What The Right Gets Wrong About Lord of The Rings

September 13

28 mins

View Transcript

Episode Description

Every fantasy franchise has an insufferable part of its fan base. But this one takes the cake. Powerful conservatives are obsessed with The Lord of The Rings. We know this because they name their military tech companies, surveillance companies and venture capital firms after objects in Middle Earth. Billionaire Peter Thiel has named 10 of his companies after things in Lord of The Ring, including Palantir, the Trump's regime's authoritarian surveillance company of choice. JD Vance has called himself a "Lord of the Rings guy", Elon Musk has hot anti-woke takes on The Rings of Power, and Jeff Bezos helped make that series by buying the rights to the franchise via Amazon. Even the far right even in Spain and Italy identify with the Lord of The Rings.

They believe they’re in a fight against dark forces, and that they’re heroic men of Gondor, or Elves of Rivendell. Yeah that’s right: the people helping ICE disappear mothers and fathers think they’re the good guys. What’s worse is that they believe that Tolkien’s Catholicism means he would agree with their world view that immigrants, feminists and global cooperation are the enemy.

Francesca digs deep into “The Nerd Reich’s” misreading of Lord of the Rings and how they took all the wrong lessons from the story. She looks at how their behavior and beliefs are more the stuff of Saruman than saviors. But they’re even more like another creature in the bogs of Mordor…

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