From Left to Right

How I became a "conservative culture warrior."

Many readers know me as a “conservative culture warrior” who has worked with President Trump, Governor DeSantis, and other right-wing political figures. But I was not always a conservative. As I explained recently on the Joe Rogan Experience, over the past twenty-five years, I have made a long political journey from Left to Right, which is where I find myself today.

Here is the story, lightly edited for brevity and clarity:

I come from the Left. I was a radical leftist. My political formation was from my father’s side, my Italian relatives, who were all unreconstructed Gramscian communists. That was my political upbringing. I remember, as a child, going to visit my favorite aunt and seeing the books on her shelf, and seeing a beautiful collection of bound books. I ask my aunt, “Zia, what is this book?” She said, “This is the collected works of Lenin.”

I went to get my undergraduate degree at Georgetown with the intention of being involved in left-wing politics. The first thing that really changed me was finding out that left-wing politics in the United States is not for the common man or to uplift the downtrodden. It’s about maintaining the elite’s own status and prestige with the institutions. It’s a McKinsey consultant worldview, with the trappings of the Left. It’s the Harvard student who’s wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh, who then goes on to become an investment banker.