Joshua Tait
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joshuatait.bsky.social
Joshua Tait
@joshuatait.bsky.social
PhD in US history from UNC | Writes about the history of conservatism and conservative thought | Irenic | joshua.a.tait at gmail dot com | https://joshuatait.substack.com
Gonna start calling Joe Rogan “Bro-prah.”
November 6, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Literally (and perhaps consciously) thinking in Burnhamite terms with a Burnhamite strategy.

wapo.st/3Jsvgrl
The secretive donor circle that lifted JD Vance is now re-writing MAGA’s future
Chris Buskirk put tech elites in power in Trump’s Washington. His efforts are grounded in a controversial theory — an ‘aristocracy’ is needed to move the country forward.
wapo.st
November 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Christian Ruth is doing fascinating and important work excavating the monarchist tradition here and abroad. Check out some of his work here.

engelsbergideas.com/portraits/ra...
Ralph Adams Cram's king of America
The 20th-century American writer and architect was a passionate advocate for monarchy and medievalism. Echoes of his aristocratic, anti-democratic conservatism are now being revived by America's incre...
engelsbergideas.com
November 4, 2025 at 5:06 PM
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a satanic panic among Evangelicals about LLMs as a vessel for demons.
November 1, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Lord, keep me from ever describing something as “punk rock.”
October 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM
A strong piece by my friend Doug Irwin. Absolutely right. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...
Opinion | The Canadians Are Right About Reagan and Free Trade
www.nytimes.com
October 29, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Conservatives have never been hot on the Voting Rights Act.
October 24, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tait
New piece! Matt McManus on Leo Strauss' relationship to liberalism, modernity, and antiquity, how Strauss' views have been taken up by his followers and critics, and their relevance today. Check it out!

@mattpolprof.bsky.social
Leo Strauss’ Ambivalent Liberalism illiberalism.org |
Matthew McManus on Leo Strauss' relationship to liberalism, modernity, and antiquity, and how Strauss' views have been taken up by his followers and critics, plus their relevance today.
www.illiberalism.org
October 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Game’s gone.
October 23, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The lesser known Peter Tosh single
October 23, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Fascinating account of right-wing fissures. Especially the questions of whose hierarchy? Which order? www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Conservatives Who Think Trump Isn’t Going Far Enough - Boston Review
MAGA’s base is more fractured than it looks.
www.bostonreview.net
October 22, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tait
I've written a new blog post discussing and building on the analyses in the recently published 'Conservatism, Christian Democracy and the dynamics of transformation'.
www.benjaminjthomas.net/musings/ashf...
🧵
Benjamin Thomas - Ashford Hamilton
Pathways of Conservative Europeanism after the 'Social Market Moment' 19 October 2025 I am thrilled to see Gary Love and Christian Egander Skov’s edited volume Conservatism, Christian Democracy and t...
www.benjaminjthomas.net
October 19, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Very excited to attend this tonight. www.aei.org/events/spell...
www.aei.org
October 15, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Young Republicans have always been fractious, ambitious, weird, and sometimes gross. As soon as it was formed, the conservative Young Americans for Freedom was a backstabbing mess. Anyway, check out this post from the archive.
open.substack.com/pub/joshuata...
The Passion of the YAF
The pitfalls of conservative teleology
open.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Zing.
October 12, 2025 at 6:45 PM
October 1, 2025 at 4:21 PM
This sentence, which begins "Furthermore, once Ronald Reagan..." is so weird. "Ascended" is weird framing that obscures any activity or causality to Reagan's election, and I frankly don't know how an ideology "affirms itself." A strange mysticism permeates this analysis.
September 30, 2025 at 11:02 PM
One of my great fears is that future generations, including those younger than me, will lose any instinctive preference for material created by humans over something AI generated. Heck, it's already happening.
September 27, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Without a shadow of a doubt, if he’d enjoyed the current media environment, Nixon would have survived Watergate.
September 27, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tait
Has the Right embraced smoking? It was always thus. More than a personal choice, smoking was a rejection of liberal puritanism, rationalism, and the very concept of a “healthy” state.

joshuatait.substack.com/p/a-history-...
A History of Smoking
The Right's Habit of Defiance
joshuatait.substack.com
September 24, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Has the Right embraced smoking? It was always thus. More than a personal choice, smoking was a rejection of liberal puritanism, rationalism, and the very concept of a “healthy” state.

joshuatait.substack.com/p/a-history-...
A History of Smoking
The Right's Habit of Defiance
joshuatait.substack.com
September 24, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Caveat emptor: reads like a high school book report.
September 23, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tait
The first ever CPAC was totally different from the present.
September 19, 2025 at 10:02 PM