This one is especially nutty because one of the first things the EPA did was extensively photograph and document the *horrid* environmental degradation of the early 1970s so future generations could know what they'd been spared from. The public did not like unregulated air and water pollution!

It’s mostly because environmentalism and egalitarianism broadly undermine their idea of libertarian free market capitalism

That's still stupid since the Clean Air Act has possibly the best return on investment for any piece of legislation ever signed into law. Trillions of dollars in damages have been saved since 1963 thanks to it.

You want efficiency in government spending, there may be no better example than good environmental and ecological protection acts. Repeal or reform the laws that claim to do the above but really exist as tools for upholding nimbyism, and they'd be the perfect demonstration.

There's some truth in that, but the door for free markets seems to be closing on the right in favor of whatever the hell this is: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/u...

It's a weird ideological mix right now for sure, in no small part due to Trump's melted brain and obsession with tariffs. I think Slobodian's thesis that the alt-right/NatCon space are neoliberals/liberatarians who consciously merged with nativists and race scientists is largely correct.

There's obvious tensions and weird contradictions there with traditional ideas of neoliberal/liberatarian free market ideology, but the genealogy and shared cast of characters was convicing to me. From the other direction,you can see that kind of ideology in people like Richard Lynn or Peter Brimlow

That could apply to some of the tech-right, but in general, my take is a little bit different. I think a bunch of people who were part of the conservative coalition found out that they were unhappy with the outcomes created by the market.

In some cases, this was for fairly sympathetic reasons: lost jobs in the rust belt, people in Appalachian communities feeling that they'd been left behind, the opiate epidemic. For others, it was rainbow flags during Pride Month and too many mixed-race couples in ads.

I could maybe see that for the larger voting body, but I’m not sure the “elite” see themselves as connected to the hoi poloi like that

I'd say too things to that. One is that the Trump era has shown the limits of traditional elite control. The other is that, frankly, a lot of that elite has always been old people with reactionary social views.

They spent decades supporting a wordview that aimed to turn society into a giant vending machine, only to realize that it would inevitably be built to cater to the tastes of people they didn't like.

Neoliberalism as ideology has always exhibited an odd mixture of cynicism and utopianism, perhaps best exemplified by the other Arthur Jensen. The one written by Paddy Chayefsky. It doesn't really leave much room for nationalism or traditional communities. youtu.be/35DSdw7dHjs?...

Yes, they don't want free market capitalism, however much they might claim to. They want a system where they always win at everyone else's expense; they're neo-feudalists.