Yarvin had given people a way to articulate a notion that somehow felt subversive to say out loud in America
—that history was headed in the wrong direction.

“Somebody said something earlier that captured it for me,” Laurenson said,
just before they had to leave to go to a slightly hush-hush private dinner with Vance and a few others.

“They said, ‘You can be here and know you’re not alone.’ ”

People at the conference seemed excited about being in a place where they weren’t alone.

I skipped most of the talks
—which ranged from sessions about confronting the threat of China
to the liberal influence on pop culture
to “Worker Power.”

Hawley gave a keynote on the “assault on the masculine virtues,”

and Cruz offered up a traditional stump speech, evoking Reagan and saying he thought conservatives would soon prevail at the ballot box.

“I’m pretty sure a lot of the 20-somethings rolled their eyes at that,” Yarvin said to me afterward with a smirk.

The 20-somethings had a bigger vision.

Up by the bar every night, hordes of young men, mostly, would descend to drink and bear-hug and spot favorite podcasters and writers.

You could see #Dave #Rubin, and #Jack #Murphy, who hosts a popular New Right–ish YouTube channel
and is trying to build a fraternal group of men who believe in
“positive masculinity”
that he calls the "Liminal Order. "

Pretty much everyone had the same trimmed beard and haircut
—sides buzzed short, the top longer and combed with a bit of gel to one side.

I didn’t see a single Black person under the age of 50,

though there were attendees of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent.

In March, the journalist #Jeff #Sharlet
(a Vanity Fair contributing editor who covers the American right)
tweeted that the
“intellectual New Right is a white supremacist project designed to cultivate non-white support,”

and he linked it to resurgent nationalist and authoritarian politics around the world:

“It’s part of a global fascist movement not limited to the anti-blackness of the U.S. & Europe.”

Yet many on the New Right seem increasingly unfazed by accusations that they’re white nationalists or racists.

Masters in particular seems willing to goad commentators,
believing that the ensuing arguments will redound to his political advantage:

“Good luck [hitting] me with that,”
Masters told the podcaster Alex Kaschuta recently,
arguing that accusations of racism had become a political bludgeon used to keep conservative ideas outside the political mainstream.

“Good luck criticizing me for saying critical race theory is anti-white.”

But for all the chatter of looming dystopia, no one I spoke to raised one of the most dystopian aspects of American life:
our vast apparatus of prisons and policing.

Most people seemed more caught up in fighting what they perceived as the cant and groupthink among other members of the political media class,

or the hypocrisy of rich white liberals who put up Black Lives Matter signs in front of multimillion-dollar homes,

than they were with the raw experience that has given shape to America’s current racial politics.