Yes. It’s similar to but not the same as Thatcherite ‘make everyone compete & see who wins’. It’s about removing the liberal egalitarian impositions on natural order & hierarchy as arranged by God. That’s why welfare is unchristian.

In the first instance the demand is the platform not any individual user & it wants to stimulate & hold attention. It just wants lots of content. For a broader answer see here (the most detailed longer term analysis of supply/demand for online politics): www.cambridge.org/core/element...

I think you’re underestimating the influence of Vance - who clearly recruited Kruger with Orr’s help, swimming in the same waters as other post-liberals & TradCath theorists. Kruger doesn’t fully understand it. But it gives him & others something that ties together their ideas and fires them up.

I think they want to turn the latter into something more like the former; it’s vision of the US Revolution as the opposite of the French: a divine restoration of natural order rather than an insurgent demand for equality; theological not secular; preserving local autonomy from modernity.

I think it would be helpful if The Guardian (& others) would explain these ideas - their content, form and provenance - to their readers, though I’m not holding my breath for an article with a title like “Ten Things to Know About De Maistre: this controversial Savoyard will shock & worry you!’

It’s a problem for liberalism that many of its adherents no longer think of it as an ideology; it’s so naturalised as part of a specific political & class culture that people forget it might need defending (& it’s not enough just to demonstrate how far a position departs from it) (3/?)

I’ve seen a few people cite the interview to dismiss Kruger as just an idiot or weirdo. But I think it is important to understand what the Reform philosophy is (why it appeals and how it’s justified) - if you want to oppose it (2/?)

I think today I’d argue it needs a cosmology.