Clown Car Richard Hanania

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Ziho Park is a professor of economics at Taiwan National University. He grew up in Korea and received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.
Ziho joins me to talk about the strange world of Korean feminism, and the backlash to it. The last time this came to my attention was when Korean feminists recently got a “sex festival” shut down. Ziho also talks about another controversy, where a pop star wore a quite modest “sexy nurse” costume and this became a major political issue. Judge for yourself its level of offensiveness.
Unlike in many other countries, the backlash to feminism among young men in Korea pops out clearly from the data. In fact, Korea might have the most massive political gender gap between young people anywhere in the developed world. Along with record low birth rates, all of this looks extremely unhealthy from my perspective. Yet Korean gender controversies don’t exactly map on to our own, so I thought I would have a native come on the show to explain to me what exactly is going on.
Antifeminists in the US tend to be religious, or at least traditionalists of some kind. They believe in different responsibilities and roles for men and women. In Korea, according to Ziho, young men simply demand legal equality, and things like abortion and gay marriage aren’t really issues.
Another difference is that Korean feminists are extremely prudish. There’s of course a sex negative wing of feminism in the West, but censorship appears to be a top priority in Korea in a way that it isn’t here.
While I agree with Ziho that Korean feminism sounds horrifying, I also find much to dislike about the backlash to it. In the West, one of the main motivations behind antifeminism is that many of us want a society where men and women have different roles and responsibilities. In Korea, the men seem to rebel against the cultural expectation that they should be breadwinners, and there are even some who think it’s unfair that they are the ones being drafted. No antifeminist in the West would demand equality in war fighting! This leads me to ask Ziho whether those of us who hate feminists in the West should actually cheer for them in Korea. Listen to hear his response.
Liberalism as a political project is fine, and one I wholeheartedly support. But a liberalism that puts disproportionate focus on what women do to men strikes me as at least as culturally unhealthy as every other form of identity politics. If young Korean conservatives were consistent liberals and applied their worldview to a wide range of issues that would be one thing, but this does not seem to be what is going on here. There needs to be a positive vision of male-female relations at the heart of any antifeminist movement, and this is especially true in a country that has gone this far down the path of giving up on reproduction.
Ziho tells me how much he thinks the US is to blame for exporting these ideas to the rest of the world. We also discuss K-Pop and feminism, the degree to which a Christian right exists in Korea, whether the gender war intersects with the geopolitical climate, and much more. This was a fascinating and far-reaching conversation into a completely different culture that has in a sense been mind-colonized by America but nonetheless maintains many of its unique attributes.

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I cover two topics this week. First of all, there is Mike Johnson finally deciding to bring to the House floor bills on providing aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. As things stand, the texts of the bills have been released, and votes are expected to happen as early as Saturday.
I’m fascinated by the role Trump has played in all this, and argue that it provides insight into what his second term foreign policy will look like. Ukraine gets $61 billion in aid. MAGA doesn’t like aid to Ukraine, so for Trump to bless it, they make $10 billion of that a loan. But the president gets to negotiate terms and can cancel the loan at any time. I argue that this represents what we saw in Trump’s first term. The man has two instincts: isolationism and wanting to look tough. The latter always wins out in policy debates, and we have no reason to think this would change if and when Trump returns to office. For some context, see Greg Sargent on Mike Johnson’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.
In the second part of the monologue, I discuss the film Anyone But You (2023) starring Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be more Sydney Sweeney analysis. The movie is worth mentioning because I think it represents where the dead center of American popular culture is at this point. Conventional looking and attractive white people as leads, with magical blacks and gays sprinkled in. Romance, fun, and living a good life are allowed. Contrast with the delusional views of many right wingers, who believe every cultural product is promoting pedophilia and polyamory. The movie isn’t very good or necessarily worth watching, but I think it demonstrates why it is good to pay attention to popular films and shows to get a grip on where the culture is rather than thinking that what one sees on the internet is everything.

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I first discovered Farha Khalidi, who has 1.8 million followers on TikTok, through seeing clips of her shutting down red pill and manosphere type influencers on something called the @whatever podcast, which a friend described to me as material from the lowest level of content hell. I was impressed, as before this the women in these kinds of debates seemed to serve as little more than punching bags. Yet Farha was interesting because she had the voice and affectation of a condescending leftist but the words that were coming out of her mouth were actually sensible.
We connected through X and decided to meet up for a podcast when she was in town. I did a studio interview for the first time, which you can watch below. Farha brought along her friend Jazmen Jafar, a law school graduate who also makes money on OnlyFans while debating right-wing weirdos and usually coming across as smarter than them.
If you’re not a paid subscriber, you can get a free preview of the discussion through the RSS feed.
Both girls agree with me that while sex work might not be for everyone, for some women it makes sense. I am very privileged, getting to make a living enjoying what I do. I don’t feel I’m in the position to tell someone they have to work a normal job when they can avoid it. That’s a utilitarian argument, but not the same as Bug Man-ism where we turn into bean counters. Rather, when we diverge from utilitarianism it can only be because we are guided by a moral and spiritual commitment to freedom, whatever the consequences might be.
I asked the girls about what books they read, and Jazmen replied that the only reason she has time to read books at all is because she works as an OnlyFans girl rather than a lawyer. This reminded me of an idea that has been associated with both reactionaries and leftists, which is that individuals need to be freed from the drudgery of everyday work in order to undergo moral, intellectual, and cultural development.
Other topics covered include
* What did their Muslim families think of their chosen profession?
* In what ways do I agree with manosphere influencer types and where do they go off the rails?
* In an ideal world, would more or fewer women be sex workers?
* Is Farha still a virgin?
* What is it like to date with an OnlyFans?
* Is Farha still as woke as she seemed to be when she was writing for the Women’s Media Center?
* Have the girls ever had stalkers?
* What exactly is a “Jack-Off Instruction” video?
* What it’s like to debate manosphere influencer types, along with the differences between Muslim-bros, Christ is King, Groypers, and other factions within that space.
* Are manosphere types sincere in their views or consciously grifting? How do they treat Jazmen and Farha when they’re on their shows?
* Would they encourage their daughters to become OnlyFans creators?
As we discuss during the podcast, I think that a world of content creators reaching their audiences directly naturally takes us away from gender fluidity, blank slatism, and other ideas that are strongest in hierarchical institutions insulated from market forces like academia. Once people realize how easy it is for women to make money on OnlyFans, how can anyone deny sex differences? Open conversations between men and women naturally lead to discourses around things like age gaps, at what age women are most attractive, and whether having kids leads to a fulfilling life. Much of this discourse is quite stupid, but it’s not subject to top-down control, nor liable towards being funneled into a certain direction in the way that conversations always are when they’re occurring in the context of a highly institutionalized environment like the university or an HR training session. If you’re a trad, there’s much not to like with regards to the free availability of porn and how it is merging with other types of content creation. But al

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My friend Brian Chau joins the podcast to talk about how life in DC is going. A few weeks ago we chatted on the CSPI podcast, and this can be seen as a followup to that discussion.
Our last conversation focused on the specifics of AI doomerism and why he’s not worried about the technology killing us all. This time, we go into detail about how things have been working out for him in DC. We begin by discussing the recent conversation between Tyler and Jonathan Haidt, which I posted thoughts about on X. The discussion then moves to its main part, which focuses on what things are like in the nation’s capital. Brian whitepills me a bit on DC. The people there seem to be better than both the voters and the punditocracy. This makes me wonder whether I should move to the area, and he presents a compelling case that I should, given that I’m getting sort of sick of the online discourse space, which is often depressing. Now that the conversation is over, I feel like this is a “grass is always greener” kind of thing. Whenever I talk to someone closer to the policy arena, I want to do something similar to them, but then when I reflect for even a little bit I decide that what I’m doing is quite enjoyable. But who knows? Maybe Brian planted a seed that will eventually grow.
I ask Brian about the influence of AI doomers in think tanks and government, and we discuss the landscape of the regulation debate. Part of me wonders whether regulation is something we don’t need to worry about too much due to policy inertia, but he makes the case that the danger is real enough to be a concern. We close with a grab bag of topics, including the relationship between the punditocracy and the policymaking class, and why I can’t stand to read articles about sex differences, though I promised to give Carole Hooven’s recent piece on why men dominate chess a try. To update everyone, I ended up liking it.
As always, make sure to subscribe to Brian’s Substack, where you can follow his work, including what he’s been doing with Alliance for the Future. I didn’t turn on the video recording this week, so unfortunately all we have is audio. And it seems that Substack transcripts aren’t working at the moment. I’ll see if I can add it later.

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Walt Bismarck (follow on X) became internet famous in 2015 for his Disney parody videos in support of Alt Right ideas and causes. Recently, he remerged on a new Substack called Alt Right 2.0, where he writes about how his political views have changed and the kind of movement he’d like to help build in the future. I found two essays he wrote, “Why I’m No Longer a White Nationalist” and “How the Alt Right Won,” to be particularly entertaining and insightful, and would recommend everyone read them.
Walt and I have had somewhat similar journeys, so I invited him on the podcast to talk about his past and current thinking. He has come to realize that in many ways, his psychological profile is closer to that of liberal elites than it is to the regular Americans he once believed he was fighting for. Friend of this Substack TracingWoodgrains posted some excerpts of Walt’s article on this point that are very funny and ended up going viral. We talk about different factions of the conservative coalition, how the far right has changed over time, the political futures of Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom, and what comes after Trump.
It’s easy to underestimate the ultimate influence of the Alt Right, as it’s not as if those prominent in the movement became major political figures, and practically nobody identifies with the term today. But for those of us who’ve been paying attention over the last decade and a half, we’ve seen, for better or worse, ideas, talking points, and memes that were once considered beyond the pale become completely normalized on the right, to the extent that young people might be unaware that things were ever different. See also my “How to Not Get Cancelled” for more on the relevant history.
Walt was part of this transformation, and I’m glad to see that he has moved away from white nationalism. I also welcome his contribution to the discourse. The right has a human capital deficit, and Walt is playing some role in solving that problem by returning to the public arena. I encourage people to subscribe to his Substack, and continue to follow his work going forward.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.richardhanania.com

Yes, we’re going to keep milking this thing for what it’s worth. To follow up on my article on Sydney Sweeney’s breasts and their implications for the culture war, here I do some gender theory. The more I think about it, the more I realize that her not apologizing for coming from a family of MAGAs is probably a bigger sign of cultural change than her boobs themselves.
I begin by talking about the ways in which many of the things that divide the two sides of the culture war are implicit in social norms and rules of interpersonal relations. I also discuss the seeming paradox in which leftists are more likely to support pornography and prostitution while being horrified by the male gaze. In many ways, turning sex into a kind of market transaction makes it more predictable and rule bound. Pornos have scripts, while real life romance does not, which makes the former in many ways less disturbing to a movement that seeks to regulate practically all aspects of human existence in the names of safety and eliminating power disparities. If one takes a broad definition of consent, it is much easier to establish in market situations. For these reasons, leftists want the standard workplace to be completely sanitized of sex, while being more comfortable with sex as work itself.
I understand many women don’t want their sexuality to always be salient, so I won’t condemn everything about liberal spaces. Something I emphasize in The Origins of Woke is that one reason that the civil rights regime is so evil is that it makes how men and women relate to one another a matter of federal law, instead of letting market forces aggregate preferences. We should respect such differences, and clearly individuals have widely varying views regarding what kinds of private institutions they want to build and be a part of.