Chris Rufo's dystopian America

The right-wing activist's new "manifesto" is boring, expectable, and...dangerous

Rightwing activist Chris Rufo recently led the charge in helping oust Claudine Gay from the Harvard presidency. While the charge is plagiarism—a charge Gay acknowledged—the reason for Rufo’s ire has little to do with academic pedigree. (This excellent piece by game designer Ian Bogost highlights the challenges of plagiarism detection.)

This isn’t to excuse Gay. The problem goes far behind her. I recently took a course on science writing via Stanford University, and the professor found that roughly 20% of published scientific studies exhibit plagiarism. The literature is filled with citation omissions and outright stealing; AI will likely supercharge this problem. Discussions are necessary.

But that’s not really what this story is about.

A few days after revelations about Gay surfaced, it was discovered that Neri Oxman, wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, plagiarized part of her dissertation as well. While Oxman admitted her errors on Twitter, she mostly pushed back in defense. Meanwhile, Ackman claimed “they” were “going after her” because he was threatening to withhold donations to Harvard—which was actually part of Rufo’s activism.

If Rufo was concerned about plagiarism, he would have had a Come to Jesus moment about the totality of problems in education. His Jesus is built from a different cloth, however. Instead, he shared Ackman’s praise of Rufo’s latest book while brushing aside the accusations. In fact, in a Wall St Journal op-ed, Rufo admitted that financial pressure from Ackman, along with political pressure from NY GOP rep Elise Stefanik, were part of the reasons for Gay’s resignation. By design.

All part of Rufo’s playbook.

One that is now written down in blog post form. Rufo’s “manifesto for the counterrevolution” is called “The New Right Activism,” and it’s one of the most expectable pieces of right-wing propaganda in recent times.

Which means it’ll likely work—to an extent.

A past that never was

Here’s how Rufo describes his origin story and transition right:

First off, note “studied yoga in India.” Americans wanting to flex their spiritual bona fides will almost always contextualize their yoga practice with having practiced in India, as if this fact made their practice more “authentic” or “pure.” This statement shows both his ignorance about yoga—there’s an entire right-wing Hindu nationalist population that practices it, so it’s not just a “leftist” discipline—and reveals his longtime search for purity, which surfaces in his blog post when he writes about the need to preserve the American conservative movement’s “intellectual purity.”

Regardless of origin myths, Rufo’s recent biography reflects a rightward pivot: Rufo has been a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank that preaches intelligent design; the Claremont Institute, another conservative organization whose members supported Trump’s election fraud story; the Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for the insidious Project 2025; and the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which formed in 2021 for the sole purpose of demonstrating against DEI programs and critical race theory.

The battle against CRT and DEI reflects Rufo’s rise to fame in rightwing circles. Likely emboldened by Trump-era politics, Rufo doesn’t hide his intentions. Instead, he openly states what the right should do, then finds collaborators to put the agenda into motion. The two “journalists” that joined the fight against Claudine Gay were equally open about their intentions.

The right has been crafting its version of gotcha journalism for years, and we’re seeing the fruits of its efforts.

Rufo has even been exporting his bigotry: last year, he was hired by a Hungarian government-funded conservative think tank to give two lectures on CRT and LGBTQ+ “propaganda.” Hungary, that bastion of liberal democracy, used Rufo to speak to the nation’s government’s current Magyar nationalist and anti-LGBTQ+ stances.

Rufo’s manifesto (published on a blog with 1776 in its title) reveals the true intention: a refreshed conservative surge of declinism, the notion that a previous time was better than today. In their eyes, few people deserve the same rights as establishment figures, provided they’re the establishment. If paranoia around DEI trainings and gender identity help them secure power, so be it.

As for the writing, imagine prompting chatGPT with “write self-victimization white grievance essay” and you’re not far off from what Rufo has produced.

Let’s dive in.