How Mitt Romney Catalyzed The Emergence Of The New Right

Join us for a compelling discussion on how Mitt Romney's candidacy unintentionally sparked political realignment in America and globally. This conversation explores the rise of the 'new right', the coalition of diverse conservative groups, and the controversial topic of genetic modification and designer babies. We delve into the evolving ideologies within the tech-right alliance, debates around reproductive technology, and the significance of preserving cultural autonomy against the urban monoculture.

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Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to be talking about how MIT Romney of all people instigated the chain of events that led to the political realignment of America. And then from there, the political realignment of the right and the left across many countries around the world.

And that in a way his candidacy. Birthed the new right now. I note it did not come from support of his candidacy. It actually came from a faction of the right that was disappointed with his loss and where the party had gone. But he also opened doors that really changed a number of things.

Simone Collins: So inadvertently he loosened the lid on the tight jar of the new right.

Yes. Yes. How exciting, and I love this theory

Malcolm Collins: and I want to discuss this in the context of a friend of ours who works for the Heritage Foundation. Emma Waters did a, a tweet chain [00:01:00] recently saying that people who do things , like us, that want to. Improve intergenerationally. , because right now, you know, let's be honest, we are talking about like polygenic selection, which, you know, we do, Elon's does like a lot of the tech elite do.

Simone Collins: but what El the waters is criticizing more broadly 'cause it's not just polygenic risk selection. Yeah. Is this concept of designer babies, which. We are totally for, we're like Yes designer babies. Yes. CRISPR editing. Yes. Like all of the things, we are 100% into that and, and I, I don't want people to misconstrue it.

Yes, of course. Right now we're choosing birth order largely based on cancer risk to buy time for cures for our kids who have higher cancer risk. That doesn't mean that when we get the chance. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that the, the polygenic risk conversation occludes the morality of the larger conversation.

Mm-hmm. Because zero, you're focused more on not using all of the embryos. Mm-hmm. When the real question at hand was in the next 20 to 30 years is, should we be genetically

Simone Collins: modifying [00:02:00] humans? Yeah. And that, that is, it's such an important conversation. And I texted Emma when she posted it, when I saw it.

That I was just so glad that she's bringing this debate up because it's not discussed enough and what we're heading toward, because this is what's happening at scientific conferences. I was just checking in on this recently. Is people just like, this is unethical. Let's just not do it. Let's just not do it.

And it's really, it's stifling research. It's stifling development. And what I want instead are very productive discussions of, okay, why, why exactly is this so bad?

Malcolm Collins: Well, what's what's interesting here is a lot of the pushback against it is coming from the left. The, the vast minority of the pushback against it is coming from the right.

Yeah. And this is the first time we've really seen a right-leaning mainstream individual who we've been working with, like do this level of pushback. And IW you know, one of the things that we pointed out to her, well, and it's

Simone Collins: very explicit, I wanna point out that from the moment we first met Emma Waters, which was at the first natal con two years ago, her whole stance was IVF is not good.

Any sort of repro tech [00:03:00] is something that should be avoided at all costs. And really what we need to do is give it the root causes fertility that we don't want to move toward these abominations of rep tech, and instead we want to. Find natural. You know, let's go back to tracking our cycles, getting to know our bodies, not taking birth control, avoiding endogenous irritants or pollutants that harm fertility, which is a very legitimate stance, but what we don't agree with is that like, oh, but you can't or shouldn't do these other things.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. That's not even what we disagree with. What we disagree with is it makes sense to split this political allegiance over or alliance that's been building over this issue. And, and that is what she suggested doing in her chain of tweets. Yeah. She said, we cannot have a prenatal movement with people who use this type of technology.

Yeah. She's like, good

Simone Collins: ISTs don't do designer babies. Which we, which is a

Malcolm Collins: bigger problem because what she's essentially saying as she says that, is we cannot have the tech right new right alliance, which is we [00:04:00] cannot. Damaging, we cannot have the tech Right. MAGA alliance. Yeah. Which is crippling going forwards if we take this dance for the right.

Being able to win. So just explain that before we get into the whole Romney chain here. The areas where we differ with people like her are incredibly small in terms of what could actually pass in policy. Mm-hmm. So if you're like, okay, what are your guys like? And, and when I say small, I mean like 2% maybe.

We have policy differences, which I think surprises a lot of people, but because they haven't thought through, it's like, well, you two have radically different views on the world, but. Where your views differentiate, neither of you could actually win any legislation. So it doesn't make sense to split up alliances based on those differentiations.

Exactly. So an example of this would be is we would campaign for stricter access to abortion earlier laws around abortion. Mm-hmm. She would campaign for stricter access to abortion. Earlier laws around [00:05:00] abortion. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. In, in, in her perfect world, it wouldn't happen at all, and it would be completely illegal.

Mm-hmm. And in ours it wouldn't be except. That'll never pass in the United States, right? So it doesn't make sense to split the alliance over this because it's not something that can pass. Or in her perfect world, you know, you might end up outlawing IVF, but outlawing IVF. Would destroy the Republican party's base.

Mm-hmm. Like it is not a popular idea or in, in certain factions. I don't think that this is her views, but in certain factions of this, this split, some people are like against gays and gay marriage, right? Like, they're like no gay marriage in the United States. And it's like. Fine. I would disagree with that, but it's not, we're splitting the alliance on, because you couldn't win a any, you couldn't even win among only Republican voters if you were anti-gay marriage in the United States.

Yeah, that's how silly that is. Or at least it would be close. Like, and, and so there's these areas where we [00:06:00] have these differential perspectives, but it is really important that we don't do what the wokes do, that we don't do what the Democrats do and say. Okay. Yeah. We're you, you're, you're different on any one issue, like JK Rowling different on just one issue.

Let's kick her outta the party. Mm-hmm. And, and villainize her and say that we can't work with her. We work as a coalition because we're being practical about actually getting stuff done. And if you look at what the White House is doing right now, they are achieving things that Republicans have wanted to achieve for the past two decades.

You know, in, in