Christopher Rufo, the intrepid researcher who’s been documenting critical race theory’s radicalism and its effect on society, has written a manifesto outlining how conservatives can retake control of America’s elite institutions.
Published to IM-1776 magazine, the piece begins with Rufo prefacing that this push to retake control must be led by the youth, not the older generation of Reagan-era conservatives.
“The older conservative establishment, assembling in ballrooms and clubhouses, has marginal influence over public orthodoxy because it lacks the hunger and grit to contest it,” he writes.
“The energy is with a new generation which no longer accepts tired platitudes, and demands a new set of strategies geared toward truly overcoming the regime — the opaque and coercive set of psychological, cultural, and institutional patterns that has largely replaced the old constitutional way of life,” he continues.
I’ve written a manifesto for @IM_1776 calling for counter-revolution and outlining a strategy for “the New Right activism.” First Harvard, then America. The fight has now begun.https://t.co/rT7gdQWTJ9
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 4, 2024
With that in mind, he continues by noting that the first step to righting the ship “is to admit what hasn’t worked.”
“For fifty years, establishment conservatives have been retreating from the great political tradition of the West — republican self-government, shared moral standards, and the pursuit of eudaimonia, or human flourishing — in favor of half-measures and cheap substitutes,” Rufo explains.
“The first of these substitutes is the self-serving myth of neutrality. Following a libertarian line, the conservative establishment has argued that government, state universities, and public schools should be ‘neutral’ in their approach to political ideals,” he adds.
The problem, he writes, is that any institution that pursues neutrality is destined to “be captured by a faction more committed to imposing ideology,” which is exactly what’s happened. Except the faction in control isn’t sane conservatives but rather “woke” lunatic leftists.
“The radical Left ruthlessly advances through the institutions, and the Right meekly ratifies each encroachment under the rubric of ‘neutrality,’ ” Rufo writes. “In view of the social and cultural wreckage this dynamic had wrought, it is not merely a matter of preference but a matter of urgency to break it. To do this, a new approach is required.”
This new approach should, he states in the manifesto, center around three themes: “language, institutions, and ends.”
“[L]anguage is the operative element of human culture,” he notes. “To change the language means to change society: in law, arts, rhetoric, or common speech. The Right must build a new vocabulary to overcome the regime’s euphemistic rule, which enacts abuse of power through abuse of language. The point is to replace contemporary ideological language with new, persuasive language that points toward clear principles.”
Likewise, he continues, “Institutions are where the word becomes flesh.”
“The activist must begin with status quo reality: the institutions which today shape public and private life will exist for the foreseeable future,” he explains. “The only question is who will lead them and by which set of values. The New Right must summon the self-confidence to say, ‘We will, and by our values.'”
“Conservatives can no longer be content to serve as the caretakers of their enemies’ institutions, or as gadflies who adopt the posture of the ‘heterodox’ while signaling to their left-wing counterparts that they have no desire to disrupt the established hegemony. Rather, the New Right needs to move from the politics of pamphlets to the governance of the institutions,” he continues.
Lastly are the “ends.”
“My conviction is that ends will ultimately triumph over means; men will die for truth, liberty, and happiness, but will not die for efficiency, diversity, and inclusion,” he writes.
“The best way to counter the degradations of American institutional life is to remind the public of the fundamental purpose of those institutions, and to communicate that purpose. What is the purpose of the university? What is the purpose of a school? What system of government will guide us toward human happiness? These questions provoke doubt and anxiety in the current regime. And no wonder. The idea of happiness, properly understood, can be revolutionary,” he continues.
Yet happiness is certainly not what the current leftist regime — one of endless spending, welfare programs, racial quotas, overregulation, third-wave feminism, etc. — has produced.
“Our regime has lost all sense of why it exists. The men who can rediscover this North Star will have everything they need to motivate others to pursue political life: a motivation which may be obscured but cannot be extinguished. They will begin the great process of recapturing the language, institutions, and ends of American life,” he writes.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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