Neoreaction is nothing new. Revanchism—the politics of resentment and revenge—is a multi-headed hydra that seasonally slinks out from the depths like a b-movie monster that just won’t die. We’ve known the “Third Reich” and have been told about “Jihad vs McWorld,” so we should not be surprised when new dogs start barking about new wounds they’re licking, again and again. For every reform, a counterrevolution is hatched; with every social gain, a reconquista.
But I can’t pretend to not be taken aback. “Fire and fury” is this season’s “shock and awe,” but it names a ferociously gleeful rejection of public morality on a global scale that I’ve not seen in my lifetime.
If you have not felt the red hot heat of hell’s gates burst open, then you have not been paying attention. The temperature keeps rising. Let the flames melt away the masks that cover up the horrors quite at home among civilized company. Whose faces do you see?