Today, Friday host Esty Dinur and co-pilot Norm Stockwell are joined by professor Benjamin Teitelbaum to discuss his new book, War for Eternity: The Return of Radical Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right.

They discuss the influence of Traditionalism (with a capital “T”) on far-right politics, the role of Trump in Traditionalist narratives, and the rise of shadowy figures like Steve Bannon, Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, and Olavo de Carvalho, an astrologer who advises Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

Benjamin R. Teitelbaum is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology and international affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder, where his research focuses on ideology and expressive culture in contemporary radical nationalist, populist, and neofascist movements. He is the author of Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2017) and War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right (HarperCollins and Penguin Press, 2020).

Note: This pledge drive interview was lightly edited to remove some parts of the show dedicated to station fundraising. We thank our listeners for their generous support.