“Most people can’t even articulate a political thought. Like, why do they get to vote? It’s stupid.”
It’s the evening of September 11, and I’m sipping whiskey by the bar at a 4-star resort hotel in Miami, as a 29-year-old financial analyst, R., outlines his desire to dismantle democracy with an intense, focused composure. All around us, dozens of mostly young white men sporting smart blazers—a motley crew of conservative political operatives, think tank analysts, journalists, academics, and students—mingle by the resort’s open-air pool and palm trees, cigars and drinks in hand, sharing their own distaste for liberal democracy, and their plans to turn that distaste into action. One day into the third annual National Conservatism conference, and after a long afternoon of impassioned speeches about the culture war, R. is fired up—and maybe slightly drunk.
Read more at Religion Dispatches.
Ben Lorber 
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