Rote Responses to Fuentes Will Not Suffice

"Mahoney simply does not seem to take his opponent seriously. His familiarity with Fuentes seems limited to decontextualized soundbites. He is hoodwinked by Fuentes's trolling and youthful antics, attributing to him a somewhat paradoxical weakness for both Hitler and Stalin (and harping on the latter's atrocities, as if Fuentes is somehow unaware of them). He ignores how Fuentes's and the lifestyle influencer Andrew Tate's visions contrast and incorrectly conflates Fuentes's brand of Catholicism and the "new pagan Right.""

"He seems not to realize that Burkean platitudes are unpersuasive under our antiracist constitution, or that unironic pleas to "authentic Americans" and "true conservatives" appear preposterous to young men who have seen the wholesale cheapening of American identity and reckon there is little left of America to conserve. Mahoney approaches subjects like neoconservatism and the Russo-Ukrainian war with insight and nuance,"

"Leo Strauss described in German Nihilism how the opponents of the young German nihilists, those adolescents who mounted a moral protest against liberal democracy and the prospect of a universal and homogenous state, committed a "grave mistake." They believed to have refuted the No by refuting the Yes, i.e. the inconsistent, if not silly, positive assertions of the young men. But one cannot refute what one has no"

Mahoney calls for sober evaluation but offers an insufficient response that treats Fuentes as a caricature rather than a serious interlocutor. Mahoney's familiarity with Fuentes relies on decontextualized soundbites and is misled by trolling and youthful antics. He attributes contradictory affinities and overemphasizes atrocities as if Fuentes lacks awareness. He overlooks substantive contrasts with figures like Andrew Tate and conflates Fuentes's Catholicism with a "new pagan Right." Burkean appeals and pleas to "authentic Americans" ring hollow to young men who perceive the cheapening of American identity. Failure to engage Fuentes seriously risks alienating marginalized, disaffected followers.

Read at The American Conservative