I could almost feel for the boring, idiotic Anna described in the first paragraph of “A Young Woman Leaving the New Right.” New York Magazine feature by author Sam Adler-Bell. Distressed by, in Adler-Bell’s formulation, the “overly pompous moralism of Peak Woke” (I suspect she and Adler-Bell may share the delusion that this was the case), Anna abandoned her half-baked counter-liberalism in the mid-2010s and became a “renowned expert on the New Right.” Right-wing beliefs dedicated to promoting right-wing causes. That’s a tough one, man!
As you can see, Anna is “by nature someone who loves to have a good time” (her words). It’s a trait she shares with literally every human being who has ever existed or will ever exist, but her solipsistic narrow-mindedness believes her to be too primitive for the kinds of social spaces where people think jokes should do more than attach a hard R to the N-word. What turned her off was the “humorlessness” of the left, i.e., a certain type of people seeing her as a boring idiot. In her words, she “loved the thrill of transgression.”
For this reason, Anna decided to become a fascist. She later discovered that the right, who had organized themselves around the idea of reversing social progress and revoking rights from certain types of people long before she was born, saw her as one of the types of people whose rights should be revoked. Now she wants a new scene.
Self-flattery aside — “the thrill of transgression”? Fuck my ass, Vocal Fry Phyllis Schlafly! – The thoughtless reflex to misbehavior is real (most people are past it when their permanent teeth appear to be a normal size on their face). Probably everyone reading this, or everyone who can’t find one in the picture book section of their local bookstore, has had that experience. The category error is to set politics according to that reflection. Maybe it takes some people longer than others to discover that the world outside themselves and the people in it are real. And even if you don’t truly believe it, other people do, even if you’re a reprehensible ideological fashionista who shops the party scene by choosing who you think is truly human and worth living for. The Nazis you befriend because of your tendency to have a good time, ah, you lovely-eyed idiot, maybe in fact damn naziAnd they’re not just guys that are fun to hang out with. oh.
Later, Anna would discover that the gleeful pleasure-seeking nihilism that drew her to her very funny New Right friends was not at all that different from their outright fascism. She’ll discover that “a good time for me, the bottom of my shoe for others” is indeed the immutable core of fascism, and what made her a fascist won’t go away anytime soon, even when she decides she doesn’t want sophisticated New Yorkers to think of her as a fascist anymore. In the meantime, this blog is a service blog. We are here to help. You don’t have to be a famous New Right expert to experience the “thrill of crime”! In fact, it’s incredibly suspicious that there’s anything remotely transgressive about white right-wing ideology anywhere in America, except in self-selecting progressive spaces where any fun-loving person with a disaffected disposition can simply walk through the nearest door and exit, unless they’re committed to making themselves the protagonist of every story — and being a renowned pundit of the New Right is a pretty poor way to experience that thrill.
Here at Defector, by nature we are people who like to have a good time. Based on our years of experience in this capacity, we have brainstormed a better way to experience the thrill of transgression for anyone who truly wants to do so, rather than simply using the phrase “the thrill of transgression” as a euphemism for sociopaths.
- get a stupid tattoo
- Having a bisexual phase
- feather
- smoke a cigarette
- Please curse
- When I was 10, I stole a piece of candy from the store and was so overcome with guilt and fear that I vomited.
- Copy someone else’s homework
- Have someone copy your homework
- Tell your mom you’re going to mow the lawn this afternoon and then don’t do it.
- Join DSA
- Shoplifting at Whole Foods
- pirate music
- Merge without signal
- Share your streaming password
- organize your job
- Keep the lid on the milk
- Do not bring souvenirs worth more than $100 from your international travels and declare them to customs.
- Drink OJ from a box
- quit your job
- Use dental floss only once a day
- Don’t floss!
- Wear boardwalk t-shirts with sexual double entendres like “Big Johnson.”
- Vaping at the Movie Theater
- Sneak into the movies with Panda Express
- Sneak CVS candy into a movie
- At the self-checkout counter, ring up a packet of Pokemon cards with a similarly sized packet of taco seasoning.
- Remove the tags from your new mattress
- convert to islam
- Stick up for those in need
- Use a VPN
- Drugs (nothing too crazy)
- Tell the teacher to wear shorts
- Head to the Magic City for the Atlanta Hawks game on Monday
- jaywalking
- Do environmental terrorism
- Use your brother’s BB gun to shoot the action figure down the laundry chute
Now you don’t have to be a fascist.
