November 11, 2025

ROD DREHER: What I Saw And Heard In Washington. “I don’t know what you did on Friday night, but I spent about 90 minutes in the vice president’s study with him and the men you see above, talking geopolitics, Hungary, and the survival of Christianity in Europe, among other things. Of course I can’t be indiscreet about the discussion, but it was rich and vigorous. I’m really glad that JD got to experience the actual, living Viktor Orban in person, and to see for himself how wrong the propaganda is. They got on very, very well,” later adding, “I talked to one MAGA Zoomer, a policy wonk who is a person of color. He is beside himself with frustration over the rise of Groyperism in his circles, and within the party:”

Well, they do want to burn it all down, I was told. And I came away with the feeling that they are only tenuously dedicated to democratic politics. I told one very smart and decent Zoomercon who despises the anti-Semitic turn in his circles that I’ve been hearing that fascism — actual ideological fascism, not the media’s idea of anybody to the Right of Lindsey Graham — is gaining traction among young white British males.

He said, innocently, “So what’s wrong with fascism?” He meant it, not in a challenging way, but in a way that conveyed the sense of we have to think about this now. He talked about how the disintegration of our culture is accelerating, and liberal democracy seems impotent to stop it. He went on to explain that if he had to choose between living under left-wing authoritarianism or the right-wing version, then that wouldn’t be much of a choice. To be clear, he wants neither, but he fears that the disintegration of our culture is going to put us all in the position to have to reconcile ourselves to one or the other.

We talked about the Spanish Civil War, and how neutrality wasn’t a live option for the Spaniards back then. He brought up Gen. Pinochet in Chile. Not a good man, he said, acknowledging that Pinochet killed tens of thousands. But (said the young man) Pinochet saved his country from communism, and we know very well that communism’s historical record is far bloodier. That is true.

Let me emphasize here that my interlocutor was NOT cheering for fascism. As our conversation went on, I heard real despair — and well-informed despair — that democracy is going to hold in the West, because the conditions that make for a viable democracy are disappearing: the dissolution of a common culture, the collapse of religion in his generation, the material impoverishment of his generation, and so forth.

I tell you, it was dark. But I kept hearing this, over and over, and I concluded that it cannot be dismissed.

The inability of us older people — Boomers, Xers, and older Millennials — to comprehend the world through the eyes of Zoomers is a big, big problem. Another strong theme: while it’s important to take a clear stand against anti-Semitism in the ranks, there is no way to gatekeep our way out of this. You cannot simply point at the Zoomers and say, “Thou shalt not,” and expect it to work. The problems are too deep and complex, and anyway, they have learned to have no respect for authority.

Why should they? The institutions of our society, as they see it, have lied and lied and lied, and still lie. They still lie in many ways about race (e.g., refusing to be honest about black crime), they lied about Covid, they lied about males and females, and they forced the insanity of gender ideology on us all. The military lied about Iraq. The universities embraced and enforced ideologies of lies. The Catholic Church lied about sexual abuse, and the connection to the prevalence of sexually active gay priests honeycombing the institution. They lied about the benefits of mass migration and diversity. They lied about Trump and Russia. The political parties and their corporate allies lied about what globalism would mean for ordinary people.

Speaking of which, the very definition of the Education Apocalypse:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll