“The Trump movement may have begun as a transaction, but Linker is right that a more fundamental transformation has been effected since then. I’m not sure he’s right though that this transformation is as simple as a rejection of all moral standards. Rather, I think it’s a transvaluation of those standards, the elevation of one (asserted) central and grounding virtue resulting in an inversion of many others.”

“Those veils were not the tribute vice pays to virtue but a pragmatic politics married to contempt: we can behave this way because we are superior men, but we can’t let the regular folks know we do so, lest they reject us out of a jealousy that they mask as morality.”

“Go all the way with this attitude and I don’t see how you could be a faithful Christian (or a faithful Jew or Muslim) of any kind. But I can understand self-professed Christians who have come to believe this story telling themselves that that’s a debate for another time. Once manliness has been reestablished, we can discuss whether a real man is someone with the courage to follow Jesus of Nazareth in all things, or whether Christianity is ultimately a religion for slaves and women that a real man would have nothing to do with. (Alternatively, Christianity could be deformed into something almost entirely unrecognizable, a process that some would argue is well underway.) For now, such a Christian might say, the important thing is to recognize manliness, support it, and never be cowed by moralizers into backing down from that support.”

“look to rejection of conformity, the resolution to be oneself the only arbiter of right and wrong, as the first indicator of manliness, and therefore the predicate to any other possible virtue. Therefore, the more they flaunt their contempt for said rules, the more they are showing that they will stand up to those who made those rules, but who violate them themselves out of contempt for those who obey.”