Radical Right Ideologues in the Age of Trump

Ronald Beiner is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

“In Civil Religion Ronald Beiner cautioned that the illiberal right would always find purchase with its galvanizing claim that liberalism was unheroic, materialist, and banal. In a word: boring. Since he wrote those wise words Beiner's concerns have been borne out. Though as is made clear in this fabulous new collection the result hasn't been a turn to Trump's heroic new golden age. It is instead an era of lies masquerading as authenticity, cruelty as strength, vapidity as populism. Chronicling the intellectual roots of today's hard right Radical Right Ideologues in the Age of Trump is signature Ronald Beiner. Beautifully written, sweepingly erudite, and above all urgent. All of us committed to the liberal principles of liberty, equality and solidarity for all have much to learn in its pages.”Matthew McManus, Author of The Political Right and Equality“Few scholars understand the threat of far-right intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals to liberal democracy as well as Ronald Beiner. Radical Right Ideologues in the Age of Trump stands out for the lucidity with which Beiner traces these figures’ arguments back to the most prominent anti-liberal thinkers of past centuries. Even more importantly, Beiner provides us with a vital road map for understanding how a previously marginalized assortment of anti-democratic philosophers, misanthropic policy wonks, and crypto-fascist crackpots could now provide the ideological rationale for the venomous demagoguery of Trump’s America.”A. James McAdams, University of Notre Dame“One enabling feature of the Far Right's rise towards a hegemony unthinkable for decades has been the short-sighted unwillingness of liberal intellectuals to look Far Right thinkers in the face and take their dangers seriously. Ronald Beiner is one thinker who has thankfully pushed against this perilous trend. This collection is a work of resource for anyone who recognises, as the Far Right does, that knowing the enemy is the condition of combating them and wants to understand where we have arrived again by 2025.”Matt Sharpe, Australian Catholic University“Ronald Beiner is the political philosophy professor I've always wanted to have. He is scholarly, rigorous, and a committed public intellectual. His writing is at the cutting edge of political theory, and what he has to say about Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Far-Right is essential. Ignore him at your peril.”Harrison Fluss, Co-author of Prometheus and Gaia: Technology, Ecology and Anti-Humanism“This is a chilling book. How should liberal-minded intellectuals respond to the dangerous ideas promulgated by radical-right ideologues in our time? That’s Ronald Beiner’s animating question. It’s one all of us desperately need to answer.”Damon Linker, University of Pennsylvania“Ronald Beiner’s new essay collection is an urgent call -- to anyone who cares about liberal democracy or the world of ideas -- to take the radical right more seriously, even when we might prefer to put our heads in the sand. Lucid, passionate, and disarming in its honesty, Beiner’s trip through the thickets of far right philosophy will leave you astonished, but also more resolute. This is an important collection by one of today’s most astute observers of radical right intellectualism, and provides an essential warning about some formerly obscure thinkers who we can no longer afford to ignore.”Laura K. Field, Author of Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right

• Preface, where the Author Lays Out his Anxieties about Publishing this Book 1. Can a Liberal Education Create Enemies of Liberalism? 2. What Contemporary Radical Rightists (Rightly) Draw from Nietzsche 3. Transversal Racialization: Losurdo’s Account of What Is and Isn’t Proto-Fascist in Nietzsche 4. The Plague of Bannonism 5. Three Rasputins 6. The Great Fascist Pow-wow: Bannon and Dugin in Rome 7. Alexander Dugin: Philosopher or Ideologue? 8. The Conservative Revolution of the Twenty-First Century: The Curious Case of Jason Jorjani 9. Do the Straussians Now Own Costin Alamariu? Epilogue: Our Deranged Moment