After Trump’s unprecedented and surprising election, to “break the liberal bubble” that it was accused of nurturing, the New York Times hired additional conservative voices (Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens) to its op-ed section. By providing a platform for right-wing politics in an otherwise liberal paper the objective was to promote ideas challenging typical liberal preconceptions and conformation biases, and entertain the viability of contemporary right-wing philosophy as argued and elucidated by contemporary conservatives.

But if the goal of this was to articulate a range of diverse, yet nevertheless conservative/right-wing ideas, then it seems safe to say that the New York Times opinion writers have failed. Since August, many have noted that the New York Time's op-ed page has been religiously devoted to condemning protests, social justice warriors, and liberal identity politics on college campuses, despite the fact that there is no campus free speech crisis.

There are a few excellent articles that dive into the intellectual poverty and myopia of the conservative side of the New York Times' op-ed section (for example, none of the columnists voted for Trump), but I want to focus on a recent article from Vox which argues that the New York Times' op-ed section simply does not reflect contemporary conservatism, which has morphed into Trumpism, White Nationalism, Anti-Feminism, Biological Essentialism, Race Realism, or other farther right ideas all founded on resentment towards left-wing politics, and fomented by publications such as Breitbart, InfoWars, The Daily Wire, Fox News etc.,

Taking this as our starting point for the question posed in the discussion title, what is contemporary right-wing politics? Or more importantly, who are the important intellectual leaders that represent these movements by building a systemic political philosophy that can serve as an alternative to liberal politics, rather than existing merely to counter liberalism?

To my mind, there doesn't seem to be any extant conservative who fits this mold. Ben Shapiro, the young right-wing commentator, whom the New York Times called "the voice of conservative millennials", may be a contender, but Shapiro is mostly concerned with bashing liberal identity politics, transgenderism, "black culture", or simply being hostile to liberalism in all its forms, than seriously guiding contemporary conservatism towards a novel political philosophy. How about Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who dabbles in politics, and was named one of the most influential public intellectuals in the West by The New Yorker? While Peterson's "self-help" psychology could be applied to politics in some ways, Peterson generally disavows political action, and is rightfully considered a "status-quo" conservative. He isn't offering anything new, politically speaking, and denounces activism generally. Is the mantel of contemporary conservatism being carried by the members of the more radical alternative right, such as Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, or Richard Spencer? It seems evident to me, however, than their influence as waned recently, and, more to the point, could we even appropriately call them intellectuals?

So, any idea as to where modern right-wing politics is moving intellectually? Who the intellectual architects are? Are there intellectual architects to speak of, or is it now just predicated on resenting and raging against liberal politics?