Rod Dreher
Raymond Oliver Dreher Jr.[a] (born February 14, 1967), known as Rod Dreher,[1] is an American expatriate writer and editor living in Hungary.[2] He was a columnist with The American Conservative for 12 years, ending in March 2023, and remains an editor-at-large there.[3] He is also author of several books, including How Dante Can Save Your Life, The Benedict Option, and Live Not by Lies. He has written about religion, politics, film, and culture in National Review and National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
Rod Dreher
He was a film reviewer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and chief film critic for the New York Post. His commentaries have been broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and he has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Court TV, and other television networks.[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Dreher was born on February 14, 1967, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[5] He was named after his father, Ray Oliver Dreher, a local landowner and parish sanitation official.[6]
Dreher was raised in the small town of St. Francisville, the parish seat of West Feliciana Parish north of Baton Rouge.[7] However, he transferred to Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches at the age of sixteen, where he was part of the school's first graduating class in 1985.[8] In 1989 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Louisiana State University.[9]
Political views[edit]
Views on sexuality, sexual assault, and gender[edit]
Dreher holds to what he describes as biblical Christian teaching on sexuality and gender, including on the sinfulness of same-sex sexual relations and the naturalness of male–female difference.[52][7] While some writers have praised Dreher's insights into the fundamental nature of the social changes caused by the sexual revolution,[53][54] others have argued that Dreher has not sufficiently grappled with the problem of how conservative Christians should live alongside gay people[52][55][56] and have criticized the language Dreher has used to describe them.[57][58] Dreher has published numerous articles expressing alarm at the growing visibility of transgender people in American society, which he sees as part of a "technology-driven revolution in our view of personhood."[7][59][60] He has been described in The Guardian as "a man who appears to view fomenting transgender panic more as a vocation than a job."[59]
In September 2018, during Brett Kavanaugh's U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Dreher sided with those conservatives who minimized the importance of an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh when he was 17. Dreher tweeted: "I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge."[61][62][63][64]
Views on race and immigration[edit]
In a 2014 blog post titled "Tips for Not Getting Shot by Cops,"[65] Dreher wrote that Michael Brown was shot by police in part because Brown was a "lawbreaker" who "hung out with lawbreakers," although "None of this means that Wilson was justified in using deadly force against Brown" and "it doesn't mean that there aren't big problems with policing in Ferguson."[66][67][68]
Dreher is a critic of large-scale immigration to the United States and Europe; he has defended the concept of Western civilization and condemned identity politics associated with race.[18][69][70][60] In 2001, Dreher published an article mocking the funeral celebrations of the African-American singer Aaliyah, and subsequently reported having received threatening phone calls from people with "black accents". (Dreher later expressed regret for his comments on the funeral.)[70][18] In June 2018, Dreher compared African immigration to Europe to a "barbarian invasion".[71] Subsequent to the Christchurch mosque shootings of March 2019, Dreher strongly condemned the shooter's actions and aspects of his ideology, but also commented that the shooter had "legitimate, realistic concerns" about "declining numbers of ethnic Europeans" in Western countries; as a result of these comments, multiple scholars criticized the University of Wollongong's Ramsay Center for Western Civilization for inviting Dreher as a speaker.[72][73][74][75][76] Dreher has said that his concerns about immigration stem from sympathy for the less well-off, whom he argues are most negatively affected it, and by a desire to preserve Western cultural traditions.[77]
In January 2018, Dreher attracted criticism for his qualified defense of Donald Trump's comments regarding "shithole countries" (he defended the content of the comments while criticizing their vulgarity), and in particular, for his suggestion that readers would object to section 8 housing being built in their neighborhoods because "you don't want the destructive culture of the poor imported into your neighborhood."[18][78][79] In response to those remarks, Sarah Jones of the progressive commentary magazine The New Republic described Dreher as having a "race problem."[18] Her article also referred to Dreher's comments on Jean Raspail's 1973 novel Camp of the Saints. Dreher has strongly criticized the novel's use of derogatory language to describe non-Westerners and called the book bad, both aesthetically and morally. However, Dreher has also referred to the "valuable" and "prophetic" lessons that can be drawn from the work, including from Raspail's argument, which Dreher presents as potentially correct, that "the only way to defend Western civilization from these invaders [non-Western immigrants] is to be willing to shed their blood." He has also drawn parallels between the migrant crisis described in the book and contemporary immigration to Europe and the United States. Dreher replied to Sarah Jones by calling her a "social justice warrior" and "propagandist."[18][80][81][82][83] Dreher's comments on section 8 housing were defended by the columnist Damon Linker, who wrote: "Every time a wealthy liberal enclave takes a NIMBY position on affordable housing, it shows he [Dreher] has a point about the need for greater honesty on these issues".[84]
Views on international affairs[edit]
Dreher has been a consistent critic of the role of Islam in international affairs, but has shifted in his view of the efficacy of foreign military interventions. Subsequent to the September 11 attacks, Dreher published numerous articles that were critical of Islam,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91] including one in which he praised the anti-Islamic[92] Italian writer Oriana Fallaci's anti-Islamic[93] book, The Rage and the Pride, as containing "much truth" to "shock awake a noble civilization hypnotized by multiculturalist mumbo-jumbo"; he also noted that the book contained a "few ugly parts".[87][85][94] In 2002, Dreher described the assassinated Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn as a "martyr in the war on political correctness."[88][95] Dreher supported the Iraq War in 2003, but later came to believe that the invasion was a mistake;[96][97] he now supports a non-interventionist foreign policy.[98] He was critical of US President Donald Trump's decision to order missile strikes in Syria in April 2017.[98][99]
Dreher has expressed support for various conservative and neo-nationalist governments and parties in Europe. He has praised the French Front National politician Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.[100][101] He has written that although Francisco Franco and his regime were not "without sin", he is "glad that Franco won" the Spanish Civil War, due to the Red Terror carried out by the Second Spanish Republic.[102] In 2020, Dreher attended a conference of nationalist politicians and thinkers in Rome that included Orbán, Maréchal-Le-Pen, and Giorgia Meloni.[103][104][105][106]
Views on Hungary and Viktor Orbán[edit]
Dreher has written supportively of the government of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,[107][108][109] whom Dreher first met at a religious-liberty conference in Budapest in 2019.[110] In 2021, Dreher was given a paid fellowship by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank based in Budapest and funded by Orbán's government.[107] While many international observers believe that Orbán's premiership has been responsible for the erosion of democracy, human rights, an independent judiciary, press freedom, and the rule of law in Hungary,[111][112][113][114][115] Dreher commented that "I was there about ten days before I realized that eighty, ninety per cent of the American narrative about the country just isn't true."[110] Observing Orbán's government, Dreher found "so inspiring ... what a vigorous conservative government can do if it's serious about stemming this horrible global tide of wokeness."[51] Dreher identified as instructive for U.S. conservatives Orbán's belief "in national sovereignty, not globalism. He's not opposed to transnational alliances and organizations, but he believes that it's important for people to keep and defend their own traditions and ways of life. That entails controlling immigration."[116] Discussing Orbán's anti-LGBT+ policies,[117][118] Dreher stated, "We are living, right now, through an ongoing societal catastrophe with gender confusion and transgenderism. Viktor Orbán wants to save his nation from this ideological toxin and does not hesitate to use the power of the state to do so, even if it might violate the spirit of liberalism."[119] Orbán famously asserted in a 2014 speech that "The new state that we are building in Hungary is an illiberal state."[120][121] Comparing dynamics in Hungary to those in America, Dreher said, "We all seem to be barreling towards a future that is not liberal and democratic but is going to be either left illiberalism, or right illiberalism. If that's true, then I know which side I'm on: the side that isn't going to persecute me and my people."[110]
Dreher has played a key role in encouraging other members of the American conservative movement to engage with Hungary and to look toward Orbán's political strategy and governance as a model. In 2021, Dreher invited Tucker Carlson, whom Dreher calls "the most important conservative figure in America," to visit Hungary. After Carlson replied that he was already considering a visit but that the trip had become entangled in red tape, Dreher personally spoke to Hungarian government ministers and one of Orbán's closest advisers to assure them that "Tucker was somebody who could be trusted." Carlson subsequently spent a week in Hungary taping episodes of his Fox News series Tucker Carlson Tonight, during which Carlson conducted a one-on-one interview with Orbán and praised him as the only elected leader on Earth who "publicly identifies as a Western-style conservative."[110][51][107] Subsequently, the American Conservative Union hosted its first conference in Europe, CPAC Hungary, in Budapest in May, 2022, with Dreher in attendance.[51][107]
Dreher has stated that the U.S. Republican Party needs "a leader with Orbán's vision"[51] and has written favorably about American candidates and elected officials whose words and actions echo Orbán's.[122] In 2022, speaking to Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker he said, "Seeing what J. D. Vance is saying, and what Ron DeSantis is actually doing in Florida, the concept of American Orbánism starts to make sense. I don't want to overstate what they'll be able to accomplish, given the constitutional impediments and all, but DeSantis is already using the power of the state to push back against woke capitalism, against the crazy gender stuff."[51] By contrast, Dreher's close friend[123][122] and fellow conservative writer Andrew Sullivan has spoken critically of U.S. conservatives' admiration for Orbán: "If these people think the extreme left is hijacking American society in dangerous ways, then, yes, I agree. ... But to go from that to 'Let's embrace this authoritarian leader in this backwater European country, and maybe try out a version of that model with our own charismatic leader back home'—I mean, that leap is just weird, and frankly stupid."[51]
Political endorsements[edit]
On November 1, 2020, Dreher recommended that "unsafe state readers" of his blog vote for Donald Trump, while noting that he planned to vote for the American Solidarity Party because his state is already "safely in Trump's hands."[124] In October 2020, Dreher tweeted that the American Solidarity Party enabled him, for the first time, to vote "for a party [he] actually [believes] in."[125] He also later appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe and said that he is a supporter of the American Solidarity Party,[126] and on the same day, published an article endorsing Brian Carroll of the American Solidarity Party.[127] In 2024, Dreher told a Hungarian news outlet he voted for Trump in 2020 and intends to again in 2024.[128]
In 2008, 2012 and 2016, Dreher declined to endorse a candidate for president.[129][130]
In the 2015 and 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial elections, Dreher voted for Democrat John Bel Edwards citing his views on abortion, guns, and economics.[131]
Controversies[edit]
In the early 2010s, Dreher involved himself in a controversy surrounding Metropolitan Jonah, then serving as the primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), who had encountered resistance in his attempts to involve the OCA more heavily in political issues, such as abortion and gay marriage.[142][143][144][145][146] Dreher started an anonymous website called OCA Truth, which published alleged private information about an opponent in the controversy.[147] Dreher's connection with the website was exposed when emails connected to the website were leaked.[142][146][148][149] Dreher later described his involvement in the affair as "foolish".[150]
In May 2017, Dreher published, without context, remarks of Professor Tommy Curry of Texas A&M University, quoting a single sentence from the remarks misleadingly to suggest that Curry had incited violence against white people.[151][70][152][153][154][155][156] Curry was subsequently subjected to a wave of racist abuse and intimidation.[151][70][153] Dreher said that he did not seek comment from Curry prior to publishing his blog post, and Curry received the support of his faculty colleagues and university president.[151][70][153][157]
In January 2020, Dreher was named in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Kayla Kenney, a 15-year-old girl whose private Instagram images he posted to his blog allegedly without parental permission, and against whom he made allegations of sexual harassment, based on anonymous sources, that are denied by the girl and her family. The lawsuit accuses Dreher of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy.[158][159][160][161]