of sluggish and lethargic, setting up a Republican win in 2028. That is, unless pro-life extremism hasn't made Republicans unable to win national elections, which is possible.

That doesn’t mean that certain institutions aren't gone. Academia is bad, and it’s not related to any kind of administrative policy as much as it is self-selection at this point. I think smart and free-thinking individuals now realize that college is a joke, as are the social sciences, and there are better opportunities on the outside.

Some of the local polities in California seem completely captured by lunatics. But there is a world outside of college, and states other than California. As with Ivy League universities returning to the SAT, where there's pluralism and competition, there’s a cost to being too woke.

We are witnessing an extreme fragmentation of our culture, which goes beyond the woke/anti-woke debate. Leftists remain crazy, but people like Nick Fuentes, Bronze Age Pervert, Alex Jones, and much smaller and crazier figures have a voice.

Within the Republican Party and mainstream conservatism, you see open authoritarianism, and talk of once forbidden ideas like repealing the 19^th Amendment and racial differences in intelligence.

This isn’t a completely positive development, as I think that we’re at the point where right-wing extremism is a problem, and creates difficulties for pushing back on the left. But I believe that we have such a fragmented and decentralized society now that it doesn’t make sense to consider what’s happening culturally on any kind of single axis.

This would perhaps suggest we should spend more time paying attention to macro-events that inevitably are going to affect us all, like the future financial health of the federal government and geopolitical competition.

In our conversation, we talked about Korea, his family life, his firing from KOMO for covering a Proud Boys rally, the pattern of news outlets caving to radical leftists by firing their own journalists, crime in Seattle and the failure of “defund the police,” Seattle’s stalled revitalization efforts, the homeless-industrial complex, the fentanyl epidemic, the pro-Palestinian protests in Seattle and their link to the city’s communist protest network, the failures of corporate media, how platforms like X have democratized information, and the future of independent journalism.

His writing on DEI includes the Quillette essay “Ditching Diversity Myths” and Substack essays such as “DEI May INCREASE Surface-Level Divisions, Hurt Information Elaboration” and “DEI Destroys Organizational Justice.”

Abely (website, university profile, X) formerly worked at several Massachusetts law firms in business litigation and international trade and sanctions law and was an adjunct lecturer at Boston University School of Law. She has written in the areas of compliance, contracts, and international trade and sanctions.

In this conversation, Abely explains everything you ever wanted to know about Russia sanctions, especially in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

Bethan Johnson is a postdoctoral scholar with the Initiative to Study Hate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an editor at the fully open-access, peer-reviewed Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies. She earned her doctorate in history at the University of Cambridge, where her dissertation, Militant Separatism in Western Europe and North America, 1965-1975, examined violent ethno-nationalist separatist movements during the Cold War era.

Johnson (website, X) has a master’s in modern British history and a bachelor’s in history, English, and Jewish studies. Her current areas of research explore how identity politics fuel violent radicalization, with a focus on far-right extremism in the West. Her current projects include accelerationism and new media, the spread of neo-Nazism among Western youth, and modern Buddhist esoteric neo-Nazism.

An introductory note from Dr. Johnson:

I would like to highlight that while an expert on extremism and terrorism, my focus is on the far-right. I am also a historian by academic training. I cannot speak to all of the intricacies of left-wing extremism with the same level of detail as to that of the far-right, so please understand that this will have an impact on my analysis.

Moreover, I think that it is important to set some context and parameters around my statements. In your questions, you ask about far-right vs. terrorist vs. left-wing extremism vs. right-wing violence. It is important to say that all of these terms are highly contested both within and without the scholarly literature on these topics. There is no universal definition of terrorism—whether legal, scholarly, or colloquial—which means that where extremism or political violence ends and where terrorism begins varies based on several factors (country context, criminal statutes, casual conversation, etc.) Similarly, there is immense debate about what constitutes the far-right or radical right and the same thing goes for the other side of a linear political spectrum.

For instance, in some countries, impassioned anti-abortion or anti-LGBTQ+ activism might receive a classification of far-right or radical right, whereas in others it may not. While there are certain groups that are widely viewed as part of the radical right—think neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, white supremacists—there are many others that are classified with more difficulty/reticence. For the purposes of clarity, my responses when it comes to these questions will be to look—unless otherwise stated—at the methods of the more widely accepted iterations of the radical right, wherein the movements included are those that seek to fundamentally overthrow or overhaul basic principles of society such as liberal democracies, multiculturalism, and egalitarianism.

I will also discuss the far-left after applying a similar litmus test, thereby talking about those that seek the fundamental reorientation of society’s basic ideas/institutions or to harm others on the sole basis of their identity, i.e. those using violence in the name of anarchism, anti-capitalism, animal rights, environmentalism, ANTIFA (on this last one, I would like to strongly emphasise that being anti-fascist is opposing fascism which is not, in my opinion, an extreme position; that said, there is a difference between being anti-fascist, ANTIFA, and a violent person associated with ANTIFA). Also, while some may argue that their ideologies could warrant their classification within the far-right camp, I am not going to be speaking about religion-driven terrorism, i.e. Salafi jihadism, violent Hindutva, or ultra-Zionism.

Given your work studying the radicalization methods employed by terrorists, do you see any of the same methods being deployed by the far-right in the United States? How about the far-left?

Radicalisation is an extremely complicated issue when it comes to methodology and end-result, to be honest, and this stands to get even more complicated as official group membership (e.g. being a member of the KKK or the American Nazi Party) continues to trend down and lone wolf, self-driven activism rises. The best way I can explain it in any kind of brevity is to talk about two concepts.

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First, current trends within radicalization methods rely on essentially flooding the virtual world with a diverse array of easy-to-consume content (videos, memes, pieces of art, songs, short missives, some longer pieces too). Instead of forcing a potential recruit to read a long book or travel to attend an in-person meeting, now radicalisation is much more like a DIY activity; that said, unlike a real DIY project wherein you intentionally set out to do something, here, it would be as if someone delivered DIY kits to your front door regularly and nudged you to at least try one. The more hands-off method to radicalization has the advantage of being far less costly and time consuming for the recruiter (they have to produce the work once and then it can be accessed by any number of people in relative perpetuity).

Second, in the realm of radicalization, there is the concept of the Overton window, which can be applied on the macro scale of societal views but also on the micro scale to an individual. By this, I mean that an individual holding one view in common with a recruiter can slowly have their opinion changed on an issue by prolonged exposure to an idea to the point where the idea goes from being viewed as fringe and rejected, to normalised and being indifferent to, to outright embraced. These are tactics used by those seeking to convince individuals to believe in any number of ideas, not the exclusive of any side of a political spectrum. That said, as an expert on radical right recruitment, I can say that the radical right has shown an immense capacity and adaptability in finding/fostering receptive audiences, particularly because they target vulnerable groups (teens and young adults, the incarcerated, those experiencing loneliness/isolation).

Do identity politics only play into ethnonationalist sentiment on the American right or are there also examples of this on the left?

Identity politics is far from the exclusive territory of the American right-wing ethno-nationalists. In fact, my doctoral research examined violent/terroristic ethno-nationalists who would have identified with more far-left policies whilst also drawing heavily upon the talking points of identity politics. To provide some context, the popular rise of the term identity politics within political parlance can be traced back to the 1977 manifesto of the Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist collective operating in the United States. The concept described therein and by contemporaries of the time sought to highlight the value in understanding the role that various aspects of a person’s identity played on their politics, specifically how membership in various oppressed groups informed their political agenda. So, there is nothing that inherently tethers identity politics to the right-wing.

Over the years, the concept of identity politics grew to include instances in which the identity being operationalized was a privileged one (i.e. white identity politics), meaning that the term now has very broad applicability. I would also note that there is, to my perception, a negative connotation to identity politics for many today, in large part as the term grows more linked to exclusionary movements (white supremacy, male supremacy, heteronormativity). That said, it could be argued that this is not necessarily inherently warranted. Examples of identity politics being a driving force behind what many left-leaning people would articulate to be positive social change and equity include Black Lives Matter and anti-racist criminal justice reform, marriage equality and LGBTQ inclusivity, better representation, and provisions for people living with disabilities.

Multiple studies have indicated right-wing violence is far more significant in the United States. Does this suggest left-wing extremism is less prevalent, or do left-wing extremists simply use different methods, such as targeted online harassment or doxxing etc?

As far as violence is concerned, it is true that right-wing extremist violence is a serious problem both within and without the United States. In addition to instances of large-scale violence (attacks in El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Charleston, to name a few), it is also important to highlight an element of this that can get overlooked in talks about violence: hate crimes. While issues of under-reporting, mis-classification, and false reporting can make hate crime statistics far from perfect when attempting to capture the exact nature of things, they can help us understand just how hate manifests itself in the real world. The available data on hate crimes is also worrisome when it comes to right-wing extremists, again in the U.S. and abroad.

There is also the issue of what happened on January 6. While those on either side of the extremist spectrum may be aiming to fundamentally alter the status quo (often through radical action), the radical right has most recently come the closest to succeeding in this endeavor as it relates to the events of January 6. The storming of the U.S. Capitol with the aim of altering the course of the election would have essentially overthrown the peaceful transfer of power, an essential element of democracy. While there have been efforts by those on the extreme left to alter society, in my view, none have come so close to success and none have made such an effort in such a violent fashion in recent years.

As you noted in the question, these metrics do not capture the full breadth of harm that can be done since there are also the aspects of doxxing, swatting, virtual death threats, and general online hate. At the moment, to my knowledge, there has been no robust comparison between U.S. left-wing extremist and right-wing extremist online content as it relates to harassment and harm. My knee-jerk response would be that the vastness of the internet makes such a broadly defined study a complicated, if not impossible, task. As such, I cannot offer a definitive answer comparing the two, beyond pointing to the notable disparity in real-world acts of fatal violence and serious bodily harm between left-wing and right-wing extremism. That said, again, none of this is to discredit that individuals holding any number of views across the political spectrum can and have engaged in serious virtual or real world harm in pursuit of their goal, or that what has transpired to date will continue to be the case in the coming years.

What particular issues or trends do you see with regard to white supremacism that you feel the public isn’t fully aware of or that my readers should know?

More than anything, I wish people recognized the extent to which they or their loved ones are vulnerable to radicalization, be that in respect to white supremacy, the manosphere, or anti-government conspiracy theories. All too often, people seem to believe that they would never “fall for something like that” or that they were “smart enough to know better.” From my own close study of individuals who have joined extremist movements, I see all the time how easily people go from embracing mainstream political ideas to endorsing/espousing extremism. I also know that there is no one “type” of person who becomes an extremist—single to married, young to old, uneducated to highly educated, male or female, the list goes on.

To my mind, people need to: be vigilant about checking in to make sure they consume accurate content and/or that they are aware of any biases or subtle messaging in their sources, be that in person or online; check in with themselves to make sure that their political beliefs reflect their values as well as data; continue to challenge their prejudices; and be willing to disengage with or even call out people that are attempting to instil prejudice or disinformation into the conversation.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to get swept up in the radicalizing content that is all around us and thus it requires that we work hard to fight against it, not only on a societal level, but also on a personal level. Also, I want to highlight for those serving as guardians or caregivers to vulnerable people (young people, the incarcerated, those in fragile mental states) that, because there is this trend away from group activism and towards self-driven radicalisation, the warning signs are perhaps slightly different than they once were. It is no longer only about noticing if someone is spending in-person time with people that display signs of being radical (i.e. hate tattoos or apparel), but also looking at their activities online. Moreover, ask them about their ideas on various political opinions and then really listen to them to hear if they are starting to say things that indicate they are moving along a more extreme path (i.e. sweeping, unfounded statements about whole groups of people, conspiracy theories, misinformation). As hard as it is, it is far easier to intervene before a person fully integrates into an extreme circle and lead them back to the straight and narrow, than it is to de-radicalize someone.

I would also want to encourage people to start having conversations about how we, as a society but also as individuals, handle people who join and then want to leave white supremacist groups. There is some research being done into the challenges people face once they leave white supremacist organizations, and it indicates that this can be an incredibly dangerous time for these people. There is also the potential for an individual to remain in a white supremacist group because they feel that leaving is no longer a viable option for them because mainstream society would reject them. To me, this is a particularly interesting topic in light of the talk about cancel culture. But as we find evidence that young people are being targeted for recruitment and that not everyone who participates in these more extreme circles in their youth remains radicalised, it is important that we have a bit of a philosophical reckoning with what to do about people who once promoted hate but want to leave that life behind.

What can people do to confront these issues? Is there any evidence to suggest which methods of addressing such extremism are most effective?

I think that much of my answer to the last question answers the question of what people can do. That said, I also want to note that people who find themselves witnessing someone radicalize should realize a few things. One, make sure that you feel safe before you make any efforts at addressing these issues with the radicalizing individual. Two, do not feel that you need to face this problem on your own. If you feel as though you are seeing worrying trends, talk to teachers, guidance counselors, mental health professionals, and/or law enforcement officers. If you create a network of people, both you and your loved one can receive support in this challenging time. Three, if you find evidence that your loved one is a real threat to themself or others, you need to involve law enforcement.

Overall, I think that policies related to extremism that reflect/build off robust data are best, as are those that reflect the reality that the people who join radical movements are still people. Although they may do, say, or think what we view as monstrous or psychotic things, they are still people (and the data shows they are overwhelmingly not psychopaths or devoid of human emotion). I say this because it is only once we realize that extremists become extremists and often do so because they think that it was the “right” thing to do, can we begin to find ways to convince them otherwise and, perhaps even more importantly, stop others from ever becoming extremists in the first place. Combating extremism is a challenging issue in many ways, a security issue on many levels, and it requires coordination and creativity.

Final question — I saw “modern Buddhist esoteric neo-Nazism” in your bio. What can you tell me about modern Buddhist esoteric neo-Nazism?

Yeah, so basically I am doing a sort of slow-moving steady analysis of how neo-Nazis and neo-fascists have had this longstanding interest in Buddhism and framing their political views using a Buddhist perspective. For instance, one of the most influential and highly cited writers in current neo-fascist/neo-Nazi thought wrote extensively about Buddhist thought and beliefs, even on a granular level (though, I would note, not reaching the same conclusions of mainstream Buddhist theologians). Meanwhile, I noticed on various platforms that people would have usernames like “militantBuddhist” or the like, specifically linking Buddhism to their politics. So I am fascinated by and have some theories about why this engagement with so-called Buddhist beliefs has come to be and what uses it has for neo-Nazis/neo-fascists.

His 2019 book Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War, looked at a dataset of 409 allegedly false hate crimes and found that a substantial percentage are hoaxes, such as the Jussie Smollett case.

His 2020 book Taboo: 10 Facts [You Can’t Talk About] reviews facts about race, gender, and class that have become taboo in American society.

His upcoming book Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me is set to be released in June.

In this conversation, we discuss his mother’s influence on his thinking, what it means to have an honest conversation about race, whether diversity is always better, hate crime hoaxes, taboo facts about race and gender, the color-blind approach to race, race and IQ, his unfiltered frankness on social media, and much more.

Elizabeth Spalding is the chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and the founding director of the Victims of Communism Museum. She is a third-generation anticommunist who has devoted her career to scholarship and public education on the history and horrors of communism. She teaches U.S. foreign policy, national security, and other subjects at Pepperdine University and at Hillsdale College. She is also the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and co-author with her father Lee Edwards of A Brief History of the Cold War.

In this conversation, we discuss North Korea, Cuba, China, Russia, the VOC Witness Project and the incredible stories of Ji Seong-Ho and Channy Laux, the Xinjiang genocide, Václav Havel, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and the centrality of the lie in communist states, the battle for truth and freedom in our era of disinformation, the importance of honest journalism, the reason people in the West are drawn to figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Truman’s political philosophy, estimates that over 100 million people have been killed by communism, and more.

He received his PhD in sociology from Stanford University and has written about the Christian Right in America, the Patriot militia movement, the Tea Party, and the concept of fourth-generation warfare.

In this conversation, we discuss Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the Christian Right and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement, Trump’s connection to NAR, “spiritual kung fu” in China, the racist roots of the pro-life and militia movements, the corporate origins of the war on science, how woke leftists harm the lower class, why AOC is not really socialist, the Biden administration, the trans rights movement, deep-fake propaganda, meme warfare, and much more.

Nico is also the creator and host of FIRE’s So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, co-director and senior producer of the 2020 documentary “Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story” about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser, and was creative consultant on the 2015 film “Can We Take a Joke?” about censorship in stand-up comedy.

In this conversation, we talk about the First Amendment and its philosophical grounding, the ongoing pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests and the state of free speech at American universities, my firing from The Seattle Times and the state of free speech in American media, Ira Glasser, censorship in stand-up comedy, and much more.

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During the Soviet Union, samizdat was the grassroots practice of evading censorship by reproducing banned publications, often by hand. Samizdat Online is the digital incarnation of this practice, publishing articles from an array of outlets while bypassing firewalls and protecting readers’ anonymity to bring truth to people living under authoritarian rule. Samizdat’s only requirement for publishing articles is that they come from an outlet that has been banned by an autocratic leader.

This interview includes two separate conversations, held weeks apart, that I have stitched together as one episode. In the first, we discuss Yevgeny’s life growing up in Russia and the antisemitism he faced there, how he cut his teeth at CBS and the erosion of public trust in the media since the days of Edward R. Murrow, how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected his Ukrainian and Russian employees, the state of life in rural Russia today, the playful flexibility of Russian grammar and why he thinks poetry is more beautiful in Russian than in English, the ethos of pre-Soviet folktales and where Russia went wrong as a nation, the rise of Putin and the bedrock importance of free speech in the media, and Samizdat Online's efforts in Russia, Iran, China, and beyond.

In the second half, we discuss the events of October 7, Osama bin Laden’s reputation repair on TikTok, the psychology of antisemitism in the United States, David Hirsh’s thoughts on the banality of evil, and a few exciting updates for Samizdat Online.

Kevin Carrico is senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and a sociocultural anthropologist researching nationalism, ethnic relations, and political culture in China, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

Kevin is also the author of The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today, an ethnographic study of the racial nationalist Han Clothing movement that has emerged in China since 2001, in which Chinese revive a sense of “Great Han” or “real China” using pseudo-traditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. In other words, using fashion to Make China Great Again.

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Kevin is also the author of Two Systems, Two Countries: A Nationalist Guide to Hong Kong, which details Hong Kong’s integration into mainland China at a time when fewer Hong Kongers than ever identify as Chinese. This book traces the origins of Hong Kong nationalism, illustrating how Hong Kong independence is about much more than opposition to CCP rule.

Kevin also has two decades of translation experience and was a columnist for Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, one of the best-selling Chinese language newspapers in Hong Kong, which took a strong editorial stance in support of the democracy movement. Police then raided its headquarters in 2020, local authorities froze the assets of the paper and owner Jimmy Lai in 2021, and the paper subsequently shut down.

In this conversation, we discuss the Chinese conceptualization of race, the refusal in the West to criticize or even acknowledge Chinese racism, the Han Clothing movement, and how this ties into Chinese perspectives on race and nationalism. Enjoy.

The word for 'race' in Mandarin is minzu but how accurate is this translation? If not literally accurate, does it carry the same societal connotations? 

In order to answer this question, we need to take a close look at what terms are used in China, and what meanings they express, or imply.

Technically speaking, the term for ‘race’ in Chinese would be zhongzu 种族. This is translated directly as ‘race.’ But this term is not commonly used in discussions of identity within China. It is not an officially recognized category of identity. Does this mean that China is devoid of racial thought? Spoiler alert: I gotta say, that’s a hard ‘no.’

Rather, minzu is the term through which conceptualizations of identity are articulated. The question then is what exactly minzu means.

Some people shrug and say, well, it is impossible for us Westerners to fully understand, so I will just render it in pinyin as minzu. I disagree with this. I strongly dislike analyses that mystify languages and claim that there are words that are unable to be translated. No culture is so unique as to be incomprehensible to outsiders. Humans can understand one another.

Yet at the same time, there is no denying that there are plenty of words the world over that are quite difficult to translate, or that have multiple connotations, some of which may even be contradictory. Minzu is definitely one of those words.

If we look at how minzu is imagined in China, its contradictory nature comes to the fore. There is a Han minzu (the Han) as well as 55 other minzu, known as “minorities” (shaoshu minzu is a loaded term). Yet all of these minzu are in turn part of a meta-minzu known as the Zhonghua minzu (Chinese). So, just thinking about the Han, how does one translate a minzu that is on a different level from all the other minzu, while at the same time being part of an even bigger minzu, with which it is assumed to be essentially synonymous (i.e. setting the standard)?

The confusion inherent in miznu use can be traced back to the moment of its introduction into Chinese, establishing a Chinese nation-state on the geo-body of the Qing empire, a sovereign state established on empire and an ostensibly anti-colonial act of colonization, claiming the expansive lands of the diverse people once ruled by Qing conquest, while at the same time building a nation founded on the inclusive exclusion of these same peoples in an unambiguously Han-centric state. “We are all the same minzu, but we are also different minzu, and at the end of the day your minzu needs to evolve toward the standards set by our minzu.”

As you can see, it’s quite messy and confusing. Rendering minzu as simply minzu is, in my opinion, typical of a particular approach to academia: doing the easiest, least controversial thing possible, abdicating one’s responsibility for any further thought, and pretending that it is somehow profound.

Rather, minzu can be used in many different contexts in many different ways and it is necessary to analyze and articulate these uses. One of the more controversial elements of my work on Han-ness in The Great Han is my assertion that many people perceive Han-ness in racial terms, and that in these contexts, Han minzu can be translated as Han race. This is based on extensive discussions with people across China who imagined the Han to be biologically unique, phylogenetically distinct not only from “foreigners” but also from other minzu in China, who are imagined as backwards and in need of learning from the Han.

People may be uncomfortable with the idea that racial thought exists in China, but trust me, your discomfort does not make it any less real. When someone is telling me that the Han have unique DNA passed down from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, what is this other than a racialized conceptualization of Han-ness? There is a widespread belief in the distinct biology of the Han, as a race, in China, along with Marxist-cum-Social Darwinist framings of ethnic relations (i.e. historical stage theory, modernity/ primitivity, vanguardism), wherein it is assumed that the so-called minorities as living fossils of earlier eras will inevitably evolve toward the vanguard of Han-ness.

Do you see examples of a lack of willingness in the West to critique Chinese racism and, if so, does this strike you as its own form of racism? Namely, the racism of low standards or Orientalism?

As mentioned above, there is not only a lack of willingness to criticize Chinese racism. There is a marked lack of willingness to even acknowledge the existence of Chinese racism and Han racism. This is a disservice to research on China, as well as a disservice to the many victims of such racism.

By comparison (and indeed perhaps only by comparison), there is relatively little discomfort discussing racism in “Western” contexts. Certainly, there are people who get anxious or offended by these discussions, or who want to change the topic and point elsewhere. But generally speaking, if we are talking about (for example) the United States, most researchers are going to acknowledge that there is a long history of racism which continues to structurally shape people’s experiences to this day and can be deeply impressive. We’re not going to say “but what about China?” And yet when discussing racial issues in China, there is this ideology, present in both China and in broader academic discussions outside of China, that runs along the lines of, “who, after all, are we to criticize?”

Yet whereas there has been progress (not enough, but at least some) in moving beyond the horrid state of racial relations in the United States over the past 60 years, there has really not been such progress in China. Everything is getting worse, in my reading. Racialized thought and structural inequality are not just legacies of the past: they are part and parcel of contemporary realities, often accepted without critical reflection, laying the foundation for oppressive state policies and broader practices of discrimination and hatred.

We can see this most clearly in the ongoing oppression and genocide in Chinese occupied East Turkestan, known as Xinjiang. Here we have a situation in which a Han dominated colonial state is attempting to eliminate an indigenous people based on racist ideologies. The world should be outraged and taking action. Yet global multilateral institutions do basically nothing. Academics continue to choose their words carefully to avoid offense (“let’s not offend the state doing the genocide, please”), while others participate in state organized tours that border between outright denying and normalizing genocide.

I have had colleagues try to confirm with me that I won’t discuss “sensitive” topics in my university-level classes. Of course, “sensitive” refers to anything that the Chinese state might disagree with, which is pretty much any honest discussion of contemporary reality. Can anyone tell me of any other field in which there would be an assumed need to avoid discussing “sensitive” topics? If I teach on Russia, or Italy, or Myanmar, or Australia, am I supposed to avoid “sensitive” topics? Of course not. We work in a university, not a kindergarten. We are supposed to engage with and think through difficult issues. And that means moving beyond a discussion of China based in simplistic formulas like big population = big economy = great business opportunity for you. If we don’t move beyond that, we are just as much part of the problem.

It's quite easy to say “never again” when there isn’t actually a genocide happening, so you can just pretend that you would somehow act with dignity and courage, unlike others. But anyone who is puzzled about how people could have gone along with and accepted state genocidal policies need look no further than our present realities to understand how that happened.

This is, indeed, the racism of low standards. If what is happening in Xinjiang were happening in Europe today, the world would not just stand by and watch. It’s a disservice to honest discussion of China today, as well as a deep disservice to the victims of Han Chinese racism.

This turning away also has implications for thinking about global responses to CCP expansionism moving forward. If we did basically nothing when the CCP committed blatant genocide, does anyone believe the world is going to do anything when the CCP makes the next horrible decision of invading Taiwan, expanding through the South China Sea, or attacking Japan? Will we all be too busy being sensitive and careful with our words to actually do anything?   

In your book, The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today, you discuss how Manchu clothing and Han clothing are differently perceived. Can you describe this, and how it relates to Han supremacy or Han racism?

During my research in China, I was surprised to find that there was, among Han Clothing Movement supporters, an elaborate conspiracy theory in which the Manchu nationality secretly controlled the government and dedicated all of its energies to oppressing the Han. There was of course no basis in reality for such claims, but I tried to understand why people believed this. It was a fascinating journey of discovery.

One motivation for this Manchu control narrative was that this theory turned the Han into victims, and such imagined victimhood provides moral privilege. If you look at today’s China, it would take quite a fair amount of imagination to say that the Han nationality are victims. In China’s ethnic hierarchy (which certainly exists as a result of evolutionary thinking), the Han is certainly imagined to be at the top of the hierarchy. Despite already constituting 92% of the population, the Han is in fact over-represented at the top of the CCP hierarchy, which is not exactly known for its ethnic or gender diversity. This Manchu narrative reimagines the Han as victim, and thus as in need of defence and support.

Another foundation for this conspiracy theory was that it was able to explain (albeit illusorily) the cruelty of the CCP state. This theory not only turns Han into victims in need of defense, but also helps to make sense of many of the more oppressive policies that the CCP state has forced upon its people in recent decades. Take, for example, the one-child policy: in Manchu conspiracy theory narratives, this utterly senseless and destructive state intervention in the most intimate elements of people’s private lives was reimagined as the work of another outsider ethnicity dedicated to eliminating the Han. Although I said above that if you look at today’s China, it would take quite a fair amount of imagination to say that the Han nationality are victims, it also goes without saying that there are plenty of people among the Han nationality who are victimized by a quite distasteful and oppressive state apparatus. Why would the state do this to me, many may ask. As I argued in the book at the time, one of the most appealing functions of conspiracy theory is that it takes a world that doesn’t make sense and makes it make sense. Considering many repressive state policies, it would actually make more sense if the CCP state was an external colonizer rather than a state composed of people of one’s own background. This theory thus makes sense of the world and redeems the illusory ideal of a pure, kind, and caring Han state to come.

Finally, something that I have been thinking about quite a bit in the years since The Great Han was published is the place of the Qing empire at the foundation of the modern Chinese geo-body, which attempts to exercise direct sovereignty and control over the many diverse peoples and nations once incorporated into the Qing empire. In a sense, I feel that the Manchu foundations of the modern Chinese nation-state in a sense haunt contemporary Chinese sovereignty. Following some of the work of Derrida, we may need to pursue a “hauntology” of the Chinese nation-state. I tried to begin work on that in a recent article in Nations and Nationalism, “National identity deconstruction,” and am developing this into a longer theoretically driven reconsideration of Chinese nationalism.

This week, I spoke with the British sociologist David Hirsh, a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, who literally wrote the book on the subject—Contemporary Left Antisemitism, published in 2018, for which I recently wrote a review.

Hirsh is also the founder of the London Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, which does the noble work of nurturing scholarship on antisemitism and the Holocaust and building “a community of living research, scholarship and teaching.”

In this conversation, we discuss the two types of antisemitism, the influence of societal structures versus personal agency in human behavior and in the Holocaust in particular, what it takes to overcome antisemitism, the importance of rational debate instead of simply denouncing people, the pro-Hamas protests we have seen on the political left in the wake of the October 7 massacre, and much more.

He is a former correspondent for The Economist, a regular commentator in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, and The Nation, and a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and Bloomberg. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the technology think tank the Foundation for American Innovation. Geoffrey is a fearless journalist, heavyweight intellectual, and a dear friend. For more, visit his website and follow his X account.

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