Some readers may be surprised to learn of  literary fiction speaking to the interests and concerns of the populist right.

It is indeed a rare thing to discover fiction that offending liberal-elite sensibilities, given the left’s long dominance of the publishing industry. Michel Houellebecq’s novels, published by Macmillan, or Guiliano da Empoli’s recent pro-Putin debut novel, The Wizard of the Kremlin, published by Penguin Random House, are rarities. This has always been the case.  During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, an open letter of support among fiction writers for the nationalist government of  Francisco Franco garnered five signatures, while a similar letter from writers supporting the Soviet-aligned Republican forces was signed by 127.

Even though some works of literature may not expressly push right-wing social and political positions, it is sometimes possible to repurpose them or locate useful bits that advance right-wing arguments. Take David Hare’s 1990 play, Racing Demon, about the Church of England, for instance. Dealing with the ordination of homosexual church ministers and the role of evangelism in the face of declining church attendance, you can guess where Hare ultimately lands on these matters. But there is still plenty in it for Trumpian populists, especially for members of Trump’s hyper-loyal evangelical base.

Portraying the characters who represent the conservative side of these issues more or less fairly and giving the topics the complexity they deserve (what all good, socially relevant art should do, of course), Hare depicts a young rector who cannot understand the lack of actual Scripture that goes into modern Church liturgy, complaining that the Church has become more akin to a government agency engaging in social work (something the UK already has plenty of, of course). To two astounded liberal rectors, he remarks:

All of you. Modernists. You make all the changes. You force all these issues. The remarriage of clergy. The recognition of homosexual love. New Bibles. New services. You alter the form. You dismantle the beliefs. You endlessly reinterpret and undermine. You witter on, till you become all things to all men. You drain religion of religion.

This kind of “drain” obviously appears today in the “rainbow church” phenomenon or in Pope Francis’s approval of blessings of same-sex couples and his restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. More broadly, such sentiment also speaks to creeping liberalism and needless, destructive change in other areas of society.

In another scene, a traditionalist bishop dresses down a pro-gay-civil-union rector before firing him. To the latter’s astonishment, the bishop erupts after months of moralizing complaints from similar reformers over the Church’s “backward conservatism.”

I have begun to lately to realize we must fight… It isn’t my fault. I’m being pushed. Oh yes, the church’s reformers are always great advocates of passion and—what do you call it?—‘commitment.’ But always in their own cause. They don’t like it when we become passionate.

Without a doubt, it is this “passion” among formerly muted right-wing populists (think of Trump rallies, protests, Twitter, etc.) that has thrown the left and conservative establishment into a deranged panic, so used are they to the former’s compliance.

Another rewarding title for populists is The Lame Shall Enter First: a short story from that great American Southern writer Flannery O’Connor. In it, a young, atheist widower decides to take in a violent teenage orphan and attempts to reform him. Neglecting his own young, motherless son, the widower focuses all his love and attention on the delinquent teen, even refusing to acknowledge certain crimes the teen commits. As is common in O’Connor’s work, the ending is gut-wrenching, with the father realizing too late the tragic effect of neglecting his own son.

Driven by the vice of self-aggrandizement rather than the virtue of charity, O’Connor’s character resembles Charles Dickens’s Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House, who pursues the goodwill of a faraway African tribe so single-mindedly that she fails to care for her own children. Extend this neglect of one’s own family to community and nation, and you can explain the proliferation of so many globalist NGOs today; groups that, in the name of helping faraway people and places, lobby the government to destabilize our borders and undermine our economy. The policies they advocate come at the expense of our domestic poor, and have resulted in the government spending more on economic migrants than on Americans.

Nextis the late P.D. James’s 1992 dystopian thriller The Children of Men, about a mysterious global pandemic causing mass infertility among women; something eerily similar afflicts Western nations today, though mainly for ideological and economic reasons. James’s treatment of the social effects wrought by his novel’s pandemic offer up some striking analogies. For instance, with women’s hardwired desire to become mothers negated by the fertility crisis, desperate, barren women resort to some very odd behavior, such as pet-worship (e.g. dressing up cats in baby clothes) and doting over inanimate toy dolls in strollers. Immature, shameless behavior and mental health problems obviously abound among today’s liberal, child-free women, including the pushing of increasingly unhinged political agendas or the infantilization of third-world migrants.

Equally fascinating is the author’s portrayal of the “last generation” of kids born before the novel’s pandemic (around 18 years of age in the story). Apparently maddened with guilt and anxiety, this cohort morphs into a Mad Max-like cult, characterized by bizarre hair and clothes as well as extreme violence. We can see similar signs of despair and nihilism among young Millennials and Zoomers, who are likely the most medicated and least mentally stable generations in history.

Then there is the late-eighties trade paperback and TV serial Amerika, in which the Soviet Union destabilizes the U.S. with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse and sets up a puppet regime. The parallels of Amerika’s fictional world to our own abound. The elderly who remember America’s greatness pine for it, but most accept their fallen condition, while the young are re-educated into believing their ancestors were simply evil colonists who exterminated peaceful Indians. As we are told about the new landscape, “Under the system of the conquerors, logic was stood on its head and language itself was recruited into the service of erasing history.” You won’t be surprised to hear that the story was not popular at the time it appeared with leftist book reviewers.

In Amerika, Old Glory has been melded with images of the Soviet and the United Nations flags. The new principle for which it stands has become “a nation, indivisible with others of the earth, joined in peace, and justice for all.”

Showing how old the “Russiagate” script really is, the Soviets are portrayed continuing with U.S. elections, but also intervening in them when necessary. In the only serious electoral challenge to the regime, protagonist and heartlander Devin Milford (played by Kris Kristofferson in the TV-version) begins building momentum with the people until the controlled media stops covering him and his campaign is halted after he becomes detained on false charges.

Certain elements embrace the new regime. When Milford’s former wife, now a traitorous, high-level functionary, praises “the Transition” for its “emancipatory” effects, a Soviet colonel tells her that in Russia “less than five percent of the people benefit from our society… we reap the rewards while the other ninety-five percent make all the sacrifices.” To her claims that he is being too cynical, he responds, “You say you want a new society, but what you really want is power. Don’t confuse love and lust.”

Taking freedom for granted is a major theme of the novel. Throughout his speeches, Milford connects America’s lack of revolt with its people forgetting the freedoms their forefathers secured for them. When the colonel is asked by his American girlfriend why he is watching old speeches of the imprisoned Milford, he tells her: “You Americans. You’re such a mystery to everyone except yourselves… If I could somehow understand this man, I think I would understand America.”

Amerika and other fiction with populist-right themes provide readers with a view of the West turned upside down by leftism. From empty, godless virtue-signaling gone berserk (O’Connor), to the subversion of the family (James), to an actual Communist takeover of the country, these are fascinating titles that work to spark the imagination and reinforce the importance of upholding principles the that make America the freest nation on the planet. 

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