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nekojitachan · 4 years ago

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Hi, I love your fic'❤️ and I wanted to know if you could write even a short one about what would happened if Riko didnt find Andrew and Neil in WDWG

Thank you! 💖 Okay, so I did my best to keep this as short as possible, just a glimpse of the boys’ life if Riko had never found them/if they were able to live on undisturbed, just the two of them.

Uhm, I think it’s pretty safe? Just the ongoing burying bodies joke....

*******

Neil had just sold the two tourists from New York a (very ugly) tea set and couple rare blends of tea (Jodi would be pleased) when Massey’s recommendation returned. Neil gave him a stern look to convey ‘not now’ while he waited on a regular, Mrs. Huang, taking the time to let her sniff the lu’an tea they had in stock to ensure that it was up to her high standards before he bagged the requested amount, chatting with her in Mandarin the entire time. It was only after she left (and he was certain that the store was empty) that Neil motioned the anxious man forward while he reached beneath the counter for the wrapped bundle he and Jodi had worked on earlier.

“It’s ready?”

“Yes.” Neil answered in French as he set the bundle on the counter, just out of reach, then slid his phone into view. “New passport, bank account, driver’s license, birth certificate, the works.”

The man, face haggard from stress and freshly bleached hair falling onto his forehead, gazed at the package as if it a holy grail of sorts. “Let me see the passport. Please,” he added, his voice hoarse with need.

Used to being asked such a question, Neil shrugged and unfolded the brown wrapping paper enough to slip free the passport (French) and flipped it open to prove to the man (no names had been exchanged, which he much preferred) that it would pass for authentic (he did excellent work). Some of the tension left the man’s stocky body upon seeing it, as did a quick glance at the other items in the wrapping paper; he pulled out his phone to transfer the agreed upon amount of money to the account number Jodi had given him last night.

Neil checked his phone to ensure the money had been deposited then slid the items across the counter. “Good luck,” he told the man, who snatched up his new life, nodded in acknowledgement, then fled the Jade Leaves tea store.

Neil dealt with a few more tourists (not his favorite thing) and a handful of regulars (which he much preferred, especially when they brought him snacks) by the time Jodi returned. “Bah, it’s raining,” she complained as she pushed back the hood of her jacket; fall in Montreal could be unpredictable, could be an extension of summer or an early taste of winter, and now it looked as if the warm spell was giving way to colder temperatures and rain.

“Be thankful it’s not snow,” he told his boss as he handed over a cup filled with oolong, which he brewed throughout the day for customers and staff (well, him and Jodi) alike.

“Hush, you,” she chided before she took a cautious sip. “Hmm, how was business?”

He held up his phone, and huffed when she gave a pleased smile in return; she’d noticed the money deposited in the account earlier, an account which would soon disappear after she transferred the funds elsewhere (some to Neil). “Steady. I managed to get rid of the awful tea set.”

“The one with the gibberish on it?” Jodi’s pale brown eyes went wide and she laughed with joy as she reached to pat Neil on the shoulder. “Ah, sending you here was the best favor Gabe ever did for me.”

“Hmm.” Neil had to agree; as Aidan’s senior year of high school had drawn to an end, they’d been uncertain as to what to do next. Stick around until Neil graduated? Have Aidan apply to university? Move on to a new set of identities? They’d made a home of sorts in Racine, but Neil worried about his father’s people catching up to them at some point and Aidan was tired of them pretending to be siblings.

It was during a check-in with Durand that the forger had brought up that his cousin in Montreal was looking for help: an assistant who could speak French and if not take part in forging documents, at least keep their mouth shut. Neil and Aidan had debated it for a few days, but in the end they trusted Durand (as much as they did anyone else), Montreal put them farther away from the remnants of Nathan’s gang, and they could start anew.

Instead of half-brothers, they were newlyweds.

(Neil barely managed to not freak out when Aidan told Durand to create a marriage license for them, saving it until they were alone in the car. Only to be stopped mid-rant when Aidan held up a ring and asked him ‘yes or no’.)

Neil kept his first name (he didn’t want to let go of it after keeping it for so long), while Aidan became Andrew once more. Neil and Andrew Keenan, two young fools in love who struck out on their own rather than be apart (or so most people assumed). Neil spent the last couple months before they left Racine learning Mandarin, and was now picking up Arabic as well. He sold tea in a small store in Chinatown, gossiped with the locals, learned from one of the best forgers in North America (Jodi Liu was every bit as good as her cousin), and very rarely had to use the gun hidden beneath the counter.

“I haven’t heard from Gabe or Massey, so we should be good for the night,” Jodi said as she checked her phone for messages. “Go home.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. He ran back to the small breakroom in the back to fetch the container of pork dumplings Mrs. Dai had given him (she kept telling him he was too skinny) then was out the door after wishing Jodi ‘good night’. Despite the rain, he stopped at Tony’s food truck to get a couple cartons of noodles to complete dinner, laughing at the older man’s retelling of a small group of Americans trying to order with appalling French.

“I guess it was better than them trying in Mandarin,” Tony said as he handed Neil his takeaway.

“Andrew complains about the French thing all the time.”

“Yeah, I imagine he’d get it a lot, working in a pastry shop.”

Neil waved goodbye and, after making sure the food was safe in his waterproof messenger bag, jogged down the mostly deserted streets to where Andrew worked, right outside of Chinatown. The bakery was empty of customers, probably because of the rain and the time of day, but the mostly empty display cases indicated that they’d done a good business earlier.

Andrew arched an eyebrow at Neil’s arrival and popped the petit four he held in his hand into his mouth. Once it was chewed and swallowed, he stepped toward the doorway leading back into the kitchen area, covered with a cloth divider. “Naseem, some riffraff just blew into the shop. I’m going to take it home.”

“What?” Andrew’s coworker, a young man with a closely trimmed black beard and a white scarf tied over his short, curly black hair, poked his head through the curtains and smiled when he saw Neil. “Why do you put up with him?” he asked, just like he always did, while he brushed at the flour which dusted his face; he probably was working on some of the pastries for the next day.

Neil gave the same answer, as always. “He knows where the bodies are buried.”

“Ha, you kids and your jokes.” Naseem shook his head as he glanced around the empty shop. “Just lock up before you go.”

Andrew gave him a two-fingered salute then quickly set about clearing out the register and turning off the lights (it looked as if he’d already done a lot of the closing duties already), then grabbed a small box before he ushered Neil out the door, which he locked behind them.

He gave Neil a pointed look as he pulled an umbrella big enough for the both of them out of his own bag and opened it. “You trying to catch pneumonia?”

“I’m open to new experiences?” Neil smiled when he was given the ‘you’re an idiot’ look. “I got dinner.”

“I know, I can smell it.”

“Are you going to share dessert with me?”

“No.”

Neil smiled the entire way home, especially when Andrew hooked their pinkies together; they didn’t have far to go since they rented an apartment in a building which Jodi’s family owned. It had a balcony where they could sit together as they smoked cigarettes or drank something hot, a bathtub big enough for them both to soak in together, and a gas fireplace in the living room which Andrew spent half the winter in front of, along with the cats.

Aibee greeted them at the door, certain to make the deplorable state of her empty belly known, while Elbee sauntered in from their bedroom and flopped down at Andrew’s feet after he kicked off his boots. He sighed and bent down to give the orange tabby a gentle pet before he prodded him to stand up, while Aibee was quick to run into the kitchen once she realized that Neil was headed that way, her fluffy black tail straight up in the air.

Andrew caught the strap of Neil’s messenger bag, which brought him to a halt. “Go change into something dry,” he chided as he maneuvered the bag from Neil’s shoulder.

“Okay.” Neil leaned in for a lingering kiss then did as he’d been told, pulling his damp sweatshirt over his head along the way. It and his jeans were draped over the hamper, swapped out for a soft sweater (that was Andrew’s) and sweatpants. Once dressed, he went into the kitchen to find that his husband had divvied up the food onto two plates, which had been placed on the table, and was feeding the cats.

“Shut up and eat, you ingrates,” Andrew said as he set down their bowls, his deep voice mild and expression almost tender.

“I thought I was the ingrate,” Neil commented as he picked up his chopsticks.

“You’re the idiot ingrate,” Andrew clarified as he sat down, and sighed when Neil stuck out his tongue.

They concentrated on eating for a couple minutes before they (well, Neil) started talking about their day; Andrew nodded along as he went on about the tourists and the documents he’d created. As expected, Andrew complained a bit about the tourists who just had to try out their lousy French on him.

“Jodi send you your part of the job yet?”

Neil frowned as he pulled out his phone and checked the special account where the money from the forgeries went. “Yes, another twenty-five thousand.” He gave Andrew a curious look. “Do I need to route it somewhere?” They were careful with the remaining money his mother had stolen from his father, most of it still tied up in investments for another couple years but a nice amount available for use – especially after Neil had started working for Jodi.

Their biggest expense to date was Andrew’s brother Aaron; when he’d learned about his long-lost mother dying from an overdose and how she’d allowed his twin to become an addict, he and Neil had arranged it so that Aaron’s cousin, Nicky, was able to win custody of Aaron and that Tilda’s ‘life insurance’ was more than enough to support the two until Aaron graduated high school. A little bit more money, a few more pulled strings had gotten Aaron into a university in South Carolina, and Neil had thought that was that.

Or so he had thought.

Andrew got up to fetch the pastry box (along with two forks) and set it on the table, the top open to reveal that inside was some horrendous chocolate thing and a small fruit tart. “We both have vacation time leftover, I thought we could go somewhere warm toward the end of the year.”

Neil gazed at his husband for a moment before he narrowed his eyes. “You just want to get away from the snow for a while.”

Andrew shrugged as he set the tart on Neil’s plate. “You won’t have to listen to me complain about the cold for a couple weeks.”

“Hmm.” That had possibilities, Neil thought as he picked a blackberry from the tart and popped it into his mouth. “You didn’t happen to research ‘the top ten ice cream places in Bora Bora’ or something like that, did you?”

He was given a blank look in return.

“We never had a honeymoon,” or a real wedding, for that matter, “so I get some say in this.”

“No Exy,” Andrew declared as he stabbed his fork in the chocolate monstrosity.

No, no Exy, Neil thought with a wince. He’d soured a bit on the sport after the whole Edgar Allan scandal. “No burying bodies.”

“Again with that? It happened twice.”

“And twice is more than enough, considering the second time, someone was all ‘oh look, I’m bleeding sooo much, you have to do all the digging this time,” Neil said in a mocking voice.

For a moment, he thought he’d be the one bleeding (Andrew had only grown more impressive with those flat stares of his), until his husband clicked his tongue. “Fine, we’ll go somewhere with plenty of water so we can sink the bodies.”

“Huh.” Neil considered that as he had a bite of the fruit tart. “That’ll work.” Not that he wanted to have to sink bodies into the ocean, but… well, it was him and Andrew. Things just happened.

There was a very slight curl to Andrew’s full lips, which meant he was smug as hell at the moment. Neil narrowed his eyes, uncertain about what he’d just agreed to, then figured ‘what the hell’. It would work out in the end, it always did with Andrew.

*******

Forgive me for any liberties taken with Montreal.

The cats’ full names are Anklebiter and Lazybones. If you can’t guess, Andrew named them, and Neil shortened them.

I figured this is set a year or two after Andrew would have graduated. He may be taking online university classes (more as something to do), but Neil’s happy with being a forger (and damn good at it).

It’s like... trying to figure out what to write next. I’ve one or two prompts I want to get done, the next chapter of Casts a Shadow, wrap up the soulmate fic, and another part of Not in the Stars. Decisions, decisions....

#wdwg #wdwg fic #andreil #neil josten #andrew minyard #wdwg au #Anonymous

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caredogstips · 7 years ago

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The Fat JewaEUR( tm) s ‘Money Pizza Respect’ is the worst notebook IaEUR( tm) ve ever spoke

I wish I liked the Fat Jews new notebook. It would make a far more interesting bit if he surpassed our anticipations. No one I talked to expected it to be good. I gambling he didnt even write it, said one sidekick. I bet he had his interns write it.

To contextualize this for people who arent on the Internet all the time, Josh The Fat Jew Ostrovsky became the center of controversy when he was accused of stealing memes and jokes from humorists this summer. Ostrovsky had been doing this for years, and amassed millions of Instagram admirers with his admittedly good meme aggregating skills. But comedians took a stand when he signed with the flair bureau CAA in August.

Upon interpret Money Pizza Respect , there is no doubt in my knowledge that the unfortunately entitled work is written by the Fat Jew himself; I confidently assert that Money Pizza Respect is singlehandedly the most difficult journal I have ever read.

His actual sense of humorand Im talking about humor , not the memes he aggregatesis dreadfully abject. He relies on a Tucker Max-esque style of storytelling, praising cocaine and alcohol abuse and fucking his groupies, who all represent a different type of crazy daughter stereotype.

In a section ironically titled The Eleven Commandments of Not Being the Worst Person Ever, he counsels readers that if you aggressively and frequently talk about your sexuality life, people will think youre gay. When you tell me that you undertook a slam pig and stuffed her axe wind, he writes, I assume that your actual destination is having anal sexuality with soldiers. Ostrovsky shapes sure to note that the only exception to this rule is Dan Bilzerian, who has literally thrown a woman off his roof, smashing her foot, and been accused of kicking another woman in the look.

Money Pizza Respect is fastened with homophobic statements. He writes a greenback to P. Diddy: Sorry for outing you as a homosexual. Im pretty sure you are, but Im sorry. Theres too a health dosage of sexism, describing his female groupies as a bunch of fours and fives who have monstrous maid sides detest their daddies. To accomplish the trifecta, he likewise manages to be transphobic, referring to transgender maidens as trannies in a section recounting two brothers bachelor party.( When two brothers and pals found out the strippers “whos” causing them lap dances were trans, they left the club immediately .)

Before I satisfied Ostrovsky, I was confused about how he was so successful, especially after reading his book, where he brags about his selfish and generally gross behaviour at every possible instant, proudly presentations pictures of him wearing a thong made out of beef jerky, and writes situations like, Cocaine is the greatest talent the world has ever seen.

When I sat down with him at a press junket, located at an arcade in Chinatown, I immediately understood why hes garnered so much success. He is unfortunately alluring and is actually a naturally funny person. Hes like the refrigerate, mean son in 8th point, the different types who inserted cup to all your best friend and attained merriment of girls for being ugly or not having boobs hitherto. The form who definitely bullied me, and hitherto I tirelessly tried to gain his affection.

During our interview, Ostrovsky remained on the defensive, masterful at answering my doubts with non-answers. He is somebody who has never taken life seriously, which is perhaps not too difficult for a straight, white, affluent male. He is basically interested in his conception of fun, and hopes youll connect him for the travel. If not, fuck off.

Its not that I began to like Ostrovsky or his book any more after converging him, but I extended from disliking him to appearing an iota of sorrow for him. His ostentatiou and unapologetic immaturity, his bratty affect: This is what has brought him success, and what I imagine will be his inevitable downfall.

So my approaching for this interview, because I know a lot of beings have been shitting on you, is to not shit on you .

No ones been shitting on me.

I was curious about how that affected you emotionally, and how you appeared about getting blasted by the media .

It was certainly a shitty situation. Im of the Internet, so its like a lot of beings screaming about thoughts. I respect trolling. I respect beings hollering at one another, which is why the Internet is so fucking great. I definitely didnt take it personally. It was also something that it was necessary to get talked about. Parties were not on the same sheet. Like a 38 -year-old comedy writer and a 16 -year-old Filipino millennial were not considering the questions the same way.

I try to look at it like I was the look of the whole stuff. I intend the Internet is a giant, lawless fuckin thing. Sometimes the work requires some rules But not too many. Because this is gonna be odd. No parents. But you know, sometimes beings get pissed. I undoubtedly see it from the 16 -year-old Filipino millennial back. I dont look for recognition on my nonsense and I dont ever watermark or anything like that, but I likewise get the other side extremely. Im old enough to understand both sides. I exactly miss everyone to be happy so were fuckin partying.

Instagram for fucking photos of puppies playing volleyball in sunglasses and iguanas surfing. I precisely want to have everyone get listen, set the problem, and then get back to surfing iguanas. It didnt rock me emotionally because I merely understood it as something that needed to be discussed. It definitely went hazardous and exciting at some points. Beings just get fucking crazy, theres a portion of those individuals who dont even know what theyre calling about. I get chased by TMZ. Some person followed me around a Duane Reade preserving my phone call. That was tight.

You liked that ?

I kinda felt like Leo, for like two seconds. It was also scary. No one wants that life. I was trying to look at it like this is a conversation that needed to be had. I didnt look at it as being shit on. The Internet is more important to me than their own families or anything. I would love to be with the Internet, have sex with the Internet, I affection the Internet. Now its a better place.

Why was it important for you to celebrate medicines, specifically cocaine, in your volume ?

Its a mixed bag. I refer to it as the best and worst event ever. Persona of the ethos of this notebook is that its a how-to guide in that its like I dont know what you should be doing but I know what you shouldnt be doing. Ive determined every horrible act. I basically think you read this book and you dont do coke. Because youre like, its gonna establish me unbearable. Like my breath is gonna smell like a napkin and get into a super intense exchange about trash I dont even care about.

I think it depends on how old-time the reader is. For me, Ive done coke so I understood more where you were coming from in that it can be great and appalling at the same age. From a girls position, it might just appear very cool .

It depends. Im pretty explicit that its been responsible for the greatest happenings that ever happened, but likewise some of the most terrifying happenings, very. I think its more self-reflective than it is encouraging.

Your notebook is provocative is many channels. Parties are going to interpret some of the content as transphobic and homophobic. I was thinking of the assembly whatever it is you refer to trans women as trannies .

I dont know what youre specific referring to.

You wrote about tranny strippers. Thats a contentious statement. Numerous trans parties have spoken out about how injurious they find that term to be. I was curious about how you would respond to those reviewers .

is a factual account of what happened. Youre talking about an actual pejorative statement?

Yeah. Its a insult. There were a bunch of moments in the book where I speak something and immediately thought about how angry it would realize social right activists on the Internet.

Social justice parties are angry at everything.

I was wondering if you included some things specific to be provocative .

No, obviously not. First of all, any social justice being can come at me at any time. I literally have more transgender pals who will vouch for me than anyone else. They self-identify as trannies. Request a transgender who is not a geek from the Internet how they identify, and I bet you will find hundreds who mark as trannies.

I know transgender tribes who determine that lane. Its like the N-word. If they call themselves that, its OK. But having a cis person is a different story .

Any person who would find offense in that kind of minutia is not someone who should be reading this book.

Its not your audience, thats possibly true-life.

That shouldnt be anyones gathering, as far Im concerned.

As I was speaking your volume, I was thinking about your crazy narcotic and sexuality storeys as they are linked to Tucker Max s legends from I Hope They Suffice Beer in Hell . Was he somebody who affected you ?

No, thats like bro culture stuff. This is completely different.

Tonally, there were similarities .

Ive never read it, but I also think that in terms of this notebook, like Ive been living concert prowes long enough to write a book full of debaucherous narrations, but I wanted to go with more pathos, true. From what I understand from Tucker Maxs stuff, he doesnt actually move into too much trash like that. Not all the fibs here are particularly turnt up, as far as Im concerned. There are some that are honest lineage floors , not every narration is about partying.

But a lot of them are .

We can go through it When I was writing it, putting in some ardour and truth, and some real appear on it, like speak about my mummy having sex with Shel Silverstein and being a 9-year-old offspring performer diva. Shit like that, to me, that is not the same as walking around a bar with a breathalyzer. I dont not relate to it, but Ive never read any of his stuff.

Ostrovsky as small children actor Josh Ostrovsky

Do you differentiate between the Fat Jew as your performative character and yourself as Josh ?

No. I dont going to go at night and unscrew the hairection, sit down, and listen to This American Life and be like, Oh, what a hard daylight at work! Being the Fat Jew! No, its all one in the same. To me, this is gonna be disingenuous. I was doing this stuff long before there was anywhere to share it, long before anyone knew about it. Ten years ago, people in New York would be like, Oh thats the Fat Jew, the guy who does crazy stuff. It wasnt something I created and raised in order to share on social media for the masses.

But this is your career, this is your joy, but a lot of artists and performers differentiate between their performative ego, which is still their ego, and who they are when theyre not playing .

Im not an master or relevant actors. Im neither.

How do you link ?

Im the only one whos really just going for it. Im genuinely forming it up as I go along. I could start a ros companionship and that could become a real thing. Im about to do the worlds firstly EDM cologne.

What is that gonna aroma like ?

I dont know. Thats a good inquiry. Like I dont even just knowing that that entails but Im gonna do it. Its 2015. Anything is possible. The world-wide is so ridiculous at this extent. I might open a yoga ashram in Toronto. Who knows? Im one of the only people who doesnt consider anything on or off limits. I dont think that it can be defined. We have this human need to compartmentalize, to be like, What are you? But I dont know.

I guess its my job to mention, as a novelist trying to make sense of what you do.

I dont think theres anything to make sense of. I dont know. What do you think I do?

I think youre a content developer and musician .

Thats vague. But yeah. Im not not. But thats what Im enunciating. I like to keep parties approximating, obstruct people off kilter. If people suppose Im a comedian, I will move in a totally different direction and start seeing cologne. I wanna build people move, What the fuck? Maintaining parties guessing, remaining genuine gossip running about me, whether its, I dont want to say the word negative, but whatever its gonna be, thats what I am. A communication starter? I dont know.

Tastemaker ?

Conversation piece? Idiot? All of the above?

Whats your goal with your work? Why do you do what you do? Aside given the fact that you exactly want to do it .

The end goal with the book is that I remember I can get some turnt-up 18 -year-old to read. Thats the challenge, like, can you get fuckin some kids to read and think its genuinely fuckin cold? Is that doable? Ill literally do it just for that.

Were doing speaking raves to promote the book. IRL is what the programs called. Its just like gigantic DJs and works. Like, can you stimulate them read? I think its doable. I dont thoughts writing knows how to do it. I dont think mothers know how to do it.

So you want to realize say chill ?

Kind of. What if Im somehow the person to do it?

What are your favorite journals ?

I ardour Shel Silverstein, and not only because my mom fucked him. Mostly, Im the type to read 100 listicles. Like, what kind of bagel is Rihanna? You know what I entail? One-hundred times Rihanna ate fruit. Im not speaking enough books.

No ones reading enough journals .

Maybe now? That would fucking funny. To get a fucking 17 -year-old whos over it to sit down and read an entire journal? I symbolize I put in some trash to break up the chapters, like you can color in a picture of Tyrese. I symbolize, I dont want you to have to read too much.

Illustration by Max Fleishman

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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The GOP Is No Longer A ‘Conservative’ Party

To most Americans, conservative is interchangeable with Republican Party. After all, the GOP has usually been the more conservative side of a two-party system for a century. We also tend to understand who a conservative is based on the root of the word: someone who is cautious and respects the status quo, or, put more strongly, someone who is resistant to change.

But the term has philosophical roots, too, separate from the party. Political parties are fundraising organizations attached to a policy platform. Over time, platforms change. The Republican Party has been around more than 160 years and has changed directions many times, as has the Democratic Party. At its founding, the GOP was abolitionist (a radical position at the time), pro-Union (that is, for big government over states rights) and for the expansion of individual rights. The GOP became firmly conservative only in the 20th century.

From a European perspective, however, both U.S. parties have been conservative since World War II (that is, both are on the right end of the spectrum of most modern parliamentary democracies), and at the same time, both parties have always been liberal, as inheritors of Enlightenment notions of citizens rights, individual liberty and representative government.

But gradual shifts in the GOP over the last two or three decades that culminated in Donald Trumps election in 2016 have changed all that. The GOP is no longer a conservative party in any meaningful way. It is instead something else, and it needs a more accurate description.

Why should we care what European political philosophy has to say about U.S. politics? Because our politics arose out of that philosophy, and going back to those roots brings clarity.

Most knowledgeable philosophical conservatives today will tell you how unhappy they are with how far the Republican Party has drifted. Some prominent conservatives leaned toward Democrats in the 2000s, such as Catholic conservative commentatorAndrew Sullivan, and more have become never-Trumpers, including former Republican strategist Ana Navarro. This is because the GOP of Trump, House leader Paul Ryan and Senate leader Mitch McConnell has become a radical right. That may sound like a contradiction, since radical is usually shorthand for the far left, but the seeming contradiction demonstrates how restrictive our notion of the right-left political spectrum really is, and thats perhaps the most important thing we can learn from looking to our European roots.

The Battle Between Reason And Unreason

The best way to understand these roots is a historical survey of the long 19th century (from the French Revolution to World War I) and the short 20th century (encompassing both world wars and the Cold War), descriptions coined by historian Eric Hobsbawm. When I teach this period, I frame it somewhat facetiously as an epic battle between reason and unreason. In other words, the Enlightenment posed a question to Europe: What happens if we use reason (over tradition or religion) to govern ourselves? Of course, the debate was rarely that stark. Few rationalists were purely so, while proponents of the old ways pointed out how much rationality there was in tradition. Rather, I try to show students how modern European history has been a struggle between these impulses within movements as well as in opposition to each other.

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The French Revolution established notions of rights, individual liberties and the primacy of a secular state. But it also brought two centuries of reaction to the revolution.

The French Revolution can be seen as a rousing crescendo in the symphony of support for the rationalization of government and society in Europe. It established the notion of rights, individual liberties and the primacy of the secular state. From there we can draw a line to todays liberal democracies. Both major U.S. parties and most of postwar Western politics have been in this tradition until very recently. But the two centuries following the French Revolution were filled with jockeying over peoples reactions to the cataclysmic event, from reactionaries who wanted to turn back the clock to centrists who wanted to keep things as defined in the revolutions early stage to Jacobins, the leftist radicals who wanted to push rights still further by any means necessary.

This is where our right-left spectrum comes from: three broad categories of responses to the French Revolution. Most of modern Western politics is descended from the center-left responses that accepted rights as natural and argued only about who was included, the best ways to translate political rights into liberties and to what degree. On this spectrum, any conservatism within a democracy is already a centrist position because it accepts rights and representation, though in a more limited way.

The far-right position in the 19th century was known as Reaction. Reactionary religious philosophers like Joseph de Maistre prioritized Gods law over mans, arguably leaning toward theocracy. Reactionary statesmen like Klemens von Metternich primarily wanted to save or return to traditional power structures and were in this sense conservative, though their violent attempts to put down any perceived threat could be described as more paranoid than cautious. Konstantin Pobedonostsev a statesman and tutor of the future Alexander III, Russias most reactionary tsar made strong rational criticisms of democracy. He warned that representative government diluted power and that the press not the people or their representatives, who have little say in what writers and editors do had the power to make or break a democratic society. (Some members of Americas alt-right profess allegiance toward Reaction, though it can be hard to tell when they are sincere and when they are praising autocracy for the shock value.)

As monarchies increasingly failed to stem the tide of Enlightenment secularism, Irish statesman Edmund Burke took de Maistres place as a figurehead for mainstream conservative philosophy. Coming from the British tradition, he accepted rights and representation but wanted them limited to a (wealthy white male) few. This was an easier position to accept in a monarchy that was already limited and had inherited the liberal philosophy of John Locke. Burke was appalled by the vulgarity of the French Revolution and yet supported American independence. Though Burkes name is most strongly associated with conservatism to this day, he was a contradictory figure who does not best exemplify the post-Revolution conservatism that dominated propertied classes in Europe and North America in the 19th century.

Most mainstream conservatives were ordinary people who enjoyed some wealth and social position, and didnt question the systems they were born into. Their priority was to protect what they had.

Take the example of Russian provincial nobleman Andrei Chikhachev, who inherited serfs but recognized it as a system that couldnt last. He worshiped knowledge, working to expand education for serfs, and he welcomed technological advances so long as they were introduced cautiously. Rather than fearing revolution like a reactionary, he pitied decadent, urbanized Westerners from a place of complacency with his own more orderly (and unequal) rural idyll. If Chikhachev had been born in Boston instead of rural Russia, he probably would have accepted representative government as unquestioningly as he did monarchy, because it was there. He could have been just as pious, just as cautious, just as uncritically patriotic in either system, as indeed most propertied white men were then, whether they lived in a rising democracy or a failing autocracy.

The right wing, in other words, is not one thing. As it has changed over time, it has also varied greatly in degree and emphasis, and in context. There are multiple philosophical sources that inform different streams of thought, many of which end up in surprising places. There is a clear continuity from even the most liberal conservatives to extreme reactionaries(as American political theorist Corey Robin stresses), but there is also a meaningful difference between acceptance of representative government and social change (even if regretfully, cynically or pragmatically) and violent, organized opposition to either.

The Right And the Radical

What can it mean to be both right (resistant to change) and radical (pursuing extreme change)?

One answer has to do with nationalism.

Civic nationalism is a liberal compromise that ties voting and citizenship to the nation and state order, as in the modern U.S. or Britain. Ethnic nationalism, in contrast, offers as natural and timeless something that was constructed in the middle of the 19th century. To build a tribal identity around ethnicity, language, history and religion and use that identity to justify a state (as opposed to a monarchy justified by God) was new.

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Prussian Foreign Minister Otto von Bismarck’s mix of nationalism and power politics laid the foundation for World War I.

Germany is a tragic example of ethnic nationalism run amok. As foreign minister of Prussia in the mid-19th century, Otto von Bismarck added the element of nationalism to the drive for power he inherited from Metternich. Bismarck asserted that German speakers, then spread across principalities and empires, should be united into one German state. He achieved the unification of what we know as Germany in 1871, then acquired overseas colonies and helped perpetuate an arms race with Britain, leading to World War I. The militarization of Germanys government in this period, along with colonial atrocities, such as theHerero genocide,chillingly presaged the Holocaust before ever Adolf Hitler was rejected from art college.

Nationalism took its strong and ugly grip on Europe during a period of industrialization, expansion of middle classes and the entrenchment of large, bureaucratic governments that consolidated the principles of the French Revolution despite reactionary challenges (the long 19th century). Property-owning men increasingly wielded power and accumulated wealth through professions, business and government more than inheritance. But working classes and minorities saw their conditions deteriorate with few gains in political representation. Socialism, developing in response to industrialization, recognized that the liberal focus on rights and the free market was liberating only for some. This led to the idea that only economic equality could bring real liberty an idea that terrified the haves and intrigued the have-nots.

Nationalism emerged as a story that could unite whole populations regardless of vast disparities in wealth. And by defining us, nationalism also defines who is the other, providing someone to blame who is coincidentally not the people enjoying power and wealth. A system that was threatened by the poor and minorities told the poor to hate minorities, leaving minorities to fear the poor.

A system that was threatened by the poor and minorities told the poor to hate minorities, leaving minorities to fear the poor.

Nationalism called to our irrational impulses to assuage wrongs brought by (rational) technology and economics. By the 20th century, technocratic, largely secular nationalists used both pseudo-science and appeals to tradition to promote a genocidal agenda to aggrandize their own tribe (Nazism was one variant of fascism). Other fascists in Romania, Croatia, Portugal and elsewhere were explicitly religious and allied themselves wholly with the counter-Enlightenment, harnessing fears of change and difference to unite their nations. These political religions are another subtle variation on theocracy.

Where liberal democracy focuses on equal rights and opportunities for individuals to do what they want, short of imposing on others rights, socialism focuses on harnessing the productivity of all for the benefit of all, a collectivist perspective. Nationalism is also inherently collectivist because the nation is held above its component parts: the people. The core idea all fascists had in common was the supremacy of the nation over the lives or liberty of its citizens, as well as their nations superiority over others. The Nazi use of socialist in the full form of its party name, National Socialists, implied this collectivism but, by adding national, rejected everything else about socialism that made it socialism: its aim of economic equality without regard to divisions by ethnicity or religion. This appealed to voters who might have been tempted by the economic promise of socialism but recoiled from its rejection of their identity and traditional values.

Fascism And The Right-Wing Fringe

So, was fascism conservative? It had its roots in right-wing movements and appealed to counter-Enlightenment, reactionary values, albeit with a veneer of scientific-sounding rhetoric. It violently opposed both liberal democracy and socialism and strongly favored social hierarchy (inequality defined by race). But fascism was also radical because it embraced a strong bureaucratic government rather than inheritance as the basis for power and embraced technological progress (for its military and economic advantages). Therefore, it was not reactionary, unless we use that term so loosely it no longer defines the people it was coined to describe. But fascism also cannot be called conservative without losing that terms original meaning, since it sought drastic changes by means so vulgar as to be unimaginable to conservatives like Burke. So fascism was both right-wing and radical.

In other words, the left versus right terms we use to describe our politics (and the political compass variation on it) fail to take into account one of the most important political debates of the 20th century: individualism versus collectivism, with nationalism as the key concept within that debate. Those of us born to the Anglo-American tradition often miss this because our experience is of the seemingly easy compromise position of civic nationalism.

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Evangelical support has pushed the Republican Party toward theocracy. Here, students at Liberty University pray for Donald Trump before his inauguration.

But 2016 has forced Americans to pay attention to virulent nationalism and everything that goes with it. America has always had a resentful, white-supremacist nationalism based on hating the other and rejecting liberalism. What changed in 2016 is that a major party embraced this fringe, handed it power and is now refusing to check that power with anything more than a furrowed brow. Whether motivated by cynicism, greed, fear, delusion, helplessness or true belief, by its inaction the Republican Party has abandoned the last vestiges of a conservatism that is skeptical of change, values individual liberty and accepts the premise of representative government. This Republican Party is a radical right containing elements of theocracy (Education Secretary Betsy DeVosand the evangelical base) and fascism (the extreme alt-right, who remain unrenounced by the president and who are represented in the White House by Chief Strategist Steve Bannon).

Whether motivated by cynicism, greed, fear, delusion, helplessness or true belief, by its inaction the Republican Party has abandoned the last vestiges of a conservatism that is skeptical of change, values individual liberty and accepts the premise of representative government.

Clearly the old schemas always imperfect cannot capture the tectonic shift in American politics institutionalized by Trumps election. They are products of the Industrial Age, and so one way to begin mapping our new landscape is to consider how the current information revolution should be central to our understanding of todays politics.

We could start by appropriating the name Know-Nothings for the modern Republican Party, since its characterized by its denial of reality (the original Know-Nothings, who took their name from their secrecy, were anti-immigrant nativists). This term highlights a peculiarly postmodern twist this radical right has put on the big lie propaganda that Hitler famously recommended. Alternative facts dont just offer an unsubstantiated, and often absurd, narrative; they destabilize the idea that truth exists or matters. Political lying is nothing new, and even lying on this scale has precedents (though only in the worst regimes). Todays right goes a step further to undermine the value of any knowledge, education or evidence, for a receptive audience that cares only whether the script plays to their teams advantage or serves as a strike against the other team.

An Anti-Government Government

Liberals and conservatives, in the proper sense of those words, are now both uncomfortably covered by the shade of the never-Trump tent. Both accept the premise of rights and representative government, and watch in horror as norms are flouted daily. A party that used to represent limited government encroachment on individual lives moved through a religiously motivated drive to control womens bodies into a new present, where the president, Cabinet and Congress explicitly oppose the government they run in every respect but their personal domination of it. Their voting base largely white and evangelical cheer the undermining of democracy through voting restrictions and boo defenses of traditional American values, such as freedom of the press, separation of church and state, the right to protest, and checks and balances. These elected officials and their base voters are not conservatives in any sense that doesnt warp the term beyond recognition.

They are a radical right that recalls earlier radical right movements such as reactionaries, fascists and theocrats. But they are also a new phenomenon. They were elevated to power through hacking, bots, gerrymandering, voter suppression and PACs. The information revolution made it possible for the least knowledgeable and yet most extreme to push themselves to power to dismantle government from within, despite losing the popular vote and continuing strong popular opposition.

We will need new words to describe this, as it continues to develop in unpredictable ways. But one thing is sure: The familiar days of the right as cautious men in suits and the left as hairy hippies are over. The Cold War, with its comforting clichs about authoritarianism happening to other people, is over.

Were living something else now.

Katherine Pickering Antonova is an associate professor of history at Queens College, City University of New York, and author of An Ordinary Marriage: The World of a Gentry Family in Provincial Russia and A Consumers Guide to Information: How to Avoid Losing Your Mind on the Internet.