Decadence of the Dirtbag Right

Someone's got to keep the party going while the world burns

Conservatives are crushing it right now. They’re animals. Wild-eyed, drunk as shit, locked and loaded, and free. The girls rock pink thongs on Instagram and hell yeah they like it raw. Ten bucks for a titty pic let’s go! The dudes listen to Andrew Tate for life advice and Alex Jones for the news. They go forty grand in debt on a truck and don’t give a shit. Also got a boat on credit, what’s up? And church on Sunday is the perfect chance to get high and catch up on messaging like 90 babes on OnlyFans. Cuz this is America bro, hell yeah!

Back in the day, it seemed like liberals had all the fun. They were liberal—open minded and open to experience. They had the hippies and the Beats and free love and weed. They were the rock stars, movie stars, porn stars. They were the artists, intellectuals, bohemians. And the conservatives? Squares and religious nut jobs.

Boy, have the tides turned. Now liberals are the moral scolds while conservatives have spread their wings as the freewheeling playboys.

This is the state of reality that brought us Hawk Tuah Girl, the new queen of the vulgarized American conservative. Asked, “What’s one move that makes a man go crazy in the bedroom every time?” she responded, epically, “Ah, you gotta give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang!”

Introducing the Dirtbag Right

It was Hawk Tuah Girl who prompted many people to wonder about this new phenomenon of the vulgar conservative. Specifically, what do you call these people?

“Not sure we have a good word for this,” observed VB on Twitter. Who are these conservatives who “very strongly vote Red but are not socially conservative in any real sense”? The first person to respond to VB suggested “barstool conservativism,” but that’s not quite it. A cynic replied, “They’re all racist cultists. Just call them what they are: basket of deplorables.” But, as VB noted, many of these conservatives would strongly deny being racist, and, he added, “Explicit racism is a huge no no in Nashville culture.”

Others in this Twitter thread suggested: Bible cowboy conservatives, Zach Bryan conservatives, Bro-servatives, Costco conservatives, country music conservatives, etc.

“Aww, you’ve discovered rednecks. Bless your heart,” sneered John Hellrung.

“It’s just working class, man. Not the min wage at 40 kind but blue collar, make a living kind,” wrote Andrew Abbott.

Sure, sure, but what’s the name for the entire cohort of aggressively obscene Red voters? From farmers’ daughters to NASCAR freaks to—yes—Carhart-wearing rednecks, what do you call these country-music-listening, Costco-shopping people as an entire group?

Finally someone named Yeahyeah nailed it: “The Dirtbag Right.” I can go with that! I realize it’s not a perfect parallel to the dirtbag left and it’s not entirely original, but it sounds good and evokes the correct sort of vibe.

A Society-Level Threat

Wild as these people are, the Dirtbag Right-types are mostly playful and simply love a good time. Hawk Tuah Girl is a fine example of this. She’s vulgar in a way that small-town conservatives of the past would find repulsive, but she doesn’t seem in any way like a subversive or destructive figure in the culture. She’s even stated bluntly she’ll never make an OnlyFans account; she just likes to make funny jokes.

But there is a wing of the Dirtbag Right that’s jaw-droppingly degenerate. In keeping with the theme of The Decadence Project, I’ll frame this critique in terms of decadence, which is commonly defined to mean: “moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.”

It’s typically the far left that gets blamed for over-indulging in luxury and loose morals. But the far left has nothing on the Dirtbag Right’s most famous lifestyle guru, Andrew Tate. Think of the most sexist and homophobic thing to say imaginable, and Tate has said that but worse. He’s obsessed with being rich and, to that end, proudly manipulates, belittles, and abuses women. He’s an ego maniac and a shameless scam artist, not to mention a criminally-charged sex trafficker and rapist. But possibly his worst characteristic is that he has no redeeming qualities to balance out this awfulness. At least Alex Jones is funny!

If the decadence of the left can be accused of leading to the decay and downfall of society, then surely the decadence of the Dirtbag Right—so far as it harbors Andrew Tate types—can be accused of the same.

Tate is the extreme example, but he’s only marginally more subversive than the Dirtbag Right’s lord and savior, Donald Trump. Ah yes, Trump—the “conservative” who’s had multiple wives, slept with porn stars, brags about grabbing women by the pussy, did God knows what while hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, ran a scam university, cheated on his taxes, has an unusual fondness for murderous dictators, etc.

It's not too hard to imagine how this Tate & Trump corner of the Dirtbag Right could lead to society’s downfall. Tate wants to turn all men into misogynists and pornographers (“Learn how to MAKE money by MAKING porn here”). And Trump wants to be America’s natural role model as the country’s forever commander in chief.

I’ve written previously about how “societal decadence is a kind of filter that civilization must pass through.” Perhaps the decadence on the right ultimately balances out against the decadence on the left, which could make it easier for us to stumble our way toward a post- or perhaps omni-decadent world.

In the meantime, the rise of the Dirtbag Right seems like a hell of a good time. Let these weirdos have their gun-shaped freedom nuggets and their dumb oversized pickup trucks. A large swath of the American left has forgotten how to let loose and have a good time. So someone’s got to keep the party going!