"We were just kind of living in some turbulent times.... It’s almost turned to a rebellious act to have those right-leaning views."

"And I thought, you know, owning a T-shirt like the 'Reagan Bush ’84' one was kind of a cool way to join the movement of the antiestablishment younger generation of conservatives... [It's less confrontational than] wearing the red MAGA hat around, triggering the libs, so to speak. It’s kind of a peaceful, respectful way to say that, you know what, it’s okay to have a different opinion than you and disagree. I’m going to wear my Reagan shirt — it’s a more respectful way to voice my opinion.... I’ve been even criticized from the right for wearing the Reagan stuff...."

Says Kieran Laffey, George Washington University college student, quoted in "Why Gen Z conservatives love the ‘Reagan Bush ’84’ tee/They weren’t alive in the ’80s, but to them, 'Reagan is still a vibe'" (WaPo).

The article notes that you can easily buy these shirts on line. They just look vintage. We're told it's "the conservative take on a band shirt or the once-ubiquitous Che Guevara tee."

ADDED: Why not get ahead of the trend? Here, on Amazon (commission earned!):

What if you had to argue this Georgia O'Keeffe painting is not "conservative"?

 I'm reading "To Sell Prized Paintings, a University Proclaims They’re Not ‘Conservative’/Valparaiso University is arguing it should never have acquired two paintings, including a Georgia O’Keeffe, in the 1960s. It hopes to sell them to pay for dorm renovations" (NYT)(free-access link).

The school bought the painting with money from a gift that restricted the purchase of art to work "exclusively by American artists preferably of American subjects' and "of the general character known as conservative and of any period of American art." Now that the school wants to sell the painting, it's saying the painting should never have been bought.

"But I’m fascinated by tradwife life... It’s less the campy, colour-saturated, submissive 50s-housewife cosplay...."

"That feels like fantasy or fetish, designed, I suspect, to appeal mainly to men.... But the other kind – families forging a wholesome, homesteading existence – taps into a longing for things it’s objectively reasonable to long for. It’s stuff I long for: a slower, simpler, more intentional way of life, making do and mending, a hands-on relationship with nature, the seasons and food production. The world is chaos, cruelty and despair, but in a peaceful corner of the internet, a woman in sprigged muslin is meditatively pickling beets in a shaft of sunlight or pouring raw milk into a pitcher. A knock-kneed lamb is warming by the Aga, there are freshly podded peas on the table and there is sourdough cooling. They make it look so lovely, this 19th-century drudgery...."

Writes Emma Beddington in "Sometimes I long for the life of a tradwife. Then I remember it’s a reactionary fantasy" (The Guardian).

We're told that it's possible to have a "pared-back life" that's not "trad" but "radical, diverse, engaged and outward-looking." Beddington points us to 3 Instagram accounts: @poppy.okotcha ("growing food ecologically"), and @Blackyardchickenz (a "hen-keeping experiment"), and  @farmlifeiceland ("a lesbian sheep-farming couple")...

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"A raunchy celebrity-filled party in Moscow has drawn the ire of Russian politicians and fervent Christian Orthodox activists..."

"... who are urging law enforcement to punish the event’s guests and organizers for violating laws prohibiting 'gay propaganda' — the latest testament to the country’s sharp shift toward a closed-off, conservative society at the behest of President Vladimir Putin."

From "Raunchy celebrity party in Russia draws outrage over ‘nude illusion’ theme" (WaPo).

The party, a costume ball with a “nude illusion” theme hosted Wednesday night by one of Russia’s most popular Instagram influencers, Anastasia Ivleeva, was attended by some of the most prominent Russian celebrities who have remained in the country since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, including some who have not supported the war.

The guests paid a hefty entrance fee of about $11,000 to frolic in outfits of flesh-colored mesh, lace and lingerie, with Ivleeva wearing a diamond body chain worth about $250,000 and one guest, the rapper Vacio, paying homage to a 1980 Red Hot Chili Peppers record cover featuring the band members wearing nothing but a sock.

Some of the outrage comes from a desire to maintain a somber demeanor during wartime, and some of it, we're told, is about disapproval of homosexual behavior. What does the illusion of nakedness have to do with homosexuality? Perhaps it's just the appearance of sexual liberation, but we're told that men were seen kissing.

WaPo provides some background, which I think is written to encourage readers to disapprove of American politicians and commentators who argue for traditional values (they're like Putin):

"I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority."

Said Mike Johnson, orating just before taking the oath as Speaker of the House:

Transcript. 

Excerpt:

"This being a classical virtual-reality school, Optima’s environments include settings in ancient Greece and Rome...."

"We teleported past a Roman official’s house, decked out with red-clay roof tiling, up some stairs to an open patio of black-and-white-checkered marble floors, surrounded by Ionic columns and an ivy-covered railing. Here, a teacher might spawn a set of bleachers for students to sit during a lecture on a subject such as history or Latin.... Toward the end of the school year, I joined a sixth-grade science class on a field trip to an Everest base camp. The scene was elaborately staged: our group was surrounded by gray tents held up by bright orange poles.... A whiteboard stood to our left in the snow, covered with colorful Post-its bearing scientific terms. The teacher had taken a selfie of his avatar wearing an orange mountain-explorer jumpsuit and put it on the board. Wind whistled quietly somewhere in the background of my headset....

I'm reading "Virtual-Reality School Is the Next Frontier of the School-Choice Movement/The conservative education activist Erika Donalds envisions a world where parents can opt out of traditional public school by putting their kids in a headset" (The New Yorker).

"It seems Ice Cube has become quite the conservative media darling lately, sitting down with not just Carlson, but Joe Rogan and Piers Morgan as well."

"He’s joining a long list of rappers – Kanye West, Da Baby, Kodak Black, Lil Pump – who have all put themselves in dangerous proximity to conservative politicians even as rightwing populism threatens to destroy their communities.... So what do these rappers have in common with rightwingers who wouldn’t otherwise touch them with a 10ft pole? Shared values. In discussions about money, gender identity, public health and a variety of social issues, rappers and rightwingers have a lot more in common than you’d immediately think. Many people from both groups share hypermasculinity, conservative Christian values, and a distrust of social institutions (justified or not); and on this common ground sits a messy and dangerous alliance full of people who ordinarily would hate each other, but have come together to make vulnerable people their enemy...."

Writes Tayo Bero in "Why are Black rappers aligning themselves with the right? Ice Cube has joined a long list of rappers who have cuddled up with conservative pundits and politicians" (The Guardian).

"I actually believe, if you’re transgender, one of the most conservative things you can actually do is live your authentic self."

"But to do that, the government should not be in your business. They shouldn’t be in our bedrooms. They shouldn’t be trying to tell us who we can be, who we can live as, who we can go to school as. That’s not Republicanism."

Said Jennifer Williams, a member of the Trenton, N.J. City Council, quoted in "Why a Trans Republican Keeps Engaging With Conservatives" (NYT).

"Every time another conservative homeschool mom appeared in a dress I loved, it was [Son de Flor]...."

Writes Bethany Mandel in "Is my favorite dress company the new Bud Light? Son de Flor makes ‘traditional’ clothing — yet decided to use a 'gender-fluid' bearded model" (Spectator).

I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall of the meeting the marketing team had when they made this decision.... For Son de Flor, the target is women interested in timeless fashion and modesty. Overwhelmingly, that is going to translate to religious (read: conservative) women. While a partnership with an individual with over 150,000 Instagram followers might seem appealing on its face, Son de Flor doesn’t seem to understand that an individual is only an influencer for a brand if they actually influence potential customers in a positive way. 

"[S]ome conservatives, unable or unwilling to adopt the type of horny-bro aesthetic that embraces sports, sex and generally letting 'you do you'..."

"... have resorted to a paint-by-numbers anti-feminism. Conservative women are hot, The Federalist says! Single women are pathetic cat ladies, too ugly to love, say two actual members of Congress! It’s a strange interpretation of masculinity, as if learned from old issues of Maxim and a particularly bitter next-door neighbor.... [I]t seems as if attracting the horny bro to the Republican Party is increasingly more important than sating the conservative, particularly when it comes to getting voters. When the Bang Girls (of Bang Energy drinks) threw cash at conservative teenagers at a Turning Point USA youth conference in 2020, some elders argued that it was embarrassing and deplorable, far removed from 'conservatism.' But one Twitter user [said]... perhaps the message was actually incredibly effective: 'hot women and money. Being conservative will help you achieve those things. that’s what it has to do with it, that is the implication. Join us and get those things.' William F. Buckley would be horrified. Hugh Hefner would be proud."

Writes Jane Coaston in "The Debate Hugh Hefner Won and William Buckley Lost" (NYT).

"Some might think that this pervasive progressivism would encourage conservative students to change their views."

"But in fact it has the opposite effect. Graduates of schools like Loyola University Chicago, George Washington University and Mount Holyoke have described how the rampant leftism on their campuses pushed them to the right.... [F]ormative years at elite institutions that have gone woke are convincing right-leaning students and heterodox thinkers that society’s most august institutions — from media outlets to universities — are fundamentally broken and need to be set on a different path. If colleges don’t want to produce a new generation of conservative firebrands, they need to pump the brakes on campus progressivism. Campuses that are more welcoming to conservatives are in universities’ own interest."

 
Writes Adam Hoffman, a senior at Princeton, in "My Liberal Campus Is Pushing Freethinkers to the Right" (NYT).

"The significant ideological gap between Justices Thomas and Alito, on the one hand, and the Trump nominees, on the other, can be seen in their Martin-Quinn scores..."

"... a measure of judicial ideology developed by political scientists. Based on their rulings during the court’s last term, Justices Thomas and Alito earn scores of 2.949 and 2.458, the higher number signifying greater conservatism. Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett earn scores of 1.019, 0.791 and 1.318, respectively — fairly close to one another, but markedly different from the two scores of the staunch conservatives anchoring the right wing of the court. Nor do the Trump justices march in lockstep with one another. In fact, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh disagreed more with each other in their first term together than any other pairing of justices appointed by the same president since the Kennedy administration.... They have found themselves on opposite sides of such issues as the death penalty, defendants’ rights, immigration law and Indian law.... 'The conservative wing of the court is not a monolith.'... And understanding these nuances is critical, especially for lawyers and legal organizations on the left who are 'playing defense'...."  

From "Trump’s Supreme Court Picks Are Not Quite What You Think" by David Lat and Zachary B. Shemtob (NYT).

"Her brief tenure should be remembered as the hyphenate premiership: all-in on supply-side, laissez-faire, trickle-down economics."

Writes Eugene Robinson, in "Liz Truss’s fall is a warning to populists everywhere" (WaPo).

Is supply-side, laissez-faire, trickle-down economics populist?

Robinson ends with this warning:

When you hear Republicans in this country say “secure the border” or “crack down on crime” or “America first,” keep in mind how easy it is to write a bumper sticker and how hard it is to actually govern in a complex, interconnected world. GOP leaders, pay attention: Britain’s Conservatives have pandered their way into ruin.

Well, “secure the border” or “crack down on crime” and “America first” sound populist, but every single one of those things is not supply-side, laissez-faire, trickle-down economics.

Seems like Robinson is mixing up the categories of right-wingers. You could easily blend left-wing economics with securing the border, cracking down on crime, and putting America first.

"Do you think that Donald Trump made everybody go crazy?"

The interviewer Meghan Daum asks the therapist Dea Bridge in "What a Conservative Therapist Thinks About Politics and Mental Health" (NYT).

Daum: Do you think that Donald Trump made everybody go crazy? 

Bridge: What do you mean by “made everybody go crazy”?

Josh Hawley "is positioning himself, and therefore his movement — his far-right, White-guy movement — as, 'If you’re a man, then you believe in these things.'"

Said Jason Kander," an Afghanistan War veteran who in 2018 stepped away from rising success in the Democratic Party to tend to his mental health," quoted "Josh Hawley’s problem with masculinity" (WaPo).

The column is by Jonathan Capehart, who continues:

"In a style that mixed a kind of faux-caveman brutishness and message-board pidgin with classical references, Bronze Age Pervert informed his readers..."

"... that 'you don’t see yourself as you really are' because 'spiritually your insides are all wet, and there’s a huge hole through where monstrous powers are [expletive] your brain, letting loose all your life powers of focus.'... The book... was significant because it spoke directly 'to a youthful dissatisfaction (especially among white males) with equality as propagandized and imposed in our day: a hectoring, vindictive, resentful, leveling, hypocritical equality that punishes excellence and publicly denies all difference while at the same time elevating and enriching a decadent, incompetent and corrupt elite.' Bronze Age Pervert regarded the founders’ idea of rights, the very bedrock of the American political tradition, as false.... Conservatives didn’t have to agree with any of this, but they did need to acknowledge that 'in the spiritual war for the hearts and minds of the disaffected youth on the right, conservatism is losing. BAPism is winning.'"

From "How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right/They made the intellectual case for Trump. Now they believe the country is in a cultural civil war" (NYT). The article is by Elisabeth Zerofsky, but she's quoting Michael Anton, a Claremont Institute fellow who wrote an essay about the Bronze Age Pervert book.

"We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty..."

"... religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity. We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe...."

 
That's from "National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles/A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe" by The Edmund Burke Foundation (published at The American Conservative). 

I found that through "Beware of ‘national conservatives’ who dispense with American ideals" by Henry Olsen, at The Washington Post. He begins...

There’s a lot to like about the burgeoning “national conservative” movement, which stands against the increasingly stale, pre-Trump intellectual orthodoxy on the right....

... but quickly switches to criticism. Trump is, of course, awful, so hooray for the alternatives that might lure conservatives away from Trumpism, but any alternative that works will swiftly become the new target. 

"Whereas the old Christian conservatism was about defending an old order, the new social conservatism is about overthrowing a new one...."

"In the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the G.O.P. was the party of the traditional moral order, many individualists, rebels and eccentrics found themselves aligned with progressives. Today the reverse is true. The left is now widely seen as the schoolmarm of American public life, and the right is associated with the gleeful violation of convention. Contemporary social pieties are distinctly left wing, and progressives enforce them with at least as much moral ardor as the most zealous members of the religious right... Today’s left-wing cultural program represents the tastes and worldview of an insular class of often white progressive elites, who now sit to the left of nonwhite Democrats on any number of social issues, including race....

"The Russian conservative elites currently in power supported war because they see Western power as decadent and declining...."

"In his sermon approximately two weeks into the war, on March 6, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church justified the invasion of Ukraine as necessary to defend Orthodox Christians against Western values and gay pride parades. On March 24, during a meeting with young artists, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained... the West was now 'trying to cancel a whole 1,000-year culture, our people … Russian writers and books are now canceled.'... Russian media filled with TV shows and 'documentaries' on 'Gayropa' and 'Sodom.' These shows conjured up a caricature of weak 'gayish' Western males and women who lost their femininity by competing with men in spheres where they could achieve nothing serious. Russian media frequently stressed the oddity that many Western democracies nominated women as defense ministers... ... Russia depicted itself... as the country of strength, the bulwark of traditional families: with strong men, fertile women and children properly guarded against subversive homosexual propaganda... Fascinated by this flattering vision of Russia, elites, it seems, overestimated the nation’s strength and underestimated Ukraine’s."

Write Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner in "Russia believed the West was weak and decadent. So it invaded. Russia sees itself at the global forefront of the culture wars, leading the resistance to gay parades, ‘cancel culture,’ and liberal values more generally" (WaPo).

"[T]he presumption of the policy... is that there is an existing problem... that requires further state government intervention."

Those are conservative words, spoken by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, quoted in "Bucking Republican Trend, Indiana Governor Vetoes Transgender Sports Bill/Gov. Eric Holcomb nixed legislation that would have blocked transgender girls from playing school sports. Eleven states have enacted similar bills" (NYT). 

It's a basically conservative approach, and it's also politically wise. To pass this law would shift the attention to the new law — how it works awkwardly or has unintended consequences, the real individuals who feel the effects and deserve empathy, and what's wrong with the meanies who voted for it. 

To decline to legislate is to leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport, who will have to struggle to find solutions that will never be perfect and never free of criticism.

So, hooray for Holcomb.