Taking the Greerhead Pledge

Richard Hanania's Newsletter

Today on the podcast, I am joined by Scott Greer. You can find him on X, Substack, and YouTube.

Scott and I have a bit of shared history. We both wrote for very politically incorrect websites around the same time. He was outed back in 2018, which led to him losing his job at the Daily Caller. As Scott points out, few of the things he said under a pseudonym would be out of place in mainstream conservatism today. Still, it all worked out in the end, as with nearly 170,000 X followers, he has reach that most conservative writers could only dream of.

Scott is a white identitarian, and although I don’t agree with him on many racial issues, he’s in a unique place where he’s “extreme” in a certain sense, but also politically pragmatic and connected to reality. I can’t stress how unusual it is to find a white identitarian who doesn’t believe in shadowy forces secretly controlling the world. Go to Scott’s Twitter feed, and you’ll often see him shoot down one conspiracy theory or another. More and more, I’ve come to see conspiratorial thinking as one of the main things that make discourse impossible. We can debate values and facts, but I don’t know how to address the kind of paranoid free association ramblings you find among many on the right now.

In addition to providing political analysis, Scott also serves as a kind of Jordan Peterson-type figure to his fans. He encourages them to take the Greerhead Pledge, which involves no tattoos, not smoking pot, not watching Marvel movies, and not listening to hip-hop. Unlike many identitarians, Scott does not want white people to simply coast off their identity and sink into moral and cultural depravity. Rather, he seeks to cultivate a kind of upper-class aesthetic and sensibility.

Scott and I discuss views on immigration, and I bring up the notable lack of racial tension I see in Southern California. He acknowledges that his main gripe is with poorer and more dysfunctional immigrants, which leads to me asking why not just adopt classism instead of racism. We also go into why Scott was so strongly in favor of Trump over DeSantis in the primaries this year. One thing I press him on is whether we actually need a positive white identity, and why regular conservatism with a strong stand against identity politics and wokeness isn’t enough. Scott also talks about the JD Vance pick, and his recent essay on Tim Walz and “sportslibs,” which I think is a really great term.

I strongly encourage everyone interested in these issues to subscribe to Scott’s Substack, “Highly Respected.”

Read more