Rod Dreher's Diary

Over the weekend, one of you readers sent me this piece from Virtue Online, a website for orthodox global Anglicanism. It’s written pseudonymously; it was published there because the writer is a young conservative Anglican, and though this has nothing to do with Anglicanism, publisher David Virtue gave him a forum. It’s really an important essay. Excerpts: If you’re a Baby Boomer and a socially-conservative Christian, and you don’t understand young men nowadays, I’m writing for you.

Here’s something fun for us to noodle on over the weekend. Go to the Where I’d Live website and rate the states. Above, my own results. I’ve lived in New York, DC, Pennsylvania, and loved my time there. As a young man, I would have been open to living in most states. But at this point in my life, pushing 60, I only really want to be in the South, which is my culture. Funny how that works. I do love Southern culture, and hate parts of it too; this is normal for anybody.

That’s as close as Grok could get to reproducing Coach Bear Bryant’s iconic fedora My friend Lee last night took me to a town hall meeting in the small town of Westover (pop. 2000). About 300 people — that’s over 10 percent of the town — gathered in an Assemblies of God church to meet with four men representing the developers of a proposed data center, which is strongly opposed by many. I tell you, it was enough to renew your faith in democracy.

Nathan Cofnas, academic honesty martyr-in-waiting The University of Ghent (Belgium) is led by a male-to-female transgender former leader of that country’s Green Party. He has just suspended researcher Nathan Cofnas, a fellow of the university, for the crime of having exposed Jason Arday’s fraud. Nathan says this is almost certainly a precursor to firing him.

Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon’s victory speech last night — watch it here Astonishing news out of Florida last night: in the Democratic Party primary for US Senate, the Democratic Socialist candidate Angie Young upset the establishment favorite Alexander Vindman, the anti-Trump “Resistance” hero who outraised her by 16 to 1! Young had almost no money …

Emilee Hackney in an Appalachian vegetable garden, circa 2000 (source) Ten years ago this summer, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy burst onto the world, and became a publishing phenomenon (this July 2016 interview was what sent the Appalachian memoir into the stratosphere). A year or so on the NYT bestseller list. A movie deal. And the launching of the polit…

This image comes from this Trita Parsi tweet, excerpted: Of course you have to question whether this is real or fake. Parsi is a strong opponent of the war, which doesn’t mean that he deliberately posted something fake, but still. Yet a trusted military source who is generally pro-Israel told me that this is almost certainly not fake — and it’s not because the troops are anti-Semites either. The lack of morale thing, said my source, is real.

Jason Arday, disgraced and now dead by apparent suicide Good morning. Y’all aren’t used to hearing from me on a Saturday, but I realized that I probably won’t be able to fulfill my diarist’s obligation on Monday. I’m leaving later this morning for a roadtrip, and probably won’t be able to write on Monday, when I head back. So, here you are — Monday’s delivery two days early. And there’s lots of news. You will have heard by now of the besieged Cambridge academic Jason Arday’s apparent suicide.

I was having breakfast with a psychiatrist the other day, who spoke of the terrible damage many in his profession have done to kids by transing them. “Dr. Mengele would have had a field day in American medicine,” he said. Now it looks as if the Trump administration — specifically, VP JD Vance — is going after at least some of these ghouls.

Nick Fuentes, the most influential right-wing identity politician in America Good morning! Gotta be quick today — lots of things on the schedule, including introducing a visiting German journalist friend to the glories of Alabama barbecue! First, let’s start with the Free Press piece I told y’all I was writing, about the lessons from Evan Barker’s NYT-be…