Welcome to the weird world of the New Right: Subversive podcast reviewed

Subversive is a podcast that documents the world of the ‘New Right’, a strange development in conservatism. Host Alex Kaschuta, one of the movement’s intellectual leaders, gives a good sense of the New Right’s weirdness.

Trembling minor-key synths play in the theme and Alex purrs that we’re about to hear a two-hour long conversation with ‘Covfefe Anon’. Other guests include ‘Zero H.P. Lovecraft’ and ‘Yeerk.P’. Some are anonymous commentators who have their voices distorted like a drug dealer in a Ross Kemp documentary. Others are known entities: journalists like Sohrab Ahmari, Ed West and Louise Perry.

They like the classical world, the Unabomber, steak. They hate CNN, porn, sunflower oil

I can’t explain the New Right. Perhaps that’s because it’s more of an aesthetic than a political programme. They like the classical world, the Unabomber, steak. They hate CNN, porn, sunflower oil. The movement should certainly be acknowledged, perhaps respected, because it has energy and popularity, as well as Peter Thiel’s money. It’s a world that hardly exists in British conservatism, probably because those who might lead it aren’t quite ready to bin the red trousers and finish the Thatcher séance.

Technically, Subversive is messy. The audio quality is frequently poor and the discussions too often go down intellectual cul-de-sacs that will only make sense to the Very Online. Yet there are insightful moments. A lot of these guests may be bedroom-dwellers, but the ample time they have has been well spent, pursuing interests and lines of thought outside of institutional settings (which would have nudged them towards an orthodoxy). Often they give a compelling diagnosis without a prescription. They target liberalism with such a ferocious blast, and such a deep nihilism, that constructing anything else after feels impossible.